Why don't miners charge more for high value transactions?

Question: I know high and low value transactions take up the same amount of space in the blockchain.
But wouldn't btc be more economical and fair if miners deliberatly chose transactions based on the value/fee ratio?
That way small transactions became cheaper and more viable
Comment: What is a miner?
Comment: @Cloud You can read up this post: [What exactly is mining?](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/148/what-exactly-is-mining)
Answer: Miners don't charge anyone.
Users put aside some amount of satoshis to incentivize a miner to include a transaction in a block, as the miner takes those satoshis if they are successful in mining that block.
A miner has the incentive to maximize their own profitability by including the highest paying transactions into their block, and to squeeze as many in as possible to maximize that revenue.
The idea that miners might reject some large value transactions because they don't pay a higher fee is incompatible with their incentives, which are to compete with other miners for those transactions which pay the most per weight unit. If a miner decided not to include transactions with sufficient fee, some other miner would include them, and be more profitable than the miner who didn't. It only makes sense then that the miners will continue to operate as they currently do because attempting to adopt a strategy like you suggest would be harmful to them.
Ultimately, miners do not control anything. They merely attempt to profit from what the market is offering.
Comment: @user2741831 very different value scenario. A CC processor passes the transaction through their accounts, paying out of their own pocket first and receiving the value back later from the other party. In that scenario, risk scales directly with value/volume, which is why it affects the price. A miner has no risk in handling a transaction in regard to the transferred amount.
Comment: Miners may not charge anyone in a literal sense, but by declining to process transactions that don't include a large enough incentive, they certainly produce the effect of charging.
Comment: If a large enough group of miners decided not to accept lower than a certain amount, the effects might be felt...
Comment: If charging by vbytes instead of value is the more profitable strategy, then why dobt credit card manufacturers charge every transactions way instead of value?
Comment: @user2741831, much of the expense of processing a credit-card transaction is the risk that the transaction is fraudulent. Since the cost of a fraudulent transaction scales with the size of the transaction, it makes sense to scale the processing fee similarly. There's no such thing as a fraudulent bitcoin transaction, at least as far as a miner is concerned, so most of the cost comes from the act of processing a block of transactions. Since processing that block costs the same no matter how many transactions are in it, charging more for physically larger transactions makes sense.
Answer: The biggest counter question is identifying what constitutes high value transactions. Bitcoin works on an Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXO) based model rather than an account based model. The input of Bitcoin transaction needs to include outpoint (txid and vout) of the transaction from which you control bitcoins with your keys. This input is then consumed in its entirety and any change is sent back to yourself. This is illustrated below:
                     / ----- Pay for your coffee (1 BTC)
Consume UTXO (3 BTC)
                     \ ----- Send the 2 BTC change to yourself

Let us assume miners set aside a limit that transactions above 1.5 BTC will be charged higher fees. Considering the above cited example, should miners treat it as high value? The user paid 1 BTC for coffee (which would be below the limit) and is sending 2 BTC change back to itself (which would be above the limit). There is no sure shot way for miner to know which output was being used to spend for coffee. Although there are some methods which you can use to determine which output is a spending output versus what is a change, they are not reliable, and can be gamed by changing the amounts of outputs slightly. Moreover, how do you charge CoinJoin transaction?
If you are thinking any output value (be it spending or change) which is above a certain limit will be charged higher fees, then it will encourage users to create smaller value UTXOs so that they do not have to send higher value change back to themselves (to avoid higher fees). UTXO storage is costly as it is cached in the RAM, and to dodge higher fees users will create multiple UTXOs thus costing the network as a whole to maintain such a big costly database.
From an economic perspective I would like to point out that the most efficient way to maximize your income from mining is by using fee/vbyte. This is because Bitcoin's block size is capped, which means maximum profit can be derived from fitting in as many transactions as possible (thus dependent on size). If you try to use any other methodology, then you are creating an opportunity for other miners to step in and claim the profit your are forgoing.
This would be a classic example of economic equilibrium where any inefficiencies will be ironed out by market forces thus forcing it settle to the most practical equilibrium (fee/vbyte). Thus doing anything apart from charging fee/vbyte would require cooperation of ALL miners or a 51% attack. The former is difficult to achieve from an economic standpoint as discussed above.
Comment: This answer is mostly correct (there is difficulty in observing the value of a transaction), but I don't think it explains it entirely. The whole point of miners is that they're replacable (anyone can become a miner without permission, with the right investment), so if some miner is deviating from maximizing their income, other miners will be more profitable, and maximizing fee per (v)byte is very close to maximizing income. Put in other words: doing anything but charging per vbyte would require either *all* miners to do so, or a 51% attack.
Comment: @PieterWuille You are absolutely correct in your reasoning that fees/vbyte maximizes the income for the miners. What I wanted to point out was that even thinking about fee/value is preposterous as there is no sure shot way of knowing what the value of the transaction. I'm incorporating your suggestion in my answer to make it more robust
Comment: @Ben, virtual byte, the unit of transaction sizes since the introduction of segwit (number of vbytes in a tx = number of bytes in the non-witness portion of a transaction + 0.25 * number of witness bytes).
Comment: what is a vbyte?
Comment: For 1 BTC, that had better be the universe's ultimate cup of coffee...


Why is thunderbird using 2.54 GB in my appdata\roaming folder>

Question: My profile in the thunderbird appdata\roaming is 2.54 gigs. What the heck is going on in there?
What can I do to get this under control?
Answer: It may help to pull down File in TB and select Compact Folders.  If you have a 2.5GB mailbox, that will be a pretty time-consuming process, but if there's a lot of wasted space, it'll cut down the size considerably.
Of course, any mail in your mailbox will stay, and continue to consume space, so it would make sense to delete some messages first.  Add the Size column to your message list and sort on it, if you want to delete the biggest messages to reclaim the most space quickest.  Don't neglect your Sent Mail folder when looking for large messages to ditch.
Comment: if i have all my accounts setup to use imap shouldn't the downloads stay on the server and not copied local unless I save them?
Answer: You're likely downloading your mail/attachments locally.
More info about the profile folder that Thunderbird keeps is available here:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird
Answer: Roaming profiles are intended for small amounts of data that will be loaded each time you log on to any machine from a network drive, and written back to the network drive when you log off. If you log onto two computers at one time, and change anything in your profile on both computers, only one copy will survive. This is very undesirable behavior for things like mail storage. Even if you reduce the amount of email that is stored, some will occasionally get lost if you continue to use Thunderbird with roaming profiles.
The best solution might be to simply not use roaming profiles. However if your organization may not give you a choice. In that case, you will have to be careful not to log onto two computers simultaneously with the same profile or you will likely lose some messages. In addition, every time you log onto any computer, all of your messages will be transferred that are stored locally, even if (especially when) you archive old messages to local storage. This is all bad news because it takes a long time. Thunderbird offers no GUI-style movement of email folders out of your profile except to other email accounts. Thunderbird also offers no option to keep your messages anywhere outside of your profile. You can try redirecting your AppData folder, but that does not always stick, and if you have gigabytes of email in your archives, you may find it taking 10 minutes to log on and off. Usually this is an unacceptable solution.
The reason that Thunderbird gives no other options is that the development team apparently does not use roaming profiles and does not see the problem or understand the need for a solution. Perhaps joining the development team or clearly describing the problem would cause them to address the issue, unless they have concluded that roaming profiles are a bad idea and no work should be done in that area. I understand both sides and would recommend looking into using redirected folders instead of roaming profiles, while simultaneously working with the development team to explain clearly why you should be able to designate a location for your profile data instead of being stuck in the Windows profile.
Comment: The roaming thing is from a default installation. This is my personal email and no organization is impacting choices. My accounts are setup as imap to gmail. thanks for the "answer" but I think you're missing the target a bit.


How to estimate distance from points to line feature with v.distance?

Question: I'm trying to use the v.distance module in GRASS 6.4.3 to estimate the distance from a series of point features (animal tracking locations) to the nearest point along a line feature (a coastline). I load in the two shapefiles (both UTM/WGS84),create a new column in the attribute table of the point features to take the estimated distances and start v.distance. I set the 'from' vector map to be the point layer and the 'to' vector map to be the coastline, tick "distance to the nearest point on the 'to' feature along that linear feature", and set the column to upload to be my new distance column.
The script runs ok but the estimated values in the attribute table are complete nonsense. At least half the values are identical, even though the animal was progressively moving away from the coastline and therefore distance should have been increasing. When the animal was 2000km from the coast the distance estimate is 166m, but right nect to the coast it is often >3000m! Funnily though, if I select the option to create an output vector map containing lines connecting the nearest elements, the lines perfectly connect each point to the nearest part of the coastline and are all different lengths.
What is going wrong here?! The frustrating thing is that I ran it once when testing and it worked perfectly, but all subsequent attempts have resulted in the same problems. I can't remember if I used any different settings on the first go. I'm sure it's something simple but it is driving me nuts trying to work out what it is! I know it may be hard to comment without seeing the data, but i'm really hoping someone has run into this before or has some idea where my mistake might be.
All help greatly appreciated! Many thanks,
Answer: If you're selecting "distance to the nearest point on the 'to' feature along that feature" then you're asking for the distance along that line feature from it's start. If you want the distance from the points then just choose "minimum distance to nearest feature". The command at the bottom of the v.distance window should include: "upload=dist" and NOT "upload=to_along".
Comment: I knew it would be something embarrasingly simple. Thanks for your help!


