How is the opening quote from movie Apocalypto related to the movie?

Question: Before starting of the movie "Apocalypto" it shows the quote:

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. - Will Durant

How is it related to the movie itself?
Answer: Well, I believe that this is attributed to many of the great civilizations decaying from within that contributed to the eventual fall of said civilization.  There is a lot of evidence that the Maya empire was near the brink of collapse before the Spanish came (due to famine, overpopulation in specific cities, fighting among social classes, etc.).  You can see many of these factors throughout the movie, not to mention the actual "harvesting" of people used for sacrifices that many "Spiritual Leaders" thought could help out these situations.
Comment: Really, the Maya "empire" never really was such, since the Mayan civilization tended towards a number of separate states rather than centralizing authority or control, and in any event had largely fallen centuries before the Spanish arrived (though the Spanish did conquer the few remaining Mayan cities left when they got there). You are probably thinking of the Aztec empire, which truly was imperial, and also much more vital than the remnants of the Maya. (Though of course both civilizations were never truly ended, and both continue to exist culturally and linguistically.)
Answer: Hmmm well civilization wouldn't define the tribe that was the one that Jaguar Paw lived in, but rather the conquering Mayans with temples, sacrifices, forced slavery, and sport killings. In other words there were two sides of the natives shown in the movie, the hunter gatherer types and the city state civilization type. One was altruistic, family, mythological, and headed by elders and shamans. The other was hierarchical, agricultural, and headed by "anointed ones (kings,emperors etc..) and religious priests (the ones at the top of the temple cutting out hearts).
So in essence it is a reflection of the of the primordial and the "civilized". One is large scale and the other a small scale. So the quote is relevant to the city, which is a reflection of what the Spaniards eventually did themselves, just on a higher and sophisticated scale.
Answer: I always interpreted the quote referring to the Maya themselves, the great civilization. Since the Maya had already decayed when the Spaniards arrived - most of their cities abandoned -, the quotes fits more to the Aztecs or Incas, which were actually conquered from without by the Spaniards. The small tribe in the movie, which village is destroyed, is definetely not a great civilization.
We also know that the Aztec and Inca had large internal problems. I don't think it's a victim blaming quote. Just because a great civilization is weak from the inside, does not give you the right to destroy it from the outside.
I like the quote, even though it does not always fit to all cases of history.
Answer: It's starts off with a primitive tribe that have nevertheless created some pretty nifty boobytraps. They think they're pretty evolved yet they single out one tribe member and pester him. It's nothing inhumane but it's not right, societywise. Low civilisation with minor problems. This tribe gets overtaken by a civilisation that is much more evolved than the primitive tribe could fathom when they thought they were the top of the evolutionary hierarchy. This much bigger civilisation is already more obviously flawed. The movie ends with the conquistadores arriving. The highly evolved natives are about to find out they're not at the top of the pyramid either. I feel the quote is a warning to the viewer: We like to think of ourself as the most evolved civilisation yet it seems to be falling apart. Aliens are coming soon.
Answer: I have studied Mayan culture for ten years. Lack of a strong single unit, the arrival of the Spaniards, and disease all played there part to the Maya demise. It is my opinion that the main reason for the collapse of the Mayan Empire was the scarce amount of water during the final decades. This was caused by their excavation of trees to build temples. No trees less rainfall. No rainfall no survival. Ironically in the movie a tree is chopped down and nearly falls on them before the arrival to the Mayan temple. Unfortunately, this happened way too often in that area in this civilization.
Comment: Can you try to relate that to the question in some way?
Comment: Can you support the draught statement with any acceptable sources?
Answer: In my opinion it means that internal strife and lack of cohesion is the reason why empires are lost. Chanakya said" The reason for the loss of an empire are always from inside". It surely applies to India which was conquered by the British and the Soviet Union whose own internal dissensions were the reasons of their downfall.
Answer: It is a way to basically blame the Maya for what the Spanish later did to them when they invaded and destroyed all the native populations.  It is a victim blaming quote.
Oh, and the Maya did not harvest people to sacrifice.  That was the Aztecs, and it wasn't on that large of a scale.
Comment: "It is a victim blaming quote."  What?  **What?!?**  A strong, healthy civilization doesn't just get taken over.  Every large civilization known to man has only fallen after internal struggles weakened it.  This is historical fact.
Comment: This answer should have supporting documentation.


How to use flint in Breath of the Wild?

Question: So I haven't been able to find a way to use the flint other than laying it next to a pile of wood and hitting the flint with a sword. Is there a better way to light ? I would have thought it would be like cooking and there would be an action when you walk up to wood...
Answer: That's the intended way to use flint. I believe you must hit it with a metal weapon for it to generate a spark to light wood.
Answer: Hitting a pile of wood with any fire weapon (sword, spear... includig fire arrows) will also start a bonfire.
Where to get a fire weapon:

 Top-right of the map theres a maze on an island you can reach flying. Going through one of the doors on the left will lead you to a bramble, once burned it down you can climb to a litle corridor where you will find a two-handed fire sword. There are a couple of Guardians at the start of the maze but you can easily avoid them.

I have the impression that theoretically it would be possible to start a fire with a lightning, but those come together with rain what makes impossible to set fire to anything.
Although it seems too obvious I have to say that you can light a fire bringing it from another one with a torch or a wooden weapon/arrow/shield.
As you said, flint is used to set fire, you can create your own bonfire hitting the flint with an iron weapon, light a food rack or set fire to a whole field of grass. Keep in mind that in bonfires you can still cook basic ingredients such as meat. It's also useful to make the time pass and to get warm in cold zones like high mountains or to melt ice.
Flint altogether with other materials can be used to improve some armors or forge some weapons. (Need to check this for more precise information)
There's also a guy in a horse house (sorry for the poor translation) close to the Orni town who will give you a reward in exchange for 52 flints. (Will improve this part of the answer once I can put my hands on the game)
Comment: There is one other way to start a fire: set red chuchu jelly down next to some wood then strike the red chuchu jelly. You'll want to put some distance between you and the jelly because it does a small explosion, but you can strike it with an arrow.
Comment: @Cody - You can do this without getting yourself zapped. Just drop a metal piece of equipment in the spot you want the lightning to strike. It will start to spark, and after a few seconds, lightning will strike it. I don't think the weapon is destroyed by this, though it may get knocked far away. This also might affect durability but I didn't test that far.
Comment: I want to try and use my lightning wand/rod thing to start a fire.  I never thought of trying that before.
Comment: @JMac I don't think it's possible to do with a lightning wand. For some reason natural lightnings might work differently, since those leave a burning mark on the floor which doesn't happen with lightning wands. Worth to test though.
Comment: @JMac there is technically a way to control where lightning hits during a storm... at a price.  If you want it to hit a spot, equip as much metal weapons and armor as you can and stand in the spot you want it to strike, then wait.  It helps if you have fairies or beat the Zora divine beast so you can survive getting struck.  The ground around you will briefly be on fire after that.

How to use flint in Breath of the Wild?


bitbucket on my own server

Question: I want to have something like bitbucket.org or github (but for mercurial!) on my VDS. I don't need full functionality, but I need it being able to serve repositories, accept changes (with auth!) and creating new repos in one-two clicks in web interface. What can I use? Thanks
Answer: Hgwebdir running in a web server (comes with mercurial) does everything except let you create the new repos with a click, which you can very easily do with a simple script you can put right in the hgwebdir footer.
Answer: I have used bitbucket.org but I also wanted an in house DVCM server for my web development team, so we went with Redmine. This is tested and installed easy using BitNami images, http://bitnami.org/stack/redmine
Answer: I've not tried it yet, but RhodeCode seems to have all the features you'd ever want from a web based repository manager.
You can create new repositories, fork current repositories and it allows you to set up user authentication and access rights.
Answer: If you have money, bitbucket has an hosted version (just ask Jesper for a quote).
Answer: As described in the article  Publishing Repositories in the mercurial wiki, mercurial has different way for publishing repositories (hg serve, ssh, hgwebdir, hgweb, ...).
Since you need multiple repositories with push/pull authentication then you should go for hgwebdir (also described here).
After setting up hgwebdir, apart from pushing/pulling from the repositories, you will also have a web interface that will look like, for example, the suckless.org code repository.
As mentioned by Ry4an you can't create a new repository via the web interface.
Answer: For your needs you might want to take a look at gitblit
It is fairly basic and simple. It provides web-UI so you can manage as many repos as you need. However I found out that they don't have per branch permissions out of the box (requires some ground work with groovy scripts). On a flip side if it doesn't bother you, then it might be it!
Cheers mate!

bitbucket on my own server


Should Garry's Mod Gamemodes have separate tags?

Question: In the Half Life 2 mod-turned-developed Valve game Garry's Mod, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of separate gamemodes, and to make things even more confusing, each server can have different modifications to those gamemodes. Because just tagging questions "garrys-mod" still leaves such a wide range of ambiguity (eg: hitbox issues in UCH, damage reduction of Kevlar in TTT, strength of barricade materials in Zombie Survival), should some of the more popular Garry's Mod gamemodes get their own tags (not all gamemodes require one, because of how many there are)?
Comment: My apologies, I was unclear; what I meant was - which questions *currently on the main site* would benefit from more specific tagging? Admittedly, there are only ~30 of them in the first place (http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/garrys-mod)
Comment: Do you have any question that you think would benefit from more specific tagging? No need to implement solutions for problems that aren't there.
Comment: @Raven Well, one idea might be that a TTT player wouldn't be able to help with ZS questions, but would still see them all in their favorite tags. Also, grenades/remote detonation packs/suicide bombs function differently and are collected in different ways in TTT and ZS, and points are gained thru different means.
Answer: No.
This level of sub-tagging is not necessary. There are only very few games which have been tagged with additional detail, and these games (for example, TF2 - 427, Minecraft - 2545, Diablo 3 - 1997, Skyrim - 2502,) have hundreds of questions each.
A game with so few (27) tagged questions does not need a set of sub-tags.


