Do we need a makebst tag?

Question: There are around 60 questions that contain makebst, but no corresponding tag. Should we create one?
Comment: We already have a `custom-bib` tag, so really all that is needed is to make `makebst` a synonym, and perhaps add the `custom-bib` tag to some of the questions that are missing it. Oddly I don't have enough reputation in the tag to even *suggest* a synonym (SE works in mysterious ways...) but certainly a moderator could do that.
Comment: @cfr This is a bit ... populist. `makebst` is a clearly separate program, and hardly someone uses `makebst` and not mean this program. That's not the case with `cannot` (which is a standard English word) nor with `ams` (who maintain lots and lots of separate stuff).
Comment: So probably @AlanMunn 's suggestion is a good one?
Comment: There are around  6,614 questions containing `cannot`, but no corresponding tag. Should we create one? There are around 967 containing `AMS` (or `ams`), around 741 containing `obsolete` and around 1,373 containing `weird`. That is, why this in particular? I'm not sure total number of questions is a good guide to whether a tag is likely to be a useful one or not. (I'm not saying it wouldn't be: just that I don't think the numbers can make the case on their own.)
Comment: @yo' Indeed. My point was that the question doesn't make a case either way because the reason given for considering the tag is not a good one. Numbers are part of the picture (no point in a tag for 1 question unless you think others will then use it, at least) but they can't make the case for a tag on their own. That was my only point. I hoped somebody would expand the question to say why *this* tag might be considered a useful addition.
Comment: @cfr: I asked a question about `makebst` and have not found the [tag:custom-bib] tag; I would have found it if there was an alias. The figure I gave is just an indicator that there seems to be some interest in this tool. [None of these questions](http://tex.stackexchange.com/search?q=makebst+is%3Aquestion+%5Btag%3Acustom-bib%5D) seem to be tagged as "custom-bib", although that tag would be appropriate for quite a few of them.
Answer: (Making this an answer, since it seems to have enough support.)
We already have a custom-bib tag, so really all that is needed is to make makebst a synonym, and perhaps add the custom-bib tag to some of the questions that are missing it. Oddly I don't have enough reputation in the tag to even suggest a synonym (SE works in mysterious ways...) but certainly a moderator could do that.
Just be aware before going on a tagging spree, that adding a tag to a question bumps it to the front page, so it's best to do tagging in small sets over a few days if there are many questions in need of new tags.
Comment: @krlmlr Done :-)
Comment: There don't seem to be many users who are able to create the synonym now, it must be a user with "[a total answer score of 5 or more on that tag](http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/70718/208735)": http://tex.stackexchange.com/search?q=%5Bcustom-bib%5D+is%3Aanswer. Perhaps a moderator can do this?

Do we need a makebst tag?


How do readers/writers alike feel about too much narration in a story?

Question: My question is pretty much summed up in the title. My story includes a lot of narration. Narrating events, narrating character's thoughts. There are several intervals in each chapter where the characters engage dialogue, but most of the story telling is done through narration.
How viable is this for writing an enjoyable story?
Edit: just to clarify what "too much" means, there is generally more narration than actual dialogue.
Comment: Amadeus said what I would have regarding the reader. Regarding the writers - most will likely tell you that showing is better (and in most cases I would agree), but if massive amounts of narration is what works best for your story, then go with it. Story takes precedence over 'show don't tell'.
Comment: What is the *usual* proportion between dialogue and "narration" in non-theatrical fiction? My gut feeling is that it is under 20%, probably around 10%. What is that proportion in your work?
Answer: I don't think this balance matters terribly much.
The more critical measure is whether there is tension due to conflict. If your narration is describing a battle, for example, it can go on for pages without any dialogue. If your narration is describing people at high risk (trying to infiltrate a lair, for example) it can go on for pages.
It is tension that keeps readers turning pages to find out what happens on the next page. The tension is usually caused by conflict, but can also be caused by novelty. Like a character seeing something for the first time, that the reader also finds captivating. A giant alien space station or something. A living dinosaur.
It is easier to create tension in dialogue than in narration, just because the speakers can disagree, misunderstand, get confused or angry or resistant.
Thus a story that is mostly narration is more difficult for the writer to keep interesting, and you risk people getting bored or fatigued by the amount of information they are given without anything happening in the story with the characters. But if you can craft your narrations to engage people's imagination and give them a simulated imaginary "experience" then your story can be fine.
Comment: My first thought upon reading the OP was, 'it's viable if there's tension'. So +1 for taking the words right out of my mouth. I would also like to add that in the absence of conflict, **questions** are the best source of tension I know of. If your reader both doesn't know something *and* feels compelled to find the answer, he will read on. This is the whole principle behind opening hooks.
Comment: @ThomasMyron I agree open questions create tension, but they don't automatically save pages of exposition. I do want to know who killed Karen, but if I encounter a page about the inner workings of stock option strategies, I might flip through the next ten pages of that to get back to **for God's sake who killed Karen.** The exposition must do something to tease the question and have characters trying to build toward an answer.
Comment: Well yes. I ... don't believe I said they save pages of exposition. :)
Comment: @ThomasMyron You did not, I wasn't writing a criticism for you, so apologies if I was not clear. I was writing a clarification and warning for **other writers** (and the OP) that might think having a big open question will immunize them and create room for a few pages of philosophical or pedantic no-tension explanations or narration.
Answer: I like good narration and am annoyed by too much pointless dialog.
Actually, the dialog does not even need to be pointless. I become annoyed by dialog.
So, as a reader, to answer your question, there is no such thing as "too much narration." But there is, to this reader, such a thing as "too much dialog."
In my critique groups, I see some writers relying super - heavily on dialog. This is presumably because it is in some ways easier to write. (It is also harder to write well, in other ways.)
I believe many find it straightforward to type out a conversation, whereas describing an imaginary scene/setting requires, well, imagination and language. So, I have seen some writers relying heavily on dialog, and what ends up happening is the conversation is not well - anchored within a setting, and also the nuances of the conversation (the shading of words or stances of the people or contextual thoughts or subtext) are lost. I think some writers feel that the 'quick pacing' that they achieve from a crisp dialog and the 'all important white space' that one sees touted, are the goal.
The goal is a good story! Not speed and white space.
Edit:
I had actually read statistics on  this ratio for fantasy books some months ago.

Density: One way in which these books differ significantly from one another is in the proportion of narration to dialogue. The texts of the majority of titles are less than 50% dialogue, ranging from a low, narrative-heavy score of 13% dialogue for The Wizard of Earthsea, to a much chattier 37% dialogue in The Final Empire (Mistborn #1). But the real odd-balls are Santiago, which is 59% dialogue, and The Last Unicorn, which scores a whopping 63% talky-talk. These two outliers seem so at odds with the rest of the group that I had to go into the text and examine it myself, to be sure that there wasn't some kind of bug in my analysis tool, but my visual inspection did reveal an awful lot of dialogue in these two books.

http://creativityhacker.ca/2013/07/05/analyzing-dialogue-lengths-in-fantasy-fiction/
Second Edit:
Are you actually asking about whether it is OK to have info-dumps? because that is a separate question but some conflate it with narration.
Comment: The wake up call for me was when my friend told me "Needs more internal dialogue". I'm like oh crap, they aren't the POV how am I to do that? Well I then brainstormed, came back into inserting flashbacks (yes I dreaded it at first "knowing" that they are kind of taboo) and then doing kind of a 1st person omnipresent with my narrator (essentially he's breaking the 4th wall watching the story as we are and making occasional commentary directly to the reader. Works really well otherwise his "bug world" leaves a lot of confusion for readers not into their world.)
Comment: So yeah having my narrator read into the other characters thoughts is kind of odd, but presents a fun angle to approach with my rough draft. Adding the characters thoughts also helps tie in some of the dialogue that seemed out of place and out of character. I'm not sure how much of it will make it to the next draft, but I found rereading what I got more engaging than I had before. Still very dialogue heavy though. Ugh. And I have to separate between narrator now vs. narrator at age 5. Narrator now: Omnipresent. Narrator age 5: 1st person limited.
Comment: I get the feeling this may be a very tricky type of narration to write. I may be making a lot of work for myself later, but it so far is what feels the best for what I'm trying to write. It helps make exposition more engaging. Helps a lot this is a fantasy type story and I set the opening scene right before the destruction of their world, so he's essentially seeing a replaying of his life (and glimpses of others who matter) and given (limited) chances to alter it in hopes he can change the fate of his world and their future. Having him participate and speak directly to the reader at times,
Comment: As someone with the opposite problem as the original post, I'm tempted to ask the reverse question, what to do with excess dialogue and when I should replace sections of dialogue with narration. As a novice, it is really hard to tell, because when I see a scene in my head, it's the dialog that comes the strongest. The scenery and other details I tend to forget or not see as vividly as I go to write it.
Comment: @BugFolk I'm novice too and not even certain if I'm doing my narrator consistently through my novel. I counted a chapter yesterday and am at ~30% dialog in that chapter. I don't think you need to replace dialog with narration, but narration gives some 'old brains' like mine a rest. As an aspiring fiction writer I'm playing with the 'commentator' type of 3rd person narration at this link:http://bekindrewrite.com/2011/09/09/the-7-narrator-types-and-you-thought-there-were-only-two/  Additionally, I'm trying to identify all the *types* of things a narrator can add. Tags, description, etc.
Comment: @BugFolk because I'm analytical, and there are stretches where my only narration is 'she smiled' (ugh) or 'he walked over to her' (is that all I have to say about it?) whereas in other stretches I'm throwing in needed exposition.  I started adding commentary because I wondered if that was a good third element of narration. But my favorite authors do a great job weaving all sorts of stuff into the narration, and so if I had a concrete list I might be able to bring that part of the game up. Without presuming, you might have similar newbie things going on.


