How come we don't bring the Pesach offering in Israel now?

Question: The majority of Jews live in Israel and at least the majority of Jews are tamei. The reason of being tamei and not being able to bring the karbon only applies to individuals but not when it is the majority of the Jewish people
Comment: What does the majority of Jews living in Israel have to do with anything?
Comment: Why do you ask this about now and not the last 1900 years? What has changed?
Comment: Please clarify your assumption in the 2nd sentence. It's too vague for me to even determine its truth value!
Comment: possible dupe http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/13254/759
Answer: Torah Mitzion has an article on this by  Rabbi Aviya Rozen. Some extracts from this article (with changes to the unusual transliteration and grammar) are shown below:

Is it possible to sacrifice the Korban Pesach on Har-Habayit, today, without the Beit Mikdash?
The answer is very clear -yes. (according the Halacha and ignoring the
  political situation)
The Mishna (Eduyot 8,6) says:"R Yoshua said: I have heard that
  sacrifices may be offered even though there are no Beit-Mikdash,and
  that the most holy sacrifice may be eaten even though there is no
  Beit-Mikdash, and lesser sacrifices may be eaten even though there are
  no walls [of Jerusalem]…". The Rambam (Beit Habechira 6 , 16) says that
  this is the Halacha and we are obligated to do it, even today. In
  summary- according to the Rambam it is permissible just on Har-Habayit
  although there are problems to go up there.
The Altar
Most of the objectors thought that it is impossible to sacrifice
  Korban-Pesach today because we haven't a Kosher Altar, and there no
  option to build the altar until that Moshiach will come. The
  question now is if is it possible to build altar?
Rabbi David Fridman and the Rabbi Shelomo Sakal A (Beit
  Shelomo Yore-Deia part b ,chapter 125) objected to sacrificing a
  Korban-Pesach today because we haven't the ability to build an altar. But is
  just a technical problem.Today with the modern technology, there is no
  problem to build an altar with perfectly square corners (maybe more so than
  in the past). In addition -we can use with laser rays instead of metal
  tools.
The "Tumah" (impurity)
In the Gemara (Yoma 6b) there is a debate about the question if the
  impurity will be cancelled (הותרה) or just pushed aside (דחויה) in a case when all Israel are tomei meis, but everybody agree that we can sacrifice a
  Korban-Pesach in that situation.
The Rambam (HilchotBeit Hamikdash 4, 15-16) says that the
  Halacha is:"the impurity is pushed aside if all Israel are tomei meis." In addition
  -the Rambam wrote that if there are no Kohanim or there are no Jewish person who is not tomei meis, then the Korban can be sacrificed by any Jew even if he is
  impure. (Rambam Beit Habechira 7,23)

So the issues seem to be:

The political problem of going onto the Har Habayis.
Whether "all Israel is tomei meis" is satisfied by that proportion of
the Jewish people living in Israel.
What proportion of the people are affected by tumas zivoh (for which there is no permission to ignore) - see this
question and its
answer.
Comment: I see a sizeable article by Rabbi Bleich on this subject which I hope to learn over Pesach. It makes this answer look totally insufficient. See download.yutorah.org/1985/1053/790904.pdf .
Comment: How exactly will we find the right spot to put Altar? This must be very precise. More than the current archeology and historical evidence allows for, if I understand correctly.


As an indie developer, what should I learn about the business end of game development?

Question: I assume I should look into intellectual property law, copyright law, and money management, but what else would be good to know? My ideal goal is to be able to handle all legal/monetary business internally, without hiring an outside lawyer.
Comment: Are you alone or do you have a partneship? If you are alone, you could go by without a lawyer but if you have other people, my recommendation from personal experience is to talk to lawyers who specialize in start ups (and they are relatively cheap). There are so many things to take care of that only a lawyer can inform/warn you about.
Comment: Good question and welcome to the site.
Answer: I'm also starting an indie development company. I'm not very experienced in this matter, but here is what I'm going to do:
Have a low-risk pay model (no-one gets paid a cent until the company has recouped the initiation costs of the project, after that people get paid a percentage of money from that project depending on how much work they did, the company gets a percentage too)
Learn about bankruptcy - If you're in a business structure with Unlimited Liability it is important that you understand the risks you are taking. If the risk is too big you may wish to fork out extra to get a Limited Liability business.
Don't copy other people's stuff unless it is free domain or you have written permission. Even then be careful.
If you ever need to take someone else to court because they copied your stuff, hire a lawyer. Seriously.
It's not much info, but I hope it helps.


Seeking free elevation data for Europe?

Question: Where can I find free elevation data for Europe?
The available resolutions and terms of use are important details that I also seek.
Answer: The 3-arc second (~90 meter) SRTM covers all of Europe to 60° N, has good positional accuracy and is part of the public domain. CGIAR provides an interface for easily downloading the data tiles, which are provided in both ASCII and GeoTIFF formats.
Country specified sites:
For Finland there is https://tiedostopalvelu.maanmittauslaitos.fi/tp/kartta it uses CC 4.0 License. Select korkeusmalli (elevation modell) (2m and 5m), or laserkeilusaineisto (LAS data)
Comment: as far as I know the data *processed/distributed by CIGAR are not in the public domain*. you can use them free of charge for non-commercial projects and for commerical usage you have to ask. please see here: http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/SRTM_FAQ.asp#1
Comment: Distribution alone is insufficient to change the data license, but it may be their version is sufficiently transformative to render it a new work. In any case, you can download the raw tiles which are in the public domain from USGS: http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/
Answer: Elevation can be extracted (x,y,z values) from
ETOPO1 is a 1 arc-minute global relief model of Earth's surface that integrates land topography and ocean bathymetry. It was built from numerous global and regional data sets, and is available in "Ice Surface" (top of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets) and "Bedrock" (base of the ice sheets) versions. Historic ETOPO2v2 and ETOPO5 global relief grids are deprecated but still available.
Grid/node-registered: cells are centered on lines of latitude and longitude (21601 by 10801 cells).
Cell/pixel-registered: cell edges are along lines of latitude and longitude (21600 by 10800 cells).
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/global.html
ETOPO1 Ice Surface:
grid-registered: netCDF, GRD98, binary*, xyz, georeferenced tiff
cell-registered: netCDF, GRD98, binary*, xyz, georeferenced tiff
ETOPO1 Bedrock:
grid-registered: netCDF, GRD98, binary*, xyz, georeferenced tiff
cell-registered: netCDF, GRD98, binary*, xyz, georeferenced tiff
* ArcGIS users - use binary and convert using 'Float to Raster'
Custom Grids
Online: Custom regional grids can be created online from ETOPO1 using NGDC's Grid Translator;
Desktop/Offline: For both cell-centered and grid-centered downloaded grids, custom grids with user-defined bounds can be created in multiple formats, using the desktop version of Grid Translator, part of the free GEODAS Windows Software for Online Downloads and GEODAS XWindows Software.
How to Cite ETOPO1:
Amante, C. and B. W. Eakins, ETOPO1 1 Arc-Minute Global Relief Model: Procedures, Data Sources and Analysis. NOAA Technical Memorandum NESDIS NGDC-24, 19 pp, March 2009.
FTP Site:
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/relief/ETOPO1/data/ice_surface/grid_registered/binary/
Big Files! for download [contains x,y,z values]
Comment: The Clue is "global relief model" highlighted in Bold..
Comment: This is a GLOBAL dataset - see comments below. Have used this in many mapping projects but always remember to cite the source:
Comment: Mapperz, underdark was looking for Europe data. Doesn't the NOAA site only feature relief data for Antarctic and Greenland? I would also like to know where to obtain 1 arc-minute data for Europe and Canada...
Comment: http://sos.noaa.gov/datasets/Land/etopo2.html
Comment: http://sos.noaa.gov/datasets/Land/etopo1.html
Comment: OK, I see; i meant to say 1-arc-second not minute. Unfortunately the globe data is 30-arc-second (1-km). I am lookig for high resolution Canada data comparable to the USGS 1-arc-second SRMT in the US.
Answer: Since 2013 there is the EU-DEM 25 m: new Digital Surface Model (DSM), representing the first surface as illuminated by the sensors. You can download the GeoTIFF files here: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/eu-dem#tab-gis-data
In 2014/2015 there will be the release of the worldwide SRTM 30m data as announced here: https://www1.nga.mil/MediaRoom/LeadingStories/Pages/NGAreleaseshigh-resolutionelevationdatatopublic.aspx (in April 2015 the European tiles - source)
Answer: In 2016, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) released a new free 30 m (1 arcsec) resolution global topographic data set called ALOS Global Digital Surface Model "ALOS World 3D - 30m" (AW3D30) (http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/ALOS/en/aw3d30/). It is stated as having a 5 m height accuracy and has been compiled from images taken with the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS). There are indications that the product has been derived from an even higher resolution data set; there is a 15 m resolution DEM for Japan. The coverage spans 82°N to 82°S. There are some voids in the current data that can be readily filled using other data sets such as SRTM. Like the SRTM data set, these data are described as a digital surface model since the heights of off-terrain objects (vegetation, buildings, etc) are included. The following is an example of an AW3D30 DEM of the Canadian Province of New Brunswick.

References
J. Takaku, T. Tadono, K. Tsutsui : Generation of High Resolution Global DSM from ALOS PRISM, The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, pp.243-248, Vol. XL-4, ISPRS TC IV Symposium, Suzhou, China, 2014.
T. Tadono, H. Ishida, F. Oda, S. Naito, K. Minakawa, H. Iwamoto : Precise Global DEM Generation By ALOS PRISM, ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, pp.71-76, Vol.II-4, 2014.
Answer: The ASTER GDEM v.2 coverage spans from 83 degrees north latitude to 83 degrees south. Each elevation measurement point in the data is 30 meters apart (also in Europe)
see ASTER Global DEM (GDEM) Version 2 Released with Significant Updates
Download tiles from NASA

Seeking free elevation data for Europe?