Nexus 10 not recognized on Debian Wheezy/mac OS/Windows 8 with adb

Question: I'm trying to connect my tablet nexus 10 + android 4.4 + cyanogen-mod 11 to my desktop computer where I have installed debian wheezy using adb. It worked until some time ago,now it doesn't anymore neither with debian linux nor with windows 8 or Mac OS. Check here :
root@localhost:/home/marietto# lsusb

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 148f:2573 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT2501/RT2573 Wireless Adapter
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0a5c:2121 Broadcom Corp. BCM2210 Bluetooth
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. USB-2.0 4-Port HUB
Bus 001 Device 009: ID 04d9:1503 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. Shortboard Lefty
Bus 001 Device 010: ID 046d:c05a Logitech, Inc. Optical Mouse M90

root@localhost:/home/marietto# adb devices
List of devices attached

The devices is attached to the computer with a common usb cable but it seems that it is not recognized. I've already enabled the usb debug on the nexus 10 configuration panel and I have installed the adb tools under debian with the following commands (taken from this site :
http://bernaerts.dyndns.org/linux/75-debian/280-debian-wheezy-android-tools-adb-fastboot-qtadb
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb android-tools-fastboot

This is the version of the adb bridge installed on my debian wheezy :
root@localhost:/home/marietto# adb version
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.31

On the nexus 10 I have enabled the root access for adb and applications. I don't know what to do
Comment: On the Nexus, go to Settings => Memory, then go the other Settings (top right) and choose USB-Connection. Try the other connection method.
Answer: Have you tried changing between MTP and PTP. Tap the USB debugging sybol and it gives you the option.


Recommended resources for SharePoint Developer beginners

Question: What resources would you recommend to someone who would like to learn and possibly become a SharePoint Developer?
Answer: I'd recommend picking up a copy of the Inside Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 book from Microsoft Press. It walks you through the entire framework, leveraging the API and developing solutions and packaging them for deployment within your farm.
Answer: If you don't know C# , Learn C# then Learn ASP.NET before attempting SharePoint development (Well, you could alternately learn VB.net as a language - I sometimes forget it exists) :)
Third : SharePoint programming books -
the Todd Bleeker book, Inside WSS, Inside MOSS
If you want to focus on Workflow, there is a fantastic starter book by David Mann.
The WSS/MOSS SDK's should always be a click away (either installed on your machine or on MSDN). They are a great resource, not to mention the variety of blogs covering various aspects of SharePoint development.
Hope this helps!
Answer: I just had a case of dejavu with this question, and sure enough I ran across it and answered on StackOverflow here.  Anyway though, I think I'd still say the same.  Ted Pattison's Inside WSS 3.0 is still the best- but for new SPDev's, I've had the best luck giving my staff Scot Hiller's Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005.
Here's the author's quote about the intended audience:
"..the audience for this book is an intermediate professional developer who was just assigned the project of bringing SharePoint 2007 into the organization."
Answer: The major stumbling block that I fell over when starting SharePoint development was to try a "code" everything.  I think this came from reading lots of books and then just wanting to jump in and play with the "cool code".
One of the main benefits of SharePoint is that it has so many pre built "modules" (web parts, site templates, workflows, etc) out of the box.  Its often possible to solve business problems without writing a line of code.  So make sure you know as much about the OOTB stuff as possible before embarking on coded solutions.
Next, learn about the feature and solution framework before starting your code.  EVERY piece of code you write should be built in to a feature and packaged up as a solution.  You should think of your coded component as a module which is going to be added to the SharePoint platform.
In terms of books my top 3 list would be exactly the same as Ovidiu Becheş-Puia mentioned:-

Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint
Services 3.0 by Ted Pattison and
Daniel Larson
Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office
2007 Solutions in C# 2005 by Scot
Hillier
Professional SharePoint 2007 Web
Content Management Development
Building Publishing Sites with Office
SharePoint Server 2007 by Andrew
Connel
Answer: I also highly recommend Todd's book for beginners; it offers a nice introduction and enough hard-core stuff to keep you busy for a while. AC's book is very nice, but suffers slightly from being one of the first books out there and doesn't harness as much of the best practices material and tools that have emerged in the last two years.
In addition, I've learned a lot Woody's SharePoint Designer book, offering a less hard-core approach to creating SharePoint solutions. Solutions as in the lexical sense, not the SharePoint sense :-)
Of course, I'd like to plug my own Beginning SharePoint Development issue of USPJ as well, http://www.beginningsharepointdevelopment.com/. That issue focuses on the core stuff for ASP.NET devs, and while it doesn't target SP2010 specifically, it does target features that are not changing drastically, so it might help new SP2010-people as well.
.b
Answer: This is a great site for learning sharepoint

http://www.sharepointdevwiki.com/
Answer: In addition to ted Pattisons book I found Scot Hilliers videos useful http://www.amazon.co.uk/WSS-MOSS-Development-Video-Training/dp/0672329867/
Also I would suggest thinking about what kind of development is needed - web parts, asp forms, workflows , utilities, use of Web services from remote programs - the more advanced books tend to focus on one of these in more depth.
Even as a developer I find learning Sharepoint Designer useful if for nothing else than to get a better appreciation of why I need to write code rather than customise a site - Penny Coventry and John Jansen have written very useful books about SPD.
Answer: My favorite books:

Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by Ted Pattison and Daniel Larson
Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 by Scot Hillier
Professional SharePoint 2007 Web Content Management Development Building Publishing Sites with Office SharePoint Server 2007 by Andrew Connel
Answer: I would recommend even visiting endusersharepoint.com for great articles
Answer: check out http://www.informationworker.co.za/wanna/Wiki%20Pages/I%20want%20to%20be%20a%20SharePoint%20Developer.aspx
Answer: One of the places I recommend SharePoint rookies to head over to is the SharePoint developer introduction for .NET developers that Microsoft is hosting. It contains awesome introductry materials in lots of different forms:

WebCasts
Videos
Virtual Labs - no need to set up a VM to get started
Hans on Labs
etc

There are a handful of topics covered to get you all ramped up and ready to rock the SharePoint world!
/WW
Answer: I agree with Wictor - some great samples on the MSSharePoint Developer site.
Although Todds book came out earlier I actually found Teds Inside WSS book better to read (sorry Todd).
And as other have said,  just get practiced at doing decent .Net development.   Understand the basics of of syntax, classes, objects and generally good dev experience.
Also don't forget to check out the SPDisposeCheck tool once you start writing code.


Does the result of the last game of Euchre determine who gets to deal first in the next game?

Question: I have always played where a new game gets a new "Jack for deal" scenario.  Playing with my nephew this week he was ADAMANT that since he and his partner won the last GAME, this gave him the privilege of dealing first.  I say a new game has absolutely NOTHING to do with previous games.  Who is right?
Answer: I would have to agree with you. A previous game definitely has nothing to do with the proceeding game. It is equivalent to playing a game then a few years later the winner is still able to be the dealer without the blackjack deal (well maybe not quite that far, but you get the point). But just clarifying we are talking about entirely new games, not rounds? If we are talking about games then yes redo the blackjack deal.
Answer: You're likely to get different answers from different people/rulesets. For example, the rules at euchrelinks.com say:

I. To determine who the players will be in a euchre game, the cards need to be shuffled by one (potential) player, then passed to the right for a cut. The person who cuts should then deal one card face up to each person who wants to play, starting to their left and continuing clockwise. The player who receives the first jack will become the first dealer when the game begins. The cards should be dealt in this manner, skipping players who already have jacks, until all four bowers are dealt. The players with the same-colored jacks will be partners. Players that don't receive a jack must sit out.

Hoyle gaming and Bicycle Cards have no instructions on how to choose the dealer. Pagat merely suggests that the dealer should be chosen at random.
This is similar to how many rules in euchre are chosen. With my friends, I play that anyone can go alone - whether you called it or not. If you defend alone and euchre the makers, your team gets 4 points. Most people don't play that way. Some people don't screw the dealer. I know of one variant where if the dealer calls it s/he must go alone. Most people I know play to 10, but some play to 11, and I've known some who play to 5 for quicker games.
When in doubt, I always say that house rules govern. If you're playing at your house, then dealer gets selected at random. If your nephew is hosting, you may have to play by his rules.
Answer: I play differently, or did long ago. When playing multiple games the winner gets the first deal.


Big Stomping Sound?

Question: Anybody know where I can start to make a big stomping sound. I need it for a T-Rex, so its gotta be huge!
Answer: The classic thing I keep seeing in BTS videos is dropping a huge trunk or piece of timber onto the appropriate surface. Definitely par for the course for the Ethan Van Der Ryn's and Dave Whiteheads of the world - pays off well when seen in films like Lord of the Rings and King Kong.
What if you can't afford a crane, a bunch of recordists, and a multi-ton dead tree? I'd say first, match the visual surface (concrete, grass, dirt, etc.) Start with finely-articulated, not-huge layers to really sense the contact with the ground. Then do try to get something relatively heavy and drop that as well to get some variety (bags of kitty litter, phone books, or rocks pushed off a ladder, maybe?). Gather a small collection, mix 'em together with some pitch shifting on one layer. Then layer in some low-frequency effects for whomp and low-end meatiness.
Just my two cents, though, plenty of other ways to skin this cat. What else, folks?
Comment: One of your layers could use down-pitched bass drum/floor tom with no time-correction to stretch and smooth out the transient a little, to make it sound big... you know: big is slow.
Comment: Oh, heck yes, @justin-huss: Great suggestion. The 40Hz sine wave kick drum is a much-used layer here at Noise Jockey World Headquarters (tm). Good call!
Answer: A little trick I often use is to add the sound of air rushing out just before the impact. The sound of air moving makes the impact feel bigger.
Answer: Try incorporating normal footsteps with plenty of EQ and pitching.  Make sure you get that heel to toe action to sell the attributes of the feet. The low end should be easy to do but make it clean and accent the second half of the footstep with it more.
If it's distance footsteps and there are objects around the area (a shed, trees, cars), make them shake with the footsteps and incorporate the environment.
Comment: Nice touch on the environment :)
Answer: I've used timpani and kodo drums to do footsteps. Just some EQ and pitch change. Get some recording of debrise like rocks and so to layer with it.
Answer: The pitchshifter is your best friend here. Combined with a lot of compression for a big tail...
Answer: Use a kick drum and apply a low pass filter.  The same can be done with a five string bass.
Answer: When I have pitch shifted, eq´ed, layered sounds, I insert my DBX120A on the aux, and things usually gets enormous:)
It just adds so much bottom its unbelievable.
Best wishes,
Mikkel
Answer: Instead of the 40hz sine wave, I use a synth that generates noise, then with a LPF 12db or even 24db I cut down to 200hz with a little resonance and with the filter envelope I make it "bounce" (no attack, a little decay, no sustain and no release); then with the amp envelope I give it an immediate attack, a slow decay and a good release to achieve that huge sound. Since the pink noise has more harmonic content, works better than drums or sine waves most of the times. Layered with the right floor and hits, you got a terrifying Godzilla.
Answer: Also you'll need some reverb. Big sounds need reverb/echo. I recorded fireworks two days ago, I can give you the raw stuff if ever you wanted it...
Comment: Any chance I can get those raw files? hahaha

Big Stomping Sound?


