How do I correctly borrow chords from one key to another?

Question: So how does one decide to borrow chords?
Let's say I am in the key of C Major. Can I borrow chords, say, from the G Major key?
How does this work?
Answer: The term "borrowed chords" relates to borrowing from the parallel major or minor. This is also called "mode mixture."
At its most basic, when we're in a given key, we can use chords from the parallel version of that key.
Let's test this in C major. In this key, we have:

    I    ii   iii  IV   V    vi   vii°
    C    d    e    F    G    a    b°

In C minor, we have:

    i    ii°  III  iv   V   v   VI   VII  vii°
    c    d°   E♭   f    G   g   A♭   B♭    b°

So if we're in C major and we write a I–IV–V–I cadence, we can instead "borrow" the iv chord from the parallel minor and write I–iv–V–I.
You might notice that we're borrowing both chord qualities and particular scale-degree alterations; they're one and the same. In other words, to create the above I–iv–V–I progression in C major, we're also borrowing the lowered sixth scale degree A♭. If we borrow III from the relative minor, we don't just make the E-minor chord major; we borrow E♭ and B♭ and make an E♭ major chord.
This brings us to a vitally important rule: when we borrow a particular scale degree, we tend to keep using it until the point of cadence. So if we wanted to add a ii chord after the iv chord above, we would need to borrow the A♭ again and make it a ii° chord: I–iv–ii°–V–I. Otherwise we would have a wonky A♭ to A♮ shift in the phrase. (Note: This statement pertains to the Classical tradition. Popular music, film scores, video-game music, etc. sometimes intentionally create that "wonky" sound!)
As for writing in minor and borrowing from the major, the rules are still the same, but such borrowing just isn't as common. We can borrow IV from the major, but often this is less a result of borrowing and more a result of the Dorian mode. I is the most common borrowing from major (this is the famous Picardy third), with IV and ii in second place. Most other borrowings are pretty rare.

Other chromaticism, like applied chords, are typically not considered a form of borrowing. If you were to borrow a chord from G major like D major, we typically explain this with the notion of the secondary dominant (also occasionally called the applied dominant) or a straight up modulation. But in a typical music theory course—at least here in the US—the term "borrowed chord" applies exclusively to mode mixture.
Having said that, some theorists, including Matthew Brown in his book Explaining Tonality, call secondary chords "secondary mixture" and thus do relate it to the notion of borrowing.
Comment: Most likely, yes. But that gray area of "is it a modulation or extended tonicization?" is always tricky, and we'd need to see the music to really make the best decision. It's really similar to the [Single Girls](https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/70585/analysis-of-borrowed-chords-in-lushs-single-girl) question we recently answered.
Comment: Very nice answer. In cases where a group of borrowed chords leads to a new temporary tonic, would you consider only the first chord as borrowed, and consider that as a pivot chord?
Comment: Is this modulation/tonicization via a borrowed chord the kind of scenario LawrencePayne describes in his answer?
Comment: @MichaelCurtis Unfortunately, I'm not 100% certain I understand what he's saying in his answer.
Comment: "We can borrow IV from the major, but often this is less a result of borrowing and more a result of the Dorian mode." <- How about the melodic minor?  (Although you are not wrong)
Comment: Although this is a great answer which made me upvote it, why do you have V and vii in your 2nd list?  V and vii are from the harmonic minor, but why do you have them with chords from the natural minor?  Plus, if we want to borrow them from the parallel minor, we would stick to the natural minor, and due to this fact, V and vii do not meet the definition.
Answer: What you suggest is not much. Think about the usual chords in C - C F G Am Dm Em, and those in G - G C D Em Am Bm. You've only realistically changed or borrowed two chords to D and Bm. The rest stay the same! So, actually, it's a pretty safe idea.
You might want to consider parallel chords - same root note, but chords from the minor instead of the major.
But I suspect here we go again, looking for rules. With this sort of thing, there are few. Mainly be guided by your ears. Almost any chord can and is made to fit in any key. I've played C>F#, in a song - can't remember which, sadly, and with the right melody, it works beautifully, even though F# is nothing to do with key C.
Answer: A borrowed chord is a chord "borrowed" from the parallel key.  Borrowed chords are typically used as "color chords", providing harmonic variety through contrasting scale forms, which are major scales and the natural minor scales.

