Is niyyat for ghsul needed?

Question: Everytime I do ghsul for janaabat I sit in the bathtub and keep repeating the niyyat in my heart and it take me around an a hour to be fully satisfied with my niyyat... (I think I'm kind of having OCD idk) so can I leave niyyat and just start with bismillah and carry on with ghsul as usual. When I'm done my brain it's so stressed. Please answer me I need the answer very urgent
Comment: Niyyah means that the reason you do ghusl should be for the purpose of ritual purification. The only way it can be omitted is for example if you accidentally happen to fall into a pool while purification was nowhere in your mind.
Answer: Niyyat(Intention) is a must. Every single work is based on intention.

I heard Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) saying, "The reward of deeds depends upon the intentions and every person will get the reward according to what he has intended. So whoever emigrated for worldly benefits or for a woman to marry, his emigration was for what he emigrated for."
Sahih al Bukhari 01

So if you do a work the results will be based on your intention. If you want to take bath for cooling you then that is not the ghusl of janaabat. If your intention is the you would do ghusl for janaabat and to become pure again then that ghusl will be valid and you will be pure.
Your problem is you keep thinking about your intention. You don't need to keep thinking about it. If you had your intention that "I will do ghusl to remove impurities and become pure and pray again". That is enough. Afterwards you follow the rules of ghusl and complete your ghusl.
Jazakallah Khair
Comment: I just say "I'm doing ghsul to be clean from (janaabat or the impurity name)
Comment: That's enough for intention
Answer: The majority view is that niyyah is required for ghusl, as without it one wouldn't be tahir and therefore the minimum condition for praying is not reached.

"The reward of deeds depends upon the intentions and every person will get the reward according to what he has intended. So whoever emigrated for worldly benefits or for a woman to marry, his emigration was for what he emigrated for."
(Different quotations and versions in Sahih al-Bukhari 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Sunan abi Dawod, Sunan ibn Majah, Imam Ahmads al-Musnad)

However the hanafis don't consider it as essential for the validity of ghusl. This was also the view of Sufyan at-Thawry both say that ghusl and wudu' themselves are no pure worship and only a pure worship like the prayer requires an intention.
Further be aware that matter of niyyah is very simple it is achieved if one had in mind to do an act (however some scholars would require a niyyah taking place at the moment one starts the act itself).
See also Can niyat (intention) be done by heart, or must it be declared verbally?
This fatwa -in Arabic- on islamweb #13029 discusses the differences of opinion among scholars about (obligatory) acts related to ghusl.
Answer: You shouldn't complicate things.
As long as if someone suddenly out of no where just jumps at you and asks what are you doing and you're answer is I'm making a ghusl then you're good ie you're not asking yourself "Did I just make ghusl...funny I didn't know how that happened. I just wanted to wash my foot. I didn't want to make a ghusl. "
The only timeethat won't happen is (and this happens more often with wudu) is if say you'r on the phone and decide to wash your hands, and for no reason and merely a force of habit you just make a wudu, I mean you don't even have an intention of purifying your soul, you just do it automatically and at the end of your wudu you'r surprised that you actually did a wudu...
Such a wudu is not accepted.
However if you were on the phone and talking to someone but also needed to quickly make wudu for your prayer to catch the plane and decided to just make wudu while on the telephone then you're good. You're good because you made a sane decision about making wudu.

Is niyyat for ghsul needed?


dry-hopping what hops to use?

Question: I am currently brewing a english pale ale and about to transfer from primary to secondary fermentor. I want to dry hop but dont know what people think would be the best hops to use. Any ideas or recomendations people have? The current hops in the recipe is 1oz. willemete and 1oz. fuggle...
Comment: This is really open-ended. You might try including your current recipe in the question.
Answer: It depends on the style. As suggested, Fuggles (or Willamette) are natural in Brit beers. Goldings also.
But my FAVORITE dry hop for a British beer would be East Kent Goldings. You must try it.
It is a little pricier for East Kent Goldings but worth it. Goldings grown in the US or NZ will be good hops but will taste nothing at all like EK Goldings. (You could say that about all hops - true - but Goldings flavor profile seems to be especially affected by the soil profile).
Answer: It depends on the flavor you think would work best for your beer. Willamette is a hybrid of fuggle and will taste similar to it, a little more fruity or flowery. For english styles I generally fall back on Goldings which will give you a sweeter, more floral flavor, but it really depends on your preferences.

dry-hopping what hops to use?


What is metadata?

Question: I was looking through the working of VF page I read that it save the instruction as metadata. Can any body explain me in simple words that what is metadata.
Answer: I prefer something very simple when it comes to Salesforce and similar tools:
metadata = configuration data
If it isn't your data (accounts, contacts, etc.) or system data (chatter, sharing, field history, etc.) and it configures something about how your salesforce org behaves, then it is metadata in this system.
I have never felt the classic RDBMS "data about your data" definition told the whole story. It is partly correct where it comes to objects, fields, relationships, etc. But some SFDC metadata also defines how UI, business process, validation, programmatic features and other things behave, and fundamentally, that isn't "data about your data". That is data about how the system needs to behave.
Comment: Does a new salesforce org (e.g. the new "scratch org") have any foundational "boilerplate" metadata in it, or, does metadata begin to exist only after I start to customize it? (e.g. only after I add my first APEX class, or custom schema object)
Answer: Metadata is basically "data that describes other data".
For example, in Salesforce you can query data like this:
SELECT FirstName FROM Contact WHERE FirstName='Mike'

Salesforce also provides metadata tables that describe code and configuration:
SELECT Id FROM ApexClass WHERE ApiVersion < 25

The Metadata API provides even more detail about code, objects, profiles, reports, and many more items
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/index.htm
The Force.com IDE for Eclipse plug-in uses the Metadata API to keep local files in sync with Salesforce.
Answer: Salesforce describes the Metadata API as follows:

Use Metadata API to retrieve, deploy, create, update or delete
  customization information,      such as custom object definitions and
  page layouts, for your organization. This API is intended for managing
  customizations and for building tools that can manage the metadata
  model, not the data itself.

I think of Salesforce Metadata like DDL for databases; it is used to describe your objects, their fields and other properties. It also can be used to describe page layouts, profiles, reports and other aspects of your org. As Jordan has pointed out, you can download this description as XML files.
You are limited in what can be set by Metadata; you can't use it to populate Public Groups or change how sharing settings on objects, for instance. It is useful for documenting your org and tracking changes since the XML can be stored in any change control system.
Answer: Metadata in normal database concept is the data about your tables, databases etc. Like how many tables are there in database? How many columns are in table? What are the types of column in table etc.
Same in Salesforce, internally it is Hibernate kind of architect to and gives sObject instead of row.
So, Metadata in Salesforce gives us the information about your organization like :
Total number and name of Workflows, Email Templates, sObjects, Page Layouts etc.
We have a Metadata webservice (Metadata WSDL) provided by Salesforce. Metadata can be used with combination of Java or C# or any other language for tasks like creating Custom Object, Creating profile, Creating fields, fetching complete object list etc.
The Eclipse IDE, ANT Migration tool, Dataloader and other client based tools are actually using Metadata API internally to perform these tasks.
Comment: I was kind of surprised to hear that Salesforce uses Hibernate.  Can you post a link to a Salesforce page (or wherever you found that out) that documents Salesforce's architecture?  I'd be interested in learning more.  Thanks!
Answer: Metadata is an XML file that contains the specifications to the compiler and VF runtime of what API version should be used to render the page, what the page is called, and that the file in question is a VF pages, versus something else (class, static resource, etc.)

What is metadata?


How to uninstall Ubuntu from inside itself

Question: I want to upgrade to 32-bit 11.10 but I can't seem to get rid of Ubuntu 10.04. I have Windows 7 but no admin rights, so I can't remove it, and the admin won't do it because he doesn't know what he's doing.
Answer: If you just begin the 11.10 install, you can choose to overwrite the old partition with 10.04. No need to uninstall it first.
Answer: If you are going to install from CD or USB, boot from that media and when the installer asks, choose replace existing Linux system. If from wubi, I would guess that you need administrative rights on the computer.


Reachwater rock first door won't open although combination is right

Question: I know the solution is bear, whale, snake - but the door still will not open. I have all 3 pieces of the necklace or whatever but it still won't open. I have reset my Xbox 360 many times to solve this but nothing works.
Answer: This has not happened to me before, however looking around I found this on the UESP Wiki:

A common bug is that the rings on the dragon claw doors may not
  rotate, or the door may not open after the correct combination is set.
  Possible fixes are;

Save and then immediately load that save.
Load either the auto-save from the entrance, or a save from before you entered.
Select the right combination and try the claw, then turn each ring once and try the claw again, do this until the correct combination
  re-appears and try again.