Trying to boot from usb

Question:
Possible Duplicate:
Boot failure : No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found!

I have similar issues but none with the 12.04 build.
Im trying this on a dell d610 laptop with a bad hard drive and was told i could just directly boot from the usb drive.
Im using an 8g usb drive and i have tried using the uui tool and get this message.
SYSLINUX 4.06 EDD 4.06-pre1 Copyright (c) 1994-2011 H.Peter Anvinet al
ERROR: No configuration file found
No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found!
Then i tried using unetbootin and got the bootup screen with only the default option and it would say auto boot with a 10 sec countdown and start over again.
I do have the boot sequence for usb first.
Answer: On the USB key, rename the isolinux folder to syslinux.
In the same folder, rename the isolinux.bin and isolinux.cfg files to syslinux.bin and syslinux.cfg, respectively.
Now, try booting with the USB drive again.
Comment: I tried the name changes and got the same response.
Comment: Thanks, this solved it!! Seems like a bug in the USB creator software...
Comment: Is the download a iso file cause i think mine is a zip but i got it from here.http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
Comment: Is there any more specific instructions on how to do this.I want to use universal usb installer.
Comment: Thank you sircharlo i finally figured it out the sys prefix worked as you mentioned.The other issues were operator error.
Comment: In my instance a `syslinux` folder already existed, so I simply renamed it to `syslinux_old` and then followed the above steps. Worked for me. =)
Comment: worked for me.  original usb was made from Startup Disk Creator in 13.04.
Comment: Admins are out of control with what they label as duplicates
Answer: The root cause to this system error is FAT32.
I think your Bios cannot understand FAT32 file system. May be your system is old one. Format the USB with FAT16, or simply FAT file system and then create the usb bootable stick that will definitely work....
Comment: There is no such thing as "simply FAT" as distinct from FAT16 or FAT32 (or some of the other less common FAT filesystems like exFAT). FAT by itself, when intended to refer to a specific filesystem, typically refers to FAT16.
Answer: Dell d610 boot fromusb should be fine, though mine is d620. Try yumi which I think is the best USB creator for Linux and other things.
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/
Comment: Did not try this method so i cant comment.But thank you for the response.
Answer: I had the same problem.
The USB drive partition type was NTFS. I re-ran the Universal USB installer and made sure to check the box to format the drive FAT32 and everything worked well after that.

Trying to boot from usb


Satipatthana bhavana versus Vipassana bhavana

Question: Is there a difference in the practice of satipatthana bhavana and vipassana bhavana? Or are both terms synonyms?
Answer: Vipassanā is the same as satipatthana bhavana. Essentially the practice is from Satipatthana Sutta and/or Anapanasati Sutta or similar Suttas are called Vipassanā as they help to see clearly the true nature of phenomena.
Answer: Yes there is a difference, and no the terms are not synonyms.
Sati-patthana bhavana is the setting up of mind or memory,
vipassana bhavana is the setting up of the insights on which that setting up of mind or memory is based.
You do not say that purchasing the ingrediants for a loaf of bread is the same thing as the use of those ingrediants in the making of the dough.
It is a common error to mistake sati for satipatthana and for vipassana practice to be identified as limited to the satipatthana sutta (or a tiny fraction of it as in teaching people how to breath for the big bucks).
Satipatthana is not the same practice as Anapanasati. They have two entirely different aims. The Satipatthana is aimed at setting up the mind: "Thus he sets up memory just sufficiently to gain a measure of knowledge, a measure of recollectedness."
Anapanasati is aimed at setting up the method for liberation: "On thelook-out for opportunities to let go, I will inspire, this is the way he trains, On the look-out for opportunities to let go, I will expire," this is the way he trains.
That the two practices utilize the same elements and merge does not make them the same things.
Various translations of the Satipatthana sutta:
http://buddhadust.net/backmatter/indexes/sutta/dn/idx_digha_nikaya.htm#p22 .
Various translations of the Anapana samyutta:
http://buddhadust.net/backmatter/indexes/sutta/sn/05_mv/idx_54_anapanasamyutta.htm
Comment: And how, bhikkhus, does mindfulness of breathing, developed and cultivated, fulfil the four foundations of mindfulness? https://suttacentral.net/mn118/en/bodhi
Answer: There is no such thing as "vipassana bhavana" since "vipassana" ("clear seeing"; direct insight) is not something that can be practised or "developed" ("bhavana") via an act of will (refer to AN 11.2).
MN 149 says satipaṭṭhānā is developed (bhāvanā) and vipassanā occurs (vattanti):

When he develops (bhāvayato) this Noble Eightfold Path (ariyaṃ aṭṭhaṅgikaṃ maggaṃ), the four foundations of
  mindfulness (satipaṭṭhānā) also come to fulfilment (pāripūriṃ) in him by development (bhāvanā); the four
  right kinds of striving also come to fulfilment in him by development;
  the four bases for spiritual power also come to fulfilment in him by
  development; the five faculties also come to fulfilment in him by
  development; the five powers also come to fulfilment in him by
  development; the seven enlightenment factors also come to fulfilment
  in him by development. These two things — serenity (samatho) and insight (vipassanā) — occur (vattanti)
  in him yoked evenly together.
MN 149

Therefore, satipatthana bhavana and vipassana bhavana are not synonyms, even though vipassana is a fruit/result of satipatthana.


Do you need to pre-heat a gas oven?

Question: I mean it's gas - an open fire - and heats up in less than a minute. Does preheating making any difference when baking with gas?
Comment: Your oven may feel warm within a minute, but I sincerely doubt that it's actually at a stable temperature after only a minute.
Answer: Yes, preheating warns up the entire interior of the oven which is important for keeping the air hot such as when you open the door. It helps the oven bounce back to full heat much sooner. If you don't preheat, it will take several minutes before the oven reaches proper cooking temps, and interfere with even heating.
If you want to see the difference most dramatically, bake some chocolate chips. First without any preheating and then when those are supposed the be done, do another batch and bake them for the same amount of time.
If you are baking something for an hour or more, it may not make much difference, but shorter baking times can be dramatically affected.
Comment: Yes! You might consider mentioning that part of the benefit of letting the metal interior warm up completely is so that the oven can rebound more quickly when the door is opened to put the food in. :D
Comment: Yeah I thought I said, but I guess I didn't
Answer: Related question (and answers) here.  Summarizing some points and adding some of my own comments:
It depends on what you're baking.  You certainly won't have your oven up to any high temperature in a minute.  (If heating to, say, 500F or above, some ovens could take 10-20 minutes or more to achieve temperature.)
And even if you have a gas oven where the flames are visible and you can immediately feel heat radiating, baking is often not just about the temperature from the heat source itself.  Many types of dishes depend on being surrounded by heat radiating from the interior surfaces of the oven on all sides (which only happens when the oven is completely hot).  If heat is coming primarily from one direction, the food many cook unevenly.
Note also that the heating element will stay very hot continuously while the oven comes to temperature, possibly for 10-15 minutes or more; any food which can be hit directly by heat from the element could burn.  Once the oven is hot, the element will cycle on and off, lessening that problem.
Some foods are very sensitive to temperature when baking (e.g., pastry); others are very forgiving (e.g., casseroles).  If you want to be sure your food cooks in a very particular way for a very specific amount of time, you definitely want to preheat.  Even for temperature sensitive foods, there are often ways to modify recipes to allow for starting with a cold oven.
I know many people have been experimenting in recent years with baking from cold ovens to avoid wasting energy.  It's possible to do with many recipes, but others may require significant modification or may not work at all.  If you don't preheat with a recipe that says to, be prepared that it will take longer to bake and may cook in a different way (potentially requiring you to move it up or down in the oven, foil part of it, etc. to get it to even doneness).

Do you need to pre-heat a gas oven?


Why does the hill climbing algorithm only produce a local maximum?

Question: Apparently, the hill climbing algorithm just produces a local maximum, and not necessarily a global optimum. It's stuck on a local maximum. Why does hill climbing algorithm only produce a local maximum?
Answer: This part of your sentence is not always true "and not reached to final goal/solution". If you have just one maximum at all and it is finite, hill climbing (HL) can reach to it and it is a global maximum too (for example, if the function is a parabola).
To answer your question is back to the stop criteria of HL. It will be stopped when reaching to a maximum point. The maximum point means a point which the objective function has a greater value in that point than on its $\epsilon$-neighborhood of that point. Therefore, if objective function has some local maxima, depends on the initial point of HL, it might be trapped in one of the local maxima as their definition is satisfied in the explained definition.
In sum, depends on the initial point of HL, it might not reach to the global maxima and trapped in local maxima if there exists.