If you are in C major, you will need to use the chords in the parallel minor, which is C minor in this case.
Diatonic chords in C major:

I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii° -> C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim

Diatonic chords in C natural minor:

i, ii°, III, iv, v, VI, VII -> Cm, Ddim, E♭, Fm, Gm, A♭, B♭

Although it is normal for such chord to be not diatonic to the original key, it must be diatonic to the parallel major or natural minor key.  When we notate borrowed chords derived from the parallel minor key, we use the same symbols as the natural minor.  However, if the root is altered, we must add a flat on the left side of the symbol.  We can write them as below:

i, ii°, ♭III, iv, v, ♭VI, ♭VII

We can use a borrowed chord to "substitute" the place where a diatonic chord is supposed to occur.  For example, let's say we are writing a plagal cadence.  The "diatonic" plagal cadence in major is IV - I.  We can replace IV with iv, and we get iv - I.
The ♭VII is one of the most common borrowed chords in popular music.  The leading-tone IAC is one of the cases here (although it does not really use the leading-tone).  The cadence is written as ♭VII - I, derived from vii° - I, which is more common in classical music.

Let's look at the minor keys now.  The diatonic chords of natural minor are i, ii°, III, iv, v, VI, and VII.  In A minor, for example, we get:

Am, Bdim, C, Dm, Em, F, G

In A major, we get:

A, Bm, C♯m, D, E, F♯m, G♯dim

In A minor, we notate the derived chords as:

I, ii, ♯iii, IV, V, ♯vi, ♯vii°

The process is the same.  Let's say we borrow V from the parallel major.  In the chord progression of i - v - VI, we change it into:

i - V - VI

However, in most such cases, this is less result of borrowing and rather more result of the harmonic / melodic minor mode.  V and ♯vii° are diatonic to the harmonic and melodic minors, and ii and IV are diatonic to the melodic minor.
Regardless, we can still call them borrowed.  In a stricter view, they are both diatonic AND borrowed.  The only "purely" borrowed chords in minor keys are I, ♯iii, and ♯vi.  The I is used the most of the three, as a final chord in a final cadence.  This is known as the Picardy 3rd.  For example, if we write V - I in a minor key, we see a both diatonic and borrowed chord resolving to a "purely' borrowed chord.  The ♯iii and ♯vi are also used in pieces.  For example, the finale of Dvorak's 9th symphony contains a ♯iii, while Debussy's "Prelude" from his "Pour le Piano" contains a ♯vi.

I will add an attachment below in order to help you clearly remember:
Comment: _Although it is normal for such chord to be not diatonic to the original key,_ __it must be diatonic to the parallel major or natural minor key.__ This is not true. You can borrow from modes. It's typically viewed that a bVII in major is from Mixolydian rather than minor because it's not that far of a stretch in logic to weave between major an Mixolydian. If you were in minor and you wanted to use the bII, looking at it as borrowing from Phygian is a possibility.
Comment: A bII can also be a Neapolitan chord.  There could be a lot of possibilities like you've said.
Answer: Maybe you mean borrowing chord from common chord modulation.
If you From the tonic key of C , and want to go to the tonic of G ,
look for the Common chord. (the chord that the two tonic have)
In This case,C major chord is

C - Dm - Em - F - G - Am - Bdim

While G major chord is

G - Am - Bm - C - D - Em - F#dim

Notice that both Tonic key has some common chord , Which is Em, Am, C, and G.
You then can use these chord as a Pivot chord .