Hope that helps

UESP Wiki Reachwater Rock Page
UESP Wiki Bug Page for Puzzle Totems
Answer: I too experienced this, and tried everything previously listed to solve the problem. Nothing worked....so I painstakingly attempted to use the glitch where you hover a plate over the surface of the door, and sprint at it in an attempt to glitch through the wall.
 It took me over an hour to get through the first door. I then realized there were three more doors.... So I figured out a way to use the plate glitch in a more efficient manor.
First, you have to have the beast form power acquired from the companions quests.
Second, bring a bunch of plates just in case you drop them in the water or they glitch through the wall without you.
Get into 1st person view. This makes it a little easier.
Drop a plate on the ground, and rather than pick it up into your inventory, hold y over the plate. This allows you to hold the plate in front of you.
Position the plate so that is abutting against the door, and run towards the plate and wall. You'll need to experiment with different methods of running,sprinting, body position, and plate position. After a lot of trial and error, you will find yourself being able to see through the door, sometimes being able to see slivers of information through the door, other times being able to see a lot of info through the door. Once your able to see a lot of info (usually signifying that at least your head has passed through the door), finagle it so that you can still see through without having to keep running towards the plate/door. Basically you need to run or sprint towards the door while holding the plate, continue running into the plate/door until your able to see a decent amount of info. Become stationary while still being able to see through, select your beast form, and use the ability to transform. Once you've become the wolf, you'll see that the transformation has forced more of your body through the wall. Start trying to force your body through the wall by running and strafing a bit. Usually you need to kinda strafe a bit and turn your body perpendicular to the door. Remember, there are 4 doors total and you'll need to come back through two of them, so have enough plates to get through. Also, because you can only use beast form once a day, you'll need to press select and wait for 24 hours before each door after te first. Well there you have it folks. Hope this helps you not spend 5 hours trying to get through like I did!!!!!
Answer: This happened to me, so what I did was turn each ring once, then insert the emerald dragon claw, then rotate each ring once again, and inserting the dragon claw again, then rotating all the rings just once again, which returns the correct (bear whale snake) combination, inserting the emerald dragon claw again unlocked the door... It happened again later down the corridor with the ivory dragon claw door which was annoying, so I tried the same thing again, and it worked, although I did get shot by poison darts alot :')
Hope this helps!


Tardiness to Sprint events

Question: Our scrum events rarely start on time because members show up late. There are no reasons given for the tardiness. This wastes the time of the other members who are on time! We have discussed this in the retrospective and the scrum master has urged  people to be on time but they still show up 2 to 5 minutes late.  Besides reporting them to their managers, what is an effective way to deal with this?
Comment: `There are no reasons given for the tardiness.` -- What have you done to determine why they are regularly late? Understanding this is the first step to coming up with solutions. For example, the solutions are going to look different if the people who are regularly late are coming from a meeting (which may also be running late) versus if they have an open schedule before the scheduled event.
Comment: At the retrospective, members were asked to say why they come late and there were no reasons given because nobody wants to state the truth. To be honest, this is an existing company-wide problem . Senior people show up late for meetings and meetings do not start until the senior people arrive! That tardiness affects subsequent meetings that one needs to attend that day! The many scrum events are just highlighting a problem that went un-addressed !
Answer: TL;DR
You don't describe your role on the Scrum Team, but the solutions require the active collaboration of all members of the team. In particular, the Scrum Master role is the process referee, and not simply a bystander separate from the rest of the Scrum Team. This is often obscured by a misunderstanding of the "servant leader" paradigm. As a coach and referee, the Scrum Master most likely needs to both explain and enforce the framework's requirements for the daily standup, rather than just taking a passive approach.
Respect Time Box and Cadence; Create Necessary Slack
The daily standup is part of the cadence of the Sprint. As such, it should be:

Held at a predictable time.
Strictly time-boxed.
Meeting the needs of the Development Team.
Facilitating collaboration rather than status reporting.

If people are routinely showing up late, at least one of the principles above is likely being violated. To address this, the Scrum Team should:

Review the start time of the standup to ensure it's consistent and agreeable to the whole team. About an hour after the starting time of core hours is often a good place to start.
Ensure the standup starts on time and ends on time, every time! Individuals being late shouldn't be allowed to disrupt the time box. Enforcing the time box is a key responsibility for an effective Scrum Master in their capacity as a process referee.
Address root causes and impediments. If people are late because meetings are too closely packed on the day's calendar, or insufficient padding around the event is provided by the organization, fix that!
Ensure the daily standup is used only for collaborating on the daily increment. Push status reporting and other topics outside of the meeting's time box. If the team members find value in the event, they'll make time for it and want to be there for the whole thing.
Comment: I am a developer and member of the team. I am trying to improve the team and this is one area of struggle!
Answer: You may want to consider getting the team together and coming up with a working agreement.
This will need to be decided on by consensus of the whole team. The idea being that when people actively participate in drawing up a working agreement they are far more likely to follow it.
It is a lot easier to call people out for things like being late to meetings if they have themselves stated it is a bad thing.
Comment: Thanks for your suggestion. There is already a working agreement that contains the start time and format of the stand up.
Comment: @user6284097, but was that existing working agreement created by the current team or was it inherited from another team (perhaps other members working in the same area of the software) or pushed from above?
Comment: This was a working agreement formulated by the existing team members
Answer: I suggest to apply fine, for every minute late, there will be a constant value for the fine example $5, but first you have to agree on this rule as a team, because scrum and agile project management depends on self organize team, and suppose to be funny, as the team knows the important of time-boxed events and the harm of being late, it will be easy to agree about the fine and also will have a sense of humor, no one like to pay a fine.
this way succeed in my team, hope it succeed in your team as well.
Comment: Instead of a monetary fine, I have seen "cake points" being used. If you are late to a meeting, you get a cake point and when you reach X points, you need to make/buy a treat for the team. The "fine" was 1 point for being late/absent without a valid reason, regardless of how late you were.
Comment: this is a good idea too, same approach with different method, the idea is applying fine to ensure Commitment using funny way that be accepted and respected by the team, and it is vary from one team or environment to another.
Comment: The side effects of negative reinforcement (punishment) are unpleasant and I wonder how effective it would be. I'd rather embrace a transparent culture and let everyone talk openly about it and decide TOGETHER what to do about it.
Comment: I agree with you and that why even a "fine" has to be agreed within the team as the team is self organize and know the bad effect of being late, together they have to agree on how to address the problem, and it is really effective and funny way to handle the problem
Answer: The appropriate solution to this depends on so many dynamics within your Scrum team and organization in general, that's it's really not possible to answer appropriately without knowing a lot more. But it would be too complex to discuss here. With that said, you might try...

Address tardiness directly at the time it occurs, have the SM or another appropriate leader within the team ask them directly why they are late, at the moment they arrive late and in front of the rest of the team. This will encourage them to be held accountable to the rest of the team for their tardiness, which may encourage them to stop it.
Have the SM visit them at the time they should be making their way to the meeting and make sure they are on the way, accompany them to the meeting or have the opportunity to privately address what's going on and see directly why they are late!
Have the SM meet with them privately and discuss the issue.
Organize some social or other team building exercises to bring the team together so members don't feel comfortable letting each other down.

It really depends on what the underlying issue is, issues like this are usually a sign of an unaddressed disharmony in the team, that is best identified and fixed if possible. Depending on that is what type of approach will work best, and which will simply create more disharmony.
Comment: Asking people about the way they act in front of other people can be embarrassing and play against you. I agree with your idea of talking privately with them first, and if they feel comfortable to, get together and discuss with the whole team about it.
Comment: Totally agree Mario, that would only work with a tight knit team that has mutual respect (which is a Scrum Value), which is why I opened with saying it depends on the dynamics within the Scrum team. With a tight knit team it can be helpful to address issues jointly, and help the team support each other. But otherwise I totally agree, it will play against you if the respect isn't there.
Comment: Respect is not necessarily going to alleviate the discomfort of who is going to be questioned. I've been in such situations a couple of times and regardless of how respectful the team is, human nature kicks in, anxiety plays its role and people get stressed.
Comment: Sure, that's why it's a call you have to make based on the dynamics in the actual team in question. I've been in teams where discussing issues together has been very powerful and brought the team closer together.
Answer: It looks like team is not buying in either to the job at hand or to the scrum as a process.
Below could be few possibilities: -

Try to find the reason for team not to buy in
Talk to them to know if they are facing some impediments
Team is not motivated for the project or mission
There could be some politics going on within team, department or organization that is impacting team
Team needs some help but they have no hope from management
Answer: Ask the people who are always late how they would like the stand up meetings to be in terms of schedule and start from there.
People think differently regardless of processes (they are humans in essence, right?!). It's important to understand other people's point of view and be prepared to be flexible.
In my personal experience, If the team is mature enough, an email can be as effective as a stand up meeting and maybe those that are always late could send an email instead?!

Tardiness to Sprint events


Do lens adapters with mechanical aperture control really work well?

Question: This answer about a lens adapter with a mechanical aperture control (like these 1,2) got me thinking — Is it possible to control the aperture of a lens in this way? To me the answers to this question suggest it won't work very well at all since the diaphragm is sitting way off where it should be. Also will all lenses work equally well/bad? What determines if an adapter like this is possible to use?
Answer: Adapters with a built in iris will work reasonably well but with more vignetting and potentially a slight variation in aperture across the frame.  How much will depend on where the exit pupil is, longer exit pupils (typically found in telephotos but not always) will fare better.
Since these adapters are considerably cheaper than full electronic adapters it's probably a reasonable price/performance trade of in most cases, and sometimes it's the only option.
Answer: Lens design texts often suggest that for some designs, the position of the aperture is relatively critical with regards to vignetting and distortion. However, an MFT camera with a full frame lens only uses the center bit of the imaging circle, so if the adapter causes grave problems in the corners and sides, these problems might be mitigated/attenuated enough in the center part to be acceptable.
Comment: "if the adapter causes grave problems in the corners and sides, they will be out of frame" -  Minor problems, yes.  "Grave problems", no. (What likely makes the problems grave is they are visible in the final image.)