Smaller outer layer height?

Question: I am printing minis and other very detailes stuff and I find that 0.04 mm layer height gives the best looking (smoothest) result. However it takes a long time, so I am looking for ways to speed it up. Is there any slicer which offers different layer heights for the outer perimiter? So you can print your model at 0.12 mm or so, but the outer layer gets printer first 3 times at 0.04 mm?
Comment: you can easily smooth the surface of ABS prints, which would be much faster. to answer your question, afaik, each entire plane must be printed as a single height.
Comment: @dandavis Acetone smoothing doesn't work well for minis (faces and small details completely dissapear). And each plane only has to be printed as the same height to avoid the printer head colliding with previous lines, if you print the perimiter first in smaller heights and then the rest at normal height you don't have that problem (It would be the same as printing perimiters first)
Comment: @FarO Oh, apparently this was already a suggested feature Cura basically turned down :( https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/issues/6322
Comment: @BeaconofWierd I would open a feature request ticket on all Slic3r, Sli3r Prusa Edition and Cura github pages. That feature is not available as we speak in any slicing software I know of. Post a comment with the links to the tickets after you have done it, thanks.
Comment: "Good,  Fast,  Cheap.   Pick any two"  applies here, I fear
Answer: In Ultimaker Cura, unless you print a single perimeter outline and add extra wall infill support you are not going to have different outer perimeter layer heights.
However, Cura is able to reduce the printing time, E.g. you can have fine layers for the wall (all perimeters), and coarse layers for the infill. The option is called "Infill Layer Thickness":

Infill layer thickness
Since the layer height of the infill is not important for visual quality, you can use thicker layers on the infill to reduce the print time. When adjusting this setting, always make sure that it is a multiple of the layer height, otherwise Ultimaker Cura will round it up to a multiple of the layer height. This means that you can, for example, print with an infill thickness of 0.2 mm while the layer height is 0.1 mm. The printer will first print the walls for two layers, and then it will print one thicker infill layer.

Note that this is not a standard option, you need to put Cura in the "Custom" mode and filter/search for the option using the search bar. Below you'll find the upper right corner of the Cura Graphical User Interface where I searched for the option:

Note that there are 2 options, one for regular infill of your product and one for infill of the support structures.

An other department at work is working together with a start-up university company to 3D print PEEK molds (from pellets) using 2 nozzles/extruders (to create resin injection parts), one has a large nozzle, the other has a fine nozzle. They use their own developed slicer software to use the fine nozzle for the outer contours and the coarse nozzle for infill and support. It could be that they developed this because it was not available in commercial slicers. For the 2 most common free slicers, Cura and Slic3r, there is no option to have just the outer perimeter of different height than the inner perimeters. If you think of it, it is also pretty difficult to execute, you either get:

(which does not improve the quality of the product, it will make the outside more coarse) or you'll get gaps:

Note that both upper images do not include infill, only 1 outer and 3 inner perimeters. The image below is probably what is possible with Cura, so all perimeters the same; green is infill now:
Comment: @0scar That setting is very useful, however it's not exactly what I am after. Infill is usually a minority of the print time, the majority is the outer walls (at least for many of my prints). I'm looking for a setting which allows you to adjust only the outer perimiter wall to a shorter height while keeping the other walls right next to the outer wall at an increased height.
Comment: @BeaconofWierd set 1 perimeter and 100% *concentric* infill
Comment: @Trish 100% infil will cause the print to take a lot longer than just having all walls at fine detail. It also wastes a lot of plastic.
Comment: @0scar oh, so there's a start up working on this :D maybe we will see it in slicers next year then :)
Answer: Not what you want but may still be helpful.
PrusaSlicer allows the layer height to be varied along the Z-axis so that you can have more detail in bands where it is needed, and less where it is not.
Since infill is not your time consumer, you may not find the "combine infill every n layers" helpful.
Comment: Isn't this called adaptive layering or something? I think Cura has a similar feature.

Smaller outer layer height?


Ubuntu 12.10 not installing via USB stick

Question: I have a Dell Inspiron 15R (N5010) and I downloaded Ubuntu 12.10 onto a 4 GB memory stick. Nothing comes up about installation. The only thing that comes up is Install Ubuntu (F:) in AutoPlay. I open the view files and click the wubi.exe file and the Ubuntu Menu comes up. I then click Demo and Full Installation. Then i click Reboot Now. It reboots but nothing happens. I tried pressing the Fn and F12 keys and nothing happens either. I'm not quite sure what to do now.. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank You.
Answer: If you have a new laptop, probably UEFI (the BIOS replacement) does not allow you to do it. I had the same problem with my new Samsung laptop. Before the secure boot was not turned off in UEFI (kinda BIOS, you can access it using F2 or something) I did not get any options about booting from CD or USB. So if you have a new laptop - turn off the secure boot and install Ubuntu!


Do we need non-linear activation function in neural networks whose task isn't classification?

Question: While researching why we need non linear activation functions, all the explanations revolve around neural network being able to separate values that aren't linearly separable.
So I wonder, if we have a neural network whose task is something else, say predicting an output value of a time series, is it still important to have an activation function that is non linear?
Answer: Yes, definitely.
In the simplest example, predicting an output value for a time series is classification. You take in the previous time steps and classify what is the most likely next value. You could do this with a RNN (Recurrent Neural Network) for example.
If the activation functions are all linear, the nerual network is just a glorified linear regression. Think of it like this: a neural network is trying to approximate a complicated function in $n$ dimensional space. It does this by combining operations on a series of known functions, to get a resultant function that hopefully mimics the desired function. The issue with combining linear functions is the only thing you'll ever get at the end is a linear function.
As a concrete example, try and approximate the function $y = x^3 + x^2 -x -1$ by adding a series of linear functions together. You'll find pretty quickly this is useless. However, if you use a non-linear function, such as a ReLU (Rectified Linear Unit) you can quite easily approximate this function. See this implementation on desmos.
If a problem has any sort of complexity to it, the function it follow is likely incredibly complicated, and futile to approximate using linear equations.
Comment: Thanks for you answer. I would just like to check if I'm getting this right, would the desmos implementation represent a neural network with 1 input (value of x), 6 hidden neurons with ReLU activation and 1 output neuron (predicted value of the funciton), where the output of the output neuron is just the sum of hidden neuron outputs?
Comment: Yep that's exactly it. And you can imagine the values inside the functions as weights and bias'. For example, for $n_1$ the weight would be -5 and the bias -7.7. Then from the hidden layer to the final layer these weights are either -1 or +1 as seen by the mix of positive and negative in the calculation of $o(x)$
Comment: I don't know if this belongs to a comment, but would it be possible to show the importance of the bias neuron in a similar fashion (on desmos)?
Comment: @user1477107 To see the importance, try matching $y=x^2$ using ReLU, but don't use a bias (as in, you can only multiply x by a value, but can never add to it). You'll notice pretty quick that the issue here is that you are stuck with a max(n, x) function, though perhaps scaled differently. You can never reach any sort of complexity. If you try again, but you are able to add a bias, you can align and move around the functions so that they actually match $y=x^2$. Essentially, a bias lets you *translate* the function


What was the first sci-fi work that had an intelligent virus/bacterium?

Question: What's the earliest example of an intelligent virus/bacterium? There have been a number of comic-book characters (e.g. Sublime, Hlavac, Despotellis), television versions (e.g. the black oil from the X-files, the sentient virus in Farscape), and there was one in a Doctor Who Annual story from 1971, but what was the earliest?
Comment: I seem to remember a piece in Stanislaw Lem, *Imaginary Magnitude*, does tell about (collectively) intelligent bacteria. It that's true, it would be an example from 1973, very close to what you mention.
Comment: @DVK - nanoparticles reads as artificial intelligence to me, which would be a different thing.
Answer: Last & First Men by the mighty Olaf Stapledon published in 1930 has Martians described as a virus-like dissociated group mind;

... In the most developed forms, an immensely complicated neural
  "telephone" system connected every part of the body with a vast
  central exchange, the  brain. Thus on the earth a single organism was
  without exception a continuous system  of matter, which maintained a
  certain constancy of form. But from the distinctively  Martian
  subvital unit there evolved at length a very different kind of complex
  organism, in which material contact of parts was not necessary either
  to coordination  of behaviour or unity of consciousness
  ...
  Thus the typical Martian organism was a cloudlet,
  a group of free-moving members dominated by a "group-mind."

(Public domain PDF in the wiki article links)
Answer: 1931, "The Beautiful Bacillus" by Patrick Dutton has a bacterium that transforms into an intelligent communicating lifeform with a sense of humor.
 Link
Answer: From "Science-fiction: The Gernsback Years : a Complete Coverage of the Genre ..." By Everett Franklin Bleiler, Richard Bleiler, I saw this description of a short sci-fi story from 1936:

#1820: "LIQUID LIFE". October 1936. (Reprinted in Conklin, Best of Science Fiction, and in Leinster, Great Stories of Science Fiction.) ...
... A rambling account of an intelligent virus-like life form that is discovered in a local pond.