Authenticity of Kanz al-Ummal?

Question: Is Kanz al-Ummal byAli ibn Abd-al-Malik al-Hindi a authentic hadith collection? How many weak ahadiths does it have?
Answer: Anyone who have basic knowledge of hadees science knows that their are many types of collections of ahadees from which sahih is the type in which the collector/author tries his best to make sure that only authentic ahadees come through his book.
The purpose of the book was to arrange al-Suyuti's al-Jaami` al-sageer into fiqhi sections. Writer of kanz ul ummaal also added some other ahadees too in his book though.
And JAMIA is also a type of hadees collection, like sahih is a type of collection, jamia is a type of collection in which author's main intent is only to collect all the ahadees he can find in one place. Not caring much about authenticity or anything.
Also the writer of this book book does not claim to have only authentic/sahih ahadees in this book though, their are many weak narrations in this book too. So as a whole book, we can't call it authentic like we call sahih bukhari or sahih muslim authentic books.
And i know quite a few zaeef ahadees in this book, but i don't know the exact count though. I hope someone will add the count in this answer.
Allah knows best
Answer: It's not a 100% authentic hadith book. It's a collection of 47,000 hadith by al-Mutaqqi al-Hindi. Many of it's hadiths are weak.
Comment: Its actually not his own collection, he just re-arranged jamia al-sageer
Answer: To date, no one has authenticated Kanz Al-Umal such that someone could give you a number. However, it is well known to be full of weak reports as the author and editor (Suyuti and Hindi) did not intend to collect only Sahih Hadith. There are two ways of approaching the answer and a buffer. The first is the safe count and the second is the more realistic count.
1) Al-Albani counted when separating Jami As-Saghir 8,202 authentic and 6,450 weak reports totaling 14,652 which is 31,972 reports less than Kanz (note: Jami Saghir is included in Kanz).
2) The compiler of Mawsu'ah Al-Albani As-Sahihah (Hamza Ahmad Az-Zayn, the same Muhaddith who completed Musnad Ahmad when Ahmad Shakir died) counted 27,649 authentic reports and the complier of Mawsu'ah Al-Albani Ad-Da'ifah (Ali Hasan Al-Halabi) counted 31,577 reports, totaling 59,226 which is 12,602 reports more than Suyuti/Hindi collected. However, the largest collection of reports to date is the Mawsu'ah At-Tafsir Bil-Ma'thur by At-Tayyar who, along with a team of 41 Phds and Master students collected 85,730 reports, almost double Kanz Al-Umal. Assuming there is no repetition in the Tafsir, there are 26,504 reports more than what Al-Albani commented on and 39,106 more than Kanz.
Given the figures we can speculate that there are at least 8,200 authentic reports in Kanz but closer to 27,600 and there are at least 6,400 weak reports but closer to 31,500 with a buffer of 26,500 to 39,100 wiggle room between them. Its possible to authenticate the Kanz using the Mawsu'ah Al-Albani As-Sahihah and Mawsu'ah Al-Albani Ad-Da'ifah with 12,600 reports to spare.
Comment: Salam and welcome to IslamSE the Q&A site about Islam. To learn more about our site and our model consider taking the 2min. [tour] and checking our [help].

Authenticity of Kanz al-Ummal?


Schema in placeholder programmatically

Question: I am new to Flyway. Flyway is good and friendly.
I want to create and give schema name for my tables in V1__Initial_structure.sql file. I don't know where to assign value to the placeholder. I have configured Flyway programmatically. My sql file contains,
create schema  ${schemaName}
create table ${schemaName}.brand(brand_code IDENTITY,
                    brand_name varchar(50) unique not null, active char(1) default 'Y')
Please help.
Answer: This is the method you are looking for: http://flywaydb.org/documentation/javadoc/com/googlecode/flyway/core/Flyway.html#setPlaceholders(java.util.Map)

Schema in placeholder programmatically


How to remove Hotspot profile from ElementaryOS network settings

Question: A few weeks ago i was messing around with creating a Hotspot but after testing it i didn't want to have it anymore, now every time my laptop starts it automatic login to the test Hotspot i created, i then have to open up Network Settings and disabled the Hotspot option and then my system automatically logins to my home network, This is what i want to happen at startup not to login to Hotspot. I dont see any option to remove this hotspot i created, is there anyway to remove this hotspot via the gui or command line?
Any help will be appreciated.
Answer: Click on the network icon in the top bar and select Network Settings (at the bottom of the menu).
Click on the Edit Connections button at the bottom of the Network window.
In the new dialog, scroll down until you see the hotspot you created and click on it.
The Delete button should then become active, click on that and you will be asked to confirm you want to delete the connection.
After confirmation the hotspot should be removed.
Comment: Hi @rdanter i followed your steps and i didn't see the hotspot name, i already had looked, that's why i'm puzzled.
Comment: Hmm, odd, what do you have in `/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/` ? Is there a file with the same name as the hotspot or one containing a line `id=` ? If so then you can try to remove it (you will need to use `sudo`).
Answer: Also encountered this quirk in elementary OS 5.1.7 Hera. There is no Forget this network style option for quick removal. It has to be removed manually.
The terminal-based method, as per the follow-up comment by rdanter and the manual removal procedure in Debian is:
cd /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/
sudo rm WIFINEWTORK
This solves the issue in my situation as well.


Data Modeling, Primary Keys, TOAD?

Question: Is there software i can use to create a data model of sharePoint lists and libraries like there is TOAD for SQL databses
Answer: Unfortunately the database model for SharePoint dont have foreign keys, so using ER tools like TOAD Data Modeller and Rational Rose to the database and generate charts is not very useful since you dont get the relations.
Answer: There are quite a few 3rd-party commercial 'design' tools but most are specific to the design task - for e.g., Metadata (MetaVis Architect), BCS (Lightning Tools' BCS Metaman) and several others. You may want to review the various tools in the catalog at the SharePoint Reviews site.
In addition to SharePoint Designer 2010, the upcoming Visual Studio 2012 has some new designer features for SharePoint development.
Answer: You can take a look at LINQ to SharePoint DSL Extension for Visual Studio 2010. It allows to design a site graphically, then it generate assets.
I never used it in a real project, evaluate it before choose.

Data Modeling, Primary Keys, TOAD?


Vidalia Disappears

Question: How can I see the Vidalia Control Panel on the Mac? It used to open first, and then stay open when the browser opened.  Now it only flicks up briefly, and then disappears.
Answer: Vidalia is no longer part of the Tor Browser bundle. Instead, the most important functionality of Vidalia has been integrated with Tor Browser itself. So perhaps what you are seeing is that the connection preferences dialog of Tor Browser disappears once you've given it enough information for Tor Browser to make a connection to the Tor network.
See also the question What happened to Vidalia?

Vidalia Disappears


How much detail is too much?

Question: I've read a few amateur stories online and sometimes the author will include so much detail that the reader gets a little bored or distracted and forgets what the actual story is talking about. How do I know whether I am using too much, not enough, or the right amount of detail?
Comment: How much is too much? More than this much.
Comment: It can be beneficial to leave space for the reader's imagination to fill in some details.
Comment: I've edited your title to be more logical. Too much of anything is bad, by definition of the words "too much". I think your real question is how much is too much. Feel free to edit it again if you don't think I have captured your intent correctly,
Comment: I *think* (but I'm not sure), it would be okay to include a sample, for people to provide feedback about as to whether it has too much detail.
Comment: Try writing no details then adding them until it gets boring.
Answer: You said it yourself. When the reader cannot concentrate on the story because there are so many adjectives and adverbs, and other details and flourishes. Get other people to read your writing, and they will be able to easily comment on this.
You are also falling into having too much detail if every other word is an adjective or adverb. If you're describing every noun or verb with them, stop it. It's really bad and will lead to the thing I said above. Here's an example:

I furiously knocked on the brown oak door, and impatiently waited for my annoying brother to finally arrive.

That sentence is a little extreme but I have seen things like it in the past. There are many things which would be implied by the story (even though we don't have a 'story' in this example). We can pick out some unnecessary descriptions:

The brother is annoying. We don't need to describe that because the protagonist would only be furiously knocking on the door if the brother had been doing something bad/annoying.
The brown oak door. This is really unnecessary. I don't need to be reminded of what a door looks like, it's one of those things you can leave for the reader to imagine. However, if there's a special door, you can describe it. For example, a door with spikes on.
Impatiently and finally. Impatiently is already implied, and if you wanted to further show this, you could perhaps write another sentence about him doing something impatient. Finally is just completely unnecessary and you don't really need it. It adds an extra not-needed adverb to the sentence.