How to record sounds with an XLR cable

Question: I'm looking into buying my first microphone, and I've (basically) decided on a used SM57.  It comes with a standard cable (I'm guessing XLR to XLR), however, I'm wondering how to record various sound effects with the microphone.  It would be better to have it be portable because I can't record all of my sounds on my computer.  Is there some sort of cable to use with my phone?  Or is the only practical way to go about it by paying for an audio interface and hooking it up to my computer?
Comment: Zoom H4n is almost always the way I go here.  You can use it's XLR/TRS combo jacks for external input to record, or it has a really nice microphone X/Y pair attached.  It records standard files to standard SD cards.  And, you can use it as a USB audio interface on your phone and computer, allowing you to go live some day if you want to.
Answer: You need a portable / field recorder with an XLR input in order to use the mic in the field, to record sounds. There are many different makes and models out there, discussed in many threads on this site such as here. At the mid/low tier I personally would recommend a Tascam DR-100 MkII.
May I ask what made you to decide to use a Shure SM57? It's a dynamic mic, which is usually best suited to micing up live performances, rather than being used as a field recording mic. For field / sound effects recording, a shotgun condensor mic, such as the Rode NTG-1 or NTG-2 might be a little more suitable and in a similar price bracket.
Comment: Honestly, I'm just a starting Foley artist that's trying to make sound effects for my games.  I don't know all of the ins-and-outs of what is a good microphone, but I've got a decently low budget for making decent sounds.  I never anticipated it to have so much variation from person to person, or to be so expensive.  I'll look into those other microphones, as well as some portable recorders.  If you have any other suggestions, I'd be glad to hear some.  Thank you!
Comment: No problem! If budgets are tight, and you haven't bought a mic yet, then mid/low end recorders usually have built in microphones. Again, the Tascam DR-100 MkII is great for this; the onboard mics and pre-amp are brilliant, for the price they it costs, the Zoom H4n a close second. If you're starting out, on a tight budget, and just want some really basic sounds then something even smaller, like a Tascam DR-05, or Zoom H1 may be a better choice, though won't have XLR connections if you want to get external mics later to use with it.
Answer: A Shure SM57 is not very suitable for recording Foley sounds. A condenser microphone is much more typical to use for recording ambient and natural sounds and Foley/SFX (sound effects).
A "sleeper" product I have found is an ISK "Little Gem" condenser microphone. It comes with omnidirectional, cardioid, and hyper-cardioid microphone heads which you can select to suit the particular recording situation.  There are other similar budget-price reasonable quality condenser microphones.
If you want to record a professional-grade XLR microphone on a smart phone or similar gadget there are XLR microphone preamp gadgets which implement such connections.  For example IK Multimedia iRig PRE.
Example: http://www.iskproaudio.com/products/little-gem
Example: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigpre/
Comment: He's bought that sm57 because I suggested it on another thread. But he had a budget of just $50, not enough to buy a decent condenser, even used. When your on a really tight budget any mic can 'do' Foley. Foley/sound design is 80% technique.

How to record sounds with an XLR cable


How could multiple people work on one website?

Question: I recently watched The Social Network, and this might be a stupid question, but how is it possible for multiple people to work on one website? I mean, if they're working on the same page, how is that possible? And also, is it possible to upload files to an online host without making them live?
Comment: Source control. Each developer works on the files locally, then has to check out the file which prohibits other developers from replacing content within the file until it is checked in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revision_control_software
Comment: Never use version control's lock functionality on files unless they are binary though.
Comment: @Cam: in this context "binary" = "anything that is not a text file"
Comment: @gommo: What do you mean by 'binary'? Can you expand on that?
Answer: Usually when multiple people need to make changes to the same file, they use some kind of version control system to keep track of who made what changes. It also lets them merge and synchronize the changes different people make.
Comment: Simple, yet elegant.
Answer: Very few websites consist of just one "page" and, for cases where multiple people would work on the same page, most revision control systems have mechanisms built in for merging the changes back together into a unified file.
Comment: Just to be picky :) unless it happens to be a CMS based system, where all pages are virtual and only exist in a database.
Answer: Multiple persons working in the same files: Source control
Without making them live: Development servers & databases, which are not the same branch as the real website.
Answer: They need some kind of manager.
Typically, teams are broken up into segments that should never interfere with each other (famous last words). For instance, if the foo API depends on helpers from the people who code in C, the breakage should (never happen), but if it does, it happens because the helper app doesn't understand what you are passing to it.
That is a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, which clearly illustrates the fault, which is probably mine.
If you push code without first pulling and resolving merges (while breaking what the other dev did by just removing whatever you didn't write),  prior to communicating with others who edit the same, I'm going to dose you with high voltage. After that, I'm going to take you out to dinner (to make ammends for the 1.21 gigawatts) and ensure that you ingest some kind of crazy, disgusting and quite exotic food. Think ... Klingon.
You'll then thank me for that, and never do it again.
Of course you could substitute some sort of normal 'talking to' here, but what fun is that?
Answer: You'll probably find that they have developers working on different pages.  A template or site master is usually created so that each page has the same look and feel.  For example, if the company is using Source Control such as Team Foundation Server, each developer would check in their source code and this will allow the other developers to get their latest changes.
Comment: TFS was the best you could come up with for an example of a Source Control Management system? Come on now.
Answer: They could either:

Be programming in an editor via an SSH session (e.g. vi, vim, nano, emacs).
Be editing through FTP with their IDE (e.g. emacs, notedpad++).
Using a version control system.

For the last one, people now use distributed version control such as mercurial, git and bazar, instead of centralized version control such as CVS and subversion. For mercurial, check bitbucket.org and google code project hosting, for git, check github, which are sites that host the code for you to share collaboratively without you needing to set up a server.
Also:

To learn mercurial, go to http://hginit.com/
To learn git, go to http://progit.org/book/
Answer: Developing pages with components VS Pages as a Whole
I've worked on many large scale websites, and the way multiple people work on the same page is that most websites are portals.  In general, many sites like facebook contain many controls, such as photos, ads, little blurb areas, etc, which multiple people will work on.  Also, headers and footers are generally broken into their own reusable include file.  This breaks the site up into components that can not only be worked on individually, but can also be re-used across multiple sites and areas.
Comment: do you know what a web portal is? (hint, it's not a mashup. think old times Yahoo)
Comment: Yea, I was trying to use an example that shows that one technique is to break pages into components.  A good example of that is a portal, except users can drop in/out portal widgets, while building pages using components can be only from the dev side.  Portals is a good visual example.
Answer: You could use some sort of live syncing system like OneNote uses.... Furthermore, you could upload files to a host but not make your main domain link to them.
Answer: Don't forget that there can also be content management systems that some sites use to serve content so that while you may think something is a web page, it is really this mix of stuff.
Many content management systems will have a preview feature to allow authors to view content before making it publicly accessible.
Answer: All of these tools mentioned are helpful, but to me it sounds more like the OP is more asking how people keep from getting in the path of others.
In addition to using tools to solve those conflicts there is usually some division into stacks or tiers to help avoid the conflicts in the first place.
With the stack approach you have each person working on an unrelated feature (one person may be doing account sign-up and one may be doing content submission).  There will be some conflict where the two may cross (user records in this example probably) and that gets handled as part of the merge to the next build.
With the tier approach someone is building all the innermost bits, when they get one portion finished another person writes the bits that sit atop those and so on.  the conflicts generated here are usually when something has to be returned to on a lower tier for some later modification that could affect the next tier above and are handled in a similar manner before the next build.
The part about files promoted but not live has a wide variety of answers/implementations, but a separate server to preview on, a specific preview mode, or a user class or entitlement that pulls the bleeding edge version while regular users get the stable version are the ones I tend to see most often.
Answer: To answer the second part first, one way to upload files without making them live is to give them a name that won't be linked to. E.g. to make a new version of an index.html page, upload it with the name it index2.html, then visit http://yoursite.com/index2.html and check that it works OK. Once you are satisfied, rename it to index.html. This is really only for very small sites, and it gets a bit messy if you want to change something external to the page, like images, CSS or JavaScript files, because you have to have image2.png, then index2.html whose only difference is that it points to the new image.
A professional programmer would always have a test system to work on, then upload to their "online host" once they are happy with the changes. You can set up a web server on your computer that will only serve pages inside your local network. Of course you could also use a separate computer, or (as I do) a virtual machine running on your main computer.
When multiple developers work together, each would have their own test system to work on, then upload their changes to a version control system that keeps track of all the changes from all the different people. See the git parable for how this works.
The version control system makes it easy to see who changed what and why. This can be checked over by whoever is in charge and then merge it into the master, and hand it over to the testing / QA department. Once they have fully tested the new features, they will approve it for uploading to the live site.
Answer: First thing to establish is that many sites aren't a collection of static pages that are worked on by one or more people.
The pages that you see as a visitor don't exist on the website to make changes to as in such sites they are automatically assembled on-the-fly by a content management system - software running on the hosting server, using content that the website owners have produced. The CMS assembles the page from the content laid out using template files (CSS and CMS's own config files) and the resultant page is served to your browser.
The site owners make changes to the content and the layout templates rather than static pages. Leading on from that your answer depends on the type of change and the role of the person doing it:

a site public user, posting a blog or comment
if you are changing the content on the site (content producer role, e.g. journalist working for the website owner) or
adding and changing functionality of the site (site developer working for the site owner).