How to wake up a team?

Question: I am a Scrum Master and work with a team of 7 developers + PO (also programmer). They are experienced and many of them have been work in this place for couple of years. It is a big company in a transition to SCRUM and I am their first SM (since 2 months). They are also productive, easy to work with, eager to learn and not picky about their tasks (the product is not very exciting). The thing is the "sleepy" atmosphere especially during the meetings. Only the PO is active - he speaks for 90% of time. When I asked him not to speak first (he is willing to change this state) there was silence and it was really hard to end our meetings with any conclusions. The guys are simply fine with everything. How do I wake them up? Or do I let them sleep and take only little actions in search for improvements? I am also working with another team in the same company and the latter is boiling with emotions! How do you think?
Comment: Is this a practical problem in project management?  Is this a problem?  Does it affect the ability to deliver?  Are they paid for their ability to develop or for their charm. Does your firm have an official policy of discriminating against introverts?
Comment: Sounds like typical developers to me ... just kidding. Maybe you do something you had to do in school: presentation. E.g. for the backlog refinement or estimation meeting, the devs prepare a story in teams of two and present it to the rest - so they are forced to speak :)
Comment: Which meetings are you talking about? What gets done during them?
Comment: I am wondering if it is a problem. I think they are quite productive but without efficient communication and sharing ideas it is hard to make any improvements. I am talking about usual scrum meetings. Typically I ask questions and get silence. Retrospectives are the hardest so I try to give them tasks instead of having a conversation.
Answer: There are some clues in your question, which might explain why this is the case, but I will only mention them at the end of my answer, because I would say the most powerful tool at your disposal could be the Sprint Retrospective.
I assume if you're doing Scrum, then there is a Sprint Retrospective at the end of every sprint. If not, start doing them straight away. It's a mandatory part of Scrum.
Set a timebox for the Sprint Retrospective. The Scrum Guide says this event should be timeboxed at a maximum of 3 hours (and usually less for Sprints of less than a month).
In the first instance, consider allowing the maximum amount of time, with the understanding that it can finish much sooner once it has achieved its intended results. Read the Scrum Guide for more information on that event.
Research techniques on creating a safe environment in the retrospective. i.e. one where every member feels they can express their opinion, without fear of reprisals.
At least in the first instance, explain to the entire team how you will treat the retrospective, and how you expect them to treat it. This could be establishing principles of there being "no right or wrong answers", and it being about "improving the environment, rather than apportioning blame"; ask members to be respectful of each other, and give them the chance to ask questions, before proceeding.
Whilst it is good that teams can be transparent, if necessary, ask everyone if they will agree to keep the discussions of this particular meeting between just the Scrum Team.
And of course, be honest about why you are running the retrospective in this way, whilst using language and terms that are respectful of all members of the team.
All members of the Scrum Team (Development Team + Scrum Master + Product Owner) should be present and participate. No-one outside of the team should be present, and the meeting should be held where people are confident of not being overheard.
One method of Sprint Retrospective is to ask everyone to write down post-it notes about how they experienced the Sprint that is about to end (the post-its could reference an ongoing issue, or one that only affected them in that Sprint). Try to get the team to write at least one post-it of something good, one of something bad, and one of something interesting.
Allow each team member to write their own post-its before allowing any discussion about the Sprint. This means everyone should have at least three (preferably more) opinions written down. Ask them to take turns to share one of their post-its (even if someone else already said the same thing).
Ensure there is time to discuss the post-its, so that everyone's opinion is heard.
Allow disagreements to take place, and only intervene to remind team members about the importance of making progress (i.e. keeping within the timebox), and the importance of being respectful of each other.
Subsequently, the team can work together to come up with solutions (perhaps out loud, perhaps initially with post-its) for the issues they've raised.
If this doesn't deliver instant results, consider trying it for 1 or 2 more Sprints. If it still doesn't deliver a change, or at least help you identify problems, consider other techniques to encourage team members to share their feelings. Perhaps an anonymous box for team members to drop in notes about things they want to raise, but don't want to mention in a retrospective. I would consider this option less desirable, because it discourages open discussion; but it might just be necessary.
Also, make it clear to the entire Scrum Team (and anyone outside the team) that you are someone they can go to in confidence about their ideas/feelings/comments (including criticism of you). Consider organising one-to-one private discussions with each team member if necessary.

So, the clues I've taken from your question:
PO is a programmer. Maybe this is the issue. It's not explicitly forbidden by Scrum, but it's not common, and represents some significant conflicts of interest that would need to be identified and managed carefully. I would be surprised if a PO can offer more to a team of that size as a programmer than as full-time PO.
The Development Team is responsible for estimates and quality, and forecasting how much work they can deliver. The PO is responsible for optimizing value. The Development Team estimates Product Backlog items, and the PO should use those estimates to prioritize the backlog (along with other considerations, such as other feedback from Development Team about risks/dependencies/etc, and stakeholder concerns).
Consider working with the Scrum Team and organization to get a full-time PO (either the current one, or a new person), and observe how things change. Change may not be immediate and if the PO ceases the role within the Development Team, ensure they don't attend the Daily Scrum (unless invited by the Development Team), and don't interfere with estimates, code, definition of "Done", and other domains that are the responsibility of the Development Team.
Organization is new to Scrum. Perhaps there's a culture (either current or recent) of "industrial thinking", not treating people with respect, not allowing Development Teams to self-organize, using Scrum in name only, and not buying in to the concept.
Not picky about tasks. Even if a product is not inherently interesting, it's alarming that teams don't seem to express an opinion on which to do first. Do they understand the value of what they're doing? Is the PO being a proper PO and understanding the most valuable items in the Product Backlog and communicating that information to the Development Team. Is the opinion of the Development Team heard/respected (not the same as being agreed with) when they do give an opinion? Does the Scrum Team hold a proper Sprint Review (Note: I deliberately didn't call it a demo), where the Development Team and Product Owner engage with stakeholders, so that everyone can understand why the Product Backlog is prioritized the way it is, and so the Development Team can understand what is important to the rest of the organization (and why).
Terms like "sleepy" / "wake up". Is this your assessment, or a commonly expressed opinion within the team/organization? Either way, if the Development Team is aware of this perception. That kind of language might be interpreted as disrespectful, and may be demotivating and erode trust.
Your assessment that the other team is boiling with emotions. Again are the Development Team(s) aware of this perception? The realization of how they're viewed may affect how they behave.
How were the teams formed? Who decided who should be in each team, and why? Perhaps the personalities don't match. Is there opportunity to rearrange the teams? Perhaps combine the two teams together, perhaps create smaller teams, or just shuffle members (once, not regularly) between the "sleepy" and "boiling" teams. Whatever is done with teams, ensure the members of the Development Team know what the priorities of the business are, and trust them to self-organize into new teams of their own preferred structure. This might have a negative effect in the short-term, but perhaps it enables them to work more effectively in the future.
Answer: It sounds like the team is expecting the product owner to feed them ready-to-work tasks. It may be that the PO's technical background is actually a hindrance in this case. It is important to remember that the PO should be providing clarity on which feature needs are most important to provide and which problems are the most important to solve. The team decides how to implement those features or how to solve the problems. If this distinction is not there the team can get demotivated quickly.
Comment: Thanks for the idea. I will talk to PO so we make sure this distinction is in place.
Answer: One of the best things I was taught as a project manager is that no two team members are the same. We can't treat them all as one and expect them to come out of their shells. To each their own, and as a PM it's our challenge to learn about them and find what makes them tick.
Marc has made a comment about "introverts", and most teams have one, but when the entire team is feeling lethargic and uninvolved then that's something different. At the very least it doesn't hurt to switch things up a bit to make the workplace more exciting, but I'd say there's a lot to benefit from by doing what you're doing. I think it's great that you're paying attention to their signals and making an effort!

If I was in a similar position, I'd start learning more about them as individuals to see what really excites them. Getting out as a team together is a great way to break the ice (not the silly Team Building exercises, but something relaxed and not to do with work), and doing some personal presentations about themselves (or Q/A) gets your team members to learn about each other. This more often than not brings surprises when one learns something interesting about another, like a similar hobby, or something interesting like building space rockets in their spare time = more to talk about and more in common
It sounds like they're a great team who is adding a lot of benefit to your company. If this is the case, use this to buy them some "hack" time (half a day on Fridays, or a full day a month). Time where they get to try something new, new programming languages, solving new problems, something totally out of the ordinary. This, while is a bit expensive, often adds benefit to the organisation too, so it's not a big loss
Get them to start peer programming with each other, or learning new functions that they're interested in