How to do speech recognition on a single word

Question: I would provide a sound signal of about 2-3 seconds to my neural network. I have trained my network with a single word, like if I speak "Hello" the network may tell if "Hello" is spoken or not, but some other word like "World" is spoken, it will say "Hello" is not spoken. I just want classification of sound if its a specific command or word.
What is the best way to do this, I am not a that much advanced in DNN, I only know about NN and CNN, I want to know if there is some research paper or tutorial, or need some explanation about the work.
Answer: If you have fixed length speech data you can detect the content using only CNN. You can see that problem as a binary classification (1 if the spoken word is correct, 0 otherwise).
But first, you need to make the input length is fixed. For example, you use 2 seconds as the fixed length. If the recorded speech is more than 2 seconds, you need to crop it, and if the recorded speech is less than 2 seconds you can pad it with 0 values.
Next, You can either use raw data (time-domain) or transform your data using some features extractors method (FFT, MFCC, or MFSC). Then, use CNN as you use it to classify the image. You can assume the graphic of the sound wave as a 2D image.
But, If your data have a variety of length, you can combine CNN to detect each phoneme then combine it as a sequence using RNN or HMM. You can read this method also in the mentioned papers.
Comment: yes, you can use your "window" method. if you use small "shift", It would give some variation of your training data. I can't give an exact number, try with a smaller size (~100 samples for each class) and increase it if the accuracy is still small. To improve accuracy you still need to use some data that have similar sound with "hello".
Comment: Yes, I need to crop, I have thought the sound data in form of a dequeue, I would have a window of 2s, pass this 2 seconds to model, pop from the front of the window a sample, and push the sample recorded at the back and repeat this algorithm
Comment: One more thing I want to ask, say for "hello" word recognition, how much dataset size would provide a considerable good accuracy, if you know this. Otherwise i understood the logic, I would read the papers to implement it. Thanks


Lucas Numbers and Matrices

Question: Is there a $2 \times 2$ matrix that can be raised to any power to obtain the Lucas Numbers?  If so, what is that matrix?  I've looked around on this website and other sites and am not able to find the solution.
Answer: Use the same matrix you would use for Fibonacci numbers, then apply to the initial state vector for Lucas numbers. The matrix captures the recurrence relation. So, same recurrence relation, same matrix. The differences between the Lucas numbers and the Fibonacci numbers lies entirely in the initial values, which do not come into the matrix, but rather an initial state vector to apply the matrix to.
Using one option for orienting the vectors: $$\begin{bmatrix}L_{n}\\L_{n+1}\end{bmatrix}=\begin{bmatrix}0 & 1\\1 & 1\end{bmatrix}^n\begin{bmatrix}L_0\\L_1\end{bmatrix}=\begin{bmatrix}0 & 1\\1 & 1\end{bmatrix}^n\begin{bmatrix}2\\1\end{bmatrix}$$
If you are using powers of $\begin{bmatrix}0 & 1\\1 & 1\end{bmatrix}$ to identify Fibonacci numbers, then maybe you aren't thinking about the method in the best way.
$$\begin{bmatrix}F_{n}\\F_{n+1}\end{bmatrix}=\begin{bmatrix}0 & 1\\1 & 1\end{bmatrix}^n\begin{bmatrix}F_0\\F_1\end{bmatrix}=\begin{bmatrix}0 & 1\\1 & 1\end{bmatrix}^n\begin{bmatrix}0\\1\end{bmatrix}$$
happens to just pick out the second column of $\begin{bmatrix}0 & 1\\1 & 1\end{bmatrix}^n$, so there is some misleading coincidence there that makes the actual entries of $\begin{bmatrix}0 & 1\\1 & 1\end{bmatrix}^n$ be Fibonacci numbers.
Answer: Let $$Q=\pmatrix{1&1\\1&0}\;,$$ so that $$\pmatrix{F_{n+1}&F_n\\F_n&F_{n-1}}=Q^n$$ for $n\ge 0$. I don't know that you can find a matrix that does exactly the same thing for the Lucas numbers, but it is true that
$$\pmatrix{L_{n+1}&L_n\\L_n&L_{n-1}}=Q^n\pmatrix{1&2\\2&-1}\;.$$
Another matrix that's not quite what you want is $$Q_L=\pmatrix{3&1\\1&2}\;,$$ since
$$Q_L^n=\begin{cases}
5^{n/2}\pmatrix{F_{n+1}&F_n\\F_n&F_{n-1}},&\text{if }n\text{ is even}\\\\
5^{(n-1)/2}\pmatrix{L_{n+1}&L_n\\L_n&L_{n-1}},&\text{if }n\text{ is odd}
\end{cases}$$
for $n\ge 1$. (This last result is taken from this paper.)
Comment: Note that $L_n = F_{n+1} + F_{n-1}$.
Answer: The Lucas number $L_n$ is $\text{tr} \left[ \begin{array}{cc} 1 & 1 \\\ 1 & 0 \end{array} \right]^n$.

Lucas Numbers and Matrices


About animal ecology and one view of this in science fiction

Question: In the movie the Matrix Agent Smith said something like, 'all animals strive to find a natural 'equilibrium' with there environment ,... a harmonious existence with their ecosystem', ( forgive misquoting). Is this true that each animal 'does' a lot of activity whether by instinct or an ad-hoc form of 'simple' planning to 'cooperate' with it's environment ,or exist 'harmoniously with it?
Answer: There is a purely philosophical issue behind your question. What does trying mean? Does trying doing A means that an individual is aware of how to achieve A and will behave so to achieve it?
The likely correct answer (it really depends on you definition) is "No" (with some eventual exception among those that have high cognitive abilities such as humans). No, animals don't try to create a nice ecosystem. Animals (just like any living things) just evolve in response to their environment and this ends up creating ecosystems. The ecosystemic balance is just the result of the non-cooperative actions of the different species at play in the ecosystem. For example, animals reject nitrogen not in order to help plants to grow but only because nitrogen is a waste and is toxic for them. You may want to make you understand how evolution works.
For those who have a good enough knowledge in evolutionary biology, I have to admit that the above answer might be slightly wrong if we consider some special kinds of selection such as kin selection, species selection or even ecosystem selection. I think the answer to the question remains "no" given the "conscious" side of the definition of trying that the OP was probably using.
Update
Cooperation is easy to explain, real altruism is more complicated. Real altruism is when one individual makes an action that benefits to the others lifespan reproductive success but decreases the lifetime reproductive success of the one producing the action.
Within population real altruism can be explained by kin selection. see this post for more info.
Between species real altruism is much more complicated to explain. It would need to use concepts such as species selection. But does between species real altruism even exist (beside some behaviour from species with high cognitive abilities)? I don't think so.
What you are interested in is inter/species cooperation. Very often the individual that offers something to the other also directly gain something. For example, the animal excrete nitrogen because it is toxic and the plant take advantage of this. But sometimes an individual (actor) pay a cost for producing something to the benefit of the other individual (recipient). In return, the actor will receive something back from the recipient. For example, in the lichen, the algae offers energy while the fungi offers shelter. If one stops the other will die and both will lose. There are known cases also where individual A stops offering goods t individual B if individual B stops offering goods to individual A. This kind of traits are best studies with the tools of game theory.
Comment: I agree that the question is formulated very badly, has a strong philosophical bent, and could be interpreted in different ways. But there is a surprisingly simple answer: all interpretations I can think of are false. Animals do not strive towards maintaining environmental balance, neither consciously or unconsciously. The existing balance is a byproduct of the sum of their independent non-cooperative actions.
Comment: I didn't dare being so radical because it keeps kin selection, ecosystem selection and species selection aside. But I updated my question now to clarify my point using your comment. Please let me know if you have other suggestions.
Comment: There is some cooperation in nature; like a 'social order' in a group of animals , or symbiosis. How can these things develope if all animals are exerting their independent non-cooperating actions?
Comment: see update in my answer.
Answer: The answer to the question as stated is, certainly: No. Neither on a conscious level, nor at the level of instinct does an animal have the goal of keeping the ecological balance of its environment intact. Quite the opposite: it is constantly trying to overturn that balance, attempting to change the system and bring it to a new situation, one in which it (the animal) and its children have a higher survival and procreation chance than the current one. Whether the new situation will be stable (= a balance) or not is not a criterion, and cannot be predicted by any animal acting on the environment (including the humans).
To use an example: As the news outlets have been warning us in recent years, if all bees were to die, our whole ecosystem could collapse. Yet no bee is pollinating flowers because it somehow feels that this will prevent the collapse of the current ecosystem. It gathers pollen because its swarm is hungry.
There is also nothing "natural" about the equilibrium our ecosystem is in, at least not in the sense implying that "this is how it should be, and everything else is so bad that it goes against the very laws of nature". It is just one random equilibrium of many possible states of our planet, some including an ecosystem in equilibrium, others including self-destruction of the ecosystem. All of these states are equally natural, and the planet has passed through several of them before establishing the current one (which isn't about to stay here forever either).
Comment: By the way I didn't say animals were 'doing' things to be in a state of better 'equilibrium' with their environment ,I just took this as a paraphrase from the movie the MATRIX. I , myself was wondering if the statement FROM THE MOVIE had any truth. I didn't say I believe it.
Answer: No
There are many, many examples of species in their native environment accidentally destroying their ecosystem when external factors constraining their ability to reproduce are removed. For example when wolves and other large predators were removed from most of the American west ungulates like deer and elk nearly stripped the environment bare, to the point that riparian lowlands were completely stripped of vegetation and native willow populations were severely effected.
Similarly, invasive species, when introduced, aren't intentionally trying to drive other species to extinction, it's just that their adaptations are so mismatched the invasive species succeeds disproportionately often allowing for a population boom. For example, sea lamprey weren't trying to wipe out lake whitefish and lake trout when they got into the Great Lakes, they were just too good at what they did.
Even in humans "living in balance with ones environment" is a rare idea, and generally only occurs in populations that have the resources to spare and don't have to worry about their own survival.


How do Catholics observe Lent through a dignified and appropriate use of food?