I think that the amount of detail depends on the author though. It's very difficult to know if you're using too little or too much. So what I would advise is: use your peers to your advantage! Go onto a site like Critique Circle and get it critiqued.
Comment: In the case of the 'Brown Oak Door', it seems like one of Chekhov's principles apply. Unless the fact that the door is made of oak and brown is of some relevance to the story (e.g. It speaks to the personality of one of your characters, or helps define the location), then don't bother mentioning it. Just randomly describing the door as Oaken and Brown isn't interesting, but if you describe the general location as being run down then having a door made of Oak is interesting, as it's an unusual feature. Or if all the doors in the house are white except for this one.
Comment: "I rapped impatiently at the antique oak door, then stood fuming as I waited for Derek."
Comment: A perfect contribution :). @SGR
Comment: Thank you for the link to Critique Circle. I've been looking for a website like this. Its perfect.
Comment: @SGR, in counterpoint to your comment, I offer the following quote from George R. R. Martin: *"And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes."* —G.R.R.M.
Answer: Daniel's answer is good, but I have an additional "yardstick" which may be helpful:
Part of art, of any art form, is inviting the audience to contribute.
It's even been said this is what makes it art: A return contribution is invited.  You supply something yourself as an audience or reader, rather than just having the words flow in at you without you yourself participating.
If you describe every tiny detail to such a degree that nothing is left to the imagination, you wind up with a court deposition, not a story.  There's not going to be a great deal of interest, because the reader will not be invited to participate and use his imagination to fill in gaps.
If you consider carefully, you'll likely find that any story which really "pulled you in" was one in which you were actively participating in imagining the details and filling in "how it would have been," rather than one in which you were slavishly noting every last exhaustive detail directly from the author's description.
Other things besides physical descriptions can be left to the imagination too, of course.  You need to provide enough detail to spur your reader's imagination to fill in the rest.

Something which goes along with this:
Don't use description to make your reader's imagination wrong.
If you introduce a character and keep him doing things and saying things for several chapters before you happen to mention that he has very dark skin and pale blonde hair, you are very likely to throw your reader out of the story.  She will have come up with her own mental picture of how this character looks by then, and the description, coming so late, will make her feel that she "got it wrong."  Really, the author is at fault for such a jolt.

Physical descriptions are a good thing to include, just don't stop the flow of the story to include them.  Don't stop the action.  It's not vital that your readers envision every detail just exactly the same way you do.  Include enough that they get a colorful (vivid, evocative) picture of the events you depict—fully fleshed out by their own imagination, which you've coaxed into action with your masterful use of descriptive words.
Comment: *Don't make your reader's imagination wrong* => Agreed in general, I don't like jarring, but Sixth Sense is still a great movie ;) There's an "unless it's on purpose" there, as it can be used for effect.
Comment: @MatthieuM., a very good point!  Very interesting!  However, I would contend that that movie only works because *Bruce Willis's character's* imagination is *also* wrong.  *That's* the plot twist.  The audience knows everything that he knows, correctly.  Quite a contrast with movies where the director cuts things in such a way as to deliberately mislead the audience, where the characters *do* know what's happening and only the audience is left in the dark.  Such movies or books are more like a dumb joke ("See how much cleverer I am than you!") than a story in which you get really involved.
Comment: But yes, thinking on it more, there are possibly some other exceptions to that as well.  The point about inviting participation or contribution is much closer to an "absolute rule" than the other.
Answer: While the existing answers are helpful, they don't address what seems to me the crux of this question. The answers will change depending on what you are writing, for which audience and what effect do you hope to achieve?
For example, I primarily write journalism. The idea is to engage the reader quickly and carry them through to the end of the article. As a general rule it is good to keep descriptive writing to a minimum since it reduces the punchiness and impact of the work. Better instead to pluck a few well-chosen metaphors to help the reader relate what you're describing quickly and easily to their own experience.
Yet even this is subject to change depending on circumstance. A print article is generally subject to a draconian word count and you must be even more sparing with your descriptions. On the other hand if the feature is emotive in nature or is describing an external narrative, you will need to spend some time scene-setting.
Contrast this to the opening sentence of Cormac McCarthy's novel Suttree.

Dear friend now in the dusty clockless hours of the town when the
  streets lie black and steaming in the wake of the watertrucks and now
  when the drunk and the homeless have washed up in the lee of walls in
  alleys or abandoned lots and cats go forth highshouldered and lean in
  the grim perimeters about, now in these sootblacked brick or cobbled
  corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors
  no soul shall walk save you.

This is grandiose to the point of impenetrability. If I tried anything like that, my editors would tear it apart and never employ me again. It's also way beyond the level other answers are suggesting you should take descriptive writing. Yet I find it an extraordinary scene-setter, brilliant in its eloquence. It works because it's well structured and because in the context of the work of a heavyweight novelist, we might expect such constructions.
In summary: your yardstick for measure whether you've got "too much" description depends entirely on the effect you're trying to achieve and your skill at building descriptions.
Comment: @Wildcard I had already upvoted it :)
Comment: That's a wonderful scene setter.  Very evocative and beautiful.  I'll point out that it *definitely* involves the reader in contributing to it—actively filling in the details imaginatively rather than passively receiving—which is the fundamental point I was making [in my answer](http://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26217/18298).
Answer: To answer this question you have to consider the purpose of detail. The purpose of detail is to refine the picture in the reader's head. Readers pull images from their own stock of experiences to build a picture of what they are reading. Each detail you add refines the selection of images they make. If you say "bus" they select an image of the kind of bus they are most familiar with. If you say "red double-decker bus" they probably select an image of a London bus, unless they live in another city with red double-decker buses.
The image in the reader's head will probably never match the image in your head perfectly, unless you have had the exact same experience. The question is, how close do I need the image in the reader's head to be to the image in my head for them to receive the story, its mood and texture as well as its plot, in the way I intend. You add detail until you think the reader's image will be close enough to your own for story purposes.
I disagree with those who say you should leave something to the reader's imagination. That's moot. It all comes from the reader's imagination. You job is to direct that imagination into the right channels so that the reader receives the experience you are attempting to create.
A closely related question is, how closely do you paint each scene and each object in a scene. The more you refine an image, the more important you make that image. Don't make any image more important in a scene than it is in the story, or you will divert the reader's attention away from what matters in the story.
Finally, it is really more about finding the right detail than it is about the amount of detail. Think of it like a database query on the user's stock of experiences. Certain details will pull up certain images whole and intact. A swastika armband may be the only detail you need to pull up the image of a Nazi soldier, for instance. This is what is often called the telling detail, and finding the telling detail is far more important than how much detail you provide. The telling detail can not only pull out a particular object but the entire scene, the entire time and place to which that object belongs. Thus the red double-decker evokes London, the swastika armband evokes Nazi Germany.
Finally, be wary of details that seem contradictory or are hard to integrate. Adding one more term to a database query can turn it from retrieving a very precise image to returning no data at all.
Comment: I love how you always look at things from different angles, Mark. Your answers are always interesting to read.
Comment: @DanielCann, that's because they have just the right amount of detail.  ;)
Answer: Most of the answers on here are adequate, however, I do not feel that they get straight to the point.
How much detail is too much?

I've read a few amateur stories online and sometimes the author will include so much detail that the reader gets a little bored or distracted and forgets what the actual story is talking about.

You have answered your own question:
Q: How much detail is too much?
A: When the reader gets a little bored or distracted and forgets what the actual story is talking about.
The details in a "fully expressed medium of text" (that is, a sentence, paragraph, article, book, or voluminous/episodic series) greatly influence attention. The center of attention is the focus.
Superfluous details are details that divert attention away from the focus. Consider the following:

I was dropped off at the usual bus stop that I attend every morning. It is a short stretch of concrete road with green signs, and four houses. There are two houses on each side. Each house is white. The lawns varied in shades of green and brown (it was early fall). When the bus finally arrived, I hopped on. Silence was in the cold air of the bus as students stared at their phones and closed their minds off from the real world to escape into the fantasy of the internet.

The focus of this paragraph is getting on the bus, but yet, all the detail is focusing on the surrounding environment of the bus stop, before abruptly transitioning to hopping on the bus which appeared out of no where.
Necessary details are consistent with the focus. Consider the following:

I came to this large, two-story house with overarching balconies and elegant columns. It was old—very old. I burst open the dusty, wooden double-doors that entered into the house. The room was dark, and had a musty, century-old odor to it. The black and white checkered tile pattern on the floor was heavily worn and coarse. The chandelier dangled askew. This was, no doubt, a dance hall, which told the story of a time long forgotten, when people twirled and danced to a merry tune.

The details in this paragraph dictate that the focus is an old house which had many ballroom-style dances. Every detail describes the age of this house, and the purpose is to give imagery of what the house looks like, and what the ambient atmosphere projects. Without these details, this would be a dull paragraph, and the actual lack of detail would bore and distract.