These are just a few ideas; I'm sure there's lots out there. It sounds like they're a great team, and them being a bit quiet is a good problem to have compared to most of what we hear about.
Good luck and feed back with what you tried/did!
Comment: They are not willing to get out after work although we have some interesting options. Majority of us have families and probably this can be a reason. In recent times they had hacking time and they have build continues integration within it - the guy who inspired and drove the process left the team however. I wish the team learns more about individuals and what excites them but I feel their resistance when it comes to it.
Answer: The tools and solutions and time needed depend very much on what really is going on underneath the surface.
To create an overview, to see the differences and see better which tool to use for what situation, here a description of three scenarios, from bad to good.
My estimate from your description is that "good" is the situation.
Bad (signs: uncomfortable silence, a silence of shock and fear,
a silence of indignation and boiling fuming anger just under the surface)
+ a serious threat has visited the organization some time ago, created havoc, left the building but the behavioral results of the betrayal are still there, trust has been broken. An organization big and small loses the behavior that someone within that organization has punished.
When trust is lost, it's very hard to get it back, if ever. So has speaking up been punished some time before, by someone, anyone, currently or previously or maybe several years ago?
Public humiliation is punishment too, don't expect people to take that lightly, even if it happened a decade ago and the person who did that has been out of office for five years, the issue can still be alive in the minds. It's possible to repair but it will take a lot of time. "trust arrives walking and departs riding".
If someone has done that somewhere in the past, you'll have the unthankful job to do the repairs and can't expect gratefulness in return, these things go deep. This is the kind of damned if you do damned if you don't mess somebody else has left behind.
From your description this is NOT the case, which means you don't need to apply the tools for that kind of situation. This is important, don't use tools for a situation that isn't there. Let's move on to a less dramatic possibility.
Ugly but resolvable ( sign: a bored silence but non-threatening )
+ the one talking has been taking up too much space for too long a time
and or has a droning voice that induces sleep, so over time people have started to politely shut up around that person, letting the oracle speak as the eyes zone out and the mind wanders away to more interesting pastures.
A sudden change by making (=enforcing) the speaker to wait, creates an instant
feeling of threat, a - where is the trap- feeling. The amygdala reacts on changes in patterns, to distinguish the tiger from the grass leaves. This  instinct still applies to the streets of a modern city and to an office environment, because when such a sudden change happens, often there is some kind of danger, so people react alerted and reserved. This is natural.
A structural approach is needed and more patience and careful
do not inadvertently scare people or make people lose face with an inappropriate choice of words. What these words are is very context dependent.
However be very careful with words that associate with any kind of "dumb", people generally don't like being called stupid, "sleepy" is already in the danger zone, even if that would be an accurate description of the situation.
Don't ever say that to them into their faces, or let it be known to them via tone of voice or through your body language. People know how to read those and will react strongly to that.
The time needed depends on the exact nature and severity of the issue.
If the speaker is well respected by the team, but just has a boring droning nasal voice, then the problem can quickly be fixed. Speak for shorter times or let somebody with a better voice do the talking. If there is more going on, personal issues of any kind, it just will take a bit more time, but it will still be resolvable and the team will be thankful for it.
If this is not the case either, then this is good because it would lead to scenario three:
Good and can be improved
(sign: silence but the mood feels o.k. a comfortable silence )
+ differences in temperament (for example introvert vs extravert / expressive emotions vs less expressive people) If one team consists of people from Norway and Finland and the other team consists of people from Italy and Mexico, there is a high chance that you'll see differences in body language and tone of voice.
In that case there is no real problem, in which the appropriate approach is,
don't fix a problem that isn't there, because a lot of damage could be done in the process.
Instead enjoy the positive starting point and aim for further  improvements: there are ways make the meeting more dynamic and interesting, without forcing introverts to tap-dance on the marketplace because that's awkward and mean.
You don't force extraverts to join a tour of the Italian historical archives searching in silence for ancient scrolls either, because that would be torture for extraverts.
In this situation quick fixes are possible and fun, it's a creative search for what fits best for the team members. If you manage that, the team will be very grateful and remember you positively for it for years to come.
My estimate and my hope is that scenario three is going on, because this can lead to many improvements in a short time with fun along the ride for everyone.
(side note: an example from the world of sports of a less expressive versus a
 more expressive person you can see in the video of the Fedor Emelianenko
 versus Brett Rogers 2009 Strike force event, two accomplished athletes,
 different ways of facial expression, Fedor looks stoic, Brett very expressive )
Hope this helps and good luck!
Answer: There's a lot of untapped knowledge and ideas.  Notwithstanding individual personalities, something in your culture is rewarding this specific team to remain quiet.  As a facilitator, it's on you to figure out how to tap into this team and harness what it is they have to offer.  If your current meeting structure and facilitation methods yield nothing, then change it up.  Split the team in half, maybe in quarters, and conduct a different type of work meeting.  Maybe even consider breaking the team up and introduce new talent.  Introducing even one individual could dramatically change up the dynamic.
If this were me, I would likely disband the team and rebuild it.  There's risk to this action in that you may cause some morale drop, performance drop, and some stakeholder grief; however, I opine that, after a bit of time, performance will again increase and, with the changes, you'll harness more intellectual thought and critical thinking that are now dormant.  And that win will pay for the immediate costs and risks you will assume with this dramatic change, IMHO.
Comment: I think it is too drastic especially taking into consideration company culture. All in all this is quite well performing team. However a new person (developer) will join us so this might change the situation indeed.
Comment: @Lidia, I would caution against the assumption that they perform well. There are two red flags I see in this. First, there is no definite scale. Perhaps they perform better than other teams, but only a small fraction of their potential if you changed the dynamic. Second, we want to measure outcome (value) over output (tasks complete). If they are happy to work on whatever the company gives them, their value generation is constrained to whoever is giving them the work - great teams compound that value.
Answer: I was in your exact position, but I was on the "quiet" side of the crowd. Let me explain why with time I preferred to be there.
I started working for a company, which had 4 or 5 years old legacy code. The code had no tests, moreover was written on a singleton-only framework, with static methods being unreasonably overused (which actually made the code untestable). Another thing, the code had different modules, which partly stopped being used with time. I mean, there was a newer module tracking products, but a couple of methods were statically called from the old one. The old developers just decided to leave it there and not rewrite it.
So, the code was awful and it did physically hurt me to work with it.
But when I was interviewing the company (that's right, I'm so skilled, I interview companies, not the other way around, haha!), the CTO told me they want to do heavy refactoring, rewrite the database structure (which was also a "masterpiece of ...") and set up proper staging and CI. So I agreed.
The reality was a bit different. The product manager and the network support leader (I still don't know why in Nine Hells of Baator he was meddling in our affairs) were pushing the CEO and the CTO to develop mainly features and even though they promised to leave at least 20% of time (which is 8 hours a week per developer!), in the end the developers were working with unreadable ugly code, adding more unreadable ugly code, all 100% of the time. Yup, no refactoring, no rewriting, no nothing.
So, what does it have to do with being quiet at meetings? Easy. First, I was active and innovative, trying to improve the state of affairs. But then I realized, that however hard I try to improve the situation in the company, nobody there actually wants any improvements. The people "above" focus on making money, the people beyond (clients, support department, etc.) just want a working application. And your IT department is between the hammer and the anvil: you can't improve things, because it means the development will slow down and everyone will be angry. And you can't develop at the moment, only type in some code and hope it works. And if there're bugs (there're always bugs), everyone's angry again. I am so glad I dropped the company shortly.
My advice to you: look around. If your state of affairs is completely the same, then, if you really wish to change the situation and "wake up" the team, you should go change the perception of development of everyone else in the company. If you succeed, then you will get a very active and trusting team.

How to wake up a team?


MinionPro on Mac OS X

Question: Has anyone been able to install the MinionPro package on OS X? I usually install (and update) TeX Live through MacPorts and the first package I have ever found that wasn't already included is MinionPro. Googling for this returns me "manual" instructions for a seemingly endeavour of paths, conversions, and failed installations. So I was wondering: am I missing some package already available in MacPorts?
Comment: Firstly, do you have the font Minion Pro? The package only provides support for using the font with LaTeX if you already have it; it doesn't provide the font itself (which is expensive). (Just asking this because it's not always clear from the documentation!) If you do have the font, and installing the package seems cumbersome, you could use XeTeX which can use system fonts directly.
Comment: Yes, I do have Minion Pro installed in my system -- although I honestly don't know how, but I suppose it either came with Adobe InDesign or Microsoft Office.
Answer: By far the easiest way to use the wonderful Minion Pro font (installed on my Mac via Adobe CS4) is with XeTeX as ShreevatsaR suggests.
e.g.
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{xltxtra}
\setromanfont{Minion Pro}

\begin{document}

This can then be compiled with xelatex on the command line, or using the proper setting in TeXShop.
If you prefer to use pdftex then you must install the font in a format that TeX can read (only XeTeX can read the true type font used by modern system software).  This in my experience is a bit of a pain, but is described here: http://www.tug.org/mactex/fonts/fonttutorial-current.html
Comment: That's certainly true, but even under XeTeX, I prefer to go the package route with (and pretty much only with) Minion Pro, since a) the package provides one of the most well thought out, cleanest, richest sets of font access commands of any I've ever encountered (wish all were so good), and b) the package pulls in and integrates seamlessly with `MnSymbol`.
Comment: and microtype is not supported by xelatex, yet.
Comment: Depends on what microtype features you're interested in.  Margin kerning is currently in beta testing see: http://xetex.tk/mediawiki/index.php/Microtype_package_(preliminary_version)
Comment: Fontspec options are quite easy to setup, too.
Answer: Hugo, you say "I do have Minion Pro installed in my system -- although I honestly don't know how, but I suppose it either came with Adobe InDesign or Microsoft Office", however before you can use the Minion Pro OTF fonts on your system, they first need to be converted into Type1 format. I'm guessing you haven't done this yet (please correct me if I'm wrong).  The MinionPro README on CTAN contains the exact instructions you'll need to step through to convert your otf files to pfb, where to place them in your texmf, how to install them, etc. Assuming you've already installed the MinionPro package, the font and map files properly on your system, the main things you'll need to do are:

create a temporary directory
install LCDF Typetools into it (download these from www.lcdf.org/type)
install convert.sh into it (contained in scripts.zip at CTAN, although you probably have downloaded this already)
make a directory under it called otf and copy your Minion Pro otf files there
run convert.sh (this creates a directory called pfb containing your Type1 fonts)
copy your new pfb files into the appropriate place in your texmf
texhash and updmap or their equivalents on your system (see the README)