Question: Have you considered presenting menus for those fasting days for religious people to follow? If so, what foods to eat on which fasting season and why? Display pictures if possible. Many would appreciate that.
Comment: @KorvinStarmast FWIW, I like questions like this, I think the wording could be improved to "how do Catholics observe Lent through a dignified and appropriate use of food" and I wouldn't throw away Ken's answer for all the Rauchbeir in Bavaria.
Comment: @korvin Ken graciously made his a wiki so I think that's an invite to muck with his post for the betterment of all people of goodwill.
Comment: The answer below is a Wiki post, so that all can add to a single response.
Comment: @PeterTurner if I can add my recipe then great!
Comment: @PeterTurner thanks, I'll post the recipe when I get home to my 3x5 recipe cards. Yes, I still use those ...
Comment: **All are welcome to add to the Wiki post** that I established for all to enjoy. By the way: Bon Appetite everyone!
Answer: In the Roman Rite Lent starts on Ash Wednesday and finishes on Holy Saturday. This comprises a period of 46 days. This includes six Sundays which are not considered part of the Lenten fast, but they are traditionally is still part of spirit of abstinence in Lent.
The period of Lent observed in the Eastern Catholic Churches corresponds to that in other churches of Eastern Orthodoxy that have similar liturgical and Lenten traditions.

Age for Fasting in the Catholic Church: According to Church law, all persons 14 years and older are bound to abstain from meat on the days prescribed (Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Fridays throughout the year unless they are solemnities, or the conference of bishops has established another penance). Children under 18 are not bound to fast; adults under 60 years of age are bound to fast on the days prescribed (the only specific days prescribed for the whole Church are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, though fasting more often is encouraged). Of course, those really unable to fast for reasons of health are excused from fasting. - Fasting

Pope Benedict XVI has this to say about Fasting:

It seems abundantly clear that fasting represents an important ascetical practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every possible disordered attachment to ourselves. Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person. Quite opportunely, an ancient hymn of the Lenten liturgy exhorts: "Utamur ergo parcius, / verbis cibis et potibus, / somno, iocis et arctius / perstemus in custodia – Let us use sparingly words, food and drink, sleep and amusements. May we be more alert in the custody of our senses." - MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI FOR LENT 2009

Here are a few suggestions for Lent, whether on a traditional or a regional note:

Ecuador: Franesca Soup is a traditional dish served during Lent. This soup has 12 grains (representing Jesus' 12 disciples), dried cod, peanuts, hard-boiled eggs and mini cheese empanadas floating in a creamy base. On Good Friday, vendors serve it out of large vats. It's a bit of work to make yourself, but so worth it.
Greece: The following dishes a popular in Greece during lent: Lenten Cake, Octopus with paprika and Cake with no eggs.
Jejunium: Where fasting is indeed taken seriously as in many traditional religious communities breakfast may consist of a bowl (mug or cup, depending from which county you are from) of coffee or milk taken with a slice of bread. It is the tradition in some Religious Orders to place on the table a sign with the word JEJUNIUM in bold letters to remind everyone entering the refectory for breakfast that it is a fast day. With the suppression of greater part of the Church's discipline of Lenten fasting, the Latin word for fasting, 'jejunium', is removed from the original text of the traditional hymns of Lent and substituted with 'abstinentia'.
The evening collation: Besides a complete meal, the Church now permits a collation usually taken in the evening when one must fast. This might be something like a small amount of soup, a very small serving of some dish such as macaroni or leftovers and a slice of bread. In Europe and many religious communities, the main meal is around noontime or early afternoon. Due to work, many people who fast, reverse their collaton and their main meal times.
St. Benedict's Model for his monks: "We think it sufficient for the daily meal, whether at the sixth or the ninth hour, that there be at all the tables two dishes of cooked food because of the weaknesses of different persons; so that he who perhaps cannot eat of the one may make his meal of the other. Therefore, let two cooked dishes suffice for the brethren; and if there is any fruit or fresh vegetables, let a third dish be added. Let a full pound of bread suffice for each day, whether there be but one meal or both dinner and supper. If they are to take a second meal, let a third part of the pound be reserved by the cellarer, to be given to them at supper. But if the work has been rather heavy, it shall be in the discretion and power of the Abbot to make some addition, if he thinks it expedient, provided that excess be avoided above all things, that no monk be ever guilty of surfeiting; for nothing is more unworthy of any Christian than gluttony, as our Lord says: "Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with self-indulgence and drunkenness." Let not the same quantity be allowed to children of tender years, but a smaller amount than that allowed to their elders, so that frugality may be observed in all things. All, however, except the very weak and the sick, are to abstain from eating the flesh of four-footed animals." - Chapter 39
Corned Beef on Fridays of Lent?: Some US dioceses have permitted corn beef (or other meats) when the Feast of St. Patrick falls on a Friday of Lent. The following dioceses or archdioceses had announced giving the clear for Catholics to eat meat on March 17 when it falls on Lenten Fridays: Baltimore; New York; Milwaukee; St. Paul and Minneapolis; Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Omaha, Nebraska; and Jefferson City, Missouri. Corned beef conundrum: Some dioceses give St. Patrick's Day dispensation Many Catholics are seem to be Irish, or at least Irish for a day, and that means they'll have to pass on the traditional corned beef and cabbage or shepherd's pie — maybe.
Rauchbier (Smoked Beer): Rauchbier, or "smoke beer," is made using malts that have been dried over fire—-thus gaining the smoky taste of cured meats like ham and bacon. At one time all beers malts were produced over fire, but in medieval Bavaria beers of this type came to be associated with Lent when the rich, smoky tones of meat were dearly missed. There is, of course, an official blessing for beer ("Bless, O Lord, this creature beer . . . ") which one may safely assume is more efficacious in the original Latin: "Benedic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisiae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi, et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti; ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corpus et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen."
Black Wine: Black was the liturgical color for Lent before becoming replaced with violet.
Rosé Wine: For Gaudete and Laetare Sundays when Rose colored vestment are used at Mass.
Alligator: Alligator meat is permissible to eat on Fridays of Lent (in the USA only), the archbishop of New Orleans assured a conscientious parishioner, and his approval has been backed by the national bishops' conference. Try these for example: Alligator Fingers or Chef John Folse's Alligator Sauce Piquante.
Torrija: Traditionally eaten in Spain during Lent
Croccante Quaresimale (Italian Cookies for Lent)
Ember Day's Tart: Great for fasting days like the Ember Days and Lent.
Lent (in general): Spaghetti al nero di seppia (pasta + squid ink) It is penitential just by its color. Fare warning should be announced here. It stains your teeth. Onion Pie Onions were commonly eaten in Biblical Times. Also popular in lent are the following: Falafel, Almond Milk Frumenty (Medieval recipe) and Lenten Eggs Benedict. The Feast of St. Benedict (March 21) often falls in Lent. Oh, yes do not the tradition pretzel association with Lent.
Clean Monday: Lenten Bean Salad and Cuttlefish With Spinach (Σουπιές-με-σπανάκι) are cooked on Clean Monday in Greece as part of the Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches' traditions.
Fridays (of Lent): Friday Fritters
Friday of the Third Week of Lent: La Samaritana Festival is held on the fourth Friday of Lent at Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico. The custom of the day involves churches, schools, and businesses giving away fruit drinks to passers-byes. In the Extraordinary Rite (EF) of the Liturgy the Gospel of the day is taken from St. John 4:5-42 which details Jesus' encounter with the Samaritian women at the well.
Mid-Lent: Mid lent in the East is on Wednesday of the fourth week of Lent. In Armenia,  Mid Lent Fortune Bread (Michink) is traditional made and eaten this day.
Mid-Lent: Thursday before Laetare Sunday (Pancakes and crepes are popular this day for those undergoing the traditional 40 day fast of Lent, in the Roman Rite.)
Fourth Sunday of Lent:  Pretzel Sunday (Bretzelsonnden) in Luxenbourg. Mothering Sunday (Simnel Cake)
Passiontide: Passion Flower (Passiflora) The "Passion" in "passion flower" refers to the passion of Jesus in Christian theology. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of this plant, particularly the numbers of its various flower parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus and especially his crucifixion.
Palm Sunday: Palm Sunday is also called Fig Sunday, because figs were traditionally eaten that day, memorializing the fig tree cursed by Christ after his entry into Jerusalem.
Holy Week: Traditional Church's Lenten fast and abstaining from both meat and eggs until Easter Sunday. Torrija traditionally eaten in Spain in Holy Week
Holy Thursday: Christian Seder Meal. Some communities will watch Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ following the Seder Meal.
"Judases":  In the Czech Republic one eats Judases (Jidáše) at breakfast on Holy Thursday, which are bread rolls made in a twisted manner, to recall the rope with which Judas, the betrayer of Christ, went out and hung himself. One dips them in honey to prevent disaster falling on oneself. For dinner one eats green herbs and green salad.
Green Thursday: Germans call Holy Thursday Gründonnerstag or "Green Thursday", eat green vegetables, especially spinach. This is custom in other European countries, especially the Czech Republic.
Good Friday: Hot Cross Buns & Cold Tomato Soup with Wine. Hot Cross Bun originated from St Albans, where Brother Thomas Rodcliffe, a 14th Century monk at St Albans Abbey, developed a similar recipe called an 'Alban Bun' and distributed the bun to the local poor on Good Friday, starting in 1361. There is also a little known Louisiana tradition: Pie Day: Louisiana's Lenten Custom
Święconka: Although this is not a truly "fasting" tradition, it is a very valid tradition held on the last day of Lent (Holy Saturday) in many parts of the world like Poland. Święconka is the Polish tradition for "the blessing of the Easter baskets," and is observed in Poland as well observed by Poles in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and other Polish Parish communities. The tradition of blessing food at Easter has early-medieval roots in Christian society and dates back to the 7th century in its basic form. The more modern form containing bread and eggs (symbols of resurrection and Christ) are said to date from the 12th century. This tradition is also popular in other cultures also such as Czechs, Croatians, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Russians, Rusyns, Slovaks, Slovenes and Ukrainians. As to what goes into a food basket depends on the region one is from, the family's preferences, and financial means.
Popular items in the traditional Easter Basket are butter, bread, horseradish, hard boiled eggs (coloured egg; pysanky ), sausages, ham or lamb, smoked bacon, cheese, wine, salt and sweets. Some traditional blessings can be found here: Święcone - Blessing of Easter Food. Simply follow the links for the Latin prayers if so desired.
Holy Saturday: Drought of Honey Tradition. It is a custom, in some of the more traditional communities (Benedictine) to let the deacon or priest who chants the Exsutet to be given a draught of honey just prior to the commencement of the Easter Vigil in order to make his voice sound even more melodious than ever in the Divine Liturgy.