Drupal is a free and powerful content management system that provides multi-user management to handle content updates which in turn affects what is seen by visitors on pages. Drupal will also provide means to alter the behaviour of the pages, e.g. how they are laid out or if commments on an article can be posted, addressing the 1st and 2nd types of change. If doing the changes in Drupal these will be stored in a SQL database. Drupal provides some versioning/revision control of content.
A full version control system is needed for more involved site behaviour changes, the 3rd type of change e.g. introducing more features, receiving updates from Drupal, or fixing bugs on own added code, then this means changing the code and as others have posted here. Version control systems such as GIT, Subversion or Mercurial - all free - are used to manage the changes made by several developers of the site.


Krausen During Primary

Question: I'm wondering what other peoples' experiences are with krausen at the start of fermentation.  I've had some beers that have bubbled along happily without producing huge amounts of foam, and others that seem like they'll neve stop spuming.  This weekend we started a stout and I installed a small plastic airlock.  By 7 AM the next morning there was krausen up through the airlock, down the sides of the carboy, and trickling away in a tiny stream.  I cleaned everything up and switched to a larger diameter hose with its end in a bucket of water so the foam had somewhere to go, but there seems to be substantial quantities of wort being lost by this (I'd estimate 1/3 gallon in this case).  Are there things I can do to control this?  Are there ingredients, or styles of beer, or strains of yeast that tend more towards producing big, frothy krausen?  How are other people dealing with this?
Comment: Ran into this very issue over the weekend. Thank you for asking.
Answer: A healthy fermentation with a strong yeast will tend to produce a larger krausen. You're right about the strain of yeast being a big player, but the best thing you can do is increase your fermentor head space.
In this case, the obvious answer is best: either use a larger carboy or smaller volume of wort.  You can also get a little help by fermenting cooler to slow yeast metabolism, but this will affect the flavor profile.
Additionally, there are silicon defoamers like Fermcap and Foamtrol that will help - if you don't mind breaking the Reinheitsgebot.  Personally, I don't like chemical additives, but they're FDA-approved and many homebrewers swear by them.
Comment: I'm much more concerned with minimizing waste and the need to clean than adherence to old-tyme beer laws.  Thanks for the tips, I'll look into the defoamers.
Comment: It's not so much about adhering to a law that was written before the discovery of yeast as it is that some people prefer not to add artificial compounds to their beer.  FWIW, I've tasted the same recipe brewed with and without Fermcap, and it didn't seem to suffer from the additives.
Comment: Thanks, I used a 6.5 gal. carboy for an IPA I've got brewing currently (as opposed to the 5 gallon I'd use before) and it's had sufficient head space to deal with the krausen.
Answer: I'd suggest using a pail for a primary instead of a carboy.  There seems to be a bit of a Canada/US cultural difference here.  I think most Canadian homebrewers would consider the term "primary fermenter" to refer to a large food-grade bucket.  The ones we commonly use here are about 40 litres, giving plenty of head-space for a 23-litre batch.
Comment: That sounds like a perfect ratio to me ... make a batch, put it in the plastic primary for about 2 days, then into one of the waiting empty carboys.
Comment: Unfortunately I've got one plastic pail fermenter and 5 carboys of various sizes which I've acquired over the years.  I suppose I could get more buckets and use the glass fermenters for secondary.
Answer: There is a product out there called Fermcap-S.  You drop a drop or two into the boil or primary and it prevents foam buildup.  The ingredients are insoluble and don't seem to affect the flavor or head-retention of the finished product.  The ingredients settle out during fermentation.  From my experience it works great.  I don't even have to watch the boil for boil-overs.
It comes in a small eyedropper bottle and you can probably find it at your LHBS.

Krausen During Primary


How much magnification is needed to see the planets of solar system?

Question: I have a 3inch Newtonian reflector telescope with 300 mm focal length. I can use highest magnification of 75x using a 4mm eyepiece. But in 75x I can't see the details of Jupiter what was expected. Instead I see a little blurry image. Now I would like to know how much magnification is necessary to see a good details of Jupiter and other planets. And one more question: Is there any way to improve the vision of my 3 inch telescope?
Answer: You're probably asking the wrong question - which I am going to answer anyway, and after that I am going to answer the question you should have asked instead.

As a general rule, there isn't much point in pushing the magnification above 2x the diameter of the instrument, measured in mm. 3 inch, that's 75mm, that's 150x max. Beyond that limit, even under ideal skies the image is large but blurry.
After that, seeing (or air turbulence) pushes that limit further down. Your aperture is small enough that it almost never suffers from seeing, but larger instruments are often affected. It varies greatly with time, place and season. There are times when a 12" dobsonian, that in theory could do 600x, is clamped down by seeing to 150 ... 180x. There are times when you could take a 20" dobsonian all the way up to 1000x - but that's very, VERY rare, it's the stuff of legends.
Assuming average seeing conditions and instruments of usual size (refractors of 3...4" aperture, reflectors 6" or larger), here are some rules of thumb:
Jupiter is seen best under mid-high magnification. It's rare that more than 200x is beneficial. This is because it's a very low contrast object, and additional magnification comes at the cost of less contrast, which makes things worse.
Saturn works best at high-ish magnification, bit more than Jupiter but maybe not much more. Around 200 ... 250x usually works. It depends on what you do - if you're trying to see the ring divisions, push it a bit higher.
Mars can use the highest magnification that you could generate, given the instrument and the conditions. It's a very small object, contrast is not bad, so crank it all the way up. Most instruments are limited by seeing when observing Mars.
Moon is the same as Mars.
As you can see, magnification is never an issue for you. More magnification will not make it better. In fact, more magnification always means the image is more blurry, not more crisp - it's always a compromise between size and blurriness that decides the optimal magnification.
Don't worry, everyone begins thinking that more is always better. Soon enough, experience shows them what's really going on.

That being said, I believe it's not magnification that's giving you trouble, but the general condition of the optical stack that you're using. These are things that are extremely important, and yet are ignored by many, many amateurs - and the results are not optimal. Here are a few things that you should investigate:
Collimation
Is your scope collimated? In other words, are all optical elements aligned on the same axis? The likely answer is no. It makes a huge difference in the scope's performance, especially for planets. Here's a collimated scope, compared to the same scope out of collimation:

Further information on Thierry Legault's site, which is extremely informative.
A series of articles and documents regarding collimation:
http://www.cloudynights.com/documents/primer.pdf
Gary Seronik: A Beginner's Guide to Collimation
Gary Seronik: Collimation Tools: What You Need and What You Don't
Gary Seronik: No-Tools Telescope Collimation
Note: Some telescopes (e.g. pretty much all refractors) do not require collimation; they are collimated from factory and hold collimation pretty well. But most reflectors (SCTs, all newtonians including dobsonians, etc) do require this periodic maintenance.
Thermal equilibrium
At 3" aperture, this is probably not a big issue, but there's no reason why you should add another problem to the existing ones. Your scope should be at the same temperature as the air around it, otherwise its performance decreases. Take it outside 1 hour before you start observing, and that should be enough for you.

Larger telescopes (around 10" ... 12" and larger) should use active ventilation for better cooling (a fan on the back of the mirror). More details here:
Gary Seronik: Beat the Heat: Conquering Newtonian Reflector Thermals — Part 1
Gary Seronik: Beat the Heat: Conquering Newtonian Reflector Thermals — Part 2
In your case, simple passive cooling for 1 hour should be enough, but it's worth reading those articles.
Focal ratio
A 3" scope, at 300mm focal length, that's an f/4 instrument. That's a pretty steep f/ ratio. Most eyepieces will not do well with such a blunt cone of light, and will start to exhibit aberrations that blur the image. Only very expensive eyepieces work well at such low focal ratios - things like TeleVue Ethos, or Explore Scientific 82 degree eyepieces.
Try and keep the planet in the center - most aberrations are lower there. Even very simple eyepieces do better in the middle of the image.
Look at the stars. Are they tiny and round in the center, and large and fuzzy at the edge? Those are aberrations from various sources (eyepiece, primary mirror, etc).
Coma
Of course, at f/4 even the best eyepieces out there cannot do anything about coma - an aberration coming out of any parabolic mirror, which becomes pretty obvious around f/5, very obvious at f/4, and a major problem at f/3. Again, coma is zero in the center of the image, and increases towards the edge.

A coma corrector is used in some cases, such as the TeleVue Paracorr, but I strongly recommend that you DO NOT use one - I suspect your instrument is aberrating in ways that overwhelm coma anyway. Jupiter would not be too blurry even at full f/4 coma at the edge. This paragraph is for informational purposes only.
Coma should become a concern with large telescopes, using high quality optics, with a focal ratio of around f/5 and less. E.g., you have a 20" dob with an f/4 mirror, then you should worry about coma - provided that collimation and so on are taken care of.
Optics quality
An f/4 parabola is not super easy to make at any size. I've made my own optics, and the lower the f/ ratio, the more difficult the process is. Many small, cheap telescopes are made in a hurry, and the difficult focal ratio poses additional problems - as a result, many manufacturers do a poor job. There are even cases where the primary mirror is left spherical, with disastrous results.
This is something you can do nothing about. If the primary mirror is bad, then that's just the way things are. An optician might try to correct it, but it's a difficult process, and quite expensive. I only added this here so you are informed.