The number of steps might appear onerous compared to usual one-click package installations, but they're really not too difficult. Just follow them quite precisely and you'll be right.  You'll be rewarded with a very handsome dual-purpose text and math typeface, with the added bonus of the equally handsome and quite complete MnSymbol symbols set at the end.
Comment: @pluton, no, it's not as simple as all that. While this procedure makes the business of `otf`->`pfb` reasonably do-able for moderately competent people, the job only ends at this point for fonts like Minion Pro where some good soul has also put together the associated `afm` (and potentially also the `fd`, `vf`, `map`) and if possible also the `.sty` files. This procedure gives you the `pfb`'s, no more. Anyway, `fontspec` (on the rising stars of XeTeX and LuaTeX but not LaTeX) will probably make this an academic exercise in the end. The days of Type1 fonts look as though they're numbered.
Comment: should not all this procedure already be part of tex distributions such as texlive or miktex? We would just have to transform the otf (when we have them) into pfb fonts and everything else would be already set-up.
Comment: The thing is that I tried to install the MinionPro package today and could get the pfb fonts, and pretty much all the described procedure, on my Miktex distribution. Then, I tried to Latex-compile a minimal example using MinionPro but it could not find some kind of Miktex-makemf.exe or a MinioPro-Regular something font and I could not believe it. In my dreams, we would just have to prove that we own the MinionPro otf fonts and everything else would be ready-to-use.
Answer: I had prepared a certain important document (a couple of hundred pages) using the MinionPro  font a few months back, and I am required to make critical edits to it now. My compile failed today because my current computer, which is a Mac, did not have the MinionPro LaTeX package installed. Googling led me to this page and a couple of others, and thanks to these, I was able to make MinionPro available to pdflatex on my Mac without breaking much of a sweat. Here are the exact steps which I followed, in the hope that they may be useful to someone else in the same predicament. They are based on the MinionPro README.
This set of steps installs the font into a folder in the user's home directory, so these may be useful if you are averse to modifying files in system (i.e, non-home) directories. Also, if you are confused as to which updmap.cfg to edit (there seem to be at least four on my system), then you can try seeing if step 11 below is of use.

Find the Minion Pro font (otf) files on the Mac. These are hidden in the Adobe Reader application image (is that the right word?). Go to Finder -> Applications, open the context menu for "Adobe Reader" (two-click on it), and select "Show package contents". This will mount the image file. The otf files are now available as /Applications/Adobe Reader.app/Contents/Resources/Resource/Font/MinionPro*.otf
The otfinfo command mentioned in the README was already available in my system, so I presumed that LCDF Typetools were already installed (perhaps as part of TexLive?). I ran
$ otfinfo -v /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Resources/Resource/Font/MinionPro-Bold.otf
and got
Version 2.103;PS 2.000;hotconv 1.0.67;makeotf.lib2.5.29150
As per the README, this means that my font version is 002.000. Also, I have only the base weights, and so I downloaded the following files:
scripts.zip
metrics-base.zip
enc-2.000.zip
My TEXMFLOCAL (as found out using kpsexpand '$TEXMFLOCAL') is outside my home  directory (somewhere in /usr/local/...), and so I decided to install the new font into my TEXMFHOME, which is ~/Library/texmf. This directory did not exist, so I created it.
I did Step 1 of the README ...
$ mkdir /tmp/MinionPro
$ cd /tmp/MinionPro
$ unzip ~/Downloads/scripts.zip
... and then Step 2:
$ cp /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Resources/Resource/Font/Minion*otf otf/
And Step 3:
$ ./convert.sh
Then Step 4:
$ mkdir -p ~/Library/texmf/fonts/type1/adobe/MinionPro
$ cp pfb/*.pfb ~/Library/texmf/fonts/type1/adobe/MinionPro
Step 5:
$ cd ~/Library/texmf/
$ unzip ~/Downloads/metrics-base.zip
$ unzip ~/Downloads/enc-2.000.zip
Instead of the remaining steps in the README (which looked scary), I did the following as advised by a discussion on comp.tex.macosx :
$ updmap --enable Map=MinionPro.map

This gave a few lines of output which seemed to indicate that The Right ThingTM was being done, and after this I was able to compile my document using pdflatex as usual.
EDIT: I also came across the issues described here, here and here, and solved them by editing a couple of text files as described in the respective answers.
Comment: Wow! Thanks! Finally I can use MinionPro in LaTeX (XeLaTeX is a bit slow and works somewhat strange with some packages).
Comment: thank you very much. For me it worked all except the step 10. $ updmap --enable Map=MinionPro.map. In order to make that work I had to do 10. cd fonts/map/dvips/MinionPro/ 11. sudo updmap-sys
Answer: There's a new (and maintained) set of scripts for generating Type1 fonts for MinionPro (and, as an added bonus, MyriadPro and CronosPro), which worked well for me.
Answer: In addition to gphilip (answered Mar 12 at 12:45)
I've solved my problem descrived below. First of all it took a few hours to figure out that you must write in terminal the following:
kpsexpand '$TEXMFHOME'

which returns in Windows (from Vista upwards)
Users/USERNAME/texmf

Then the procedure described below goes just perfect, if you follow that route, i.e. cp pfb/*.pfb /Users/USERNAME/texmf/fonts/type1/adobe/MinionPro. With that steps should work fine.
Comment: What means "described below"? Note, that the sorting can manually be changed. You should set a link or say "'s answer". Nevertheless it is not an answer, so I flagged it (I know, your reputation isn't big enough for commenting). And you other "answer" you should delete.
Comment: is in reply to gphilip answered Mar 12 at 12:45
and about my reputation... don't screw me with that... I've spend a lot of time solving that problem and my solution may work for others

MinionPro on Mac OS X


Wood workshop recordings.

Question: I'm going to record a bunch of stuff in a wood workshop this weekend and am preparing a list of what I want to capture. Thought I would throw it out here to see if anyone has any ideas that I might have missed. I know there's table, band and chop saws as well as various hand power tools and a big old chainsaw.
Given a day in a workshop what would you record?
Comment: HUGE +1 for these kinds of posts/offers. This is what makes SSD so valuable. Thanks, @Matthew M!
Answer: One thing that's sorely missing from my library is lumber being stacked, dropped, etc. Would be GREAT if you could record some of that from many different perspectives, close and distant, interior and exterior. And not so that it sounds like a big white-noisy wood crash, but rather to capture that distinctive "pang" (or whatever) that you hear when logs or lumber are impacted.
Comment: Big +1 . Can never seem to find tasty "2x4 drops"
Comment: I'll be sure to add wood drops to the list.
Answer: Very hard to answer just like that, but that gnarly chainsaw would be something I'd put a lot of time into! Actually I recorded about an hour of the same chainsaw myself last time I had the chance at any angle and distance possible...and then I found a brushcutter :-)
Jeez,I get a warm fuzzy feeling just thinking of that wonderful brushcutter!
Anyway, if I where you, I'd prepare on set with a notebook and take a note of absolutely everything I could find. Then I would go through the notes systematically, recording every single piece until I'm good with that, moving on to the next on the list, adding new entries as I found them, but not straying too much from the list if possible as to not risking forgetting something important.
Remember to get every item from as many different positions and distances as possible. It's virtually impossible to predict exactly what you'll need at any given time in the future, so rather much too much than a little too little.
Godu ruku!
Comment: And if that chainsaw also proves to be rusty and worn, and with sub-par muffling, as you said it was old, I'd say you've hit a jackpot there!
Comment: Yeah I'm really hoping the chainsaw is nice and rough.
Answer: jig saw, routers, circular saw, orbital sanders (different grades)
Don't forget manual tools too!  Plane, sandpaper (different grades), files, hammer and chisel.
A wood burning kit if they have one
I'd probably go for more of the manual stuff personaly.
Also, With so many combinations, I would bring along a friend to take good notes.  Write down what type of tool, what brand, etc.  Also mark perspectives and mishaps (no finger misshaps though).  Sometimes it's nice to capture a blade getting jammed.
You'll have quite the catalogue!
Comment: Thanks. I've got stuff for hammering and sandpapering any old time but I don't have planes or chisels so I'll be sure to add those in.
Comment: Let me tag on the importance of recording at the highest resolution possible, since items like hand tools take on an entirely new life when slowed down. I recommend shooting everything at 24b/192k.
Comment: @Matthew I just remembered something I happened to record, a Woodmizer LT15 portable saw mill: http://www.woodmizer.com/us/PortableEquipment/ManualSawmills/LT15Sawmill.aspx

If they have something like it, ask them to fire it up.  The rig itself makes cool squeeks, springs, bangs, it also glides up and down guide rails.  If they don't have one, and you want some sounds for your library, let me know and I'll send you some of what I got.
Answer: I think a lot of the sounds you'll discover when you're there/after you've seen the place rather than planning beforehand (although I do think planning beforehand is vitally important).
Make sure you keep your eyes (and ears) open for anything that looks/sounds interesting, even if it's unrelated to the topic.
Also, when you record it - slate it before/after the recording so you can remember what it is during the editing stage!
Cheers

Wood workshop recordings.