Honey and the Bee is also a symbol of wisdom, for it collects nectar from many flowers and turns it into nourishing and pleasing honey, which is the 'gold' of bees. We should do the same, take whatever we can and transform it through our labor into a superior element useful for us and our neighbor.
The symbolism of bees also signifies the way the Church generates her spiritual fruits because bees are virginal, they don't have any sexual contact. As the Church gives grace through the purity of her divine Sacraments, so the bees give us honey and wax by the labor of their pure bodies. This is why their wax, considered the fruit of a virgin labor, is worthy to burn in the candles on the altar at the offering of the Holy Sacrifice.
The honey, so agreeable to the palate, is symbolic of spiritual sweetness and religious eloquence. For this reason, the beehive is emblematic of St. Ambrose and of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, two Doctors whom the Church surnamed mellifluus and mellificuus.
Here follows some pictures for the curious:

Rauchbier or "Smoke Beer"

Ember Day Tart

Spaghetti al nero di seppia {pasta + squid ink} This truly looks like a penitential food to eat. It only for the courageous to eat.

For Holy Week, bring Jewish roots of Mass to life and host your own family Seder meal.

Blue passion flower (P. caerulea) showing most elements of the Christian symbolism.

The "Passion" in "passion flower" refers to the passion of Jesus in Christian theology. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of this plant, particularly the numbers of its various flower parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus and especially his crucifixion:

The pointed tips of the leaves were taken to represent the Holy Lance.
The tendrils represent the whips used in the flagellation of Christ.
The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles (excluding St. Peter the denier and Judas Iscariot the betrayer).
The flower's radial filaments, which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to flower, represent the crown of thorns.
The chalice-shaped ovary with its receptacle represents a hammer or the Holy Grail.
The 3 stigmas represent the 3 nails and the 5 anthers below them the 5 wounds (four by the nails and one by the lance).
The blue and white colors of many species' flowers represent Heaven and Purity.

Święcone blessing of Easter food on Holy Saturday.

Whether Poles are church going or not, this is a tradition that has stayed with practically everyone, so that Easter just isn't Easter without a basket of goodies. Here's a typical church scene in Poland where the baskets just keep on coming all day long and the priests bless them every 5 minutes, as soon as the table has been replenished with more.  Last year I met my retired renal consultant with his family here in the UK. They are English but his son's Polish fiancee was visiting and insisted on preparing a basket and heading for the nearest church – so others are learning about this ancient practice. - Święcone – What to put in your Polish Easter basket
Comment: Please place any images at the bottom of the textural material in order make it somewhat more flowing. Thanks. Links to recipes or the recipe itself (especially if it is a hard to find recipe) are more than welcome.
Comment: Here is another [Community Wiki](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11740/what-are-community-wiki-posts) post on **Beer, Wine and Spirits SE** that may of be of interest to Catholics and others: [What cocktails are named, created or in some other sense may be used by Catholics to celebrate their liturgical year?](https://alcohol.stackexchange.com/q/7632/5064)
Comment: This seems more like feasting than fasting.


Where can I find Air Traffic Control information material suitable for beginners and students?

Question: I would like to learn more about how the Air Traffic Control system works - are there any resources available which describe the system that would be suitable for a beginner or student?
Answer: Another good reference would be the training materials for VATUSA. This is part of an online system called VATSIM where people both fly and provide ATC virtually.
Although some of it does not apply to real operations (and of course none of it should be actual operations), it still covers real procedures based on the actual rules.
The basic guides do a good job of providing an introduction to the basic concepts, but the more advanced stuff is less helpful.
Other regions have their own VATSIM organizations, if you prefer a region other than the US.
In addition to the materials available, participation is also great for learning. Through VATSIM you can get training on the materials and then get hands-on experience working with (virtual) traffic.
Comment: I'm a former VATSIM controller with a relative who is real-world ATC in ZTL (Atlanta Center).  I've shown him VATSIM and also visited ZTL with him.  He was impressed by the procedures and phraseology of the VATSIM controllers.  And during my visit to ZTL, while I would never pretend to be able to do their job or even in the same ballpark as the real-world guys and gals, I can say an awful lot was familiar to me. Because of my VATSIM experience, I knew exactly what was going on.
Comment: VATSIM is also a good source of *practice* - some of what you learn isn't applicable to working live traffic,  but much of it is.
Comment: @wadesworld Anecdotally the phraseology of VATSIM controllers (and pilots) tends to be better than what I hear on the radio flying around New York :)
Comment: Good, I hope this will help others too. Thank for your help and sharing useful links with me. Appreciated.
Comment: @voretaq7 You're right.  Real-world controllers and pilots are actually a bit more lax about phraseology since they just need to get the job done and have bigger concerns than whether word 4 in the sentence is exactly what is written in the manual.
Answer: The first two places I would start would be the FAA's Air Traffic Control landing page, and Chapter 4 of the Aeronautical Information Manual which deals with air traffic control (and is generally the level of information student pilots are expected to be familiar with).
While these references are both for the US/FAA air traffic control system there are strong similarities among the systems in most countries (the ones with the greatest variation would be countries where the military handles air traffic control).

If you're looking for more advanced information pretty much all of the operational and training manuals the FAA uses are available to the public.  These are likely of more interest to someone studying to become an air traffic controller - the information in them is substantially more technical and "job-oriented" than what's presented in the resources above.
Comment: Nice one, currently I'm going to be interview soon for an ATC job. Had no experience or so whatever about ATC specifically aviation. So I need help to know a little bit better about ATC and where usually people will go about to learn about ATC in aviation community cause Google only populate the popular site, cause I'd have found some good one through my friends and others. Well thank you very much.
Answer: The Air Traffic Basics course is the first information new FAA controllers are exposed to, and it is available to the public. This is a comprehensive introduction to background aviation knowledge from a controller's perspective.
Beyond that and getting into phraseology, there is FAA JO 7110.65. This document is THE standard for U.S. air traffic control procedures. Everything controllers say comes from that book.


What free tools are there to help me improve my English?

Question: I am in the process of writing a research paper in Computer Science. Are there any free tools/browser plugins/web sites/latex plugins that would help me improve my English? I am looking for some nice applications that give examples of correct English usage.
Answer: Public library is the cheapest source. In other words: read, read and again - read. Reading books, newspapers and magazines is the best way to improve someone's language usage. Any language.
Try to avoid web resources, particulary twitters, facebooks and other shout-and-bark sites. Even most of weblogs are utilising some bastardised mutation of language, so I cannot recommend them as correct sources.
Answer: There are no computer programs that are going to make you a magnificent writer. The only way you can learn to write is through lots and lots of practice.
The first thing you're going to want to do is read and read a lot. Read fiction, read non-fiction, read writing textbooks. Visit your local library and read all different sorts of books to get a good grasp on the English language.
Then you're going to want to write, rewrite, and write some more. It helps if you work with someone with experience in the writing/editing field. They'll be able to point out any mistakes you make, help you understand those mistakes, and make sure you don't make those mistakes again.
Writing is a slow and painful process. There are no shortcuts and even in the technology age, a computer still cannot teach you how to write well.
Comment: I think you have seen the tag "technical writing"
Comment: I am afraid that the RTFM acronyme roots in an idea that the "technical writing" is just a comprehensive list of facts. So most people are avoiding documentation and manuals. No offense.
Comment: And what does the tag "technical writing" have to do with my answer?
Comment: @Indoril I am completely confused about what you guys are talking about.


Evidence of magnesium supplements for chronic fatigue?

Question: I was working on a statistic problem about a trial where researchers tested magnesium on individuals with chronic fatigue to see if it would help. I wasn't sure if it was hypothetical or based on a real experiment, so I'm wondering if there's any evidence that magnesium intake can alleviate, treat, or lessen chronic fatigue? More detail on magnesium would be great.
Comment: I think it's fine for Health, in part because the claim isn't necessarily notable - at least, it doesn't seem so.
Comment: This question may fit better in Skeptics.SE.
Answer: There is at least one study on this, published in The Lancet:
Red blood cell magnesium and chronic fatigue syndrome

Patients treated with magnesium claimed to have improved energy levels, better emotional state, and less pain, as judged by changes in the Nottingham health profile.

This was a trial on only 20 patients with CSF and 20 control patients. That size of course isn't large enough to draw any reliable conclusions.
I also found a study comparing magnesium levels in patients with CSF with healthy controls that found no difference in magnesium levels.
The University of Maryland Medical Center summarizes:

Magnesium (300 to 1,000 mg per day) may help reduce fatigue. But studies show mixed results.


Could Data have taken out Admiral Quinn?