This is what I would do in your case:
I would take the scope out 1 hour before observing, every time.
I would try and learn how to collimate the scope. I would try to figure out a few simple collimation techniques, and a few simple tests. I would spend a few days / weeks practicing that. I would keep reading about collimation.
When collimation is at least partially under control, I would learn how to properly focus the scope. Seems simple, but it can be tricky. Use a bright star, and try and make it as small as possible. Use the Moon when it's visible, and try and make it crisp and clear. Do not try this with a miscollimated scope, since it's pointless.
After a few months, when I gain confidence that the scope is in better shape, very well collimated, very well focused, I might try to borrow a better eyepiece from a friend. I said borrow, not buy. Something like a 3 ... 4mm eyepiece, good quality, that would give me a comparison for the existing eyepieces. This ONLY makes sense with a scope that is in perfect collimation, perfect temperature, perfect focus. If an improvement is seen, then get a better eyepiece - but do not spend hundreds of dollars for an expensive eyepiece that will then be used in a tiny cheap scope. Second-hand eyepieces often work exactly as well as new ones.
If you know someone in your area who makes mirrors, see if they agree to put your primary mirror on the Foucault tester, and assess its condition. But beware: the results might be very disappointing. Or not. You kind of never know with these little scopes.
EDIT: After the scope is collimated and so on, you could try to increase magnification by using a 2x barlow with your eyepieces, but do not expect miracles - the image will be bigger, but probably rather "mushy". More magnification is not always better, there's always a trade-off.
Good luck, and clear skies to you!
Comment: @ FlorinAndrei :Thank you very much for such a great explanation and suggestion. So my scope can have maximum 150x magnification.But currently maximum magnification is 300/4=75x. is there any way to increase the magnification and make it 150x ?
Comment: Do not increase anything yet. Figure out collimation first. The 150x theoretical max assumes a perfect instrument. Even with a perfect scope, as you get close to the max the image gets more and more "mushy". That being said, a shorter eyepiece (2mm) will give you the extra magnification - but that's not the best option for you because 2mm is very, very short; the best option in your case is to get a barlow. A 2x barlow, inserted in the focuser before the eyepiece will effectively multiply the magnification by 2x. Again, don't do this just yet - you have some work to do before you get there. ;)
Comment: Even with perfect collimation, at full magnification for an f/4 instrument, with simple eyepieces - you may not like the results too much. Stay focused on the basics for now - collimation etc.
Comment: Are thermal differences relevant when the mirror is *colder* than ambient?  In other words, will you get a better result if you (e.) wait for your mirror to *heat up* from 70F to 80F, or does this apply only when the mirror is hotter?
Comment: @Michael The main thing is that there's a temperature difference (either positive or negative) between mirror and air. When that happens, there will be convection cells on the mirror, containing air at different temperatures / different densities / different refraction indices. It's the variable refraction index of the air that messes up the image. To eliminate it, you need the mirror to be at the same temperature as the air. That's usually a combination of waiting and/or fan cooling, ideally both if the instrument is large. The fan blowing improves things a little even before equilibrium.
Answer: In typical seeing condition you should be able to use a magnification (see here) of about 25-30x per inch of apperture, so for your telescope that is about 100x, in exceptional condition you could push that up to maybe double that. Also the more magnification you use the less contrast you will have in the image, so really you want the lowest magnification that gives an image size compatible with being able to see the bands since you will be contrast limited.
You will find simulated images of Jupiter through a small telescope here and Saturn here. Though personal experience suggests that the simulated image of Jupiter through a 3" aperture is optimistic. IIRC a suggestion of banding is just about at the limit of what I can see on Jupiter in the small scope.
I am guessing that your telescope is this
Comment: @ ConradTurner:yes you are correct.


Vegas, Monte Carlo multi integration, QCD

Question: To do some calculation on QCD on Lattice, I needed a Monte Carlo multi integration. I wrote a a C++ program according to what I understood from the paper " Lepage (1978) "  A New Algorith For Adaptive Multidimensional Integration" SLAC_Pub_1839 November 1976" The results I got, however, were not accurate, so I copied the written program from the books: a) Numeerical Recipies in C and  b) Numeerical Recipies in C  Examples. The program is running for 4 days on My PC with Intel Core 2 Due, @ 2.9 GHz. My question is from anyone who has experience on Vegas algorithm that this long running is normal or my program is in a non-ending loop. Thanks.
Comment: Have you tested your algorithm against functions with known anti-derivatives? If the algorithm is not the focus of your research, I would suggest using a pre-existing (read: tested) library. In particular, GNU Scientific Library and the CUBA Library both have VEGAS implemented.
Answer: I used VEGAS some time ago to calculate the hadronic cross section using partonic cross section and parton distributions and none of my calculations lasted that long. Around ~10-20min at most. I would go with the precompiled CUBA libraries. There are four different algorithms Cuhre, Divonne, Suave and Vegas, consult with the manual/paper for more information and then choose the one fits best at your needs.


Can you use Facebook Graph API to post a photo to a brand account as well as user account?

Question: I am working on a project where a photo is taken and the user can share their photo on Facebook. We would use oAuth and the FB Graph API to post the photo and caption to the users' timeline. The client just made a request to also post it to their (the client's) photo album as well. So when the user submits a photo, it would post to the user's timeline as well as the client's timeline/album. Is this double post (to two different accounts) possible? Wouldn't that require that the client be logged in via oAuth as well? Also, are there any FB legal/regulation issues with this so long as the application has a disclaimer that it will be posted to two different places?
Answer: The entry for the user is a new photo to the apps album for that user. me/photos
However the entry that goes to your clients page... I don't think people can do id/photos of others or pages. (it's worth a shot)
You'll have to stick to id/feed and perhaps include a link to an image host.


Make conspiracy theories and tin-foil hat theories off-topic

Question: If we want to be on good terms with space agencies, we have to exterminate tinfoil hat theories ruthlessly.
Comment: Why not use the momentum they create to our own advantage? I support @SF.'s answer here. We can gain visibility by such questions (I'm not thrilled, but that's how things are), and use great answers (such as the question that inspired this question, I presume) to "slingshot" the question in the vector of our interests.
Comment: @TildalWave - aye, I see your drift considering the question has already hit the Super Collider. But realistically, one has (as gerrit says) "to draw the line" somewhere.
Comment: Where is the line drawn? If it turns out they are true were they still nutcase theories?
Comment: @RhysW - I suppose we'll have to risk and offer to eat our hats (not the tinfoil ones, though) if a nutcase theory is proven.
Answer: Note: had the battery been Pu-239 - and a bunch of RTG batteries used in space missions are made from decommissioned nukes, so a person not informed on details of the mission could reasonably expect that was the case - the theory cited would have been quite viable. That wasn't the case, end of story, case closed, thank you.
My opinion is a short, quick and accurate debunking of such stories is more healthy than trying to sweep them under the rug and only give extra feeder to skeptics.
Comment: "debunking of such stories is more healthy" ... +1k for this, if I could ...
Comment: Note for future readers who (like me) are very confused by the first paragraph and what it has to do with the question: it's referring to [this post](https://space.stackexchange.com/q/868/19770), which apparently inspired the question.
Answer: It can be hard to draw the line.  Who determines what is a nutcase theory and what isn't?
If the source is notable enough, perhaps some of those would fit on Skeptics.
Comment: Theories migratable to Skeptics are OK (although we should migrate them ASAP). It is just that nobody wants the site degrade into one dedicated to the question: "Was Apollo program a hoax". See rules at UMSF and other like fora.
Comment: I liked reading the NASA juking Jupiter one though!  It's less nutcase than alien civilisations on Luna and Mars.
Comment: Yeah, it may be fun for anybody but NASA folks. Remember, if they step out of line here, it is NASA's budget that they put at risk (meaning there are enough nutjobs on the Hill to grab any pretext).
Comment: Why would it not be fun for NASA folks?  I am most amused if I am accused of mind control through the satellites whose data I use.  Of course we're not a humour site for amusement, but from a physics point of view, the question of the fate of Galileo's plutonium is, I think, still an interesting one.  NASA *did* dump Plutonium into Jupiter.  What are the consequences?
Comment: It is very very easy: a good source is based on good peer reviews and references. It will also be cited often in other good sources, and be published in a well accepted journal. Finally a good theory is falsible and changes as little as possible to the currently accepted scientific solution. If the above is untrue the source is bad.


Applying Array Modifier - Still instance?

Question: I got a short question: If I apply the array modifier, are the objects still instances or are they converted to real objects? I also don't want to change these objects.
Answer: No.
They are never instanced, even before the modifier is applied.
The array modifier makes a new copy of the mesh for each repetition, storing the same geometry over and over. This allows other modifiers to make modifications to the mesh as a whole.
Unless you separate them after applying the modifier, they are all one object and part of the same mesh.
So they are never instanced, because they are never actually separate objects.