It was originally published in October 1936 in "THRILLING WONDER Stories"
Comment: That "Gernsback Years" book is a treasure trove.
Answer: The novella "Visiting Amoeba" by Brian Aldiss, published in The Canopy of Time has a protagonist who describes himself as an amoeba, although it is perhaps more of a metaphor than a literal truth. As I recall (and I've not read it in decades) he's from our successor universe, and is the most primitive form of life in that universe as the amoeba is (well, could plausibly be claimed to be in 1957) in our universe.
Answer: The doorstopper novel Battlefield Earth (by L. Ron Hubbard), has the Psychlos being made of viruses instead of cells, so that might technically be an example. (Not that it makes any biological sense, but compared to many of the things in the book...)
Comment: Greetings from 2021! I recall being amused when told that Psychlos were made up of viruses. Never read the book, saw part of the awful, awful film.
Answer: An early television example would be the Doctor Who story "The Invisible Enemy" broadcast in October 1977 which featured an intelligent virus trying to move into the macroscoptic world.
There was also a US series in the 1990s (I think) which i've been trying to find the name of. It featured an intelligent and mutanting virus as part of the main story arc. The series was cancelled after maybe half a dozen episodes and all I can remember is that one of the male characters may have been called Gage and I think they were a team which investigated medical emergencies surprisingly enough.
Comment: Relic, I remember that show too. The main character was of particular interest to the virus as he had survived Ebola, I think.
Answer: This is later than the accepted answer, but I think it's worth including for posterity - the 1948 Ray Bradbury short story Fever Dream has a child being taken over by a virus that takes control of his entire body, eventually replacing his brain and becoming an intelligent organism that then sets out to infect others.
From Wikipedia:

The story concerns Charles, a fifteen-year-old boy who is suffering
  from a severe illness. The local doctor diagnoses it as scarlet fever,
  but Charles protests that his hand has "changed" and is no longer
  under his control. He claims that he has been infected by microbes
  that are not only causing illness, but literally taking over his body
  and forming a new being. The doctor, however, assures Charles's
  parents that this is all in his imagination—a fever dream brought on
  by his illness.
Charles continues to lose control of his body—first his other hand,
  then his legs—but the doctor continues to assure him otherwise, and
  gives him antibiotics to deal with his problems. After Charles tries
  to choke himself, he is restrained to the bed by his parents. One
  night, Charles begins to lose control of his body, and he feels
  himself being taken over by the microbes.
Comment: I can't get the >! spoiler tags to work so I've removed the last bit of the quote


How do I prevent the use of duplicate invoice numbers in Gnucash?

Question: I'm not an accountant or bookkeeper, but I have been using Gnucash to enter and manage my invoices.  I had an instance where I used B192116 for an invoice number and the customer paid this invoice. A month later there was some confusion and I re-entered the same invoice number B192116 for the same customer and Gnucash took it no problem.  Is there a way for Gnucash to warn or stop me from entering duplicate invoices?
Comment: I'm not familiar with Gnucash, and I'm not an accountant, but I think the program would almost have to allow for multiple payments against an invoice, so that you can track partial payments.  By the same token there should be a way to mark an invoice as paid in full, or to close the invoice to further transactions.
Answer: When I hit this problem, the solution that worked for me (on Gnucash 3.4) was to use automatic invoice numbering.
When I create a new invoice, I simply leave the invoice number blank, and Gnucash chooses the next invoice number in the sequence.
Reference: https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-help/busnss-ar-invoices1.html#busnss-ar-invoicenew2
To set the current number in the sequence, choose File / Properties from the main menu. Then choose the Counters tab. Scroll down to invoices and set the current number. The next invoice you generate will have a number one greater than this.
Reference: https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-help/book-options.html#counters-book-options
Answer: This appears to be a pretty common problem with Gnucash without a solution (that I can find).  See the following forum posts:

http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Duplicate-invoices-help-needed-td4667918.html
http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Duplicate-Customer-Invoice-Number-td1431124.html

I recommend submitting a feature request here.


Why are Matthew, Mark, and Luke called the synoptic gospels?

Question: The first three gospels are sometimes known as the "synoptic" gospels. What does this term mean, and how does it differentiate them from the gospel of John?
Comment: To note, the English "synoptic" (adj.) and "synopsis" (n.) are derived from the Greek word [σύνοψις](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=%CF%83%CF%85%CE%BD%CE%BF%CF%88%CE%B9%CF%82&la=greek#lexicon). Also, the preposition σύν does not mean "same," but "together."
Answer: Syn- means same (as in synchronize, same time), and optic of course refers to sight.  The three first Gospels are syn-optic because they see alike; they basically tell the same story as each other, covering many of the same events.  John, on the other hand, focuses on a lot of different material than the other authors, and has a very high percentage of unique content.
Comment: further reference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels
Answer: A brief look at any harmony of the Gospels will immediately point out an obvious fact - namely, Matthew, Mark, and Luke go over a lot of the same ground, but John is very different.

For the uninitiated, a harmony of the Gospels is a work that attempts to show the life of Christ in chronological order, pointing of the reference texts.

The number of parables and stories that occur in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which do not occur in John, is just too great.
Note, for example, just the miracles of Christ.
<code>Miracle                        Matthew     Mark        Luke        John

The nobleman's son at Capernaum healed                             4:46-54
The demoniac in the synagogue healed       1:21-28     4:31-37
Simon's wife's mother healed    8:14-17    1:29-34     4:38-41
Circuit round Galilee           4:23-25    1:35-39     4:42-44
Healing a leper                 8:1-4      1:40-45     5:12-16
Christ stills the storm         8:18-27    4:35-41     8:22-25
Demoniacs in Gadarenes          8:28-34    5:1-20      8:26-39
Jairus' daughter. Woman healed  9:18-26    5:21-43     8:40-56
Blind men and demoniac          9:27-34
Healing the paralytic           9:1-8      2:1-12      5:17-26
Matthew the publican            9:9-13     2:13-17     5:27-32
"Thy disciples fast not"        9:14-17    2:18-22     5:33-39
</code>
Because these three seem to have the 'same view' on a lot of matters, they have been called the "synoptic" Gospels, from the Greek syn (same) and optic (relating to sight or view).
Famed exegete Daniel Wallace goes into detail on the so-called Synoptic Problem, asking how it is that three Gospel writers could include so much that is so similar, in even the same order.  While he does not deny inspiration by the Holy Spirit, he shows how the complete agreement would not really fit with three men independently relating the same facts, without some form of collaboration or borrowing.  A close reading of parenthetical remarks or the details which are included in some accounts but not others would seem to indicate that the authors were aware of the other works, and expected their audience to do the same.
Given this similarity, the fun question then becomes, who borrowed from whom?
Traditionally, Matthew was viewed as the first Gospel, hence its location first in the New Testament canon.  That said, beginning with Schleiermacher in the early 1800s, the idea that Mark was actually the first began to take hold.
The rules of hermeneutics that are used to reconstruct "the original wording" (remember these were hand-copied manuscripts and minor variations happened) usually suggest that when two possible variations are presented, "the harder meaning is to be preferred."  In other words, if a copyist is reading sourcing material and either re-copying it or re-using it, it is far more likely that a copyist would harmonize what is said with an overall theology, rather than introduce something that makes the existing theology less pure and pristine.  Since Mark's Gospel typically includes some of the most human aspects of Jesus (the Messianic secret, the abrupt ending, etc...), the principle is taken to a macro level, thus giving Mark "temporal first place."
The synoptic "problem" does not seek to deny "Inspiration," but does seek to create an historical chain of events that tells us how our Gospels came to be.
Comment: I was just compiling an answer but found yours  too good.  Anyway [here is another research paper](http://www.tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj15a.pdf)  which strongly vouch for inspiration source.
Comment: Very nice, deep analysis. The table of Jusus' miracles with parallel references is great!
Full list of parallel Gospels accounts, containing references and text, can be found here:
http://son-of-god.info/good-news-150719.html#155
Answer: To contribute to the exceptional answers already here with a bit of additional information, the source material referred to as Q (or Q source, or Q Gospel, name from the German Quelle) is held in common between both Matthew and Luke, in addition to the common material from Mark, which is presumed to be written first. That said, there is debate on the nature and even the existence of the Q source, being theology. A good article about Q source can be found in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, though this may be difficult to access for those without academic theological libraries nearby.
The reason for the term synoptics is that they can be viewed together to gain parallel understanding of the three Gospels. John, however, is not considered synoptic because it has many different events (whereas Matthew, Mark, and Luke have the same basic events with some additional or missing events based upon source materials) and different structure and order.
An important caution in regards to the synoptics is not to proof text synoptic parallels. It is common for passages to be matched up in synoptic parallels based upon similar general meanings when translated, which may be accurate, or may not be, based upon the original context of the passage. The heretical Gospel of Thomas (deemed as a Gnostic text that promoted a secret knowledge of Christ) is found at many points to have parallels with the synoptics also, though itself nothing like the other Gospels in structure.
Answer: Matthew, Mark and Luke are very similar: they record many of the same miracle stories, parables, and sermons. John by contrast has fewer miracles (most of which are unique), no parables at all, and is the only Gospel to record Jesus's teaching on the nature of God at the Last Supper (ch. 13-17). Synoptic comes from the Greek for "see together" because they tell the Jesus story in the same way.
Answer: When the first three gospels are compared—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—it is obvious that the accounts are very similar to one another in content and expression. As a result, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the "synoptic gospels." The word "synoptic" basically means "to see together with a common view."
Not that they should contradict each other but the striking similarities, not only of wording, as for example in the Healing of the Paralytic (Mk.2.1 12; Mt.9.1 8; Lk.5.17 26.), but also of the order of incidents, as for example the series of episodes recorded in Mark 10.13 34, and appearing in Matthew 19.13 xx.19 and Luke 18.15 34 presented a literary puzzle of sort. The question that arise is why these similarities?
Plausible explanation for similarities in order of events could be that writers presented them in the order of their occurrences. However for similarities of wording most of the literary studies only discuss this issue without taking into consideration the influence of Holy Spirit and point out to the literary dependence of these gospels on each other, which definitely the most logical conclusion one can expect with a sceptic  mind.
One such research however bases this on oral traditions and concludes that the synoptic gospels are probably related to one another in a mostly literary, partly oral, fashion. It further goes on to say that it is highly likely that they were written from mostly oral traditions. However if the gospel authors had composed entirely from oral materials, each successive writer still depended on the groundwork of his predecessor(s).
Another study which is staunchly advocating the inspirational base for these similarities  has found that only sixteen percent of the words in those sections are identical in all three Gospels. The study then focused on the agreements of two Gospels against a third Gospel in all combinations: Matthew-Luke against Mark, Matthew-Mark against Luke, and Mark-Luke against Matthew. It showed from several perspectives the impossibility of any theory of literary interdependence created by these combinations of agreements and disagreements. From the standpoint of observational facts, it pointed to randomness as the only possible explanation for the phenomena of the Gospels. Yet randomness is not an accurate term to apply.
As already said, the discussions of the origins of the Synoptic Gospels say far too little about the role of the Holy Spirit in the composing of those Gospels. He was the major author in the divine-human process of producing the Synoptic Gospels. Some of Jesus' last words to the Eleven were:

"When the  Holy Spirit comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, that one will testify concerning Me; and you also will testify, because from the beginning you have been with Me" (John 15:26-27).