Here some example of changing Tonic key using common chord as a Pivot Listen the audio

Notice that Em, Am, is acting as a pivot before we hit D major ( which is not in the key of C major). Now you have changing the Tonic to G major.
While using this technique, you can change the tonic in the subtle way and not noticable.
Answer: We could extend the idea of 'borrowing' further than the parallel major or minor.   For instance, it's a standard songwriter's trick to modulate up a minor third.  Start in C, state the theme in that key, then repeat it in Eb.  Chuck in a few Fm chords early on, they can prepare the way for a Fm7, Bb7, Eb modulation when the time comes.  We could say we've 'borrowed' the Fm from Eb major.
But, beware.  This justification is only useful if the song DOES modulate to Eb.  It's very likely a song in C will use Fm chords just as colour.  The 'borrowing' analysis would then be ridiculous.
Comment: I don't understand. If the `Fm` happened something like this - `I iv | I6/4 V` - then calling that `iv` a borrowed chord is 'ridiculous?'
Comment: And E♭ major has the same chords as C minor! *"[gasps] Everything's connected!"* ~a movie whose title I cannot recall


What is the difference between "рядом", "около" and "возле"?

Question: These three words mean 'near'. It seems около & возле are synonyms. Can the same be said for  рядом?
Answer: "Возле" and "около" are indeed quite interchangeable (thanks @shabunc) when we are talking about location. Small nuance is that "около" implies more vague and potentially more distant location than "возле". For "возле", both objects need to be visualized together, while for "около" they do not.
For example "около метро"/"near a subway station" can mean 5-10 minutes away by foot, while "возле метро" implies a very short distance (like someone is standing right next to the entrance).
"Рядом" can be vague almost like "около" when we talk about general location (ex. "рядом с метро"), but it is very strict when we use non-ambiguous topological meaning (ex. "рядом с красной машиной"). If it is the latter, then "рядом" means "next to" - an object in closest proximity to another object.
Comment: Does "non-ambiguous topological meaning" mean "non-ambiguous metric meaning"?  A topology need not come from a metric, so the notion of closeness in a topological space (such as a "neighborhood" of a point) is rather fuzzy compared to the more precise concept of closeness in metric spaces.
Comment: @KCd Having a metric space would indeed help to define "рядом" more strictly, but it is not necessary for this space to be a metric space. Other non-metric spaces like [uniform space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_space) should be sufficient to define "closeness".
Comment: I had originally considered mentioning uniform spaces at the end of my previous comment, but chose not to since I suspect many people who have seen metric and topological spaces might not know about uniform spaces. My error.
Comment: Looking on Contexto, they have examples for около where the translation is 'in the vicinity of'. I believe this is the reference to vague. E.g. Иван изучил всех людей около дома Анны. - Ivan studied all the people in the vicinity of Anna's house.
Answer: "Возле" and "около" are quite interchangeable, with the only difference that "около" has additional meaning of designating approximate values, like in "около шести утра" (you can not say "возле шести утра").
"Рядом" is, indeed, also very close in meaning to "возле" and "около" and it's extremely difficult to strictly separate usages of all three words - at least to me. However one thing that comes to my mind is that "рядом" can be used as a standalone, self-sufficient word while this less true for "около" and even lesser for "возле".
Imagine following dialog:

Ольга: "Ты где?"
Пётр: "Я уже рядом"

You can not say just "я уже около" or "я уже возле" instead - you'd need to specify the context, like "я уже около тебя" or "я уже возле метро".
Answer: To start here is a list of English words that are close enough to the respective Russian words that you can use as a hint

рядом — next to
возле — near or close
около — around

Semantic differences
Рядом suggests some sequence or row of objects where one is positioned next to another. Consider booking seats in a theater: место рядом с вами would assume the place immediately next to you, while место около вас might mean the place somewhere around.
Возле suggests there is a small distance between two objects but this distance may be a continuous measure. Max Vasmer suggests the word's origins are from въз-дьлѣ, so there is a certain length or distance assumed.
Около is related to the word кольцо — a ring so the meaning suggests that one object belongs to a close circle or is somewhere around.
Grammar
Also рядом is different grammatically as it requires the object to be in instrumental case, while около and возле require the object to be in genitive case.
Usage
There are good usage examples in the other answers that show the difference between these terms.