To instance objects with an array modifier, you could try using the technique in my answer here.
Comment: Ok, but are they instances or real objects?
Comment: @BlenderShark They are not separate objects. They are part of the single object to which the modifier was applied. Unless you separate them, there are no objects to instance.
Answer: No, they are not instances (new geometry is created for every copy).
And moreover modifiers never instance objects, this is not how blenders modifiers work.
(For instancing look into dupli-objects)
Answer: Adding an array modifier to an object duplicates the meshes according to the parameters

After appling the array modifier (still a single object) you could select all and Separate P Separate by loose parts to create an object for each mesh created by the array operator.
Comment: Thanks. And if I change he location in Edit Mode the objects are still instances?
Comment: @BlenderShark No. They are part of the same object and the same mesh, so each vertex is stored separately. In other words, they never were instanced. (I'm not a developer and I could be wrong, but 99% certain that's the way it works)
Answer: Some additional information for general reference even though this is an old question...
I tested the use of array mod versus duplicates on a fairly simple object I'm working with to compare file size etc. The individual object has 197 verts and 222 faces with a combination of procedural and image textures and file size 528k. I needed a total of 5 copies of the object.
Using ARRAY mod the file size was unchanged,
Clicking "Apply" array the file size became 651k
Duplicating with ALT D the file size became 537k
Duplicating with SHift D the file size became 669k
In all versions there are 990 verts and 1110 faces. Array modifier before and after clicking apply remains as 1 object whilst regular duplication becomes 5 separate objects.
The difference in this example isn't much but on a large scale or complex scene the choice between duplication methods could have a significant impact.
Answer: Array Modifier will not create instances. To get instances sometimes it's easier to work with keyboard shortcuts:
Duplicate to distance of 5 along X axis: Alt + D, X, 5, Enter
Repeat duplication: Shift + R


Batsman stopping the ball hitting his wicket.

Question: Is the batsman out if a) he deflects the ball away from his wicket after playing it. i.e. with bat, foot etc to avoid being 'played on' b) if he, when out of his crease, 'accidentally' stopped the ball hitting his wicket by interposing any part of his body on the ball's flight path?
The logistics to me is similar to an lbw decision.
Comment: Could you confirm for part (b) whether a fielder has touched the ball or not?
Answer: Note: Updated to reflect changes brought in on Oct 1 2017 which removes Rule 33 Handling the Ball, and merges with Law 37 - Obstructing the field
According to the rules of cricket

Rule 37 - Obstraucting the Ball

37.1.2 The striker is out Obstructing the field if, except in the circumstances of 37.2, in the act of receiving a ball delivered by the bowler, he/she wilfully strikes the ball with a hand not holding the bat.  This will apply whether it is the first strike or a second or subsequent strike.  The act of receiving the ball shall extend both to playing at the ball and to striking the ball more than once in defence of his/her wicket.

Exceptions to the above is primarily around not being out if it was to avoid injury.

Rule 36 - LBW

The striker is out LBW in the circumstances set out below.
  (a) The bowler delivers a ball, not being a No ball,
  and (b) the ball, if it is not intercepted full pitch, pitches in line between wicket and wicket or on the off side of the striker's wicket,
  and (c) the ball not having previously touched his bat, the striker intercepts the ball, either full pitch or after pitching, with any part of his person,
  and (d) the point of impact, even if above the level of the bails,
  either (i) is between wicket and wicket,
  or (ii) if the striker has made no genuine attempt to play the ball with his bat, is either between wicket and wicket or outside the line of the off stump.
  and (e) but for the interception, the ball would have hit the wicket.

Interception is defined as...

(a) In assessing points (c), (d) and (e) in 1 above, only the first interception is to be considered.
  (b) In assessing point (e) in 1 above, it is to be assumed that the path of the ball before interception would have continued after interception, irrespective of whether the ball might have pitched subsequently or not.

So with all the above, LBW is considered at the point of first strike of the body without the bat. If that is not LBW, he is only given out if he swipes at the ball to prevent the ball touching the wicket with his hand unless it is to avoid injury.
Using the bat to prevent the ball striking the wickets after the shot has been played (and already made contact with either the body or bat) is considered not out. If any other part of the body including and it is deliberate then it should be out.
I have seen this happen in matches and have not seen anyone given out
Comment: Clarified a bit. the only rule I see is that the batter cannot use their hands unless it is to prevent injury
Answer: Great answer from aqwert there. I'd add that Law 33 deals with handling the ball as an act of playing it, including protecting the wickets. The question asked (likely in error - I think aqwert's answer was spot on) about contact after playing it, in which case Law 37 - Out Obstructing the Field, may be relevant. Law 37 notes in part:

Either batsman is out Obstructing the field if he wilfully attempts to obstruct or distract the fielding side by word or action.  In particular, but not solely, it shall be regarded as obstruction and either batsman will be out Obstructing the field if while the ball is in play and after the striker has completed the act of playing the ball, as defined in Law 33.1, he wilfully strikes the ball with
(i) a hand not holding the bat, unless this is in order to avoid injury.  See also Law 33.2 (Not out Handled the ball).
(ii) any other part of his person or with his bat.  See also Law 34 (Hit the ball twice).

That, of course, was the controversial fate of Ben Stokes recently.


Trobleshooting extremely slow opening times in Win7 for documents on Win2k8 server

Question: It's hard even to describe my problem.
It seems there's only problem with extreme slow openings (up to 10 minutes) on Windows 7 (on XP things works fine) for files that are stored on Windows Server 2008.
And now what I discovered up till now.

If I open (some files, not all, not always) .doc and .xls files with double-clicking it takes up to 10 minutes to finally open the file. In that time, file seems to be locked for all other users. If I cancel opening, file remains locked for some time.
Owner on that files is the one who last wrote changes in them. If I change the owner to larger group, which I am member of file gets opened super fast.
When opened file can be saved normally and fast. That file reopens fast.
One other user reports that there is only problem when opening the files for the first time in a day. When he opens first file he has no problems with other files at all (or so he says). He also states that when accessing files from home via VPN he has no such problems with files.

And now: anybody has a clue where to start looking? I suppose that is misconfiguration problem. But where? File system? Permissions? DFS? VMWare network config?
My setup is as follows:
Physical server: HP Prolian ML350 G6
Virtual host: VMWare ESXi 4
Guest: Windows Server 2008 Standard
Files are accessed via DFS shares.
Answer: Look at the cache settings on the shared folder on the server and make sure caching is disabled.
Answer: We have had the same problem. Took us forever to figure it out. It was related to SMB2. Disable SMB2 on the server -
Add a REG_DWORD entry named Smb2 with a value of 0 to
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
Restart server and you should be ok.


Where does the work done by friction get converted into?

Question: Lets consider my hand (say parallely) moved a block in a rough surface with constant velocity. What is work done by the friction and my hand? Assuming body is displaced for 1m distance by 10N force. Then according to my understanding,
1st Case : work done by my hand is 10J and work done by friction is -10J, as it acts opposite to displacement. So by conservation of energy, 10J is converted into heat and sound, but where does that -10J go? Or am I missing something here?
2nd Case : Both work done cancels each other and net work done is zero. In this case, how heat is produced between them?
Please explain conceptually and mathematically if possible !
Answer: 10 J of work is done by you so your body loses 10 J of internal energy (mainly chemical potential energy; and in reality it loses more due to the imperfect machinery of the body).
-10 J of work is done by friction so the surface gain 10 J of energy in the form of heat.
As for the block, net work done on it is zero so its energy doesn't change.
Or put another way, you use 10 J of your chemical potential energy in your body to do work on the block, and the block transfer this 10 J of energy to the rough surface by doing work on it. So the net result is your chemical energy becomes heat energy of the surface (assuming your body machinery is perfect, as I mentioned, otherwise heat is also produced in your body).
Answer: Work is an entity that depends on the frame of reference.
As reckoned from the frame of reference of the block, its displacement is zero, so no work is done on the block.  But, your hand is experiencing a displacement and is being acted upon by the frictional force.  So, for this frame of reference, there is work done by the block on your hand.  This work is converted to heat at the (massless) interface, and the heat then flows partially into your hand and partly into the block.  The split between the block and your hand is determined by the thermal properties of both.
As reckoned from the rest frame of you hand, its displacement is zero, so no work is done on your hand.  But the block is experiencing a displacement (relative to your hand) and is being acted upon by the frictional force. So, for this frame of reference, there work done by your hand on the block.  This work is converted to heat at the (massless) interface and the heat then flows partially into your hand and party into the block.
So the thermal effect is the same in both frames of reference.


Does a creature need to roll Stealth check again if it moves?

Question: Suppose a creature succeed on a Stealth check to hide, say, in a brake. Suppose also the brake is large enough to move within it (100 × 100 feet, for example). If a creature wants to make a move and/or take a Dash action while remaining in the brake, does it need to re-roll its Stealth check? If yes, then when has it to re-roll (before the move, or after?) and how often (every turn of moving, with every move and every Dash action separately, etc.)? Also, what kind of action does this check take (an action, a bonus action, etc.)?
Comment: I am unaware of any definition of "brake" that would make sense in this question. What do you mean?
Comment: @T.J.L. A swamp, basically. There's a few other related meanings and some interesting etymology, but you should probably just google it if you want to learn about that.
Comment: Closely related - this question: [I rolled a 20 on a stealth check. What now?](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/90691/i-rolled-a-20-on-a-stealth-check-what-now) and that answer: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/86679/26074.
Answer: PHB p.177:

Until you are discovered or you stop hiding, that check's total is
  contested by the Wisdom (Perception) check of any creature
  that actively searches for signs of your presence.