The study further says:

Those words specify the twofold nature of the inspiration that produced the accounts of Jesus' life. "Randomness" is not a fit description of the combination of coincidences and disagreements in the Synoptics. The Holy Spirit had a controlling role in what the human authors wrote. He had reasons for the occasions when they agree and for the occasions when they disagree. In that sense, the combination of agreements and disagreements is not random, but God-ordained. In this life, we as humans will never comprehend the mind of God (cf. Isa 40:13; 1 Cor 2:16) and be able to detect His reasons for this mixture of agreements and differences in wording. To think that we can do so by treating Scripture as just another human production smacks of egotism on our parts. Readers must content themselves with simply accepting what He used the writers to compose while they worked without consulting the written works of each other.
Answer: The first three gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) are sometimes known as the "synoptic" gospels because by laying them in parallel and reading them synoptically ('with the same eye') in the original Greek language, it can readily be seen that there is a literary relationship among them.
Scholars have established that Matthew and Luke were substantially copied from Mark, with Matthew using some 90 per cent of the verses in Mark, often using the same words in the Greek language. Further sayings material not found in Mark but common to Matthew and Luke is attributed to the hypothetical 'Q' document, and once again, this could only come from an earlier, written Greek language document. Of course, the context of this is that the gospels were originally anonymous and, in spite of later attributions, we do not know who really wrote them.
There are several ways to establish independently that Mark was the original source gospel used for the other two gospels, rather than either Matthew or Luke. One, which John Dominic Crossan has studied, is a peculiarly distinctive Markan compositional device called an intercalation or sandwich. In The Birth of Christianity, page 106, he says that the device does not move from either Matthew or Luke into Mark but from Mark to the other two. Of Mark's nine sandwiches, Matthew retains Mark's pattern five times and Luke retains it four times, such that the only conclusion must be that in copying passages from Mark, the other two evangelists sometimes copied the intercalation pattern and sometimes not.
On page 565, Crossan identifies at least one instance in which John's Gospel also accepts an intercalation from Mark, but it is generally accepted that Mark was not the main source used by the author of John. The greater parallel in John is with Luke, but John contains many elaborations, changes of chronology, and passages for which the original source is unknown.


Why are the same national football teams always the strongest?

Question: I notice that, in football, a small group of national teams (Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, England, France and Germany) have won virtually every international prize and championship with very few exceptions.
I also noticed that this was as true in the 1930s as it is now in the 2010s (and all the years in between). Why is that?
Players, coaches and many of the other people involved change every few years, but those teams always win more often.What explains this phenomenon?
Comment: in jest... England have only won 1 world cup and no european cups. Uruguay have a better record
Answer: There are many reasons why a select group of countries have dominated international football for so long, and there have been countless articles written about this subject but what it all comes down to is your football infrastructure. A country's football infrastructure  is made up of many interconnected facets some of the most important of which are as follows

Does your country have a football culture and passion for the game to inspire people to play?
How large is your pool of athletes, this can also be affected by how many sports are popular in your country, for example in the Anglosphere (UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) the population has a larger selection of internationally popular team sports available for them to invest their time in?
Does your country have high quality academies in which the best players from your pool of athletes can hone and improve their skills?
Does your country have a healthy domestic league in which your young players can progress to and test their abilities against other great players from around the world?
Is the Coaching/administrative side of the sport well established and funded to maximize the talent of the players.

You could honestly write a book about this subject with ease and what I've written is a gross oversimplification but is should give you some idea of why some countries seem to excel in the game of football whilst others do not.
Comment: This good answer would be great with some better formatting (especially for that list)(unfortunately my skill is not quite helpful enough), and it would be excellent with some cited examples of the factors you mention.
Comment: +1 Excellence breeds excellence. Playing against better players will force you to change up your game. If you're a good player within your region, but never play against people from other regions, you will plateau since everything will just work and no one will force you to adapt.
Answer: The main reason is if soccer is a big part of the culture of the country. For example, in Argentina, it's extremely rare to find a person who haven't played soccer in his whole life. It's common for most men to play every week with friends, and in their childhood to spend vacations playing 8,10,12 hours per day. They (we) also have great examples to follow, such as Alfredo Di Stefano, Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, they make us believe that we can be the best in the world and the best in the history of soccer as they were / are.
I wouldn't place the number of people in a country as a reason which influences in a similar level than the reason first mentioned. For example, Uruguay (which is a country with 3 million inhabitants) have won 2 World Cups and 15 Copa America, it's one of the 2 countries with most international titles, they have Golden Foot's winners such as Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez, top level players. Other countries such as China and India with over 1300 and 1200 millions inhabitants, are extremely far away of the prestige and the quality of players the Uruguay national team has.
I wouldn't place organization as a main reason either. Argentina, despite high FIFA ranking, is an organizational mess, with an extremely bad federation and many clubs in bankruptcy.
Answer: In my opinion, the main reason is the national Championships of this Countries. England, Spain, Germany and Brazil has top championships, where plays top teams. Most important teams has strong football academys, where growing up top players. So kids from this Countries has a better chance to become good players, and the National Teams has a greater choice of players. That's why they wins international prize more often than other Countries.
Comment: EPL is arguably the best club league, however England as a national side do not comare with other european countries... Probably down to all the non-english players: http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11661/10725849/premier-league-has-highest-percentage-of-foreign-players-8211-uefa-report


Where can I go looking for amber in Gdańsk, Poland?

Question: I've read that one can find amber easily in the beaches in Gdansk. I believe it, but how to get to those beaches? Will anyone be offended if I go there and spend one hour looking for amber?
Comment: The best time is just after the storm. It will be hard to find anything during other times.
Comment: @Secator yes, we tried but without any chance
Answer: Nobody will be offended. It is a common practice among children to search for amber or shells. However I would not expect too much. Amber can be easily mistaken with other rocks and if you ever find something it would be rather of a small size.
The beaches along the whole coast are easily accessible and I can hardly believe in the existence of hot spots.
Answer: No, no one is going to be offended; In fact, it is a common practice, as already mentioned.
Random facts:

The best time is just after the storm, especially during winter.
I've heard some people go early in the morning for a search.
Never underestimate the place. Sometimes you can find a lot of amber in crowded-looking part of beach.
There are even some guys who dedicate themselves to searching for amber and then selling it to tourists. Similarly to those with metal detectors searching for lost goods at mediterranean beaches.
You will generally find rather small pieces.
Answer: As I understand it, amber gets washed ashore and it is usually just little bits and pieces, probably nothing significant but a nice souvenir nonetheless.
Check Sopot beach. It is mentioned at the site that it has some amber from time to time. I believe you have the same chances of finding amber at any beach there.
Answer: Nobody will be offended if you look at a public beach and don't start digging large holes.
But be careful - after WW2, lots of unused ammunition was dumped into the Baltic, and sometimes fragments of phosphorous from incendiary bombs get washed ashore. Those look very much like amber, except they spontaneously combust when they get dry and warm. Quite a few people have suffered nasty burns because of this.
I'm not sure whether that's a problem in the Gdansk area, but better be safe than sorry: if you find anything that looks like amber, put it into a bag, not your pocket, and don't leave it in your car unattended.
Answer: As was said earlier, it is recomended to search for amber right after the storm when you a lot of new stuff can be found at the beach.
But there are several special events - Amber Collecting World Championships
Here is a short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWwfODp64p4
Event dates for 2013: http://www.polawianiebursztynu.pl/artykul/53


Computing FX forward returns using spot returns and an existing term structure

Question: Sorry for the naive question, I am new to the area. I have YTD spot returns on the USD/GBP pair and a forward yield curve. How would one go about computing the forward returns in 2 years using this information? I've scanned google for the right formulae but most of them relate to roll rates on commodities and I don't see how that would be transferable information to the problem I'm trying to solve.
Answer: I am going to make some assumptions here.  I assume you will be buying GBP Spot and Selling GBP forward 2 Yrs.  Currently 1 GBP is 1.30 USD.  If you sell this 1 GBP forward 2Yrs at the current 2 Yr forward GBP/USD of say 1.34 USD and you do nothing else, you will earn the carry for two years.
The return would be $$(1.34/1.3 - 1)(360/Act)$$ assuming you are calculating return on a LIBOR equivalent basis.  This would be approximately 1.538% annualized.
The calculation of the 1.34 USD per GBP 2 Yr forward would be as follows:
$$(1 GBP * (1+2Y_{GBP Rate} *Act/365))/(1.30 USD * (1+2Y_{USD Rate} *Act/360)$$ again assuming you are using LIBOR rates.
Comment: How would the spot return play a role in this? I understand that the spot return is the log ratio of the spot price today vs the spot price yesterday. Wouldn't you need to incorporate this information somehow into the forward return calculation?
Comment: @lowentropy  It would not enter into the above strategy described.  Perhaps my assumptions are not what your strategy.  What data do you have?  USD yield curve? GBP Yield curve?  Perhaps you can elaborate on the trade for which you are calculating the return.
Comment: Certainly, I have the USD/GBP forward yield curve, the trade is for a 3Y forward contract buying GBP using USD.
Comment: In your case the return calculation will be just adding the returns for two years.  Alternatively, if you have the spot rate two years after the trade is put on, you only need to take ln(spot fx rate in 2yrs/ current spot fx rate).
Comment: @lowentropy. Also you would have to add the return from the 1 Yr forward at year 2 from the 3 Yr forward price at which you initiated the position.