Около нуля — around zero, or около полуночи — around midnight. You can hardly use рядом in this context, and возле would not go when speaking about time.
рядом друг с другом — next to each other. You can hardly use возле or около here.

It is really difficult to find a sentence where возле could not be replaced with около. Both words can take either the role of an adverb or a preposition, however their use as adverbs seems archaic and rarely appears in contemporary Russian.
Answer: It's not clear-cut, but I can give you an example of the nuances:
"Hey, I'm done, where can I pick you up?"

"рядом" with Taganskaya station - Near Taganskaya station.
"около" Taganskaya station - In the vicinity of Taganskaya station.
"возле" Taganskaya station - Next to Taganskaya station.
Answer: рядом: nearby, close together. Unlike the other two, can be used without subject. "Это рядом.": "It's nearby."; Can be used with multiple subjects: "Дом и дорога находятся рядом.": "The house and the road are close together.".
около: near, around. Unlike the other two, can be used with non-location subjects. E.g. "около 0": "around zero".
возле: near


Is the plasma state always visible?

Question: All the examples of plasma I have come across are visible. Is there any plasma which is not visible? For example, during a dark lightening we don't see the radiation because its gamma radiation. Is plasma formed during a dark lightening?
Answer: I guess the plasma in the ionosphere is typically invisible: the plasma frequency is much lower than the frequency of visible light, so almost all light passes through the ionosphere.
Answer: This from the ITER page

In the heart of the Korean tokamak KSTAR, in operation since 2008, a plasma pulse burns brightly. But don't be fooled—the brightest areas of the photo are in fact the coolest. At 150 million °C (the temperature in the centre), the plasma doesn't emit in the spectrum of visible light. © National Fusion Research Institute, Korea

So yes, plasma can be invisible .
Answer: Hydrogen plasma is probably invisible because all atomic lines of hydrogen are in the ultraviolet region.
Somewhat related - hydrogen flame burning in air is completely invisible.
Comment: It is not true that all atomic lines of hydrogen are in the ultraviolet! For example, see the Balmer lines here: https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/768678/313612.
Answer: Remember that plasma is a phenomenon of both high temperature and low pressure.
Plasmas are ionized fluids, which occur either when the temperature is so high compared to atomic ionization energies, or when the fluid is so diffuse that charged particles are unlikely ever to find each other.
A common tool in ordinary vacuum systems is the cold cathode pressure gauge, which measures the pressure by measuring the conductivity of the residual gas. This sort of highly diffuse plasma is invisible.
Of course you knew that already: this is the type of plasma that makes up the interplanetary and interstellar medium, which is quite transparent.
Answer: Dark lighting is (evidently), the result of Bremsstrahlung radiaiton from fast moving free electrons in the air. It's not the usual re-attachment emission that I'm used to seeing in lab plasmas.  But briefly, yes you could categorize this as a cold plasma (it's got a degree of net-neutral ionization).
There are also plasmas that might just not be visible to the naked eye.  They're still emitting visible photons, but not in very large numbers. So any combination of small and weak could make that happen.
There are probably exceptions, but most thermal plasmas will produce visible light.  The ionization that creates them takes a lot of energy.  If that state is populated, you'll also have electrons bouncing around through all the other states in the associated atoms emitting various wavelengths in the process.

Is the plasma state always visible?


What is the goal of tragedy, according to Aristotle and what is the role of the plot in achieving this goal?