Why don't we strangle with the hands in BJJ

Question: Defences against a standing strangle with the hands AKA 'rape choke' are very commonly practised in self-defence classes yet when I roll with people in BJJ classes nobody ever seems to try it on me. Why is this?
Comment: Primarily because the front trachea choke is so easy to defend against and just ends up giving their opponents their arms. Nobody will use it on you, because they know that it makes them vulnerable. That being said, it should be demonstrated more often in class, just so people can feel what it feels like, should they actually encounter it in real life.
Comment: If you stand it does not work a half-way decent judoka will throw you very quickly. On the ground it does not work either, bjj-people will armbar you.
Answer: Choking with hands wrapped around the throat is not efficient
The goal of chokes in BJJ and judo is to cut off blood to the head at the carotid arteries and jugular veins, which can render a person unconscious in seconds. Cutting off air takes much longer, so blood is strongly preferred. If you are trying to do this with each hand squeezing on both sides of the neck, you have two problems:

You are relying on your hand strength only to apply force to the blood vessels. Direct force from the arms will be into the windpipe, which is not where you want it.
The force applied by your hands is spread over your fingers, reducing pressure on the blood vessels. It does not help to cut off the blood in more than one place; to cut off blood, it is sufficient to have maximum pressure in one place.

Choking with your hands wrapped around the throat is not efficient because your hands are weaker than your arms and body. There are much better options like cross chokes, the rear naked choke, or even choking with knuckles directly on the blood vessels.
Contrast choking with hands wrapped around the throat with:

A gi cross choke. You apply pressure to the blood vessels with the small area of your wrist or forearm. You get leverage from scissoring your arms when applying the choke. Your arms are much stronger than your hands. All of this adds up to much stronger choke.
Choking with knuckles directly on blood vessels (ryote jime)[thanks to Philip Klöcking]. By using the knuckles instead of the surface of the fingers, the pressure on the blood vessels increases. You can adjust the angle of your arms to directly apply pressure on the blood vessels, either with your arms, or ideally with your body weight.
Comment: ryu-te jime can be effective in no gi bjj, i.e. simply by pressing the fists together when being in a good position (hands near hips). This actually chokes less experienced guys out at times. But that's the only thing I can think of.
Answer: (A bit of a frame-inversion here - I'm answering "why do we learn this if it's not useful when we roll" instead of "why don't people do this when we roll")
This is typically not being taught as a defense against a "trained" opponent, nor a "sports" defense for rolling with people in class or tournaments.
This is often being taught as "combat" self-defense against an opponent (usually untrained) who is intending you serious harm.  For example, as you said, "rape choke".
Martial Arts originated as self-defense, not as a sport, and as such some techniques you learn will fit in one of those buckets but scarcely feature in the other.


Adequate replacement for / in URLs

Question: Quick one.
I'm using mod rewrite and have most replacements in place:

empty space = _
æ = ae
Æ = ae

and so on.
What would be the natural replacement character for /?
Thanks
Answer: The underscore is considered as a word character, so foo_bar is one word and not two words. But the hyphen is not considered as a word character, so foo-bar is two words.
So you should use the hypen - wherever you want to separate two parts and the underscore _ wherever you want to connect two parts. In the case of / that is used to separate, I would prefer the hypen -.
Comment: Problem is hypen (-) are used like this: "Big ball - supersports". So it would collide with that.
Comment: @Cudos: So you're converting that into `Big_ball_-_supersports`? Why not into `Big-ball-supersports`?
Comment: Because I use php to search for the name in my database. So each character has to be converted back to the original character else no match will be found.
Comment: @Cudos: Why don't you store that URL part in an extra column? That's at least how most do it.
Comment: Hmmm.. Interesting. Havn't thought about that. Will see if I can re-work my existing code. thanks.
Answer:

Æ = ae

You don't necessarily need to do that. You can put non-ASCII Unicode characters in a URL just as UTF-8 encoded bytes. So:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86

displays in browsers as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æ

and either can be pasted into the address bar.
Space and slash can be encoded as %20 and %2F. However, those forms do still appear as percents in the browser, because they're otherwise reserved characters. So they don't look quite as pretty. There is an additional problem with %2F in that traditional scripting environments based around CGI can't read them, and Apache by default deliberately blocks them to stop such scripts getting confused and leaving security holes.
So I make title slugs by removing completely:
# % ' ( ) ? [ ] (U+00AD soft hyphen)

along with any control characters (U+0000 to U+001F except U+00A0, and U+007F to U+00BF). Then replacing any run of:
" $ & * + , / : ; < = > @ \ ^ (U+0020 space) (U+000A newline)

with a single underscore. This removes the necessity for a %xx sequence to appear in the URL. (For Unicode characters there will still be %xx sequences, but the user won't see them.)
You can use hyphen instead of underscore if you prefer, whichever is prettier. Search engines should be fine with either.
eta re comment on other answer:

Because I use php to search for the name in my database. So each character has to be converted back to the original character else no match will be found.

In that case you can't do anything unrecoverable to the characters, though. You can't change 'Æ' to 'ae', spaces must be encoded as '%20' and slashes as '%2F'. This will result in slightly ugly URLs, and the '%2F' will give you deployment problems on Apache and IIS.
If you need to key solely on a title you'll need to add a (UNIQUE indexed) column on the processed slug to look up, as suggested above. However note that you then can't rename/correct a page title, as it will change the slug, breaking the URL.
A common approach to get around this is to include a numeric ID in addition to the slug (see, for example, how SO does it). You can also 301-redirect where the slug name is wrong for optimal SEO.
Answer: I would use a dash - as Google separates words like this for SEO purposes, or even an underscore _ as these are both prefect for readability.
Comment: Problem is hypen (-) are used like this: "Big ball - supersports". So it would collide with that.

Adequate replacement for / in URLs


Open data in US which can provide with live traffic?

Question: Is there any open source dataset I can use for my project about live traffic data?
So that I can visualize something like shown in this visual-link

I found the data in the same domain at this data-link
I guess this uses Waze Jam Data, If not I couldn't download the data from data-link.

Is There any alternative dataset I can use? preferably live traffic data.

In these datasets I found there is the UUID encoded location. How can I decode or how can I use in my application?
Say I'm using Tableau for this.
Comment: Tableau is not open source, doesn't use an open format, from what I've heard does accessibility really poorly. For a split-second, I debated whether to even answer this, because you are using it and posting here.
I do and must, again, its not open at all. If you'd like to hear about possible open source/code/format/data solutions to replace Tableau, feel free to reach out here.
Answer: Does transit count as traffic?
GTFS transit feeds for most of the US can be found at Transit feeds
I'm not sure what UUID is, I'm assuming its the id for each point on that map; the data-link you specified shows the data promptly on screen after pageload.
Its the tabular data, four columns wide, depth running below the fold. UUID is one column header, looks like lat/lon are two more.
That's a geocoded CSV...you should be good to go.


How does Lenny know about the name John G?

Question: In the movie Memento, is there any mention about how Lenny narrowed the second attacker's name to be John G? In short, how does Lenny know that he's looking for someone with the name John G?
Comment: Are you asking how he knows the name "John G" during the events of the film, or how did he originally get that name in the first place?  For the former question, I'm pretty sure he had it tattooed on his body somewhere, and I don't think the movie shows us the latter case.  He had already gotten the tattoo and subsequently forgotten that information within the scope of the film.
Comment: Ah yes, the latter @Steve-O.
Answer: My understanding is that there was no second attacker. Having already killed the man who attacked his wife, with Teddy's help, Leonard invented a second attacker so that he could continue his hunt, as it was the only thing giving his life meaning.
The implication is that Leonard chose the name "John G" to be deliberately vague, to make it easier to find potential targets. IIRC, Teddy specifically calls him out on this during the big reveal, saying something like, "There's a thousand 'John G's out there! Hell, I'm 'John G'!" This ends up being a factor in Leonard choosing Teddy as his next target.
Comment: I thought that's what the cops thought. If there was no second attacker, how would Lenny have gotten attacked with a sap in the back of head in the first place? Lenny had a gun, so either he used the gun first on the attacker or the attacker hit him first. We already know that Lenny shot the attacker. No second attacker wouldn't explain how Lenny got attacked and hence developed his short-term memory problem. No? @F1Krazy


HP Pavilion battery charging "bolt" LED light flashing at 82%

Question: A few days ago, my HP Pavilion dv-1413us battery charging "bolt" LED light started flashing and it would not charge the battery until full (stops at 94%). I unpluged it and used battery, and now it only charges to 82%. What is wrong with it? I've tried the power reset here, but it still wouldn't charge fully. Please help!
Answer: It sounds like your battery has built up a memory. It will continue to degrade until it will not hold a charge. Your best and most likely only option is to replace the battery.