Question: In "Conspiracy," an enhanced Admiral Quinn mops the floor with both Riker and Worf, and chucks Geordi through the quarters' automatic doors. Could Data have incapacitated Quinn as easily as Worf taking out Picard, or would the altered admiral have some sort of a chance?
Comment: This is the 24th century.  Data can date whomever he wants.  However, it is considered inappropriate to fraternize with direct superiors, but since Adm Quinn doesn't appear to be in Data's direct chain of command, it's probably okay.
Comment: I've edited this to remove the "do you think" which made it read as though you were looking for opinions, and which are off-topic for this site.  If this changes the meaning of your question please feel free to revert.
Comment: When I read the question title I thought of Admiral Elli Quinn from Lois Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series.
Answer: Data is extremely strong, consider this exchange from his trial in the episode "The Measure of a Man":

RIKER: Your Honour, I offer in evidence prosecution's exhibit A, a rod
  of par-steel. Tensile strength, forty kilobars. Commander, would you
  bend that?
PICARD: Objection. There are many life forms possessed of mega
  strength. These issues are not relevant to this hearing.
PHILLIPA: I'm afraid I can't agree, Captain. Proceed with you
  demonstration, Commander.
(Data bends the heavy rod neatly into a U shape)

Tensile strength is measured in force per unit area, usually in terms of megapascals; this page mentions that 1 bar = 0.1 megapascals, so 40 kilobars = 40000 bars = 4000 megapascals, significantly stronger than any type of steel listed in the table in the tensile strength article (edit: Dan Neely points out there is one I missed with a strength over 5000 megapascals), and about as strong as Kevlar which is used in bulletproof vests. Assuming Quinn's strength was just due to things like adrenaline rather than the parasites radically reengineering his whole body including the composition of bones and muscles (and there was no suggestion of such a thing in the episode), there's no way he could have been nearly that strong. And Data is also able to move much faster than a human, as shown in the episode "The Naked Now" when he had to replace the isolinear chips in engineering in order to allow the ship to escape an exploding star. So yes, I think Data could have easily defeated him in physical combat.
Comment: Also, Data is impervious to the amount of physical trauma Quinn could have delivered. It showed that he is bullit proof in First Contact. Quinn could beat on Data on day and it would have no effect.
Comment: If you sort the table by tensile strength, you'll find there is one steel alloy listed that is substantially stronger at > 5000MP: "Steel, Micro-Melt 10 Tough Treated Tool (AISI A11)".  It's probably not the only alloy in that general range either; tool steels need to be much stronger than the materials they work to have reasonable lifetimes before being worn out.
Comment: I definitely agree that Data is super-strong. Though Quinn told Worf that he could kill him with one hit, or break his neck with one hit (I don't recall his exact words). That's some strength. Also, Quinn's strength must have been increased (and not just his adrenaline level), or else he wouldn't have easily brushed off Riker's hits, and barely been affected by Worf's. Quinn's speed didn't seem greatly increased, though, and he still had bones and flesh, so I can definitely see Data breaking him down easily. Also, Worf caused the admiral to yell in anguish, so he wasn't totally immune to pain.
Answer: Yes, Data would mop the floor with an adrenalin/endorphin enhanced Quinn. The adrenalin/endorphin enhanced Quinn can manhandle a normal human or Klingon, but Data is orders of magnitude stronger that either race. He possesses mega-strength and has a very durable structure, Whereas Quinn is only a man and fragile by comparison.
The only thing that would make it even close is Data's programming to do the least amount of harm as possible. If Data went full out and got medieval on him it would be over in a second or two, with Data the victor.
Comment: I love the mixed metaphor of an *android* getting *medieval* on someone...
Comment: I should add that Quinn is also getting on in years. Even with the adrenal enhancement, he still is going to be less than he would have been had he been younger.


If we have the law of karma, why do we need other laws, or do we?

Question: Since we have the law of karma then there should be no need for laws or prisons? The law of karma will issue out punishment automatically. So if you murder someone there will be equal consequences regardless. Is this correct?
Comment: The goals (or laws) of the universe don't align with the goals of the king or government. Karma, by traditional accounts, can take lifetimes to bear fruit (i.e. crime today, punishment in 100 lives from now). To run a country, you need to provide more immediate incentives for those who don't believe in karma and as a practical matter, to separate those who are likely re-offend from society so as to protect other innocents.
Answer: Even in a world where the law of karma is real and in effect, one needs laws and punishment for a few reasons.
Karma doesn't "issue", and its effects are not "punishment"; in Buddhist view it's a blind process of cause and effect and the effects of karma are not to be known or speculated about. This is one of the four imponderables:

§ 22.    "These four imponderables are not to be speculated about.
  Whoever speculates about them would go mad & experience vexation.
  Which four? The Buddha-range of the Buddhas [i.e., the range of powers
  a Buddha develops as a result of becoming a Buddha]... The jhana-range
  of one absorbed in jhana [i.e., the range of powers that one may
  obtain while absorbed in jhana]... The results of kamma... Speculation
  about [the first moment, purpose, etc., of] the cosmos is an
  imponderable that is not to be speculated about. Whoever speculates
  about these things would go mad & experience vexation."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/kamma.html#causes
It's not known when the effect of karma comes to fruition, in what way, or if they come to fruition at all. If karma comes to fruition, one doesn't necessary realize: "This is because of my bad karma, I should change my ways."
Therefore, the concept of karma doesn't:

repel those who want to commit crimes
remove those who commit crimes (temporarily) from society
rehabilitate those who have been found guilty

Which, in an ideal justice system, laws and prisons do.
Answer: First of all we have to keep in mind that the karma is a activity which is based on reason and result theory (Pratītyasamutpāda). in karma reason is the cetanā( intention of the doing). Result of the doing which has done with cetanā(intention) depends on the nature of cetanā. if someone did something with good intention he will have good results and if someone did something with bad intention he will have bad results. But anyone except the Load Buddha cannot say the time taken to give the result. But all karma can be categorized into 4 types according to the time they will give the result,

Ditta dhamma wedaniya karma
Upapajja wedhaniya karma
Aparapariya wedaniya karma
Ahosi karma

Now let's consider them one by one.

Ditta dhamma wedaniya karma

Ditta dhamma wedaniya karma means the results will definitely be given in the same "Bhawaya"(Bhawaya refers to the time period from birth to die in one life). This is the situation where if someone can apply the karma as a law. But without the capability of determine the time of result-back it is useless to apply as a law.

Upapajja wedhaniya karma

Karma that will give the result definitely in next life. in other words, immediate next Bhawaya.

Aparapariya wedaniya karma

Karma that will give the result in between the third Bhawaya and before Nirvana call as Aparapariya wedaniya karma.

Ahosi Karma

Karma That will cancel due to the inability of giving the result is called as Ahosi karma.
So now anyone can decide the practical issue of using karma as a Law.
Answer: Prisons (and the laws that put people in them) serve two purposes:

As a punishment for criminals (with the goal of rehabilitation) and a deterrent would-be criminals.
To protect the public from people who are likely to re-offend and cause harm to others.

Especially in the second case, we can see incarceration of dangerous people as an act of compassion towards potential future victims, to protect them from harm.
In an ideal world, society would be structured in such a way that individuals would be able to act according to their impulses, without the danger of causing harm to others.  (Imagine if everyone had a 100% efficient robot bodyguard.)  But until we reach such a state, laws act as a way to guide our behaviour and protect people from real danger.
Consider other laws pertaining to food safety (hygiene) and safety in the workplace.  These prevent potential accidents which would harm not only the victims but also the people who created the danger (saving them from feelings of guilt and loss of karma).  So these laws can be seen as compassionate towards both parties!
Answer: "Since we have the law of karma then there should be no need for laws or prisons? The law of karma will issue out punishment automatically. So if you murder someone there will be equal consequences regardless. Is this correct?"
I essentially agree with your conclusion. The ones inflicting any sort of suffering will be "punished" by karma. This includes all who think they are inflicting "justice", another sort of suffering. No "justice" will take the place of one's karma. (This is how I understand the issue. Logic must fail eventually when speculating on these physical issues.) I also agree that, since we have, by Buddhist definitions, lived for countless lives, any attempt to enumerate or figure out anyone's karma will be unsuccessful. The cravings for all of these actions seems to be the driver so it is only through mindfulness, it seems, (and meditation) where one can change the basis for future events.
It is quite easy to have compassion for a victim (whose karma has caused his suffering). It is quite difficult to have compassion for those who are harming the victim (due to karma's result) also and those who think they must inflict justice (also due to karma's result). IF the idea of karma is true, then All suffering is from the result of previous actions.
However, as another answer notes, logic is only good up to a point. Beyond that point, only meditation can show one the truth of life (or their truth, perhaps). Speculation (even when using logic) is a product of the physical side of life and will, by definition, always fall short of the ultimate truth. So, all "answers" only "point" to the ultimate answer, which you (all of us) must find within you. (My "answer" so far, anyway.)
Good luck.
Answer: Because other laws serve their purpose and karma law is law of nature. So, to acquire our goals we establish our laws. With established laws we don't try to replace law of karma.

So if you murder someone there will be equal consequences regardless.

Degree of consequences is not established by the law of karma, only wholesomeness of them. Check this fine sutta AN 3.99.

"There is the case where a trifling evil deed done by a certain
  individual takes him to hell. There is the case where the very same
  sort of trifling deed done by another individual is experienced in the
  here & now, and for the most part barely appears for a moment.
Comment: In AN 8.40 (how do you make those hyperlinks, they are neat) Some consequences of actions are stated: "The taking of life — when indulged in, developed, & pursued — is something that leads to hell, to rebirth as a common animal, to the realm of the hungry shades. The slightest of all the results coming from the taking of life is that, when one becomes a human being, it leads to a short life span."
Comment: Just press link button in answer editor, unfortunately no such button in comment editor.


How do I get a a soft, washed-out film effect with a digital camera?