Detail is of course only one element of influence for the audience's attention, but it is clearly displayed that it does have a great impact on attention. The detail determines the focus,
so how much detail is too much?
When the details shift attention away from the center of attention.
Comment: answer had too much detail; couldn't read.
Comment: On a second thought, what I consider a brilliant description is too much description for most of my students. Of course they are mostly happy to read a flood of action verbs and ignore the rest. I think they'd love telegrams.
Comment: This is a great answer, but your first example "Superfluous details" was very entertaining for me to read and really pulled me into the story. So for me it did not fall under the category "When the reader gets a little bored or distracted" at all. It might fall under the cateogry " forgets what the actual story is talking about.", but I would say - it depends.  I understand that the surrounding was not necessary for the current focus, but what about triggering the imagination and pulling the reader into the story? Imagine the alternative: "Next, I went to the bus stop" ...
Comment: @SybillePeters If something detracts, it is because the details are misleading the reader. Perhaps doing that might be a clever trick if intentional and it suits the context, but more often than not, it's just wordy. The details do not contribute to what is significant about the bus stop in that particular context. The waywardness of the details makes them noise. They could instead become necessary to set the mood of the current setting with some simple yet efficacious tweaks, however, the details are of an indifferent nature, so there is no definitive mood declared by them.
Comment: I was going to write an answer focusing on the importance of description that is essential to create the mood of the story, but you beat me to it.
Answer: That usually relies on the writer's style and skill…
Look how Iris Murdoch introduces great and irrelevant details of menus and cooking, when it wasn't in any way necessary even to mention that anyone was eating.
Notice when Robert A Heinlein lists every move in a game of mental chess which has no real effect on the story or - more than once - describes every action involved in checking whether a vintage car might be immediately ready for the road, rather than simply pressing the starter!
See whether Allan W. Eckert had any need to describe the driver's day, breakfast or family life when he could simply have stated that a truck smashed into his hero's car.
If the Question persists, stick to what detail is actually necessary.
"He drew a gun and shot the man dead" is fine in itself.
"He pulled out a pistol and plugged the lead 'til the man was dead" is more stylish and whether it's more helpful is a matter of choice, isn't it?
"He hauled his tried and trusted, nine-shot Mauser .455 Parabellum from the tooled and monogrammed leather holster behind his hip, raised the silver-plated weapon in a two-handed grip and took slow and careful aim then gently squeezed off a single shot that dropped the victim in his tracks" is at best highly questionable, and probably a lot more pretentious than practical.
Answer: Pick your idea first.
What is it? And how do you want to approach it?
All styles are fine as long as the target audience is satisfied. You don't want to bore airport novel readers with a lot of detail, and you don't want to ruffle feathers by writing an outline for a research paper.
Indiana Jones was an entertaining swashbuckler flick - to develop its entertainment value, any idea must lose excess detail. The focus must lie on the spectacle - jumps, ducks, sways, headshots, near fall-to-death misses.
It is not easy to get it right in one go. This is true for everyone, even experienced writers. Every major piece undergoes a rewrite. So - get through the first draft. Then read your own work like a critic and decide for yourself. Let the thought that you spent months, possibly years, on the manuscript not bother you while you analyse.
A typical way to lower the number of rewrites is to use the outlining method. Plot your tale before you write it.
A high level overview before the grunt work helps make preemptive changes. When you realise you have the two main characters talking at a table and drinking for a whole chapter, you will know your mistake.
Wish you good luck with your book!

How much detail is too much?


Can an ebook on essays sell good on amazon/kindle?

Question: I am a newbie writer, and I am thinking of writing an ebook on collection of essays, and i need to know whether such genre sell good on amazon/kindle?
Comment: You would also need to improve your writing skills. English language stackexchange could be helpful.
Answer: If you plan to write, forget about making money. The return per hour, is dismal. If you want to write, write for it's own sake. If you want to earn money,do not write.


What's the difference between monks and priests?

Question: One hears of Buddhist monks and of priests. What is the difference?
Answer: So far as I know (I may be wrong), "priest" is only used of Japan.
I've read three different theories for that.

One is that the term is for Japanese monks who marry (or who may marry). Usually part of the definition of a Buddhist "monk" (in any country) is that they keep some version of the Vinaya (which includes celibacy). I think that Japan is exceptional, for historical reasons. Wikipedia's Buddhist monasticism -- EastAsia currently says (see the original for hyperlinks and references),

In East Asia, monastics live in greater isolation from the lay population than is observed in most Theravada countries. Because of local conditions of geography and climate, as well as local attitudes towards begging, monks generally do not make begging rounds in China, Korea, Vietnam, and many parts of Japan. Instead, monasteries receive donations of bulk food (such as rice) and funds for the purchase of food that is then stored and prepared at the monastery. Many monks and nuns are vegetarians and, after Baizhang Huaihai, many monks farm food to eat; some work or sell. Most eat after noon. The management of the kitchen and monastery properties may be the purview of a specially designated layman or a monk who has been given a special role by the abbot of the monastery. Monks chant many mantras in regular living.
Monastics in Japan are particularly exceptional in the Buddhist tradition because the monks and nuns can marry after receiving their higher ordination. This idea is said to be introduced by Saichō, the founder of the Tendai school, who preferred ordaining monks under the Bodhisattva vows rather than the traditional Vinaya. There had long been many instances of Jōdo Shinshū priests and priestesses marrying, influenced by the sect's founder Shinran, but it was not predominant until a government Nikujiku Saitai Law (肉食妻帯) was passed during the Meiji Restoration that monks or priests of any Buddhist sect are free to seek wives. This practice influenced Korea and Taiwan. A nun in Taiwan gave birth. Some Korean monks live with wives in their monasteries.

The second is that "priest" is used for senior monks, who have graduated and are no longer students. Note the quote above, which says that "monks and nuns can marry after receiving their higher ordination".
Thirdly, some perform the role of priests in other religions (i.e. Shinto). Wikipedia's Tendai and Shinto says,

Tendai doctrine allowed Japanese Buddhists to reconcile Buddhist teachings with the native religion of Japan, Shinto, and with traditional Japanese aesthetics. In the case of Shinto, the difficulty is the reconciliation of the pantheon of Japanese gods, as well as with the myriad spirits associated with places, shrines or objects, with the Buddhist doctrine that one should not concern oneself with any religious practice save the pursuit of enlightenment. However, priests of the Tendai sect argued that Kami are simply representations of the truth of universal buddhahood that descend into the world to help mankind.

In English (Christianity) the difference between priest and monk is that a monk lives in a monastery or priory (with other monks); while a priest will, more likely, live alone (in parish) to serve the lay community.
Answer: Householder Thomas Schulte, interested,
if looking into the texts this, Monks and Priests, is often mentioned as "Brahmans and contemplatives (Samana)", both regarded as people of respect in good societies.
The main different is in regard of livelihood. A monk, contemplative as given up all kinds of trades and lives from alms from the land. A Priest is one who still trades, involves in association with worlds societies and often has not given up harming totally, sense-pleasures and holding on home, land, house.
Most monks outside the Savaka Sangha and old tradition, even if often called monks (Bhikkhus) are actually "just" regarded as householders often not sticking to fundamental marks of one who has left home. Even many monks are actually "just" Brahmans and it's not easy that one would met a Samana, the fourth heavenly messenger after encountering the truth of suffering and can so imagine The Fruits of the Contemplative Life.
(Note that this is not given for trade, exchange, stacks, entertainment and akusala deeds, but as a share of merits and to continue such for release)


Tags about safety

Question: Some questions about food safety and kitchen safety are tagged with safety. Is retagging questions about food safety with the tag safety to food-safety and leaving all kitchen safety questions with the safety tag a good idea? Or should we introduce a new kitchen-safety tag and leave the safety tag for both cases? Or should we even clean up the safety tag?
Answer: Looking at the relatively small number of questions tagged with safety I would say the food safety related questions should be retagged to food-safety as the sheer number of questions already tagged with food-safety indicates there is community consensus on how those questions should be tagged.
Then I would recommend creating the tag kitchen-safety and merging the safety into it which would result in the remaining questions being tagged appropriately under kitchen-safety  and aliasing safety to it as a synonym. This would prevent future tagging of questions with just the more generic safety.
Comment: Worth noting an appropriate tag wiki entry should also be created for kitchen-safety so it is clear when to use that vs. food-safety.
Answer: I just independently rediscovered this. I renamed safety to kitchen-safety, but without creating a synonym. That'd be awkward for an ambiguous tag like this; obviously some people type "safety" thinking food safety, and others are thinking kitchen safety, so we don't want to always turn it into kitchen-safety.
We still need to go through everything now tagged kitchen-safety and correct it to food-safety as appropriate.
Comment: There are still plenty of [safety] questions out there, I'll check them (I was going to ask a meta question about this tags)