Asymptotics of products of primes

Question: Let $P(n)=\{p \leq n: p\text{ is prime} \}$. For given $N$ and $n$, what's a good approximation for $|S(N,n)|$, where $S(N,n)=\{x<N: \forall p\text{ prime, s.t. }p|x \to p \in P(n) \}$. In other words, how to approximate how many numbers $<N$ have only primes from $P(n)$ in their factorization?
Comment: See http://math.stackexchange.com/q/122692/1778 which is very similar.
Answer: My previous answer was to a misreading of the question. Here is a similar aswer to the correct question. Once again, let $N=n^u$. The number of integers $<N$ with all prime factors $<n$ is approximately $\rho(u) N$, where $\rho(u)$ is Dickman's function.
For $0 \leq u \leq 1$, we clearly have $\rho(u)=1$.
For $1 \leq u \leq 2$, the number of integers which do NOT have the desired property is $\sum_{n \leq p \leq N} \lfloor N/p \rfloor$, where the variable $p$ runs over primes in the indicated range. One can justify turning the sum into an integral and discarding the greatest integer function:
$$\int_{p=n}^N \frac{N}{p} \frac{dp}{\log p} = \int_{x=1/u}^1 \frac{N}{N^x} \frac{(\log N)  N^x dx}{x \log N} = N \int_{x=1/u}^1 \frac{dx}{x} = N \log u.$$
In the first equality, we set $p  =N^x$.
So the number of integers which do have the desired property is roughly $N - N \log u$, and $\rho(u) = 1-\log u$.
For $u$ in higher ranges, one has to worry about double counting, plus the integrals very quickly become undoable. The Wikipedia page is pretty good, so I'll stop here.
Answer: ADDED Oops! I thought you wanted all prime divisors of $N$ to be $>n$, not $<n$, and that is what the answer below addresses. For your question, there is a similar answer involving Dickman's function, which I have now added as a separate answer.
Fix a constant $u >1 $ and let $N = n^u$. As $n \to \infty$, we have
$$|S(N,n)| \sim \omega(u) \frac{N}{\log n}.$$
where $\omega$ is Buchstab's function. Buchstab's function is piecewise smooth, with singularities at the integers. I'll work out some special values of $u$ below:

If $1< u < 2$, then $|S(N,n)|$ is the number of primes between $N$ and $n$, so $\pi(N) - \pi(n)$. The first term is much larger than the second, so
$$|S(N,n)| \sim \pi(N) \sim \frac{N}{\log N} = \frac{1}{u} \frac{N}{\log n}.$$
So $\omega(u)=1/u$ for $1 < u <2$.
If $2 < u < 3$, then $S(N,n)$ has two kinds of elements in it: Primes between $N$ and $n$, and products $pq$ of two primes with $p<q$, $p$ and $q > n$ and $pq<N$. Note that $p$ is necessarily $\leq N^{1/2}$. So
$$|S(N,n)| =\pi(N)- \pi(n) + \sum_{p \ \mathrm{prime}, n < p < N^{1/2}} \left( \pi(N/p) - \pi(p) \right).$$
Again, the second $\pi$ term in each expression is negligible.
Using the prime number theorem and being non-rigorous, we expect
$$|S(N,n)| \approx \frac{N}{\log N} + \int_{p=n}^{N^{1/2}} \frac{N/p}{\log (N/p)} \frac{dp}{\log p}.$$
Put $p = N^x$, the integral is
$$\int_{1/u}^{1/2} \frac{N^{1-x}}{(1-x) \log N} \frac{\log N \cdot N^x dx}{x \log N} = \int_{1/u}^{1/2} \frac{N dx}{x (1-x) \log N}$$
$$=\frac{N}{\log N} \log(u-1) = \frac{\log(u-1)}{u} \frac{N}{\log n}.$$
So $\omega(u) = 1/u + \log(u-1)/u$ for $2 < u <3$ (if I didn't screw up the integral).
For $3< u < 4$, a similar analysis gives an integral which can't be done in closed form, and for $u>4$, you wind up with integrals of those integrals which can't be done in closed form. But this should give you the idea.
When $u$ is very large, we have
$$|S(N,n)| \approx N \prod_{p < n} (1-1/p) \sim N \cdot e^{- \gamma}/\log n$$
by Merten's theorem. So $\omega(u) \to e^{- \gamma}$ as $u \to \infty$.
Comment: Maybe I'm misreading, but didn't the original question ask about numbers with only *small* prime factors (so Dickman's $\rho$-function), as opposed to only *large* prime factors (where Buchstab's $\omega$-function appears)?
Comment: You are right. I misread. Would you like to write up the Dickman's function explanation?
Comment: Maybe I can convince you to edit yours instead :) Thanks!

Asymptotics of products of primes


I need to know the names of the angels and their actions in Buddhism

Question: I have a research and I need to know all the names of angels in different religions and their actions, and since I am an Arab, my sources are not enough and I need the names of the angels in Buddhism
Answer: There is no matching concept for the Abrahamic angelic doctrine, because the existence of god(s) is quite irrelevant to the goal of Buddhism: enlightenment, which can only be gained through personal experience.
The only two concepts that could be confused with angels are devas (the same root as our word "divine") and bodhisattvas. However they differ in a number of key properties with the idea of angels.
A deva in Buddhism is one of many different types of non-human beings who share the godlike characteristics of being more powerful, longer-lived, and, in general, much happier than humans, although the same level of veneration is not paid to them as to buddhas (humans). However, they are still mortal and unenlightened. In Buddhism, the human form is the primary form for attainment.
Bodhisattvas in most schools of Mahayana Buddhism are humans who attained enlightenment, but chose not to enter Nirvana, but go back into the world to help other beings gain attainment.
Comment: There are also brahmas.
Comment: A brahma is a deva in the heavenly realms of Saṃsāra
Answer: Possibly the most important angel (deva) in Buddhism is Brahmā Sahampati, who urged the newly awakened Buddha to teach (after the Buddha made the decision to not teach people).

Then, bhikkhus, the Brahmā Sahampati knew with his mind the thought in
my mind and he considered: 'The world will be lost, the world will
perish, since the mind of the Tathāgata, accomplished and fully
enlightened, inclines to inaction rather than to teaching the Dhamma.'
Then, just as quickly as a strong man might extend his flexed arm or
flex his extended arm, the Brahmā Sahampati vanished in the
Brahma-world and appeared before me. He arranged his upper robe on one
shoulder, and extending his hands in reverential salutation towards
me, said: 'Venerable sir, let the Blessed One teach the Dhamma, let
the Sublime One teach the Dhamma. There are beings with little dust in
their eyes who are wasting through not hearing the Dhamma. There will
be those who will understand the Dhamma.'
MN 26
Answer: Check out sn11.3;

"Monks, I shall relate a former incident. There arose a battle between the Devas (gods) and Asuras. Then Sakka, the Lord of the devas, addressed the devas of the Tavatimsa heaven thus:
"'Happy ones, if the devas who have gone to the battle should experience fear or terror or suffer from hair standing on end, let them behold the crest of my own banner. If you do so, any fear, terror or hair standing on end arising in you will pass away.
"'If you fail to look up to the crest of my banner, look at the crest of the banner of Pajapati, King of gods. If you do so, any fear, terror or hair standing on end arising in you will pass away.
"'If you fail to look up to the crest of Pajapati, King of the gods, look at the crest of the banner of Varuna, King of the gods. If you do so, any fear, terror or hair standing on end arising in you will pass away.'

There are several stories about the actions of Sakka and a whole collection of texts is dedicated to him , it's called Sakkasamyutta found in the Samyutta Nikaya of the Sutta Pitaka.
There are many names of gods in the Atanatiya Sutta;
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.32.0.piya.html
There are several dialogues in which devas participate in the https://suttacentral.net/sn1 Devata Samyutta
Also in https://suttacentral.net/sn2 Devaputta Samyutta
Also many are scattered throughout the other collections.
There are many stories about various non-humans who do things, too many to list here and you can definitely add more details as to narrow it down as to your interest.
Here is a good one;

Then the Ajakalāpaka spirit — wanting to cause fear, terror, & horripilation in the Blessed One — went to him and, on arrival, not far from him, three times made a commotion & pandemonium: "Commotion & pandemonium! Commotion & pandemonium! Commotion & pandemonium! — That's a goblin for you, contemplative!"
Then, on realizing the significance of that, the Blessed One on that occasion exclaimed:
When,
with regard to his own qualities,[1]
a brahman is one
who has gone beyond,
he transcends this goblin
and his pandemonium.

There are several which name a spirit in a similar context.
If you want to list all Buddhist deities it is a lot of work as there are many deities and many schools of Buddhism which often have different deities and sometimes use different names for those that are common.
Answer: How are you doing with the Abrahamic angels? I wrote a post about angels, outlining how that word is from the Greek for messenger, and in Christian theology they are a job rather than a specific type or groups of being - angels are messengers and agents of divinity: are-angels-rational-or-irrational-beings There are various heavenly beings like cherubim, seraphim & orephim, which can act as angels. But so can humans, or their manifestations as humans.
By this understanding of angels as the messengers or agents of the divine plan, in Mahayana Buddhism (Chinese, Korean, Japanes & Tibetan) the equivalent are bodhisattvas.
The oldest and most widespread boddhisattva venerated across the Mahayana world is Manjushri, bodhisattva of transcendent wisdom. His attribute is said to be a 'diamond sword', for cutting attachments.
The second most widespread, is Avalokitesvara bodhisattva of compassion, who is said to embody the compassion of all Buddhas, and who's attribute is to be present in 'the thousand hands and eyes of compassion', so is often represented with many arms and a tower of heads.
After these, the schools differ.
In China, Korea, and Japan, it would be Ksitigharba bodhisattva, 'earth store bodhisattva', who's attribute is a lantern staff to break down the doors of hell.
In Tibetan Buddhism it would be Vajrapani, protector of Buddhas and manifestor of their power, who's attribute is the vajra or lightning-hammer, representing both sudden insight and power, and also called 'bodhisattva of secrets' as guardian of the initiate tantra paths.
There are a number of others, but I would describe these as the leading ones, with the widest observences & prayers to. They have different names in each different language, so I have just given the Sanskrit.


Where to find a training partner for home based practicing?