Question: I use digital for the convenience aspect of it, but sometimes I take a picture and can't help thinking that the soft, slightly "faded", washed-out look would be nice.  How would I go about getting such an effect in post-processing, and what (if any) in-camera settings are required to do a good job?
Comment: I removed the 'digital-vs-film' tag as this isn't really a comparison of the two.
Comment: The answers could probably be better if you're looking for specific film and stated which one.
Comment: @Karel Oh right that's a fair point.  I have practically zero experience of film photography, so I couldn't actually say. :S
Answer: The answer you don't like - out of all the digitally added film effects I've tried (and I've tried many along with actually shooting film) none really come close. That is not a scientific type of knowledge, but rather an impression. So if you really really want film look, you'll end up shooting film and even then, you'll most probably be disappointed on how far your results are from the film icons.
In many cases what is perceived as the film effect is not just a film effect, but photographer's creative vision put into right film choice and shooting technique plus the specifics of the emulsion plus photographer's editing. Harald Mante's Kodachromes are worlds apart from Steve McCurry's Kodachromes (again, personal impression based on the books, can't provide a reference).
The answer you might find useful - Nik Software's Color Efex Pro plugin contains many color film emulations and their Silver Efex Pro contains B&W film emulations. Other than that, DXO FilmPack also has pretty decent choice of films. These are the ones I've tried myself and can recommend, although this is not a guarantee of realistic rendering. Based on just web examples, Alien Skin Software's Exposure also looks interesting (I'm looking forward to try out their Kodachrome emulation).
Answer: If you use Lightroom, there are any number of presets you can use to achieve film-like effects; this is probably the easiest way to achieve what you want. Have a look here
Additionally, the film grain tool in Lightroom adds grain to photos to make them look more film-like.
Answer: There are numerous filters and special lens systems that allow you to create special effects in-camera. One of the best known is Lensbaby, a specialized lens system that makes it possible to create all kinds of effects. Beyond Lensbaby, there are soft-focus filters that can help to soften a shot, while slight over exposure can produce the washed-out effect.
I would look into advanced filter systems like Lee (my personal preference as they have glass, which is better for digital), Cokin, etc. Both brands offer a very broad range of filters for their multi-filter holder systems. Several of their offerings are special effects filters, like softening filters.
As for film grain, which is another effect of film that many find desirable and beneficial to their shots...all you can do there is use post processing. Lightroom 3 offers an explicit "film grain" tool that can add nice, fairly realistic film grain to a digital shot.
Answer: If you have Photoshop, there are lots of ways to get to the more film-like look from the old days in post-processing. Some of these have been turned into actions and The Photo Argus has a nice roundup of some good ones. In terms of camera settings, some of which can also be done post, white balance and correct exposure is the primary starting point. I'd recommend shooting RAW as well, though I always recommend that. :)


The correct term for Bitcoin currency

Question: I have been reading about Bitcoin and the history of it. But I was not able to find a term that actually describes Bitcoin.
I am looking for a term that is not only for Bitcoin but any digital currency like Bitcoin.
The closest term I could find was Fiat money, but it is not correct, anyone here knows what the correct term is? Or does the term simply not exist yet?
Comment: Note that "**B**itcoin" refers to the payment network as a whole, while "**b**itcoin" refers to the unit of currency
Answer: The general term in widespread use today is cryptocurrency. This refers to a currency designed upon cryptographic principles (as Bitcoin is).
The term "fiat money" refers to the usual money issued by governments. The government declares "this is money" (even though the paper on which it is printed does not have value itself), and people use it as such. Wiktionary defines fiat as:

An authoritative command or order to do something; an effectual decree.
Comment: But as what i understand of it, cryptocurrency can have a centralized bank and have a reserve. Is that not true?
Comment: Well, if you want to make sure you're understood on that point, you could call it a *decentralised cryptocurrency*. But all the interesting cryptocurrencies today are decentralised, so I don't think that's so important.
Comment: Ah thanks. It is kinda important for me, because I am writing a history task about digital currency
Answer: The widely accepted term for Bitcoin and the such is cryptocurrencies.
Fiat money is just a bunch of inconvertible notes, not backed by any physical commodity nor is linked to physical reserves, making them extremely vulnerable to hyperinflation and devaluation. Governments print notes on blank paper and mint coins at will, limiting their supply to raise their value and then manipulating it via a cat-n-mouse chase of supply and demand.

The correct term for Bitcoin currency


USB flash drive mount issue

Question: I have a 4GB USB flash drive, which used to work fine. Recently, though, my mother had a problem with her HP winXP laptop. She tried to re-install XP using a Dell recovery disk, which would not recognize her laptop's HDD and tried to install onto my USB drive, which was plugged in at the time. She has a new laptop now, but my drive doesn't work: Ubuntu will not recognize it, and Windows only recognizes it but can't mount or partition it. What should I do?
Comment: My uncle, who is something of an IT guy, said it's probably toast unless i can find some sort of fdisk program for flash drives.
Answer: First open a terminal with Alt-Ctl-T.
Enter the command:
mount

and make a list of which devices are in use.
Enter the following command to keep an eye on the syslog (log of what is happening on your system from the operating system point of view).
tail -f /var/log/syslog

Now plug in and remove the flash drive. Make sure of what device it is, and that it's not one of the ones you saw mounted above. It may be something like /dev/sdc. Also see if you see the same device with a number after it, e.g. /dev/sdc1. If you see that your flash drive is being seen by your system.
Assuming it is not you can format the drive. If /dev/sdm was the drive your flash drive becomes, plug it in once again and enter:
sudo fdisk /dev/sdm

Now you can partition the device and format those partitions as you desire.
If nothing is noted on /var/log/syslog as you plug in the drive and unplug it, it is, indeed, unusable with Ubuntu.
Answer: I keep on coming across USB drives that can not be mounted or the partition table re-configured.  These are commercially formatted devices that worked fine out of the box but fail completely after adjustments are made to the partition table.  In many cases they work with Windows, but cannot be mounted or successfully formatted under Linux. I come across this most often when trying to make a LiveUSB boot device and the Ubuntu startup disk creator fails with a cryptic error message.
The solution is to forcefully remove the partition table by writing zeros to the device.  This can be achieved using dd with the following:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx bs=512 count=1

Where the USB drive in question is /dev/sdx
Do not run this on any drive containing data because it will effectively wipe it - you need to be 100% sure that you are operating on the correct device.
Once the partition table has been removed in this way you can make the partition table and partition the device using any program such as Disk Utility, fdisk, cfdisk etc.  Note that "make the partition table" is an extra step that will need to be done before the device can be partitioned, and the correct format for this will be "msdos".  You can then make ext2/4 or any other type of partition.
I can recommend Disk Utility as a program that is easy to use, and cfdisk is a quality Linux utility that is menu driven.
Comment: I've been having a lot of issues with this myself! I'm curious, have you ever tried mkusb's restore to standard USB storage device? I did, on a brand new pen drive that I had attempted to turn into a multi boot device. The wipe and restore process seemed to have worked, until I then tried to create a live install of 16.04 with persistence. That process failed, and after that I could not format the pendrive by any means--not with mkusb, dd, fdisk, or gdisk. Kind of goes without saying that Disks and gparted were useless. Was able to get to a Windows machine and chkdisk worked...
Comment: Any thoughts as to why this might be? I'm pretty baffled since these issues seem so specific to making a drive bootable

USB flash drive mount issue


I'm 12, my parents are strict Christians, I don't believe in god and I would love some advice on how to tell them

Question: I have a sister, and she doesn't believe in god. But she is financially independent and is much older than me. I feel filthy every single time I pray and really need a way to tell my parents I'm not Christian. But I'm afraid that they'll force me to pray as they probably would think that it's just a phase. I also really want to go to a music concert and the songs the band sings have loads of swear words in them so I would never be allowed to go if they thought I was Christian.
Comment: Have you read https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/7618/ - it may have the answers you need?
Answer:
I feel filthy every single time I pray

Prayer shouldn't make you feel this way even as an atheist. A good way to think of prayer, even if there's no divine to commune with, is simply as a moment of quiet contemplation, a moment of rest. You don't have to speak the words if they don't have meaning for you, but especially now, that moment of silence is useful in difficult times.
If your parents are into the big ritual of spoken prayers, simply tell them that you're choosing to have a moment of silence (true), and mean no disrespect (also true).
Then honestly, half the time, I just thought about people I hadn't seen in a while, and the other half, I thought about the videogame I'd been playing before church.

I also really want to go to a music concert and the songs the band sings have loads of swear words in them so I would never be allowed to go if they thought I was Christian

I don't think coming out as an atheist would affect this decision for them, if anything they'd be more concerned about it taking you down a path they're uncomfortable with. The best way to persuade them to allow you would be to ask what you could do to earn it. If you can find a fellow classmate (preferably one with good grades whom your parents like) who is going, don't talk about the band, talk about going with them.
In this case I would also talk to your sister. She will understand your parents better than we can, have her own experiences, and should hopefully be able to give you more specific guidance.
Answer: [Edit: I noticed that my answer was pretty abstract, and that I was writing for someone who will need a few examples. So throuout these post, you will find a few "Edit"s that I added after writing this.]
First step: Priorities
Before you decide on how to tell them, I would advice to think about your priorities. How you and your parents handle this conflict will influence the rest of your life. The concert will likely not influence the quality of your life 5, 10 or 40 years from now.
So, what is your goal?

Your parents not harrassing you?
Your parents actually accepting your conviction?
Just not having to lie and pretend whenever you are at a service or praying or in a religious discussion?
Being allowed certain things you are not allowed to do under some religious reason?
Being allowed to attend this concert in x days, no matter what?