Tags about safety


Add additional data to a specific taxonomy term when used in a post

Question: If I'm using a custom post type for a Movie or a TV show episode, I may use a taxonomy for "actors" and assign all the actors related to the work to it, but I'm not sure how, besides of that, I can also add the character the actor is playing in said work. The characters themselves may or may be not a taxonomy, as sometimes one also needs extra space for adding notes, like "John Doe (voice)" or "John Smith (via stock footage). I can figure something like a metabox with columns for each thing, yet I'm not sure how to make it harmonious (or do it at all).
Answer: You could simply use the "pods"-plugin (for WordPress) from Matt Gibs and Scott Kingsley Clark. It's exactly what you searching for. Take a look at the doku and look specificaly at "pick columns". Aside from that it has a nice and ajax driven interface and builds it's database tables next to wordpress and doesn't make use of the default tables (there's nothing wrong with adding new tables). It really converts Wordpress to a full CMS system. I tried it in some projects and was easily able to achieve everything i wanted. A big plus is the irc-chat where you find a nice, friendly and helpful croud and the developers. An here goes another plus: When you feel comfortable with pods, then add pods UI to your weaponary. :)
Wish you best!
Comment: I second PODS. I've just started looking into it as I am transitioning away from Relation Post Types plugin and it is a huge relief once you see what can be done with it.
Comment: Considering all the stuff Pods 2.0 promises, I will mark this one as correct. :)
Answer: even though the evolution from blog to CMS is somehow naturally (as Matt Mullenweg expressed it once), it does not mean that wordpress is a CMS that can express complex data structures.
You might wonder about what actually is complex in your question. Well, what you are basically try to do in wordpress terms is to add a taxnomoy on to a taxonomy. Such a thing does not exists in worpdress. You can add a taxonomy to posts and that's it. It's not reciprocal.
But what you can do with wordpress is to mutate through slugs. Which can mean: You can combine datatypes over a common named slug value, which is a simplified, normalized value of a taxonomy or post title that is already used in the resolution of content (query of something by URL, also known as permalinks in wordpress).
So to say for a simple solution: The taxnonomy of actor shares the same slug for the actor name as posts for the actor do. Those posts (which are of a custom type) do have a custom taxonomy which represent a roles name (to add the character the actor is playing in a work). Next to that, you add a taxonomy of work to this post typeto query both: Actor->Role and Actor->Play While Play->Role is still maintained.
It's not really optimal, but this is WordPress™ and you asked for it here, it's at least some way you could do it.
If this sounds too complicated, look for a CMS that is offering own content types in which you can just represent the data you want to express. One that ships with database abstraction and a form generator is Kajona3, which still is pretty lighweight and mature. LGPL license. But to that's more or less out of the scope of this site.


Why didn't Locke realize his feet do not feel anything?

Question: In the series Lost, when John Locke is trying to crack open the hatch, his leg gets pierced but he does not feel anything. He later tries to pin his leg and burns his foot and still feels nothing. How did he not realize that his legs have no senses earlier, when walking in the water etc.?
Answer: I think when he had the metal in his leg when trying to break the hatch window, there was a theory that the island itself was trying to prevent Locke from doing certain things.
I believe that the island taking back Locke's cured back, thus preventing him from climbing up to the crashed beach-craft and ultimately saving his life, killing Boone in the process.
Once Boone was injured Locke managed to carry him back to the cave for Jack to help.
The island needed Locke and did what it could to protect him.
Answer: I think @thonnor is right but there are some details that I think need to be clearly stated so in attempt to clarify things I'm adding my own answer.
First of all you have to understand that Locke lost the feeling in his legs temporarily. When he was struck in the leg from the shrapnel, this was only the beginning of him losing this feeling. He didn't notice anything before this because he had not lost the feeling in his legs yet.
It gradually gets worse, leading up to him being unable to walk and causing Boone to climb to the plane and fall and become "the sacrifice the island demanded". I agree with the sentiment that the forces of the island caused this temporary loss of feeling in order to prevent Locke from climbing to the plane on his own and being killed because he had another purpose to fulfill.


Can I learn a new language just by listening or watching videos?

Question: The question is a bit more specific than title would suggest, but I was not creative enough to put it so specifically into compact form. Let me explain.
When I was a kid I was learning English in elementary school, but I've also watched lot of Cartoon Network which drastically expanded my vocabulary (at least, that's my impression), so in that case it definitively helped. But in that case, for one, I was a kid, second I already had some basic knowledge, which we constantly upgraded.
The present situation is that I want to learn Norwegian. I did acquire some very basic knowledge, like saying "I want something to eat" or "Where is Parliament street?" by listening to Pimsleur Norwegian lectures. But when I watch a Norwegian movie or show I practically don't understand anything.
The question is, should I expect this to change all "by it self", will I, if, for example I watch 1h per day of some Norwegian show, start to understand the language, acquire vocabulary, understand it completely?
I'm sure that listening to a language helps in situations where you have some basic understanding and you understand every third word and your brain then connects the dots and you acquire new words as the time passes.
But does that happen, even if you don't understand a single word in most of the sentences (ok, I understand "are" , "you", "yes", "I"... a very basic set of words)? Is there some threshold of needed vocabulary so you can build on just by listening?

Here is a similar question, but it was asked in context of kids.

EDIT:
I would make a distinction of interaction and listening without interaction. For example, if you put me in some Chinese village, we couldn't understand each other a word, but by interacting with people, using hands etc, as time passes I could pick some words and as time passes I'd probably understand the language. This question is in context of passive listening/watching.
Comment: My personal experience was that, when learning English, watching movie in English with *English* subtitles was more useful to me than watching a movie with subtitles in my native language.
Comment: What do you mean by "for one, I was a kid"? The fact that kids learn better is not a *truth*. There are theories that say that children and adults learn the same way. The difference is that kids basically do only that (and eating, sleeping, playing) and they are *immerged in the language*, while adults do other things too. :) Anyway, if someone can help fixin the question, it would be better. Although I'm not sure whether this is better on here or on Languages SE.
Comment: @Alenanno, ok, there are hypothesis that people learn the same way no matter what age, but it doesn't make much of a difference as far as the question is concerned. I'd like to know if there are real world examples if adult people can do it this way. Because of time constraint you're talking about I want to know if it's beneficial staring at something for an hour what you don't understand in hope that it will provide results.
Comment: It might help if you can have subtitles on in English/a language you're fluent in when you're watching these programs. Even if you don't have a great understanding yet, it would do you no harm to continue watching these programs, even if you only pick up a few phrases.
Comment: @DangerFourpence for some things I have English subtitles, for some not. I'm sure it can't hurt, but would like to know if it can be used as a method of learning. :)
Comment: I'm pretty certain you can find cartoons for young kids aimed specifically at this purpose, so someone must think it's a reasonable way of language acquisition.
Comment: It might be more complicated with Norwegian because you won't be hearing the same dialect. On the other hand, when you do crack the code, you'll have an easier time with Swedish and Danish!
Comment: I think you need to problematise the notion of what it means to learn a language. I outlined some of the issues in my answer here: http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/5915/is-it-possible-to-become-fluent-in-any-language-simply-by-reading-books-in-that/5918#5918
Answer: Anecdotally, I'd say yes, even after the (hypothetical) critical period for language learning I've experienced passive hearing as very helpful in acquiring a new language.
Empirically, there's a study that says that simply hearing a language is helpful in learning to understand it.
Theoretically, this makes sense. A basic problem involved in language acquisition is the Segmentation Problem: the sounds you hear are physically continuous, but you need to break them into discrete segments (separate sounds) in order for them to be intelligible. Also, as opposed to written language, spoken language doesn't necessarily give a clear signal as to where one word ends and another begins. This is one of the main stumbling blocks to acquiring a new language: you have to learn to segment what you're hearing on two levels. Now, the more you hear a stream of sounds composed of a given set of building blocks (morphemes, themselves composed of phonemes) the more information you have with which to figure out where one of them starts and another begins. Think of it like this: a sound is physically (phonetically) different depending on what sounds it is in between. By hearing it again and again in different environments, your brain can better figure out what exactly makes that sound different from other sounds, and what's just the effect of neighboring sounds.
I'd guess that passive hearing with no instruction is more effective than reading a good language-teaching book but not hearing the language. You might be able to learn how to read and write Norwegian from a book, but unless you know exactly how letters like O and R sound in Norwegian (not always quite like English!) you won't get very far in understanding it when you hear someone speak.
Comment: It gives 'page is not found'. Could you please give a link to the study once again?
Comment: Gah, only saw the comment now, by chance (haven't been here in a while.) Unfortunately by now I can't track down that study anymore and don't remember where I found it... I did find this reference to a 1986 study that also refers to this: Horwitz, E. K. (1986). "Some Language Acquisition Principles and their Implications for Second Language Teaching". Hispania 69 (3): 684–689.
Answer: If you want to do this, I'd advise you to watch the same movie over and over again. You may notice that children like their caretakers to read them the same story each night, and modern children like to watch the same movie again and again. My theory for why they like this is that they like hearing the story or watching the movie because they are able to understand what is being said, whereas just listening to ambient conversation of adults much of it goes over their heads. So according to my theory, you can do it, and the way to do it is to watch the Norwegian version of The Little Mermaid, or Sesame Street, every day for one month, and maybe sing along. After a year or so of this you can switch over to slightly more challenging programs which still have clear speech, then go on to films for regular adults.
Answer: I've been in the exact opposite situation, being raised in Norway and wanting to learn the English language.
In my belief, the key factor was watching English speaking programs with Norwegian subtitles. After sufficient exposure I gave more attention to the speech and not the text, and you begin to 'draw lines', as you say, between your native language and the one you are trying to learn.
Playing games also proved useful, although a lot harder. It was basically blindly trying, and trying to understand the effect my actions had on the game. As a small child at the time, playing Pokémon can be quite the challenge when you do not speak the language. Another problem I've struggled with is words that I've only read. RETRY was a word I read as Rettry, basically just because I was eleven at the time, and I still pronounce it that way, if I'm not aware of what I'm about to say.
This is all based on personal experience, and I wish you all the best in learning Norwegian.
Or; Lykke til med språket !
Comment: Stian, thanks for posting an answer, but I'd like to see more objectivity in here, if possible. Can you focus more on the general thing rather than in your experience or back up your statements with something?