Question: I'm interested in trying to find a training partner in my area to practice at my house. I am strapped for cash and time so martial arts gyms are out for right now. However, I have everything necessary to train at home (multiple sets of pads and mitts, heavy bag, room to train). Ideally I'd like to find someone with a certain degree of knowledge and skill in stand up and ground game, as I do. I really don't want to have to teach someone. My question is, where should I look for a training partner online/offline? I checked craigslist but didn't see any posts that were relevant.
Comment: @JohnP: Fair enough. It is a bad question regardless as it shows no prior research whatsoever and it can be answer trivially by a simple Google search. I know that "LMGTFY" links are frowned upon but really we **do** ask for a minimum of research before asking a question. How hard is it to look for gyms/dojo where one lives that (i) practice the arts you want to learn and (ii) do private tuition?
Comment: @Sardathrion I don't see how this is too localized. No part of the question that pertains to any specific locality. The questioner's house could just as easily be someone else's house. Methods for finding training partners should be reusable.
Comment: I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it shows no prior research whatsoever.
Comment: @mattm: Possibly not "too localized" but *as it stands, it is still a terrible question.*
Comment: You should take the [tour](http://martialarts.stackexchange.com/tour) to see how this site works.
Comment: @Sardathrion - Too localized hasn't been a close reason for some time.
Comment: @Sardathrion - Agreed.
Comment: @JohnP: Apparently "too localized" is a reason not to ask questions: [Recommendations for schools or teachers in area X (too localized)](http://martialarts.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic). So, [off to meta…](http://meta.martialarts.stackexchange.com/q/451/82)
Comment: @Sardathrion - I would imagine that that was done when the site got its moderators way back when, and that was still a valid close reason.
Answer: Aside from meetup sites, you may want to consider also considering if local gyms have bulletin boards or forums you can use.  You might not be able to always get out to the gyms, but some of the people going to the gyms might have the time to get to you - and they might be looking for someone with good skills as well.
That said, the hard reality is you may HAVE to spend a little time doing teaching depending on where you live and the general "density" of skilled folks around.  There might be someone with good ground game but not standing, or vice versa - and you'll have to do a little bit of helping them get their skills up to be worth practicing with.
The unfortunate reality is that this is part of what you end up paying teachers/trainers/coaches for - having someone around who is skilled and trained enough to help you push past your limits.  The better you get, the less folks you're going to find who fit that bill.
So you basically end up with a choice - is it better to take the time to get someone up to where it helps you to train with them, or do you solo train until you can find someone who is already at that level and logistically available?
Answer: Gracie garage can be an option as well. People register their residence as a meetup for practicing bjj.
https://www.gracieuniversity.com/students.aspx?enc=HST8o1nQgbBCO5J0PXPkTQ%3d%3d
Answer: Have you looked at sites like Meetup.com? They have a martial arts section. There's also Fitlink or, if you're looking for other sorts of partners, fitness-singles.com. Honestly, if you type in "martial arts training partners" into Google, you'll get a number of results.
Comment: Was adding the dating site URL as a joke too far? Otherwise, using things like Meetup.com and Fitlink seems like his best bet.
Answer: It depends if your goal is to screw around or learn and improve at fighting.
If you want to just screw around go ahead and find someone on Craigslist or whatever. You will not improve by just winging it with some randoms, but if you're just trying to have some fun, go for it. Try not to kill eachother.
If your goal is to learn and improve as a figher/martial artist, you will need legitimate instruction, and structured, full contact sparring. I assume because you even asked this question that you are inexperienced. Save your pennies and join an MMA gym. You will get more out of a month of legitimate training than you will from years of messing around in your garage. I can promise you that.
What to do in the mean time while you're saving? Lift weights. Exercise. Play other sports that rely on explosive movements, balance, and agility (basketball, etc.), or whatever you think is fun. Just stay active so your body is ready to be broken down by martial arts training.


What happens if a player makes an illegal move and nobody notices?

Question: What happens if a player makes an illegal move (i.e. a realistic case could be, he castles after he already moved the King), but none of the player notices, and the game goes on and on for a lot of moves? Is the final result to be taken as valid? On another note, what happens if a player, after some moves, realizes that, say, move 10 was illegal, and could not be made?
Comment: Related, although asked about blitz & bullet - https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/181/i-made-an-illegal-move-what-happens
Answer: The FIDE laws of chess state:

If during a game it is found that an illegal move, including failing
  to meet the requirements of the promotion of a pawn or capturing the
  opponent's king, has been completed, the position immediately before
  the irregularity shall be reinstated. If the position immediately
  before the irregularity cannot be determined the game shall continue
  from the last identifiable position prior to the irregularity. The
  clocks shall be adjusted according to Article 6.13. The Articles 4.3
  and 4.6 apply to the move replacing the illegal move. The game shall
  then continue from this reinstated position.

So basically the game should be reverted to before that move, using the game record.
Edit: These are for standard play. Other time controls have different rules, and although most national federations basically just apply the FIDE rules, they can sometimes be different.
Comment: No. The rule applies only to games in progress (including adjudication), except I believe if the illegal move was the final move.

It would be interesting to know if anybody has used this rule as a mulligan in case the game doesn't go their way, to be able to revert back to an earlier point.
Comment: So if the game has ended, it should be repeated from that move?
Comment: Interesting. Once in a tournament, I was in check, but neither of us noticed. Then, my opponent noticed and we didn't know what to do, so we called a staff over. The staff said once a move is done and the next person moves then you can't go back. This was repeated by my chess coach. We both had our notation. However, once, I made an illegal move in a chess tournament and my opponent saw and called the director over and I had to redo the move. He said there is a rule where 3 illegal moves and you lose. We also weren't playing with time.


WordPress is automatically linking plain text email addresses

Question: I'm using the latest version of WordPress (3.1.1). Is it just me, or is WordPress now automatically linking plain-text email addresses?
I type firstname.lastname@example.com as a comment and it shows up as firstname.lastname@example.com
I am working on a plugin that filters comment text using the get_comment_text filter and then subsequently modifies the presentation of the email address. This plugin worked fine before, but like I said, now WordPress automatically links email addresses.
I figured that WordPress would follow its own rules and do it by means of a filter, so I went ahead and added a priority level to my own filter of 9000 figuring that way I can force mine to trigger after WordPress is done sticking its nose in something that's not its business, but this did not work.
I'm wondering if anyone here knows a way around this situation, or at the very least, if someone knowledgeable about the system could point me to the source that is responsible for this automatic linking.
My plugin already has the functionality to work with plain-text emails, but this too is broken because after it modifies the presentation of the plain-text email, WordPress then goes and linkifies it.
EDIT: One Trick Poney pointed me to make_clickable which is responsible for this. It's indeed added as a filter in wp-includes/default-filters.php, with a priority of 9. However, I have already tried, like I mentioned above, to set the priority level to 9000 to make my plugin work after WordPress has done its dirty business. This didn't work, is it because I'm getting the original unfiltered content? I figured I would be getting the filtered content (i.e. the content already linked).
So then I went ahead and activated the plain-text filter (which applies to plain-text emails), and applied it a priority of -9000 so that it gets in before make_clickable, but again nothing good came of this because when make_clickable did fire, it went ahead and figured it'd be a good idea to linkify the links I create. It 'linkifies' the urls in the href attribute of a link, making for very messy output.
So it seems that the best thing to do would be to get in after wordpress has done its business, after make_clickable has fired, but like I said for some reason even though I apply my filter a priority level of 9000, compared to make_clickable whose priority level is only 9, nothing seems to happen. I will continue to investigate.
I can understand and imagine that WordPress devs were trying to be more user-friendly, but this seems to have caused some edge-case problems (ex. linkifying href attributes in already-existing links).
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT 2: Yep, I just tested my filter with a priority level of 9000, which I would imagine should run after WordPress ' make_clickable whose priority level is 9. My filter gets the unaltered/unfiltered content. I don't know how or why this is happening. I would have imagined that having a later priority I would get the content as it had so far been altered by higher-priority filters, otherwise situations like these (collisions?) would arise, like this one.
Comment: it's the `make_clickable` filter applied to comment_text. add your filter with `-9000` priority or something like that
Comment: Thanks One Trick Pony I appreciate it! I was just finding out that it's not limited to email addresses, that it also applies to URLs. I'll investigate. If it works out I'll let you know in case you want to make this an answer.
Comment: I've added more information to my post in case you might have any ideas.
Answer: I noticed that wordpress' make_clickable filter was attached to the comment_text filter hook and not get_comment_text, which is what I have been using for a while. I had researched earlier if this may be the case, specifically figuring out what the difference was between the two, and I think I read something about comment_text using get_comment_text, so maybe it was doing something more than once, resulting in the weird output I found.
I solved this by changing my filter to hook onto comment_text instead, that way the priority would matter (duh), and kept my filter's priority level of 9000. Preliminary tests show everything to be working. This way I don't have to worry about wordpress modifying my output in unpredictable ways, instead I can just bother working with what wordpress vomits out. At least that way I know what I can work with and what I can't work with.
Thanks again to one trick pony for giving me a lead.
Comment: i don't think there's a hook called `get_comment_text` :)


Is this a clog, or poor plumbing?

Question: Our basement washroom shower started overflowing. It happens when we use the sink for longer than 30 seconds and when we use the shower. It will over flow, then slowly drain. We have tried snaking from the sink and the shower drain but the snake pops up clean in the opposite drain(from sink to shower drain and vise versa) It never used to do this in the years past. Is there anyway to fix this problem?
Answer: Sounds like your sewer line is clogged.  Call a plumber for this one, they have the long snake and the power to eat through things like tree roots.
Answer: Could also be a stopped up vent. There should be a vent pipe in one of the shower walls running straight and emerging on the roof. If you can get up there, you could snake a water hose down into the vent, turn on the water and blast out any blockage.

Is this a clog, or poor plumbing?


Is this true that the requirement to sacrifice to the Roman gods was put in by the Caesar only after Christianity emerged?