Hiding (as a verb) means "To keep oneself out of sight or notice" - it is not inherent in this definition that you cannot move or take any other action. Indeed the skill is called Stealth which means "The act of moving, proceeding, or acting in a covert way". It is entirely reasonable to "hide" in plain sight if the intent is not to be noticed rather than not be seen.
The only ways that a character ceases to be hidden is if somebody finds them (and communicates this to others who have not found them) by beating the Dexterity (Stealth) check with a Wisdom (Perception) check or if the character "stop[s] hiding" - a conscious choice. A new Dexterity (Stealth) check is only called for when you want to hide again after being discovered or circumstances change such that your method of hiding is no longer appropriate (e.g. you were hiding in a crowd which disperses, you move from a paved area to an area covered with fallen branches and leaves) or you engage in an activity which clearly increases your chance of being noticed (e.g. running with the Dash action).
Doing otherwise will simply result in the character failing eventually. For example a character with +5 to Dexterity (Stealth) facing an opponent with a 10 passive Wisdom (Perception) will succeed 75% with one roll, 56% will 2 rolls, 42% with 3 and only 32% with 4. This is an unfair nerfing of a skill the player chose over another skill - does the DM require multiple Intelligence (Investigation) checks to find a secret door, multiple Dexterity (Athletics) checks to jump a chasm, or multiple Wisdom (Perception) checks to find someone who is hidden? The Alexandrian has an excellent article on this.
See these related questions:

What advantages does hiding have?
How does the Stealth versus Perception check work in combat?
Sneaking through areas people are watching closely
Group hide and seek
How to cope with bad rolls on important actions?
How do I make sure that both passive and active perception stay relevant?
I rolled a 20 on a stealth check. What now?
Answer: If your DM says "make a Stealth check", you have to roll
As a player, you roll dice only (and every time) when a DM says "make a X check". When do you need to roll and how often that happens is up to the DMing style their use. For more info see the DMG page 236 - "The Role of Dice".
The rules don't say much about Stealth mechanics

when has it to re-roll (before the move, or after?) and how often (every turn of moving, with every move and every Dash action separately, etc.)

If you're the DM, you should listen to Jeremy Crawford in the corresponding podcast (08:58 – Sage Advice – Stealth). Basically he says that in 5e all Stealth checks are up to the DM by design (because 3.5 was a bad stealth simulator, and they tried to address that issue in 5). It is the DM's job to decide, how to resolve all kind of hiding actions, when and what skill checks to use. As a DM, if you need more specific instructions regarding skill checks, consider using a stricter rules system, like Pathfinder.
If you're the DM, keep in mind these things:

You don't have to ask for a roll. A character can automatically fail the hiding attempt if he is not stealthy enough (for DM's discretion). For instance, if they shout aloud in the brake, they probably will be noticed regardless of the preceding roll.
Asking for a check, you can (and should) apply situational (dis)advantage. If you think the Dash action should spoil the hiding, ask for another roll with disadvantage. If the brake has a lot of vegetation to hide in, apply advantage (or do not ask for another roll at all). Use common sense. It is your job to make the situation feel more "real".
Since a single failed check will spoil the hiding place, the more rolls do you ask, the more dangerous situation becomes for the hiding character. If you think a player shouldn't be found (for the sake of the plot or whatever), don't ask for additional checks.
Comment: People keep bringing up that podcast when discussing stealth. Is anyone else bothered by how it basically says "Stealth rules weren't able to cover every little corner case, so we just didn't come up with any"?


Cons of Not Refinishing Worn Wood Floor?

Question: I am moving into a house. The wood floors show signs of wear and tear. The varnish has worn away in places and the bare wood is showing.  But refinishing will cost $3,000 for some 1,100 sq.ft.  That is a lot of money for me right now.  To help me decide what to do, let me ask, what are the downsides of waiting a year or two before refinishing the floors?  (I can cover the floor with some inexpensive carpeting.)
Comment: The $3,000 for 1,100 sq.ft. sounds about right for sanding + 2 coats poly (if you're in NYC...I'm on LI).  However, a few yrs. ago; after watching a few YouTube videos, I gave it a DIY try in our laundry.  Afterward, seeing it looked okay, I did a couple more public rooms.  That reduced the sq. ft. for a professional to do.  Given your situation, you might consider seeing if a DIY results in something that will further extend when/if a pro needs to be hired.
Comment: The obvious downside is that after you move in, all your stuff will be sitting *on* the floor, so you'll have to put it somewhere else before refinishing the floor. And if money is a problem, then the obvious answer is to do it yourself. This is the DIY forum, after all.
Answer: It really depends on how tough you will be on the floors.  Big difference between a man living alone vs. a family of 8 with two dogs.  Note that the areas that are worn are probably the high traffic areas, so you will probably be hitting those the most too.
The issue is that if there isn't any sort of protective layer, the wood will wear substantially quicker.  Meaning if you just leave the floors and you really abuse the already worn layers, they may have to be sanded further down and therefor the rest of the floor has to be sanded further down.
My suggestion is, before you move in put a couple of quick coats of poly down on the floor.  This is about $100-150 and a DIY job.  Since you are planning on having them refinished in a couple of years you can use this as a barometer if you can do it yourself in a few years (it is easier than you think as most wood is very forgiving).
Answer: If you prevent stains from spills, there really isn't a downside. It isn't going to ruin your floor to leave it as is if you use rugs and keep it dry.
That said, look into doing the floor refinish yourself. Rental for plate sanders (which are pretty easy to use) isn't very expensive, and applicator pads make urethane application fairly foolproof. Do some reading and give it a go. You'd probably spend $300 rather than $3000, and you could do one room at a time.


Can I add an app launcher (optimally Slingshot) to the Dock?

Question: Is there any way to add a launcher to the dock (optimally Slingshot, but any launcher would be great)?  It seems odd to me as a matter of design and efficiency to have to go to two different locations to launch applications. A single location in the dock would be great -- either as an option or as the default.
Comment: Could you please comment on my answer if the solution doesn't work for you or accept it if it does.
Answer: You can use Cardapio - I think it's in the repositories, so type sudo apt-get install Cardapio.
Then find Cardapio in slingshot and add it to Plank. I know it's not slingshot, but it works just as well, although you may need to use Menu Editor and hide some of the unnecessary entries.
Personally I use DockBarX with Cardapio, but before that I used Plank so I can tell you it works.
Answer: You can try Synapse
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:synapse-core/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install synapse

Installation & demo
Also if you want, you can remove slingshot entirely:
sudo apt remove slingshot-launcher
Comment: Thanks, but I didn't see in the Synapse demo how you can put it in Plank.  Is that possible?   If I wasn't clear in the OP, apologies.  But the goal is to add something like Slingshot to the Plank dock, so that you click that single icon and a selection of available applications opens.  Cairo-dock has something like this, as does Ubuntu (obviously).
Comment: @xmbwd yes, just like any other application. Run Synapse, it should appear in the dock, then right click on the icon and check "Keep in the dock"
Comment: Dear Dowvoter. It would be really nice if you (or someone else) could explain what is wrong with this answer. It's the most optimal solution to the problem as far as I can see.
Comment: A problem with the answer would be if Synapse would not show if already started in background when  when clicking its dock icon (I don't have it installed.) If it shows, your answer stands. And that is the case I think. But there is a second problem, Synapse is not exactly like the Slingshot, as you cannot select only with the mouse, but have to type.
Comment: @Rsync - `how you can put it in Plank. Is that possible?` - you can also drag and drop launchers/icons from the Slingshot lists onto the dock, and also from `usr/share/applications`.
Answer: You could try doing this via a sh script, then create a .desktop file as a launcher to add to plank. I've never done it myself, but that's where I would start
In scratch create a new file:
!#/bin/bash

wingpanel --toggle-indicator app-launcher

save the file as launcher.sh or whatever.
run:
chmod +x launcher.sh

...to make the sh executable.
Then create your desktop file and save it to ~/.loca/share/applications or for all users /usr/share/applications. Make sure the file has a .desktop extension, e.g, launcher.desktop.
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=App Launcher
Comment=Wingpanel Plank Launcher
Exec=/path/to/launcher.sh
Icon=/path/to/icon
Categories=Utility
Terminal=false

I've never done this myself, but it's a place to start. And more fun than installing an app to do it for you!
Comment: great and simple idea! But I guess there's no way of opening slingshot from the icon (eg. from the bottom if the dock is there), right?
Comment: In theory you should. I meant to test this out yesterday but didn't have time. If you create the .desktop file you'll be able to find it in the Slingshot menu - right click on it and select Add to Dock.  Sorry I left that bit out
Comment: OK I just tested it out and while it does launch the Slingshot menu, it unfortunately launches it from it's normal top left locations. I assume you want it to pop up from the icon itself.
Comment: I'm not the one who opened the question, so I have no idea what are his needs. I was just interested in the topic and thats a possible problem, yes.
Comment: I noticed that after I wrote it. Also noticed this question was from back in May. haha I'm always looking for a way to enable/disable functions via shell scripts. Seems to work best for me. Plus it's more fun to create the solution yourself you know.
Comment: nice. **whoever is down-voting around here has no idea what voting here means**.
Comment: as for an icon, this could do: http://www.stickpng.com/es/img/objetos/tirachinas/tirachinas-zelda
Answer: AppEditor will be your friend. You can have it from AppCenter. Easy to use. After first start of the program you can keep your new app on your dock.