How To Disable Touchpad Running Ubuntu 12.04LTS On Dell Inspiron 1525

Question: The Touchpad on my Dell laptop is an annoyance;  while typing, if I inadvertantly strike
it, the "I-beam" (or Mouse Pointer) ends up somewhere other than where I want it.
None of the settings I have tweaked thus far will kill the touchpad.
Answer: Actually, the best way I found is to open Terminal and type:
xinput list

Your touchpad should show up in there somewhere.  Make note of the touchpad's full name.  Then, in your Startup Applications, make a new entry and put in:
xinput set-prop "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad" "Device Enabled" 0

Where I have ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad, put in the full name of your touchpad and save it.  Make sure the touchpad's name is wrapped in quotes.  Now every time you log into Ubuntu, the touchpad will be disabled.  You can uncheck it in Startup Applications to stop this behavior or run that command in terminal with a 1 instead of a 0 to enable it again.
Answer: Try installing the Synaptik touchpad manager from Ubuntu Software Center. It has the option to disable touchpad while typing...and many more options.


Did St. Augustine think sexual pleasure = concupiscence?

Question: Did St. Augustine think sexual pleasure and concupiscence are identical? If not, why do some people seem to think this? Concupiscence is simply a disorder in which the body rebels against the rational soul; this is something completely different from pleasure.
Comment: Is there a particular reason you think St. Augustine might have seen these two things as equivalent? Also, is "why do some people seem to think this" referring to thinking that Augustine believed this, or thinking that this is universally true?
Comment: @Thunderforge What prompted my question was § "Augustine and Sexual Pleasure" on pp. 144-145 (PDF pp. 175-178) of Msgr. Cormac Burke's [_The Theology of Marriage_](https://isidore.co/calibre/#panel=book_details&book_id=6786), where he discusses St. Augustine's writings to the Pelagian bishop Julian of Eclanum. It still wasn't clear to me what reasons someone would give for confusing sexual pleasure with concupiscence.
Answer: No, St. Augustine doesn't say concupiscence is identical with venereal pleasure.
Although it is true "concupiscence is disorder in which the body rebels against the rational soul," one prominent manifestation of this disorder (which is not identical to the disorder) is seeking pleasure against the dictates of reason, which is the sin of lust.
Unlike concupiscence, which is an evil, coital pleasure in itself is morally neutral (Super Sent., lib. 4 d. 31 q. 2 a. 3 co. // suppl. q. 49 a. 6 co.):

pleasure in a good action is good, and in an evil action, evil; wherefore, as the marriage act is not evil in itself, neither will it be always a mortal sin to seek pleasure therein.[operationis bonae est delectatio bona, et malae mala. Unde cum actus matrimonialis non sit per se malus; nec quaerere delectationem erit peccatum mortale semper.]

However, referencing St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas seems not to distinguish concupiscence and venereal delectation (Summa Theologica II-II q. 153 a. 2 ad 2):

That venereal concupiscence and pleasure (concupiscentia et delectatio venereorum) are not subject to the command and moderation of reason, is due to the punishment of the first sin, inasmuch as the reason, for rebelling against God, deserved that its body should rebel against it, as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiii, 13).
Answer: To answer your great question. I think the common beliefs and understanding of the teaching of St. Augustine on the nature of original sin plays an important role why "sexual pleasure" is equated to "concupiscence'.
But you pointed out that concupiscence is simply a disorder in which the body rebels against the rational soul; this is something completely different from pleasure.
Your definition of concupiscence as simply a disorder not subject to reason or intellect is real and scriptures passages attested to it, as St.Paul stated this in Romans 7:15
"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do."
From St.Paul confession we can see that pleasure or goodness can only be in state of good order when one wills the things he wants.This is true for Christians striving for holiness.
But how about those people, who does not strive for holiness but simply weak to control the concupiscence, is sexual pleasure possible by succombing to concupiscence? The answer is resoundingly YES! because they simply give in to it without resisting and  desires it too, to satisfy sensual pleasures. In reality there's no incurred guilt or struggles in comparison to St.Paul.
If we go back to St. Augustine the concupiscence after the fall of man is defined as inclination to sin.
If one is by default or by fallen nature are inclined to desires sensual gratification outside of the control of the will then sexual pleasure can be equated to concupiscence.Because the body are inclined to it then concupiscence allows the bodily senses to satisfies it's pleasure. Eventhough the intellect sees it as a disorder not subject to will for those believer's striving for holiness.
As St. Augustine writes the following "
In a similar vein, Augustine notes that men did not have in their members the law of their own concupiscence warring against the law of their mind'' (Ibid. II.37; Fathers of the Church). But what is concupiscence for Augustine? He writes that concupiscence isthe law of sin which remains in the members of this body of death'' and that this evil ``remains in our flesh, not by reason of the nature in which man was created by God and wisdom'' (Ibid. II.4; Fathers of the Church). Thus Augustine claims that concupiscence is precisely this disordering of members, and that it is certainly not a property of the man in the state of original justice.
http://www.memoryhole.net/~chris/research/original_sin.html
In conclusion did St.Augustine think sexual pleasure and concupiscence are identical? If we based it on St.Augustine teaching on the nature of original sin and basing it on the behavior of the rational soul that does not strive for holiness sexual pleasure derived from concupiscence carries no guilt and conviction. Thus a rational soul enjoys fulfilling their sensual pleasures unless the grace of the Holy Spirit penetrates the soul to convict it. Then, satisfying sexual pleasures from concupiscence carries guilt and the disorder is exposed.God bless!


Wifi Disabled with Intel Wireless Adapter 8265

Question: I recently install ElementaryOS and have spent hours trying to get wireless enabled. I have a Toshiba Satellite L55 and went into Bios and enabled wifi power. Any information you need to help me, I will provide. Thank you, I would really like to use ElementaryOS.
Answer: First of all check in terminal with command uname -a what kernel version do you have. If newer then ignore the solution below and download drivers from Intel provided in the second link.
Solution from here: Intel 8265 doesn't work in Loki
See if sudo apt-get install linux-generic-hwe-16.04-edge gets the 4.8 kernel installed and then do
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux-firmware/linux-firmware_1.161.1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-firmware_1.161.1_all.deb
Also drivers from Intel can be downloaded here: Linux* Support for Intel® Wireless Adapters


What is the cause of the noise heard when the landing gear is deployed?

Question: Why is it that on most airliners, when the landing gear gets deployed, you always hear a loud noise like a bang. Is this due to the equipment locking in place or is there some other reason? As an external person I would think that there should be a mechanism that pushes it down slowly, avoiding this noise but it doesn't seem the case.
Answer: The locks release and typically the gear falls free into place.  It is often aided by hydraulic motors (i.e. to overcome anything that might be trying to hold the gear up, such as slush from the takeoff runway that froze after the gear was in the well), but most landing gear will freefall into place within a couple of seconds even without hydraulic assistance after the uplocks are released.
What you're probably hearing is the sudden onset of the wind noise -- when retracted the landing gear is streamlined, but when extended there is now an open cavity where the gear had been, and this open area in the fuselage creates a lot of wind noise from the suddenly turbulent airflow.  Going from a relatively quite state to a loud one suddenly gives the impression of a "bang."  This is possibly enhanced by whatever noise is made by the uplocks that hold the landing gear in place releasing, and perhaps some louder noise as the initial moments of the gear extension may be noisier than the steady-state noise of being fully extended.
Also, the noise due to the turbulence will subside as the airspeed slows, and extending the landing gear often comes during a phase of flight when the airspeed is being reduced in preparation for the final approach segment and the subsequent landing.
Answer: These can be quite significant (scary) events on some aircraft.  A Bombardier CRJ aircraft, especially if you are sitting around rows 8-12 near the hydraulic bay and wheel wells, can be a jolt even if you're prepared for it.
I agree with Ralph J and his answer is quite good.  I would like to add a couple of items:
1) An intital "bang" that you hear before the start of the wind noise is either the door uplock or landing gear uplock that is releasing or the hydraulic selector valve that is now porting hydraulic pressure to the uplocks and actuator.  A typical design would have an electric solenoid valve open which directs hydraulic pressure to one side or another of a valve that slides over and opens a port to send the hydraulic pressure to release the uplocks and actuators to power down the gear.  The solenoids act very quickly (within miliseconds) and when you have a hydraulic system at 3000psi the valve moves very quickly and you get a hydraulic "hammer" from the almost instant change in pressure.
2) The noise when the gear is finished retracting and the wind noise has gone away is typically the uplocks locking and is basically the reverse of #1.
Normally you sequence the release of the door locks and gear uplocks before the actuator starts to pressurize, but if its not quite timed right you can get some force built up on the uplocks and when they unlock there can be some noise.  But normally the "bang" is the hydraulic pressure.
You could make this event less dramatic by adding in restrictors and sequencing in the system, but you are adding cost, complexity and weight, and may reduce reliability by having additional failure modes or possible clogging.  As in all things in aerospace, it is a trade between weight, cost, reliability and performance.
Comment: scary?  Is the hyperbole necessary?
Answer: Beyond whatever particular sources of noise might be associated with an given airliner's landing gear deployment (unlatching, hydraulic pumps, drag brace latching, wind), it should be noted that the sound of a landing gear free-falling into position is not one of them.
Landing gear don't free fall.  Under normal operation, the rate of downward motion as the strut swings into position is regulated by a hydraulic cylinder (e.g. deployment time would be similar even in zero gravity).  Even for a zero-hydraulic-system-pressure "hydraulics out" condition, deployment rate should appear close to nominal because hydraulic fluid already in the cylinder has to be forced out (by the weight of the landing gear) through a relatively small outlet.
A true free-fall would only result from something like fracture of the hydraulic cylinder's piston rod.  In videos of this FAA-required test, a shock strut (typically with deadweight in place of the tires/wheels/brakes) will be seen rapidly swinging to its full down position with tremendous noise and shock at the conclusion.