Question: I honestly think the goal of tragedy for him is catharsis. And the role of the plot is a story to follow in a logical order.
Comment: They even put it into the [Cliffs Notes](https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/agamemnon-the-choephori-and-the-eumenides/critical-essay/aristotle-on-tragedy):"*The aim of tragedy, Aristotle writes, is to bring about a "catharsis" of the spectators*". But, [IEP adds](https://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-poe/#H3), "*The word catharsis drops out of the Poetics because the word wonder,* to rhaumaston, *replaces it... in chapters 24 and 25, where he singles out wonder as the aim of the poetic art itself, into which the aim of tragedy in particular merges.*"
Comment: a bit of a discussion question, but i upvoted anyway
Answer: Welcome Johnathan.
Everything is contentious in the interpretation of a text, and a philosophical text is not exception. With that in mind, I offer the following :
Goal of tragedy

Aristotle sees tragedy as a goal-directed
system. The goal is catharsis. He disassembles tragedy in order to see how each part
functions to promote that goal. Precisely
because each part does individually contribute to the whole, no one part is absolutely necessary. (Catherine Lord, 'Tragedy without Character: Poetics VI. 1450a24', The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Autumn, 1969), pp.
55-62: 57.)

We'll note the parts in a minute. First, how are we to understand 'catharsis'? Aristotle has in mind a katharsis pathematon (Poetics, 6. 1449b28). Tragedy arouses pity and fear but in such a way as to achieve the catharsis, the curing or purging of such emotions by exhibiting them as inseparable from human life and not as unfortunate experiences that might happen merely to ourselves and to chance others. By setting them in this universal frame, tragedy also puts them in perspective and helps to regulate our reaction to them and to understand them better in the lives of ourselves and others.
Secondly, a statement has been quoted above, and I have some difficulty with it :

"The word catharsis drops out of the Poetics because the word wonder, to rhaumaston, replaces it... in chapters 24 and 25, where he singles out wonder as the aim of the poetic art itself, into which the aim of tragedy in particular merges."

Poetics, 24. 1460a12 refers to to thaumaston (wonder) and Aristotle does concede that 'The element of the wonderful is required in Tragedy' (S.H. Butcher, The Poetics of Aristotle, London: Macmillan, 4th ed., 1936: 95.) I question whether and where wonder is installed as 'the aim of the poetic art' under which tragedy is subsumed and as a consequence catharsis is demoted.
Place of plot
Tragedy has six parts (Poetics, 6.1450a :

When we find Aristotle expressly giving the pride of place to plot
among the six parts of Tragedy - Plot,
Character, Thought, Diction, Spectacle,
and Music [song, melody: GT] - we are instantly perplexed, if
not outraged. Even those of us who may
be sympathetic to Aristotle on some fairly
general ground are strongly tempted to
suppose that what Aristotle means by plot,
mythos in some places, logos in others,
cannot possibly be that crude thing,
namely, story and action. He must mean
something more subtle than that. Those of
us who are not prepared to give Aristotle
the benefit of the doubt will insist that he
does, indeed, mean the crude thing and
that he is insensitive to the finer features
of the literary art.... [But] Aristotle does mean that plot, story, action, the crude thing, is primary. (Lord: 55.)

Plot (muthos, sometimes logos)
Character (ethos)
Diction (lexis)
Thought (dianoia)
Spectacle (opsis)
Song/ melody (melos)
Hold on : thinking ? dianoia ? Explain !

Under dianoia are included the intellectual reflexions of the speaker; the proof of his own statements, the disproof of those of his opponents, his general maxims concerning life and conduct, as elicited by the action and forming part of the train of reasoning. (S.H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, London: Macmillan, 1902: 27-8)

Rationale of the primacy of plot

The Plot ... is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy (Poetics, 6.1450a.37; Butcher: 27-8).