Question: Is this true that the requirement to worship and to sacrifice to the Roman gods was put in by the Caesar only after Christianity emerged? I just encountered a statement that this requirement was put in by the Caesar as a response to Christians' being too aggressive (like they were attacking other temples and harassed the worshipers in them). Is this true? If yes, can you, please, provide some source.
Comment: @MonsterTruck, it seems clear that he's using "Caesar" as a title, not a particular individual.
Comment: @MonsterTruck - "... or the text where you encountered this statement" - I have encountered this statement here on this site (please, see Anixx's comments under his answer) http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/3164/what-was-the-origin-of-religious-tolerance-in-europe I'm sorry I don't have any precise information, but I think it's not so hard to guess who were the Caesars during the time when Christianity came about - I think it should be one of these ones: Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, Trajan.
Answer: Yes. It was Decius. But I cannot say if it was because Christians were being too aggressive. It could have been an attempt to gain public acceptance.

All the inhabitants of the empire were required to sacrifice before
  the magistrates of their community 'for the safety of the empire' by a
  certain day (the date would vary from place to place and the order may
  have been that the sacrifice had to be completed within a specified
  period after a community received the edict). When they sacrificed
  they would obtain a certificate (libellus) recording the fact that
  they had complied with the order. That is, the certificate would
  testify the sacrificant's loyalty to the ancestral gods and to the
  consumption of sacrificial food and drink as well as the names of the
  officials who were overseeing the sacrifice.

But the sacrifice test had been in use since long before Decius. For more details see this document by de Ste. Croix.
It must be kept in mind that in ancient Rome sacrifices were quite common for both personal and imperial purposes. Sacrifice contracts "negotiated" with the Gods were fairly elaborate and would run into pages (or rather scrolls/tablets). Some of these contracts required subjects/citizens to sacrifice regularly for the well being of the army (and later the Princeps --or Caesar).
However, there is a link between sacrifices and prosecution of Christians. See Pliny's letter to Trajan for an example. As Pliny's letter indicates, prosecution does not seem to have been driven by the state but by the people --someone had had to be accused before being tried. In practise however one cannot rule out accusations coming from powerful state officials who wanted public approval.
The letter also gives us some insight into the trial. The accused was asked to denounce Christ and confirm Roman religion by offering incense and food to the Emperor.
As de Ste. Croix outlines --such trials frequently involved sacrificing to the gods (and not necessarily in the emperor's name). But it was not warranted by law and seems to have had been a legal argument to strengthen the accusation.
Decius however made sacrifice mandatory with his edict of 250 A.D.


Dictionary items editable in experience editor?

Question: Anyone know if there is any easy way of making a dictionary item editable in experience editor could be using glass or not?
I've seen some examples where custom pipelines have been built but wondering if there is any easier way.
thanks
Comment: http://jockstothecore.com/editable-dictionary-items-2/ maybe this one is helping you
Comment: I wanted to do this and when I looked into it I couldn't find anything anyone has done before so we shelved it for the project I'm currently working on as we didn't have enough time to do it from scratch. I do know someone who says they have done it though so I could give them a nudge and see if they can share what they did.
Comment: @SitecoreClimber that would be my recommended approach as well, but I think the OP is specifically looking for a way to do this without writing custom pipelines.
Comment: Diego, can you clarify your post a bit? Do you just not want to write a "custom pipeline" or is it "custom processors" for existing pipelines as well that you don't want to write? I may have mistakenly inferred that you didn't want to write any custom processors when I read your original post.
Comment: I used pipelines because this is pretty much what my searches were suggesting. My original idea is: is there a way of editing in experience editor a dictionary without writting custom code? that's the main point. I know I can write them but wondering if Sitecore wouldn't have something for us to use out of the box since Dictionaries date from Sitecore 6.X as far as I recall
Comment: There's nothing OOTB. One consideration: What are you editing? Sitecore Dictionary allows fallback between dictionaries - sometimes you you be editing a domain dictionary, sometimes the fallback. Something to keep in mind.
Comment: Thanks jammykam. it's a single dictionary with just a few entries
Answer: As jammykam has said above I'm not aware of any OOTB way of doing this, despite dictionaries being part of Sitecore for quite some time.
I spoke to a friend who has implemented this and I thought they wrote something from scratch, but apparently they based it on the blogpost above mentioned by Sitecore Climber: http://jockstothecore.com/editable-dictionary-items-2/.
I am not sure of the changes that were made to the code for the project they used it on (or if they will be able to share it) but reading over that blog post it is definitively a good start.
A few things to consider here though:

This blog post is a prototype solution and so will need some refactoring and testing.
The dictionary item returned to the Experience Editor may be a fallback dictionary instead of a domain dictionary if you have fall-back enabled (this may cause you permissions problems or editors some confusion)
You may need to do some work around clearing the dictionary cache after saving and publishing to see dictionary changes.

Other Options:
There is another idea here from Murali Tiruppathi that is less complex. It came from the original SDN forum post that lead to the jockstothecore blog post above being written (https://sdn.sitecore.net/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=71225):
Normally you do a sitecore translate for example:
@Sitecore.Globalization.Translate.Text("EmailForm.Validation.CCBCC")

You can encapsulate the Translate to a custom class which might look like:
public static class CustomTranslate
{
    public static string Text(string key)
    {
        if (Sitecore.Context.PageMode.IsPageEditorEditing)
        {
            Item currentItem = Context.Database.GetItem(ResourcesController.ItemLookUp()[key]);
            if (currentItem != null)
            {
                return FieldRenderer.Render(currentItem, "Phrase");
            }
        }

        return Sitecore.Globalization.Translate.Text(key);
    }
}

The CustomTranslate.Text returns a FieldRenderer in PageEdit mode else returns the Sitecore.Globalization.Translate.Text
Then in your code you can refer the translations as:
@CustomTranslate.Text("EmailForm.Validation.CCBCC")

The Lookup can be a dictionary of Key and Item ID:
public static class ResourceController
{

    public static Dictionary ItemLookUp()
    {
        ///get dictionary path..etc.. code not included

        Sitecore.Data.Items.Item[] items = Sitecore.Context.Database.SelectItems("fast:" + dictionaryPath + "//*[@@templateid='{6D1CD897-1936-4A3A-A511-289A94C2A7B1}']");
        items.All(y => { resourceDictionary.Add(y["Key"], y.ID.Guid.ToString()); return true;}

        return resourceDictionary;
    }
}

Again this code will likely need some refactoring, for example:
Sitecore.Context.PageMode.IsPageEditorEditing

Should now be this in 8+:
Sitecore.Context.PageMode.IsExperienceEditorEditing

Doing this via Pipelines is probably a nicer and cleaner way of doing this though.
If I get chance to use this on the current project I'm on i'll try and share the production ready code. We already have a custom translate class in place to handle empty or missing dictionary items gracefully so Murali's approach would be easier for us to implement.
Comment: This is how I would have approached it as well. But again, the `dictionaryPath` is fixed, you'd need to replicate the `getTranslation` pipeline to deal with fallback... but maybe that's fine and you *only* want users to edit the local dictionary and you can the use the `domainDictionary` settings from `sites`.
Comment: IMO the logic in `CustomTranslate.Text() `is flawed. If `IsPageEditorEditing` and returned `ItemLookUp` is null then it should return `Translate.Text(key)` not empty string i.e.the standard dictionary value which is non-editable. I've updated the code snippet to reflect this (feel free to roll it back if you think this is wrong). Not doing this means it will not show the fallback dictionary text in Edit mode.
Comment: Great answer and much cleaner than the one I provided. If I am reading it correctly, it looks like this would even support the OOTB dictionary caching mechanism! I also agree that pipelines are the way to go, when possible :) +1
Comment: Good to see this agreement on this as another approach. I'd like to try it if I get chance and test it on a production instance. In our case we would only want users to edit their domain dictionary as we have 6 sites running under one Sitecore instance and a Global dictionary as a fall-back for all Sites. Content editors don't have permissions to edit the default dictionary so I'd need to think about how to handle that and get the dictionary path based on the Site being edited.
Comment: Great thanks @jammykam. Appreciate the feedback on this. I'd like to test this out properly at some point soon and if I do i'll post updated code.
Answer: Using the Sitecore Dictionary
Unfortunately, custom pipelines and the like are really the only way to go for this on, AFAIK.
Sitecore.Globalization.Translate, the method for rendering out a dictionary item's value, does not run through the Field Render pipeline. As such, custom logic must be written to allow editing of the dictionary item in the Experience Editor and to actually manage the saving of the value.
Writing a Custom Sitecore Dictionary
An alternative option, though it doesn't directly answer your question, would be to create your own custom Sitecore dictionary. You would create the necessary templates, and you could write a custom MvcHelper (or control, if using webforms) to retrieve and render the value of the item by name, path, etc. Basically, you could either write access logic to mimic the OOTB Sitecore Dictionary, or you could write your own, more robust access logic. This would allow you to render your dictionary item field values the same way as you would fields of other items, thus making it possible to edit them in the Experience Editor with the same requirements and limitations as any other item.
IMHO, the biggest negative is that you would lose the benefit of Sitecore's Dictionary caching, but you could always add your own caching to help speed things along. An alternative to implementing custom caching could be to create a rendering specifically for Dictionary entries. Your custom MvcHelper/Control would then be responsible for rendering the component with the appropriate Dictionary entry as its datasource. You could then enable HTML caching for the site, set the rendering to Cacheable and set its caching to Vary by data.
Comment: thanks Zachary I suspect you are right too. Will leave the question open for now to see if anyone know