The black and white photos in the Proof Copy of my book are washed out and without blacks

Question: The black and white photos in the Proof Copy of my book (non-coated paper) are washed out and have no deep blacks, or hardly any blacks. Working from InDesign to a PDF file, how do I ensure that my B&W photos are printed with blacks on a digital printer, in this case CreateSpace POD?
Answer: Try converting your images to CMYK so you can control the colors. You can take down the undercoat and boost black for deep-shadowed areas. In Photoshop, the setting that works well for my printers is: U.S. Sheet Fit Coated v2.
Other suggestion is supporting Black in large areas by adding grey behind it to preserve the color. C=60, M=40, Y=40, K=100.
In InDesign you can check the Overprint preview under View > Overprint Preview. You can also spot problems (washed out areas, fading, etc.) in Window > Output > Separations Preview.
Finally, you can talk with your printer about their specific suggestions for their digital printers and preparing the files for richer blacks.


Does the light color spectrum and frequency matter for photosynthesis?

Question: Do plants grow differently when given sun light, wolfram lamp, fluorescent light, LED light, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, unfocused laser and stroboscope?
Comment: absolutely - plants are green because they prefer light that is shorter in wavelength than green.  but like the rest of us they would die in quick order in an X-ray!  See: http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/450/why-do-plants-have-green-leaves-and-not-red?rq=1
Answer: It matters a lot.
Take a look at this graph:

This graph is for the "normal" plants containing chlorophyll.
There're also "abnormal" :-) ones, simple water plants and cyanobacteria, that contain various phycobilins for photosynthesis instead of the chlorophyll.
If your question is practical, I'd recommend using specialy-designed fluorescent lamps called grow light.
Answer: Color of light matters. As the Answer with the graph shows, chlorophyll absorbs certain colors of light best. It is strange that it does not seem to absorb yellow light well, considering that the sun has the highest emission level there, but perhaps it was to keep the plants from roasting in excessive sun conditions.
I did an experiment in High School where I placed colored transparent gel material over otherwise identical plants. One was the control with no box over it, then there was Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. The Yellow and Green did very poorly and the plants appeared to be whitish, perhaps due to inadequate chlorophyll production? The plant under the Blue appeared normal, and the one under Red grew 'leggy' and very fast. This is a known result that plants growing under foliage tend to receive excess red relative to blue light, and it triggers rapid growth, presumably so that the part of the plant can get out from under other foliage.
In my apartment and workplace, I have north-facing windows, sometimes the shades are closed during the day, both factors simulating red-light effect, and the Wandering Jew plants that I have grow like crazy.


Why don't my dual monitors powersave right when dual booting?

Question: I am currently running a dual boot of Ubuntu and Windows 7 on my Laptop and
now I am trying to connect another monitor for work. The problem is that my monitor (LG W1952QT) works when I boot Ubuntu but does not display and goes right into powersave mode when I boot windows 7. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Answer: Is it a laptop?  If so, remember to set the output mode to your digital video out.  There's a button or fn-button to set it.  Most laptops have 3-4 modes:

built-in LCD
S-Video out
15-pin (analog) out
DVI/HDMI out
Answer: It's a lot easier to get dual monitors working in Windows than it is in Linux.
What happens if you plug it in after Windows has started? If nothing, try pressing the Windows + P.
Comment: Eh. `xrandr` is actually a really simple tool, once you wrap it with a little bit of Python ;)


How do I properly use banelings both before and after burrow/baneling speed?

Question: in a  different question I asked about surviving early attacks and transferring to late middle game.  Most people said banelings were the answer.  I'm not sure I'm using my banelings correctly.  unless they're burrowed and i pop them up as someone walks over them I don't seem to get them to ever work.  how can I improve my usage of them anytime they're not burrowed and underneath an opposing force, opponents?
Answer: I feel partly responsible for this question so I'll try to get through it for you.
So there are three ways to use Banelings you probably haven't considered:

Spidermines
Baneling Drops
The Baneling Shield

The most common on is actually #3, but I'll go through them in that order.
The Baneling spider mine is very similar to what you're doing right now, and has the advantage of lacking any micro.  Simply burrow your banelings (usually spread out in a line), and right click the 'Unburrow' to activate autocasting.  These means the Banelings will rise up out of the ground whenever an enemy unit comes near them.  Since Banelings deal damage on death, this is a very effective technique.
The next technique is the Baneling drop.  This requires Overlord Transport and Speed to be effective.  Load your Banelings into Overlords and as you engage the enemy drop the Banelings on top of them.  Since Overlords have low priority and fly, they are less likely to die before delivering their cargo.  You'll often see this in Professional Matches, as its very effective vs Terran Mech.
The final technique is the "bread and butter" of Banelings, the Baneling shield.  Since Banelings explode to deal damage on death and are high priority, there is actually no reason to ever attack with them.  Instead Move M next to or through the opposing force (usually Marine) and the AI will naturally attack the Banelings (if it has been given the Stop, Hold, or Attack Move commands).  This will turn each of your Banelings into 30HP shields for your other units, will still having them serve their purpose.  This is actually viable even without speed.  Additionally, Banelings are neither light nor heavy, so no unit has the advantage against them.
Comment: and the auto unburrow thing is huge.  I had no idea.
Comment: @en1gmatic325 if you have the micro skills and APM to manually detonate, then it can do more damage.  but an autocast detonate is still better than not noticing the enemy walking over your banelings, and missing your chance.
Comment: @tzenes Massive cred for the unburrow autocast :D that is awesome!
Comment: lol, the question wasn't supposed to cause any guilt.
Comment: @tzenes I don't know about you, but I've always been able to do much more damage with manually unburrowing rather than with the autocasting.
Comment: @en1gmatic325 I have found the auto cast to be nice in situations where my banelings aren't going go get there in time, so I burrow, set autocast, and micro my retreat over them.  But more often than not I use technique #3
Answer: In general with banelings, unless you have them in the enemies mineral lines or something of that sort, you want to do a regular move rather than an attack move with them. They still explode when killed, so letting them get as much of a surround as possible before blowing up is almost always better than just blowing them up as soon as they hit the front unit.
Against melee units (especially with zerglings), send as few in as you can at once to get the job done, no sense in wasting them by over-killing. You may wish to actually detonate vs melee units as they will often be moved away from your banelings rather than attack them. Just try to be near as units as possible when you do so. Also, avoid letting a single zergling cause a baneling to explode when possible. You must kill 3+ zerglings per baneling to be at all cost effective.
Against ranged units sending them in waves is more important as not all of them will make it. To be viable against ranged units mid to late game expect to send lots of banelings to get anything done. 20+ banelings is not uncommon. Against a pure bio-ball I have seen a pro player use in excess of 60 banelings in the late game. Upgrades will help as well. Melee attack and ground carapace are the ones that apply to banelings.
With burrow, spread a few groups on likely attack paths. Ramps work especially well. This forces your opponent to bring detection or use a lot of scans to advance safely. If they don't, unburrow in the middle of their forces and detonate.
Edit: If you aren't comfortable in your ability to keep a good eye on your minimap, you can also activate autocasting on unburrow as Tzenes mentions, although this will usually do less damage than a manually unburrowed baneling.
Speed helps against ranged units, as fewer will die before getting up to them. It is vital if you want to use banelings to help counter things such as terran bio-balls.
Answer: I've had some success against Terran players with banelings/speedlings. If they're turtling and a little behind on military size, you can use banelings to punch through their wall of Supply Depots and even if you can't take on their full military you might be able to run to their mineral line and kill a few SCVs. This can do enough damage to their economy to justify the suicidal nature of this attack and also keep them distracted with re-turtling while I get an expansion up and running.
Not sure how successful this tactic is against high-level players. Early marauders might make it difficult to get at their mineral line.
Comment: Higher level players usually don't wall off with supply depots but barracks or walls of depots. They also usually build some troops.
Comment: Interesting I should get a comment on this, I just yesterday ran across this strategy video from HD in which he rushes banelings/zerglings against a Terran. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyXQcJo49Pw&feature=channel


QGIS Routing between two Points without Roads

Question: I'm using QGIS 1.8 and i need to analyze possible routes for roman roads. Is there a Possibility to show routes which comply special criteria, e.g. straightest way between two points, or path which is not higher than 50m...
Since i search for possible roman roads, there are no streets with which QGIS can work. My idea is, it should analyze the map by my own criteria to find the routes. Is there any Plugin or function to do that?
Answer: This sounds like a job for raster cost path analysis.  I must admit I am more familiar with doing this sort of analysis in Arc (and here is a link to describe the process in generic enough terms so you can apply the knowledge to QGIS.)
I believe that in QGIS you will have to use GRASS.  There are a selection of tools that look promising including r.cost, r.walk and r.spreaddistance depending on your exact use-case.
Having quantified the "cost" of getting from A to B you can then determine the likelihood of the road following your route and it would be especially useful to discuss your findings with an archaeologist
I recommend that you read up on cost path analysis first as you have quite a few criteria to consider and you will need to develop your cost surface(s).