How so ?
I think Aristotle's basic idea is that the plot alone can fasten the whole together. Its unity and coherence of action - the passing of good fortune into catastrophe, of success into failure, of love into hate, of pride into shame, &c. - is the sole string on which the other elements - character, diction, thought, spectacle and song or melody - can be threaded. Without plot, tragedy has no backbone of structure, no focus, only episodic or incidental points of interest.
Connection with catharsis
The clearest link between the primacy of the plot and the goal of catharsis is that the goal will not and cannot be achieved unless the tragedy has the unity of action that enables a catharsis of our emotions - and only the plot can provide this unity.
Whether this is a sound, the soundest or even a plausible analysis of the relation of plot to tragedy, I venture no opinion. I have simply tried to make the best sense, consistent with the text, of Aristotle's stress on the primacy of plot.


Lilypond Lyrics Alignment - Align to first syllable

Question: Hello I am a new Lilypond user. I have a question about alignment of lyrics. Let say I have a word, with two parts (syllable) A and B. I want the syllable A align (center) to a note, but not the whole word AB. The remaining syllables B should following A, but not aligning to the next note. Is there any tweak to do this? Thanks.
Answer: <code>{ a1 b4 c'8 b a2 a1 \bar "|." }
\addlyrics { \markup \with-dimensions-from The Theoretical "  " _ _ _ Yeah! }
</code>
Don't ask about the double space, though.  It's necessary so that LilyPond considers the preceding stuff center-alignable material.
But what is that supposed to be good for?
Comment: Thanks for sharing the trick and I will try this when I get back. I am entering Chinese lyrics, in which I want to center the character to the notes. But the punctuation marks (following the character) in Chinese is so big (has the same width as a character) that I need this trick.
Comment: I have installed with the latest Lilypond and it successfully compiled. Now the note a1 align with the syllable "The" which is perfect, and the remaining "oretical" follow which is perfect also. However I want the next note b4 appear after the whole word theoretical. And I do not need notes in between Theoretical and yeah also - If it is possible, please align yeah to the note b4 and make them do not overlap / clash together.


My Blog Needs some Upgrading !

Question: I have been browsing all night for a way to improve my blog on blogger and actually nothing came up just that i could include some widgets that need java codes. Witch are the best widgets i could add without killing the SEO and where is a good place i could find ways to Tweak my blog and learn to sustain it better. It's my first blog and maybe it will not go viral but at least i want to try ! Thank you so very much !
Answer: Before you start worrying about widgets, advertising, RSS, or any of the other peripheral components to your blog, you need to actually have good content. If you don't have good content, you can add all the widgets and "java codes" you want, and you'll still just have a useless blog that no one visits.
"Content is king" isn't just a cliche. It's an axiom of online success. You need to either provide a service that people want or publish content that people want. That's what makes your site useful. A blog is no different.
Once you have good, unique (original) content, you can think about monetizing, promoting, syndicating, etc. No one is going to come to your blog just for some sidebar widget you installed.
Adding widgets or JavaScript just for the sake of adding something isn't likely to be an improvement or upgrade. You should only add widget or code if you have a need. Otherwise, you're just doing it to be trendy or to create pointless novelty. Just look at all the old Myspace profiles with a million flash embeds and other useless widgets. They add no value to the page and instead just annoy users. Facebook apps are getting to be the same.
The only thing you should be adding to your blog for its own sake is content. And it will yield far better returns than a "which TV show character are you?" quiz or any other popular widget.
Answer: i agree with @lese majeste you need to work on content, its the hardest part and the one i struggle with the most.
However to try and increase traffic or at least encourage my few readers to spread the word i have added twitter, linkedin and facebook buttons as this is where i promote my site the most and also where i generate the small amount of traffic i do get.
what you have to bear in mind is that just adding widgets is not going to increase traffic, i would look at your analytics on the site and see what phrases and content people are already finding you for then base articles around that while making sure the ways to share your content are obvious to all that visit.

My Blog Needs some Upgrading !