[Edit: Example: If you just want your parents to accept your stance, you will want to start slow, telling them that you have doubts. Or asking them what makes them believe. If you just want to stop pretending but don't worry about their feelings and their acceptance, telling them can be done in two (polite) matter-of-fact sentences.]
Second step: Consequences
Consider the fallout. Talk to your sister about it, but understand that she was older when she did it.
I do not know how "radical" your parents are. Worst-case scenario you might end up at some religious re-education-camp and/or school.
Remember: From their point of view, god will have you tortured for eternety if you have doubts his existance. So they might willingly harm you just to "save" you from that. And since you are twelve years old, they have nearly absolute power over you.
There is a whole spectrum of other consequences that could make your life worse (or better).
But a lot of the consequences will depend on your approach. So consider them.
[Edit: If it might make your next few years horrible, or you have to fear that they will not support college or cut you off in some other way, consider to wait a few years. In that case your "lies" would be more their fault than yours. If you expect them to send you to some pastor or priest right away, you might research the typical arguments and tricks  someone with that amount of training might use in a "discussion". If you expect some other specific fallout, think about how different approaches mit influence that.]
Third step: How To Do It
Generally, I advice to approach this in a non-offensive way that includes a lot of communication short and long-term. It is easy to be understood as: "Your believes are stupid - and if you do not realize that, you must be stupid, too!"
Tell them that you are sorry, but you have not found any sensible reason why you should believe. Talk about that topic in a constructive way.
Be prepared that sooner or later your parents or someone else will bring some argument you might doubt, but cannot yet counter. If you have approached those conversations in a constructive way (and not like a you-vs-me "discussion"), you will be able to say "Good question. I will think (and research) about this."
[Edit: "Approaching a conversation non-offensively" is not about offensive (swear-)words. You can google it, but some ways are:

Use "I" messages. "I feel like I am lying when we are praying." is better than "You always force us to pray". That is usefull because it does not seem to blame the other person.
Ask honest questions and listen. Not to find the best counter, but to understand. And, slowly, try to make your parents understand as well. The US has a culture where a public "debate" is about "scoring points" and hurting the "opponent". Most other "small-talk" is expected to be non-political, non religious and so on. So you (and your parents) might not be used to this kind talk. But try it.
Oddly enough, you might need to be the adult here. They might have strong emotions - make sure that they do not trigger yours. Do not be cold, but stay friendly and understanding even when they get loud, threatening, passive-agressive and so on.
Remember that not everything needs to be said in the first conversation. First priority should be to enable further talks, only second is to communicate all that you feel the need to tell them.]

The concert:
You might want to seperate these issues. Even non-christian parents might not allow you to go there. There is a saying "choose your battles". This might be a time to do that, and focus on one issue at a time.
You might decide that you want to wait with the religion-topic and focus on the concert, though. If you do so, you might point out that the bible is not really about non-swearing. It advices not to miss-use Gods name, and that some passages have a lot of negativity when it comes to sex. But swearing in general is not really a focus of the bible's ethics.
But best double-check that: The bible is a complex book with all kinds of stuff in there... it might be a quote about swearing somewhere that I missed.
Praying
I know how you feel. People told me "it cannot hurt", but I usually answered: "Yes. But it feels like lying to me, and I do not like to lie."
When parents/family pray at dinner or in some other context, I politely bow my head and stay quiet. Out of courtesy and to avoid conflict. I have my hands in my lap but would never fold them.
If you choose not to tell your parents yet, there are different ways to approach it. For silent prayer, you might want to look into meditation. Not the spiritual kind, but the kind people use to be more focused on their job. Ordering your thoughts on a regular basis is a pretty powerful tool after all. "Real" prayer actually offers just that benefit: A person who "tells god" their most important goals and problems daily will likely keep them in mind while doing decisions during the day.
[Edit: Google for the "Eisenhauer Matrix". You could make it a habit to mentally sort your tasks and/or goals for the day in that manner whenever it is time for silent prayer.]

I’m 12, my parents are strict Christians, I don’t believe in god and I would love some advice on how to tell them


What colour is nothing?

Question: To me this is very confusing, but I hope we can discuss it and find a solid answer to the question.
If you were somewhere where there was absolutely nothing, what colour would your eyes see?
Comment: Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/21771/2451
Answer: Black. If there was nothing, there would be no light, and nothing to emit light, so you would see no light. Your eyes interpret the absence of light as blackness.
Comment: @Jellby that's a good point, but is there really a difference? Neuroscientists often consider the retina to be a part of the brain. We get into biology and psychology rather than physics pretty quickly this way...
Comment: That kind of black with bright speckles you see (or at least I do) in the darkest room of the house in the middle of the night. But is this what your eyes see or what the brain sees?
Comment: @AlexeyBobrick a vacuum is transparent, of course, and if you were in a localised area of vacuum you would see light from distant objects. But that light would be something. If you were in a place where there was truly *nothing* then there would be no light, and you would see blackness.
Comment: @Nathaniel, actually, fair enough!
Comment: The retina fires constantly, except when photons impinge, and then it stops. So when there is no input to the brain, you see white.
Comment: Nothing is transparent: it has no colour, even black.
Answer: Nathanial is correct, but it is important to note the phrase "...your eyes interperet..."  The blackness perceived is a physiological effect, not the actual color of nothing as it were.  I have a visually impaired brother and the best description I've ever heard of being blind is
"Blindness is not like what you see when you have your eyes shut or when you try to see in the dark, blindness is what you see when you try to see through the palm of your hand."
The fact is, sight as it is experienced, including the perception of color, is an incredibly individual experience.  There are a number of species that see very different ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum.  Butterflies, for example, see UV light; the pretty patterns we see on flower that we imagine attract polinators, actually look quite different to them.
The sonar that bats use functions in the same way as vision for most animals.  It is very likely that a bat (to some extent) perceives their sonar in the same way we perceive sight.  There is an excellent description of this in Dawkins' The Selfish Gene.
Answer: Black is a color defined by the absence of light. In additive color mixing (light), black is zero visible light. In subtractive color mixing (pigments, filters), black is a pigment or combination that reflects or refracts zero light. So, I think that's your answer; if there were absolutely zero EM spectra, you would call it "black".
However, you would call an environment rich in gamma rays, or infrared, or even ultraviolet, but with zero visible light, "black" as well; your eyes don't see any of those outer spectra and so you, with just your eyes, would not be able to detect that they exist (though you'd feel the heat radiating onto you, and you'd keel over from radiation poisoning quickly enough in a high-gamma or even high-ultraviolet environment). But, we have instruments that can detect these things, and either show you on a meter, or convert them to visible light so you can see them as if they were visible light. These instruments, in a space devoid of any EM spectra, would show you nothing; black.
Answer: Most people say black, becouse they think nothing is the same as closing your eyes or turn out the light. I think if you will step into a room with "nothing" in it, your brain will randomly create a collor. Or you see nothing. But can you see "nothing"? We don't or i don't know becouse we never experienced to see "nothing" noboddy do.
So the eyes are a body part, same with your ears, what is nothing? Just no sound or can you hear your brain waves?? We dont know. What if your eyes are removed from the body and your brain. What will you see? We can't think about it becouse it can be different by me.. Mabe i will see red and you will see purple.. Mabe you will see some of brain waves.... Nooo!!! You can't! If you have no eyes and you start seeing your brain waves ir a collor like blue.. What couses that you 'SEE' it? You can"t 'SEE'! Or do you have a eyeball in your brain that is looking at your brains blood and stuff!? No... Mabe you will see into an other world... Like the spirit world??? We don't know, i am now just making examples of what happens...
Mabe if some one asks "what do you see?"
Then the eyeless human answers "i dont't know...." Or "i can not explain it".
Mabe he sees something but he do not know what he sees exactly.. Hims brain can not tell him what it is.. Thats becouse consciousness.. Your consciousness can't image it.. So yeah.. Your turn to think about absolutely "NOTHING" heh?
We can't. And if you try... You will see a black collor or something else... But how can you "SEE" that?
No matter for how long you think about it.. You just can't

Good luck to "see" nothing. XD
Answer: The idea of a place where there is "absolutely nothing" is dubious in the first place, as there are always quantum fluctuations occurring at every possible conceived arbitrary measurement of time, but let's not think about that.
The easiest way to state an answer one would feel comfortable with is to simply say one would see "black" as there is no EM radiation to be absorbed, but really you would simply see absolutely nothing, i.e. the concept of absolutely nothing. The reason why this is more challenging is because you can't really imagine nothing can you? Even a complete void is technically something. It is simply beyond our comprehension to truly imagine nothing in this sort of context.

What colour is nothing?


What prayer may be said upon the death of a beloved pet, specifically, a dog?

Question: Our beloved Yorkshire Terrier has died, due to complications of old age. What prayer(s) may be said, and, is there any one prayer, in particular, that stands out as the most commonly cited prayer upon the death of a pet dog?
Comment: I'm sorry for your loss.
Comment: Possible duplicate of [is there a prayer for a beloved family pet who is dying?](https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/59127/is-there-a-prayer-for-a-beloved-family-pet-who-is-dying)
Comment: @DonielF That's for a dying pet. This is for a dead pet
Comment: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/59127/759
Answer: חמורו שמתו " , המקום ימלא לך חסרונך ," כך
אומרים לו על עבדו ועל שפחתו שמתו " , המקום
ימלא לך חסרונך "
http://files.daf-yomi.com/bookfiles/bekitsur-brachot/bekitsur-brachot97.pdf
If someone's donkey died, they tell him "Hashem should fill your loss", like on a dead servant or dead maid servant. I suppose a dead dog is the same. I think the gemoro means one doesnt say a prayer or hesped on a dead servant only a well wish like on an animal which I am sure includes a dog. I think that is a direct answer on the question although it may not be what you want to hear.
Comment: You didnt understand my answer. I think the gemoro means that one doesnt say a prayer or hesped on servants just a well wish.
Comment: +1 but there is still room to clarify  from the Mishna in Brachos 16b.
Answer: I'm not aware of any. I'd thank God for all the good time you had with your pet, and ask for the strength to carry on afterwards.
Answer: I'm sorry for your loss, but I'd like to tell you a story. A friend of mine was raised on a farm. One of the horses grew old and was unable to work, but having been part of the family so long, the horse was kept around. My friend grew close to the horse, befriending it. Ultimately, the horse passed on and my friend, who at the time was still young was inconsolable. His grandfather took him aside, praised him for his commitment and caring nature, but told him 'We don't cry over a horse'. My friend says this was a very important learning experience that helped mold him.
There are no prayers for the loss of a pet, but there is place for introspection. In Ecclesiastes chapter 3 vs 18-19, king Solomon points out the seemingly similar end for both beast and man. Rashi in his commentary points explains Solomon's intention as the reason man and beast share a similar fate called death is meant to humble man so as not to be haughty, for ultimately everything is in the hands of God.