How to connect a graphic card to Raspberry pi?

Question: I want a way to connect a graphic card like nvidia or amd to raspberry pi do you think has a way to do that?
Answer: Graphics cards are usually connected via PCI or PCI Express bus.
The Raspberry Pi has no such bus. It has a built-in graphics card, however.
It's fast enough to run Quake 3 :-)
Edit: Actually, there are USB graphics cards by DisplayLink, see http://plugable.com/2014/03/06/displaylink-usb-2-0-graphics-adapters-on-linux-2014-edition
I don't know if anyone has gotten them to work with the Raspberry Pi, however.
Comment: I am sure its not that diffucult to get it working. By worst case scenario it will just show up as a software screen capable of basic 2D. But on USB2 that is about the limit any way.
Comment: The new Pi4 got PCIe 2.0... but it is not exposed on the PCB for additional cards to be connected. It is just used to connect the USB-3.0-Controller - the VIA Labs VL805.
Comment: Getting nVidia/AMD PCIe GPUs to work on non-Intel will be a big effort
Answer: It's probably not exactly what the original question had in mind... but technically, it is possible to connect graphic cards to the Raspberry Pi using a bus it provides, namely USB.
However, it seems unlikely that it will be possible to get an improved performance over the embedded GPU. It is also noteworthy that there might be significant issues with such cards and the typical Linux OS on the Pi - in terms of finding appropriately supported drivers, see:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/251500/usb-display-adapter-with-linux-ubuntu-drivers
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/169533/usb-to-vga-on-linux

With the Raspberry Pi 4 released we now have USB 3.0 Gen 1 with an ideal world transfer speed of 3.2 Gb/s which could support a higher end graphics. The graphics cards could be cheaper than the adapters though so it may not be financially viable... but possible!
The Pi 4 does also now supports h.265 which offers dual 4k monitors being attached.
Comment: Yea i completely agree with this answer. If the Pi ever get a USB3 upgrade.. you never know?! right. Then a whole lot of new things will make sense. +1
Comment: @PiotrKula, well now there is a Pi4 with USB3 but then again its internal GPU supports dual 4k.
Answer: I originally flagged this as being, possibly seriously, Off-Topic but technically there is a further method that make it possible to connect a graphics card to the RPi and have the latter generate content that is displayed on the former.  It is called, *inserts drum-roll*: "X11" and is what is involved when you run an X server on your PC Desktop (which has the Graphics Card in it) and connect to your RPi via ssh:
First, you will want an Xserver running that the RPi can connect to.  If you already have one running like I do on a Linux Desktop then you are set to go.  Other OSs like those from Redmond in the USA are more work but Cygwin may be of use (though I cannot recall whether the XWin server is there or in the CygwinPorts testing part). The Mac platform, also being a *nix derivative may also have something that will work but I'm not an expert on those.
Next use ssh with the -Y option to enable "trusted X11 forwarding" so that the latter are not subjected to the X11 SECURITY extension controls (which thus become a possible security hole, there may be safer ways to achieve the same linkage).  ssh has the bonus that with the -Y option it will normally configure the correct value for the DISPLAY environmental variable but in some cases you might have set it with something of the form: export DISPLAY="Desktop PC name""Display number" e.g. using who I found my Linux Desktop PC was at 192.168.0.26 so this, using the default number becomes: export DISPLAY=192.168.0.26:0.0.
Now you can run GUI commands on your RPi and they will appear on your PC desktop as if they were running on the latter (though they will not be as responsive) and they will be using your Desktop PC's graphics card...
Answer: I'm sorry to disappoint you. But there's no way to do that.
The integrated GPU is not upgradable.
Comment: Depending on what you're rendering, latency may not be such a big problem. Basically, a "graphics card" is a co-processor to which you send commands and data for it to process. The Pi has several different options for connecting to another unit and sending it commands and data, including USB, GPIO and (usually) Ethernet or WiFi networking.
Comment: The problem isn't just bandwidth, it's also latency. USB3 doesn't necessarily solve that. If you want upgradable GPUs, you need a system with PCIe slots.
Comment: @kiumarskhaleghi: that's never going to happen. It wouldn't even make sense.
Comment: Wellllll.. never say never!  If USB 3 comes in next Pi package.. it will be possible. 5GB/s bandwidth will allow this. So... Even now with USB 2 it is possible.. but its so slow it wont help.
Comment: no good solution, and impossible are not the same thing. It is possible, there are caveats to the solutions, such as latency, and bottlenecks.
Answer: Even if you could get an AMD, which I am not saying is possible, you would be stuck without drivers since the GPU providers most likely do not support ARM drivers.
There might be a way to hack the hardware to use an external graphics, but again, the lack of driver support makes such a hack near impossible.
Sorry mate. There are pi alternatives you can try http://pine64.com/ which is a 64-bit based micro computer which comes up to almost twice the specs of a RPi2.
Good luck and happy hunting mate!
Comment: If you're smart enough to hack the hardware to use an external graphics card I assume you're smart enough to write your own drivers ..
Comment: I'm really doubtful of pine64's validity... That looks far too good to be true.
Comment: pine64 is not out yet... its all in the backer board.. once they ship the product, then we can talk about it. Until then, it doesn't exist.
Comment: Well we will see, I know its not out *yet* but is planned to be shipped in may this year, so its not too far away.


Python: Best practice for including a version number in an app?

Question: I have a PyQt application that reads and writes data files. I am including a 'version number' in each file written.  This is a simple number similar to: 1.2  or something (major and minor versions).
I am doing this so that I can change the format of these data files in future versions and then still correctly parse them simply by checking to see what the version is inside the file.
My question is what is the best practice for keeping this number stored inside the app itself.  I.e. do I just hard-code the app version number into the class that is responsible for reading and writing files?  Or should I have some sort of object/variable stored at the top-level of the app and somehow access it from the class responsible for reading and writing these files.  If the latter, how do I store it and how do I access it?
Thanks.
Answer: Many open source projects (e.g. numpy, fabric) have a module called "version", which contains version information in top-level variables. See e.g. fabric's version file.
Answer: First, version the data format separately from the app, if not already doing so. Second, have separate classes for newer versions of the format. If the format is completely backwards compatible, you can drop the classes for older versions. As for the file structure, you could have something like:

DF

__init__.py
dfbase.py
v1_1

__init__.py
format.py

v2_0

__init__.py
format.py

where "df" stands for the data format name. The package initialization files import the appropriate packages and define a structure or function to make them accessible. The top-level __init__.py should also define a factory function to create data format objects, so you don't have to.
DF/__init__.py:
from df.dfbase import DFBase
from v1_1 import DF as DF1
from v2_0 import DF as DF2
versions = {
  '1.0': DF1, # let's say minor versions are fully backwards compatible
  '1.1': DF1,
  '2.0': DF2
}
def create(file):
    """Factory function. Loads data from 'file', returns a DF of the appropriate
    version.
    """
    ...

DF/v1_1/__init__.py:
__version__ = '1.1'
# previous versions that this one is backwards compatible with
previous = ['1.0']
from format import DF

DF/v1_1/format.py:
from df import DFBase

class DF(DFBase):
    ...

DF/v2_0/__init__.py:
__version__ = '2.0'
from format import DF

With a little more coding in DF/__init__.py, you could automate the import and registration of format versions.
import glob, sys
from ndf.ndfbase import NDFBase

formats={}

for ver in glob.iglob('v*_*'):
    pkg = '{0}.{1}'.format(__package__, ver)
    __import__(pkg)
    formats[sys.modules[pkg].__version__] = sys.modules[pkg]
    if hasattr(sys.modules[pkg], 'previous'):
        for prev in sys.modules[pkg].previous:
            formats[prev] = sys.modules[pkg]

def create(file):
    """Factory function. Loads data from 'file', returns a DF of the appropriate
    version.
    """
    ...

Answer: Personally, I wouldn't do it manually this way.  I'd save my code in Subversion and let it maintain the revision numbers for me.