Nutrient impact of squeezing water out of frozen chopped spinach

Question: Many recipes using frozen chopped spinach instruct one to thaw and squeeze out the water from the spinach.  When I do this, how much nutrition I am squeezing out?
Comment: Interesting...I haven't seen that suggested for frozen spinach before, myself. However, if you're planning to overcook the spinach (for example in a casserole, or in many Indian spinach-based dishes), I've seen it recommended to partially cook the spinach first and squeeze out the water. Squeezing out the water removes/prevents some of the terrible canned flavor of overcooked spinach. It might also be necessary if using frozen spinach in a recipe that is intended for fresh, as the partially-cooked spinach might overcook. While I know why it's done, however, I'm not sure what is lost.
Answer: One way of looking at it is that nutrient density is increased due to the removal of water. Minerals will not have been drained away at any rate.
Example from nutritiondata.self.com:
<code>                            water content, g per 100g  Iron     vitamin A
Unprepared thawed spinach   90.2                       1.9       11725
cooked drained              88.9                       2.0       12061
</code>
I assume more nutrients are cooked away rather than squeezed but that was the data available.
Comment: if it was pure water, sure. But many vitamins are water soluble.
Comment: look at the nutritional charts for drained vrs undrained spinach. No, I didn't say NOTHING was lost but I AM correct about the nutritional density by weight or volume. Iron levels also are not negatively impacted by draining as I mentioned
Comment: @Kate Gregory Some vitamins are water soluble, some even "swim" in the free water, but most are bound to the cellular structure, Pat is quite correct in this observation (and the nutritional data supports that)
Answer: When you squeeze the water 'out' you are really squeezing out the water on the outside of the spinach leaves, not the juice inside the spinach. You will get some green color but most of the moisture is just wash water.
Answer: I'd think this would have the same effect as overcooking. It'll probably be difficult to measure the amount of lost nutrients, but there will likely be nutrients lost.


Oracle's motives in the Matrix trilogy

Question: What does the Oracle wish for? Disorder? If she supports humans then she should help destroy the Matrix. If she does not, then she should mislead Neo and make the machines win.
In the end of The Matrix Revolutions, she seems pretty content. Why? Because the war was over? Is that all she wanted from the start?
Answer: This is not the first matrix, it's the sixth one and Oracle helped Architect to build this one. From the failure of previous matrix, Oracle and Architect given the humans 'free will'. So Oracle  always in support of free will for Humans. Her action sometimes cause imbalance in matrix but Architect is always there to control the effects. Like other agents and programs Oracle and Architect are not bound to matrix, they existed before it and will going to live after it. So this gives Oracle free will of her own, which reflects in her actions.
Some fan conclusions also say that the Black actor and white actor playing the Oracle character are like Yin and yang. But its Architect and Oracle  who act like Yin and yang. Oracle is even wearing yin-yang earrings throughout the third film to indicate this.
Comment: "Oracle is even wearing yin-yang earrings throughout the third film to indicate this" This is brilliant. I will check for it the next time I watch the movies (again).
Comment: @Ankit Sharma, Man : This is not the 3rd matrix, this is the 6th one. They've already destroyed zion 5 times. There have already been 5 anomalies. Neo is the 6th anomaly. The architect says this - "The matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the sixth version."
Comment: @Tivep didn't remember that part  and not even sure if it does, will revise with more information later.
Answer: Based on what the Architect says, to understand the human mind and help the machines make the humans accept the program better they turn to the Oracle.
The oracle is a software which has a more .. human touch.
The oracle doesn't only help understanding the human mind, but also thinks like one.
This is why the oracle takes pleasure in baking cookies, etc.
The problem now is that the Oracle program thinks so much like the humans that it is siding with the humans and trying to help them with their own problems.
This is not the original intent in the creation of the Oracle program.
Though the Oracle is a program, she sees the point of view oh the humans too and plays the "dangerous game of change" to avoid destruction of either sides.

Oracle's motives in the Matrix trilogy


Was there anyone involved in the negotiations of New Territories (Hong Kong) lease still alive at the time of the negotiations of its return to China?

Question: As well explained by this answer, I know the usual confusion among the previous cession in perpetuity of Hong Kong versus the lease of the neighboring New Territories.
For all effects, China got the return of both of them as established by the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory of 1898. So, despite the series of unequal treaties, put in perspective this one could be considered at least a visionary deal as it has given a dated timeline for the devolution not just of the New Territories, but of Hong Kong as a whole. (That is, in effect this treaty not just was better, but also helped China to peacefully revoke the "perpetuity" of the two previous unfair treaties).
It is almost impossible that someone alive at 1898 (and grown up enough to influence in the sign of the treaty) could be still alive 99 years later, at 1997.
But the negotiations between China and the United Kingdom started way before the actual return/handover of Hong Kong (at least since 1971, when PRC obtained its seat in the United Nations).
It is also unlikely that anyone exerting any influence at that Convention of 1898 would still be alive at the 70s, but there was such a person? (In any side, British or Chinese)
In positive case, who and what did he/she/they said about it?
Answer: It's possible, although very unlikely.
Almost all diplomats are at least 40 years old. This means that a diplomat alive in 1971 would be 113 years old, which is a rare and newsworthy age. The attachés, secretaries, and so forth are younger, but it is not clear how involved they would be in actually signing the treaty.


At least how many verses should i recite after surah fatiha in salah, Sunni

Question: I'm memorizing a surah, i might not memorize all 120 verses but its a long surah and its surah ma'idah to be exact. How many verses at least do i have to recite after surah fatiha in salah(prayer)?
Comment: This question already has an asnwer [here](https://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/2079/can-you-recite-from-the-middle-of-a-surah-in-salat) and an additional discussion [here](https://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/48062/how-long-ayah-is-considered-as-non-tiny-when-reciting-after-al-fatiha)
Answer: At least three verses and maximum is how much you can recite.
Answer: One is enough. Verse 2:255 is a single verse, 2:1 is also a single verse. Muhammed(PBUH) hasn't said anything about limits for the extra surah you recite.
Answer: The correct answer is that reciting anything after the opening chapter, Al-Fatiha, is not obligatory. See https://islamqa.info/en/answers/6422/reciting-a-soorah-after-al-faatihah-is-not-obligatory

Praise be to Allah.
1 – Reciting Qur'aan after al-Faatihah in prayer is not obligatory, either in a fard (obligatory) prayer or a naafil (supererogatory) prayer, whether the prayer is one in which Qur'aan is recited out loud or one in which it is recited silently, whether one is joining the prayer late or otherwise.
It was narrated that 'Ata' said: Abu Hurayrah said: In every prayer there is recitation.  What we heard the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) say, we tell you, and what he did not tell us about we cannot tell you. Whoever recites Umm al-Kitaab (i.e., Soorat al-Faatihah) has done enough, and whoever does more than that, that is better.
Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 738; Muslim, 396.
Al-Nawawi said:
The phrase, "Whoever recites Umm al-Kitaab (i.e., Soorat al-Faatihah) has done enough, and whoever does more than that, that is better" indicates that reciting al-Faatihah is obligatory, and that nothing else will do.
It also indicates that reciting a soorah after al-Faatihah is mustahabb. There is scholarly consensus on this point with regard to Fajr, Jumu'ah and the first two rak'ahs of every prayer, and this is Sunnah according to all scholars. Al-Qaadi 'Iyaad (may Allaah have mercy on him) narrated that some of the companions of Maalik said that reciting a second soorah is obligatory, but this is an odd view which is to be rejected.
With regard to reciting an additional soorah in the third and fourth rak'ahs, there was a difference of opinion among the scholars as to whether it is mustahabb or not. Maalik (may Allaah have mercy on him) regarded it as makrooh. Al-Shaafa'i (may Allaah be pleased with him) regarded it as mustahabb in his new opinion but not in his old opinion; the old opinion in this case is more correct.
Sharh Muslim, 4/105, 106.
Shaykh Ibn 'Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:
According to the majority of scholars, reciting another soorah (after al-Faatihah) is Sunnah and is not obligatory, because it is obligatory to recite only al-Faatihah.
Al-Sharh al-Mumti', 3/103
If you stand up to complete your prayer after the imam has said the tasleem, then the correct scholarly view is that the rak'ahs in which you caught up with the imam form the first part of your prayer. See question no. 23426. If what remains of your prayer is the third and fourth rak'ahs, then you should recite al-Faatihah only; if what remains is the second and subsequent rak'ahs, then in the second you should recite al-Faatihah plus another soorah, and in the remaining rak'ahs you should recite al-Faatihah only.


Distribution for High Kurtosis

Question: Can you please advise which distribution to follow when your skewness is 0.28 and Kurtosis value is 51. Since it's leptokurtic and positively skewed I would like to fit distribution and also wanted to calculate distribution value at each time "t" just like we calculate Z score for Normal Distribution.
Comment: In the current state, the question should be moved to [stats.SE] in my opinion.
Comment: If you can put in the data in a public google spreadsheet, I can throw it to Oracle Crystal Ball and see what distribution is returned. What you mention is just matching (higher) moments of the dataset for fitting, but MLE would typically be a preferred approach when fitting data to distributions.
Answer: That can be a somewhat difficult question to answer, given that the context may yield different distributions. Nevertheless, I think that you could try to fit the best distribution algorithmically. For instance, lately I found this package at Matlab file exchange:
Finding the best distribution that fits the data
Link

(...) This is where Mike's allfitdist comes into play. Statistics Toolbox supports a long list of distributions, including parametric and nonparametric distributions. allfitdist fits all valid parametric distributions to the data and sorts them using a metric you can use to compare the goodness of the fit. (...)