אָמַ֤רְתִּֽי אֲנִי֙ בְּלִבִּ֔י עַל־דִּבְרַת֙ בְּנֵ֣י הָאָדָ֔ם לְבָרָ֖ם הָאֱלֹהִ֑ים וְלִרְא֕וֹת שְׁהֶם־בְּהֵמָ֥ה הֵ֖מָּה לָהֶֽם׃
  כִּי֩ מִקְרֶ֨ה בְֽנֵי־הָאָדָ֜ם וּמִקְרֶ֣ה הַבְּהֵמָ֗ה וּמִקְרֶ֤ה אֶחָד֙ לָהֶ֔ם כְּמ֥וֹת זֶה֙ כֵּ֣ן מ֣וֹת זֶ֔ה וְר֥וּחַ אֶחָ֖ד לַכֹּ֑ל וּמוֹתַ֨ר הָאָדָ֤ם מִן־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ אָ֔יִן כִּ֥י הַכֹּ֖ל הָֽבֶל׃
I said in my heart: 'It is because of the sons of men, that God may sift them, and that they may see that they themselves are but as beasts.' For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that man hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity.
Answer: I'm unaware of a specific composed prayer. However, in addition to the answers already suggested, I would recommend doing something in memory of your pet, that's done similarly, in memory of people; namely, tzedaka - charity.
Many people are in need of a service animal for various reasons - blind, deaf, psychological reasons, etc. Many cannot afford to purchase one, maintain them or care for the animal's medical condition. So, these service animals have a vital role in the human's health condition.
There are many charitable organizations that are devoted to helping these animals, and, in turn, these people, in various ways. Or, you can organize your own charity. It's a wonderful form of tzedaka!
The tzedaka, BTW, doesn't need to be monetary. Homebound people can't walk a service dog. You can donate your time to do this for them. The owner and the dog will both be extremely grateful.
Comment: What does giving tzekada 'in memory' of the dead pet accomplish?
Comment: @DoubleAA *What does giving tzedaka 'in memory' of the dead pet accomplish?* [Perhaps the same thing that giving tzedaka in memory of a dead human accomplishes.](https://judaism.stackexchange.com/a/90371/13438)
Answer: Thank G-d for the happiness you had from having a pet. Thank  G-d for the merit you had to connect with G-d's Creation through your pet. Thank G-d for His enormous chesed, through which you have been given not only food to eat and water to drink, but also a heart to love, and a world full of good and dear things, creatures, and people to love with it.
Then pay forward the chesed by doing a mitzvah.


Can I remake other people's websites using HTML/CSS (only for education purposes) and post in Code Review?

Question: As I begin to learn Web Development I want to practice as much as possible and I thought that choosing random websites and trying to code them would be a good way to practice and improve my coding skills. My question is: can I do that and post the code here in Code Review to ask for help?
Comment: If you are only writing HTML & CSS, I don't see much of a point in getting your "code" (markup) reviewed. Web design is subjective. Furthermore, the source for any webpage can be easily viewed, so you could very easily just study the actual structure and style of any page that interests you.
Answer: You might want to look at Do I have to worry about copyright issues for code posted on Stack Overflow?. The websites you're copying are generally going to have copyright notices. They may conflict with the stackexchange.com copyright.
Comment: Copyright usually applies to content (ie the articles) not the structure of a site. If you are just using the structure (layout) then fair-use usually includes using for educational purposes. IMNAL


Changing the middle chainring on a 3-chainring crank

Question: I have a shimano acera crankset (3x) that is 28-38-48 with a 8 speed rear derail. Now I was going to convert this bike into a SS but decided not to mess with it. Can I take off the middle chainring (38) and replace it with a 44 teeth chainring instead without any messing/adjusting with the front derail.? (I'll just be using the middle chainring)
Comment: Are the front chainrings bolted together or are they rivetted together?  Its not going to stop you disassembling, but may cause problems on reassembly.
Answer: You'll have to 'mess' minimally with the FD in a way that you'll have to adjust the min/max screws to lock the FD in position and (better) remove the cable. Leave the derailleur in place as it will act as a chain-guide.
Answer: Yes, that is possible. Apart from adjustments to the front derailleur in @Carel's answer, you will have to purchase some shorter single chainring bolts as your double chainring bolts will be too long.


Fire Producing Organism

Question: I was hypothesizing an organism that could create it's own fire with the use of a flamethrower-like organ. I was thinking that this animal has a oxygen-free organ that hold diethylzinc and when the animal feels threatened or such, its sprays out the diethylzinc with instantly ignites when in contact with air, practically acting as a flamethrower. I mainly wondering if this seems like a plausible scenario and if diethylzinc would be a good substance to use.
Comment: Willk's answer seems good.
Answer: Mix the diethylzinc with oil.

Oil (think whale oil, or spermaceti) can be produced using biology with no problem.
A hydrophobic light oil would also tend to exclude oxygen.  The oil reservoir would be a safe place to store your diethylzinc igniter molecules.
A stream of viscous oil would be an easy thing to use as a breath weapon.
Mixing the diethylzinc with the oil would mean on contact with air, not only the diethylzinc ignites but then it also ignites the oil.  You get a lot of added value from the zinc - once the zinc oxidizes it is gone, but when the oil ignites it will burn fiercely.
Answer: Your general idea is definitely possible and the use of Diethylzinc is a creative and possible one.
Nevertheless I would go an easier route as this is the one evolution often takes.
Diethylzinc combust with contact to oxygen which means that you would need a bladder like organ to produce and store your fuel without having any Oxygen in this organ (also not in the cells of the organ). Therefore I would go with a fuel which does not self-ignite.
The first think which comes to mind is Methane as this is something a lot of animals are already exceptionally good at producing.
Now that you need a source of ignition I would propose electroplaques to create a biological spark plug.
Your average electric eel does "only" produce about 1 Ampere at 500Volt but you could give your flame thrower animal just a bit more power to get to the Voltage you need to ignite fuel.
Now you have a safe flame throwing animal which produces it's fuel as a byproduct of it's digestion.
This is an efficient solution which, to me, sounds like something evolution would like.

If you want to precisely figure out how much you need to ignite Methane, here is a paper about the ignition of methane-hydrogen-air mixtures (which also examines the ignition energy of methane-air mixtures).
Answer: Nature is ahead of you -- the bombardier beetle uses a mix of  hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide to similar effect. And it works!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_beetle
Comment: "the bombardier beetle, when distuuuurbed, defends itself by emitting a series of explosions"..
Answer: Personally, I like your idea of Diethylzinc. According to wikipedia:

Diethylzinc (C₂H₅)₂Zn, or DEZ, is a highly pyrophoric and reactive
  organozinc compound consisting of a zinc center bound to two ethyl
  groups.

Now, this is the case in STP conditions (I think), so if your dragon was to go around doing burning people, it would have to do it in standard conditions. I think the main thing is that the dragon must somehow maintain its internal physical conditions. Basically its fire-chamber's temperature, pressure, chemical balance has to be very regulated, especially if your dragon wants to set things on fire in deserts and tundra. Otherwise, this power would be localized to areas where conditions allow it to, and nowhere else.
My only critique of Diethylzinc is where it's found: in the real world it must be synthesized, and is often found commercially as a solution in hexanes, heptane, or toluene, or as a pure liquid. So unless you can figure something else out, your dragon's fire chamber has a lot in common with an oil tanker or fracking operation.
EDIT: Bombardier beetles use both a fuel, hydroquinone, and an oxidizer, hydrogen peroxide. A pair of organs to produce and store the fuel and oxidizer, plus a third organ to catalyze their mixture and safely direct the resultant plasma, would make sense to get around diethylzinc's reliance on standard temperatures and pressure.
Now the limitation here is that although this could help, the beetles themselves release something that feels like hot, boiling water, which could change the nature of the fire being produced by your dragon. So, maybe copy the beetle's containment system, but definitely change the chemistry inside. Or, mix the two and you can effectively construct a more efficient way to set fires as a dragon.
Source: @Ghedipunk's comment
Comment: Bombardier beetles use both a fuel, hydroquinone, and an oxidizer, hydrogen peroxide.  A pair of organs to produce and store the fuel and oxidizer, plus a third organ to catalyze their mixture and safely direct the resultant plasma, would make sense to get around diethylzinc's reliance on standard temperatures and pressure.
Comment: Hey thanks @Ghedipunk! Do you mind if I add that to my answer?
Comment: Feel free to add it.
Answer: I'd personally go with a binary that produces an exothermic reaction (like the bombadier beetle) rather than a single pyrophoric material. That gives you a safety margin; you could imagine the two reservoirs of material have individual orifices that each spray their respective chemicals out so they only ignite once they mix outside of the animal.
For instance, potassium permanganate will ignite when mixed with glycerine or ethylene glycol (in fact, it's sold in survival kits as a firestarter). If you have the potassium permanganate in an organic oil or water suspension, spray that and spray the other chemical along with it, the fine mist should create a nice fireball.

Fire Producing Organism


Where do I get the T7-01 droid companion?

Question: I'm playing as a Jedi Consular, and around level 7 I noticed that some people already have the T7-01 droid companion while I'm still all by my lonesome.  Did I miss something?  Where do I get T7-01?
Answer: The T7-01 companion is for Jedi Knights only. So to answer your first question, it is not possible to get a T7-01 on your Jedi Consular.
As to when you'll get your first companion - keep following the main story quests, and you'll get your first companion: Qyzen Fess. Jedi Knights temporarily get a taste of their first companion around level 5, much earlier than the other classes who only get theirs shortly before leaving their starting planet.
Answer: @RavenDreamer is correct, the first companion for Jedi Knights is T7-01. Jedi Consulars get Qyzen Fess first. See swtor things' Companion Overview — Jedi Consular list for the complete list of Consular companions.
T7-01 comes based on where you are in the class story. Jedi Knights get him on Tython, usually around level 4 to 6. They first get him after the High-Tech Savages quest. Though he doesn't stay permanently until several more missions down the class quest line.