Using gprof with pthreads

Question: Can gprof be used to profile a multi-threaded program that uses pthreads? That is, will its output include the time used in all the threads?
Answer: Yes, it is possible with the help of a workaround described here.
Answer: Have you considered pstack? It works fine with multiple threads, and it is good for finding performance problems by the stackshot method.
gprof is what it is, but chances are you can do better.

Using gprof with pthreads


Parents of Maha Vishnu

Question: This question was asked by my 8 year old son-- Who are the parents of Mahavishnu? He further added to put this question in stack exchange. Although I told him that Lord Vishnu manisfests himself he is the creator  presever and destroyer  he said we are born to mother. Likewise Mahavishnu also will have partents like me. Explore and tell.
Comment: MahaVishnu is called 'Aja' meaning unborn. Brahma sutra says 'janmadiyasya yatah'; meaning from whom birth etc;as in from whom everything has come into being. So Mahavishnu does not have parents like us. He is supreme. But Gaudiya vaishnavas however say that mahavishnu is secondary expansion of Krishna.But yes all Vaishnav sects agree that all Vishnu tatva are unborn; as in they are eternal :)
Answer: It's Brahman (Not the Brahma. Brahman/Brahmam is also known as the Parabrahma)  that only exists. Vishnu, Siva, Shakti, Brahma all are just different forms of Brahman. We cannot explain or define Brahman and if we can, then it's not Brahman.
So coming to your question, it depends on which branch you follow. The origin of Mahavishnu is different on different texts.
If you go by Shiva purana, Siva created Brahma and Vishnu. Siva was in the form of a pillar , when brahma and vishnu were fighting over who is more powerful.
If you go by shrimad bhagvata, Mahavishnu manifested himself.
There is many other concepts in Hinduism like, Swayambhoo Manu, Prakruthi- Purush Samyog etc..
It's up to you what you believe and what you have to follow. You can even think deeply (like a state of meditation) and can create your own concepts. The final truth is that only Parabrahma exists ( and only it's real) and whichever path we choose/take, it will lead us to him once we realize ourseleves.
Comment: Anybody  can give a theoretical answer. You put your opinion in comment not in answer. Even I can put this in comment. I was looking for purnaical substantiation. Thanks!!!
Comment: Welcome to Hinduism.SE!  You should cite sources.

Parents of Maha Vishnu


Does the subsequent automatic damage from the Witch Bolt spell trigger the necrotic damage from Hex?

Question: PC casts hex (PHB, p. 251) on an enemy. Then he casts witch bolt (PHB, p. 259) and succeeds. Next turn, he automatically deals 1d12 lightning damage from witch bolt. Does hex's 1d6 necrotic damage also apply? He didn't roll, but it's still an attack.
Comment: Related: [What counts as an attack?](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/71245)
Comment: @PeterCordes The website you linked to is illegally reproducing content. Please do not link to these websites. [See this meta.](https://rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2770/links-to-dd-tools-dndtools-eu-and-similar-sites)
Answer: No, Witch Bolt's ongoing damage is not an "attack"
As per the basic rules, there's a simple rule for determining whether or not something is an "attack":

If there's ever any question whether something you're doing counts as an attack, the rule is simple: if you're making an attack roll, you're making an attack.

And Hex is only invoked on attacks that hit:

Until the spell ends, you deal an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target whenever you hit it with an attack.

Witch Bolt causes an attack to take place when the spell is first cast - since affecting the creature requires a ranged spell attack roll - but the ongoing damage you can do on subsequent turns as a result is not an attack. It just happens, with no roll required, and the spell's description doesn't call it an attack. Hex would only grant bonus damage once to the initial attack that Witch Bolt makes...
... if it weren't for the fact that Hex and Witch Bolt are both concentration spells, so you can't actually have both active at the same time anyway - as soon as you cast Witch Bolt, Hex would end, unless you somehow have a way to concentrate on two spells at once!
Note that the thematically similar Hexblade's Curse ability, available to Hexblade warlocks, has a different wording:

You gain a bonus to damage rolls against the cursed target.