What Is the Best Color Space to Work with for Hand Detection: RGB, HSV, or YCrCb?

Question: I'm working on hand gesture recognition using C#. I'm using OPENCV for skin detection but its performance is not optimal. So I decided to do some filtering based on color space, but I do not know what color space is the most suitable for this purpose?
Comment: Could you please mark / review my answer?
Answer: Intuitively, HSV is the place to easily define Skin Color Hues.
Yet there is a broad work on that and even articles about the optimal Color Space for Skin Detection.
Yet, you should have a look at OPTIMUM COLOR SPACES FOR SKIN DETECTION (Alternative at IEEE - Optimum color spaces for skin detection).
According to them there is no difference in the performance as long as you create the Optimal Detector.
This actually makes sense, since all Color Spaces in the article are One to One functions it means the real thing here is to develop the correct classifier.
Answer: If you classify by hand sufficiently many pixels as skin/non-skin, you get a point cloud in color space that tells you about the statistical distribution of these.
Usually, automated classification amounts to defining a sharp boundary inside which pixels are deemed skin. The standard color spaces are 3D and are mappings of each other through nonlinear transforms. In all spaces, you essentially get more or less compact "potato shapes".
If you base your classifier on an empirical/simple function, such as a sphere, you need to find the space where the shape is the most spherical. Otherwise, if you use a general purpose classifier, it will learn the cloud shape on its own.
Anyway, my best advice is to normalize for lightness, as the apparent lightness of a skin depends on the amount of ambient light, which is an uncontrolled parameter. Then you reduce to 2D information, such as H-S.
Very dark or very light skins are and will remain problematic, as they convey little color information and are not discriminant.


Fingerstyle vs Fingerpicking

Question: Is there a difference between fingerstyle and fingerpicking. Due to age I am unable to sing, so which would be more appropiate for solo playing ?
Answer: There's not really a difference in the way you mean it. One could maybe say that "fingerstyle" refers to not using a plectrum, but "fingerpicking" doesn't preclude using both. But no matter what word you use, there are different styles and techniques.
For instance a popular beginner technique is to finger some chords in the fretting hand just like you're strumming them but in the picking hand you pick a pattern (thumb, middle, index, ring, etc) and restart the pattern when you change chords.
But a classical or flamenco player would get quite a bit more advanced and precise with it. A jazz player may walk a bass line with the thumb while playing chords and/or melody with the other fingers. A funk or pop player may slap or pop strings like bass player. You get the idea...
Some may use finger/thumb picks or long nails while others only use the pads of their fingers with very short nails. Some use a regular plectrum between their index and thumb and use the other 3 fingers to fingerpick. I do that but also I sometimes use my index and thumb without a pick going back and forth as if I was "alternate picking" with a plectrum.
As far as what to get started with for playing solo … I'd start with the "popular beginner technique" that I mentioned. If and when you want to take it further, that will give you a decent foundation in both your picking technique and achieving some independence between fingers.
Long term I'd look into gradually adding other parts (bass, melody) into the mix. For instance if you have no bass player, maybe you want to add in a bass line or at least alternating the root and 5th. If you are playing a song with a melody and nobody else is singing or playing, then find a way to work it in. Obviously you can't play every part by yourself so compromises need to be made by simplifying the parts. Look into "chord melody" guitar. It's a term that gets used most frequently with jazz guitar but the concept can be applied to other styles as well.
Answer: Very similar. Some people use those two words as synonyms. Others use them to refer to specific techniques in specific styles. Any style is fine for solo playing. From a beginner's point of view, the more appropriate style is to follow what is taught in your learning-the-guitar material. One of the best beginner's guide (Justin Guitar) will get you started on strumming first, and later add fingerstyle techniques.
Answer: No, they refer to two different but related styles.
Fingerstyle encompasses both the techniques of playing with fingers alone and playing with fingers and a thumb pick. Fingerpicking refers specifically to the style of using only your fingers and does not include the related techniques with the thumb pick.
It is an all-thumbs-are-fingers-but-not-all-fingers-are-thumbs-situation.
Comment: I have never heard this distinction made, but I have certainly heard players who use both thumbpicks and fingerpicks refer to their style as "fingerpicking".
Answer: Fingerstyle or fingerpicking has nothing to do with whether you put a pick on the tip of your thumb or fingers. Finger"picking" is more inclined to be just a pattern played with the fingers (bare or not), like playing the acoustic part of Dust in the Wind or something. "Travis" picking. Finger"style" however, has become more associated with simultaneously recreated a song for solo guitar, playing bass, rhythm, melody, maybe fills, even solos and percussive elements without the need for accompaniment or vocals (ala Sungha Jung). The poster is obviously interested in playing fingerstyle guitar and there many great lessons and examples on the internet.

Fingerstyle vs Fingerpicking


How can I redraw this outline to look more uniform?

Question: The outline on this picture is not uniform and I'm not sure how to fix it. I tried using the clone stamp tool but it's pretty hard having to rotate it to fix the outline. (I'm not even sure how to word this properly but I'll try showing it using the picture below):
Comment: Welcome to **GD.SE** - *Please* look through **[tour]** to get a sense of our community – who we are and what we're about. *Then* look over **[ask]** and **[answer]** a question to see what makes a good query here, *and* how best to frame it. We ***do*** ask that your question clearly demonstrates your *efforts*: tell us what you already know and understand; show us what you tried and how that failed; document what you found when researching. If you can, illustrate your question (and failed attempts) with sketches, screenshots or examples.
Answer: Ideally by using vector shapes one can have exact borders. But that should be done from the start. To fix your existing drawing the current outline must be removed. Inserting a new outline as effect can create uniform result.
I made a selection and deleted the background and your outline:

I had to partially redraw the edge to make it smooth and sharp. It was done by pushing the black color against the selection with the smudge tool.
For a start the resolution was also lifted for sharpness, because I had only the low resolution screenshot from the question.
I inserted new background to a new layer. Then I inserted the outline as layer style "Outer Glow" to the original shape.


Would you recommend using SharePoint as CMS for a consumer website?

Question: I am considering using SharePoint to house all my content for an eCommerce website.  I plan to use .Net components and services to relate the data and perform functions.  Is this a good idea?  Or should I look elsewhere for this?  The reasoning behind it is that my company doesn't want to purchase a CMS and we already own a license to SharePoint.
Answer: I've put up several internet-facing sites that all used SharePoint's CMS features and all have worked out very well, however SharePoint's eCommerce support is simply not there.  If you are just putting up a catalog with pages to support products/services and shopping links that point over to a full-blooded eCommerce system, then SharePoint can handle that easily.  However, if you are looking to somehow have SharePoint handle the entire eCommerce side of things, then you will be sorely disappointed.  SharePoint has no out of the box eCommerce support whatsoever and the only product in Microsoft's bag of tricks for this is Commerce Server, which I cannot recommend to anyone as it is, shall we say, "quirky" and barely documented.
The best approach really is to assess your actual CMS needs, then your eCommerce needs, then identify the places where there are crossovers, like promotions and sales and hammer out those requirements as well.  Once you have a list of what you actually need, you can compare that to what is out there.
FWIW - if you do decide on SharePoint, you might want to make sure that your company has the right license for using SharePoint on the Internet as it is a special one.


SharePoint 2007 VBA Find Replace

Question: I'm trying to write a VBA macro for SharePoint Designer 2007 that will find/replace text but I cannot figure out the find/replace ojbect like I've been able to do with word.  Anyone know how I could search for "cat" and replace it with "cat (needs changed)" and highlighted?
Comment: Uh, why would you not just use the find (ctrl+F) and replace (crtl+H) options natively in SPD 2007 or am I missing something?
Answer: It seems you want a find/replace in Excel, not in Sharepoint.
Try:
<code>    ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Cells.Replace What:="cat", Replacement:="dog", LookAt:=xlPart, _
    SearchOrder:=xlByRows, MatchCase:=False, SearchFormat:=False, _
    ReplaceFormat:=False
</code>
I would use the "ThisWorkBook" object to ensure that the script is being ran in the workbook you are using as opposed to the activeworkbook.
Tips: Use LookAt:=xlPart to find any string with "cat" otherwise use = xlWhole to find the entire cell match.
Also, the find doesn't work with filtered information.  You would first need to unfilter the information before running the Replace.  The "Cells.Replace" can be used in a specific range, so you can use Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A1:B500").Replace instead.
<code>  With ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1")
    If .FilterMode Then .ShowAllData 'check if filter is on and show all records if on.

    .Range("A1:A500").Replace What:="cat", Replacement:="dog", LookAt:=xlWhole, _
        SearchOrder:=xlByRows, MatchCase:=False, SearchFormat:=False, _
        ReplaceFormat:=False
  End With
</code>

SharePoint 2007 VBA Find Replace