Hope that this helps. Let me know whether it worked for you!
Answer: I think the best answer is to test different distributions with your specific data set and see which fits the data the best... skewness and kurtosis are just a small piece of information , there is still a good deal of information we don't know and won't have with out having the data set in front of us

Distribution for High Kurtosis


Eating on someone else's untoveled dishes

Question: One must tovel (immerse in a mikve) various kinds of dishes before first use, and may not eat from his own dishes until they are toveled. Is it likewise forbidden to eat from someone else's untoveled dishes?
Comment: I've added some context to the question. You may wish to do so in the future to aid the uninitiated.
Answer: In Hilchos Tevilas Keilim by Rav Dov Cohen, he brings sources which permit eating using untoveled keilim in someone else's house, although, if memory serves, R. Moshe Feinstein forbade it. It should be noted, that according to Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky and others, one is not obligated to tovel glazed crockery at all, as noted here.
Rav Eliezer Melamed notes that according to the majority of poskim, it is forbidden for a guest to eat from untoveled keilim. Nevertheless there are several poskim who allow it, and he permits one to follow them, especially if not doing so will lead to a problem with 'darchei shalom'.
Comment: Welcome to Judaism.SE! Thank you for your sourced answer. I look forward to seeing you around.
Comment: Thanks. I'm new here, so not familiar with the rules yet, but please help me out if I do anything which contravenes them.
Comment: Joseph, please consider registering your account, which will give you access to more of the site's features. I edited out the long quotation per http://meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/a/76/2 . If you want to say more about what R' Melamed says in your own words, please feel free to [edit] in a longer summary.
Answer: Yechave Da'as 4-44 based on the Bais Yosef – a person may dine in a restaurant or hotel where the dishes were not Toiveled. The reason is since the dishes were initially purchased for commercial purposes – to earn a profit – rather than for private use, therefore they do not have to be Toiveled. However a guest in a private home, where the dishes have not been Toiveled, may not eat off the dishes. Since the dishes were purchased for private use – and specifically, for food preparation – therefore they must be Toiveled.
However HaRav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach Zatzal in Minchas Shlomo 2-66 says that one is allowed to be Maikil and eat if the host does not specifically serve him food. In this scenario, the guest does not have an obligation to Toivel the dishes. However, the guest must remove the food from the plate with a Toiveled fork and spoon. If the host specifically offers the food, then the guest may not eat off the dishes because of Lifnei Iver. However by a restaurant, he says that one may not be lenient because of commercial use. Nevertheless, you may still eat, because you are not the the one who is obligated to Toivel the dishes and the restaurant would never allow you to remove the dishes from their premises. Therefore, you may eat off of the not Toiveled dishes.
Answer: According to some opinions, if the dishes do not belong to you, since you do not have a direct obligation to tovel them, you can eat off of the other person's (or restaurant's or hotel's) non-toveled dishes.
HaRav Zev Leff, noted posek and mora d'asra of Moshav Mattityahu, allows one to rely on these opinions when the host would be embarrassed or offended if you did not eat the kosher food off of his non-toveled dishes.
http://www.rabbileff.net/shiurim/answers/0500-0749/0552.mp3
In any case, the rabbinic requirement to tovel dishes in your possession, which were made by a non-Jew, has NOTHING to do with kashrus.
http://e.yeshiva.org.il/ask/?srch=1&orderby=12


Group of symmetries of Lagrange's equations

Question: Consider the following statements, for a classical system whose configuration space has dimension $d$:

Lagrange equations admit a smaller group of "symmetries" (coordinate change under which equations are formally unchanged) than Hamilton's;
The 'symplectic diffeomorfism' (=coordinate changes whose jacobian is a symplectic $d$-parametric matrix) Lie group has dimension greater than $\dim G$, $G$ being the (Lie?) group of symmetries of point one.

The first is well known to be true. What about the second? There exists such a $G$ (at a first sight it seemed to me to be the whole $Diff(M)$; but if it is so, then 2 is false)? If it is true, can point 2 explain point 1?
Comment: (I can't create the "lagrangian-mechanics" tag)
Comment: Fixed the tag...
Comment: "coordinate change under which equations are formally unchanged"  Which equations are you referring to here?  The EOM?
Answer: Here Hamiltonian systems on cotangent bundles $(T^{*}M, \omega_M, H)$ of a manifold
$M$ will be considered.
A symmetry of the Hamiltonian system is a diffeomorphism which preserves 1) The cotangent bundle structure, 2) the canonical symplectic form $\omega_M$ and 3) the Hamiltonian $H$.
A point (or Noether) symmetry of the Lagrangian is required in addition to be generated by a vector field on $M$ whose canonical lift to $T^{*}M$ generates a Hamiltonian symmetry.
The group of symplectomorphism is only required to preserve the symplectic form and not associated with a specific hamiltonian, thus it is the largset group and in general infinite dimensional.
Answer: 0) Let us for simplicity assume that the Legendre transformation from Lagrangian to Hamiltonian formulation is regular.
1) The Lagrangian action $S_L[q]:=\int dt~L$ is invariant under the infinite-dimensional group of diffeomorphisms of the $n$-dimensional (generalized) position space $M$.
2) The Hamiltonian action $S_H[q,p]:=\int dt(p_i \dot{q}^i -H)$ is invariant (up to boundary terms) under the infinite-dimensional group of symplectomorphisms of the $2n$-dimensional phase space $T^*M$.
3) The group of diffeomorphisms of position space can be prolonged onto a subgroup inside the group of symplectomorphisms. (But the group of symplectomorphism is much bigger.) The above is phrased in the active picture. We can also rephrase it in the passive picture of coordinate transformations. Then we can prolong a coordinate transformation
$$q^i ~\longrightarrow~ q^{\prime j}~=~q^{\prime j}(q)$$
into the cotangent bundle $T^*M$ in the standard fashion
$$ p_i ~=~ p^{\prime}_j \frac{\partial q^{\prime j} }{\partial q^i} ~.$$
It is not hard to check that the symplectic two-form becomes invariant
$$dp^{\prime}_j \wedge dq^{\prime j}~=~ dp_i \wedge dq^i $$
(which corresponds to a symplectomorphism in the active picture).


How would a camshaft start moving during a cold start?

Question: I want to know how would a camshaft ( and valves by association ) start moving on a cold start up? What gets them running and moving. Are there something they connect to to get them going?
Comment: For mass-produced engines, there is nothing special going on with the camshaft(s) on cold start - they will always be driven by a timing chain or belt off the crank, regardless of whether the engine runs hot or cold.
Answer: Crank shaft has a pulley or a sprocket at the front end, which turns a cam shaft/shafts through a cam chain or cam belt (timing belt). 1 turn of a cam shaft = 2 turns of a crank shaft. At the other end of a crank shaft is a flywheel which being turned by a starter motor for a start. Crank shaft is the first shaft in the whole engine which turns everything else.
Comment: That is an unusual crank configuration.
Comment: yea, just noticed :D Just a random pic from google. Looks like a 1-2-3-4, never seen that before!
Comment: @user15938 - If this answers your question, please feel free to check it as the answer :o)


What's the white liquidy substance that can appear when cooking salmon?

Question: When I cooked salmon filets on the grill last night, after the filets had been on the grill for a while, I noticed that the salmon secreted through the surface of the filet a white liquidy substance that looked sort of like mayonaise or ranch dressing.  What is it and why does it come out during cooking?
Answer: That white stuff is albumen, the same protein that makes the white of chicken eggs.  The albumen is part of the salmon's blood, which means that your fillet was fresh.  A trick for dealing with it was developed by Bruno Goussault while collaborating with chef Michel Richard from Citronelle in DC: soak the salmon pieces in an ice cold brine. The article in the New York Times that told the story recommends soaking the salmon fillets for ten minutes in a 10% brine (by weight).  To make the brine, dissolve three tablespoons of Kosher salt for every cup of ice cold water and make as many cups as you need.
Comment: That's it! I was trying to think of how to describe the consistency, and the "white of chicken eggs" is perfectly it! Thanks!
Answer: The 'white stuff' you see is fat being broken down during the cooking process.
one common reason why you see this is because you are over cooking the salmon.
If you're cooking your salmon to be well done, chances are you will see this. Gently wipe it off before serving for a better presentation. Although that might be tough with blackened salmon.
Comment: The fat answer is wrong, the albumen answer is correct. Thanks for your input. I will be trying the ice cold brine as soon as I cook my next salmon!


Let's unload [loaded-dice]

Question: While poking around for interesting tags to fill my favorites I noticed loaded-dice. Currently there are only two questions tagged, and in both circumstances it seems to me that dice would suffice. Kill it with fire?
Answer: It doesn't seem to be a tag that has much utility or community support, either of which I think is enough reason to clean up a tag. I'd be happy to see it made a synonym pointing to dice.
Comment: @Conduit This is most efficiently done by a mod, so if there's no good reason put forth to *not* proceed, after giving the community a bit of time to offer other options, a mod can just do it. (Do poke us via a comment here or a flag on the answer if it seems like we've forgotten it!)
Comment: In my view this is an optimal solution. What's SOP for stuff like this? As the asker is it my duty to enact a change after a certain amount of community consideration?
Comment: *poke* +9 chars
Answer: I'd prefer to keep it. It's a specific topic that people can have interest in and expertise in, and it's useful for searching for anyone who wants to learn about loaded dice. It ticks all the boxes.
It doesn't have much activity to its name, but that's the only issue with it, and since it's fine to have only one or two questions in a tag that's a non-issue. It does absolutely no harm sitting there and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the tag otherwise.
The dice tag can suffice, but there's no reason we need to suffice with just that one.
Comment: I'd argue that the distinction between dice and loaded-dice isn't sufficient to warrant a separate tag. Having D&D 5e and 3.5e allows us the ability to distinguish between disparate rulesets, but dice and loaded-dice function in the same fundamental way (albeit with changes to probability, for which we have [tag:statistics]).

Let's unload [loaded-dice]