This ability doesn't require an attack (nor is it a spell which requires concentration) - it simply adds to any damage roll you make against the target. A Hexblade who cast Witch Bolt at such a cursed target would get to deal bonus damage due to the curse both on the initial hit and each subsequent damage roll they made.
Comment: @MarkWells: The rules describe what constitutes an attack. Certain things, such as grapples and shoves, create exceptions to this by describing themselves as "special melee attacks". But in general, things are not exceptions to the description of attacks Carcer pointed out unless they're explicitly described as such in the rules. [There are no secret rules.](https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/857269923134939136)
Comment: Good on you for calling out both issues with Hex and Witch Bolt, the Attack/attack difference, and the fact that both are concentration. It's also really useful that you mentioned how the Hexblade's Curse ability can work with Witch Bolt, since it's not a spell that requires concentration. One mention however: there is the Bestow Curse spell that, if cast with a 5th level spell slot or higher, doesn't require concentration, and so would work with Witch Bolt at the same time (and by extension, Hexblade's Curse).
Comment: Is there a corresponding rule that "if you _don't_ make an attack roll, it's _not_ an attack"?


What do Abundant Luxuries actually do?

Question: According to the Effect it gives a -20% buyout bonus on the star system.
What does this mean? How can I tell if it's worth the -5$ on improvement?
Answer: Reducing the buyout cost means that, when you rush-build an improvement or ship, it will cost you less Dust. Thus, it's only valuable if you're going to be buying a lot of things in that system.
Is this system near the front lines of a war, and you're going to buy a large number of ships at it? Is this a brand-new system, and you've decided to rush-build most of the system improvements it needs? Do you have gobs of Dust lying around and nothing better to spend it on?
If you answered "yes" to one of the above questions, then this improvement is useful to you. If you're just rush-improving a colony, then you'll be better off dismantling Abundant Luxuries after you're done improving it, so that you don't have to pay its maintenance cost. If it's one of your major shipyards, keep it around for the next war. In all cases, if you don't keep enough Dust around to rush-build things, then don't build this improvement.
Answer: The "buyout cost" is the cost to press the coin symbol and rush a production. Subtracting out 1/5th of those large costs can save you money in the long run, especially if you have planets devoted to churning out fleets.

What do Abundant Luxuries actually do?


Finite state transducer that sorts

Question: Is it possible to sort a string of arbitrary length with a finite-state transducer? How big would this transducer be (the smaller the better)? (I'm not a computer scientist, so less technical answers are best.)
Comment: You should be more specific in your question. A finite state transducer outputs a letter for every letter it receives. In this case, when the first element is read, the transducer has to output the smallest number that will be read eventually. Clearly that's impossible.

Perhaps define better what kind of transducer you mean (does it have memory, such as a tape?)
Comment: Just an additional note to Shaull's good answer: if the length $k$ of the strings is *fixed* (not an input parameter) then you can build the minimum transducer that given a string of length $\leq k$ sorts and outputs it.
Comment: The finite state transducers I had in mind are those of Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_state_transducer). It is possible to write a (very large) finite state transducer that sorts strings of a given length on a given alphabet: each path correspond to one of the possible inputs (and the output to the sorted string). However, is there a *smaller* FS transducer that can do this? and that can sort for *any input length*?
Comment: No, it has finite memory and can't count, to sort even a binary string you need to count.
Answer: If you allow me to give an answer that uses "technical" terminology: the output of a finite state transducer on any given regular language is again a regular language. The sort of regular $(ab)^*$ equals non-regular $\{ a^nb^n \mid n\ge 0\}$. Thus that cannot be performed by a FST.
(added) The fact that regular languages are closed under FST is a consequence of Nivat's Theorem. Every FST $T$ can be decomposed into a regular language $R$, and morphisms $g,h$ such that $T(L) = g(h^{-1}(L) \cap R)$. In short $R$ consists of "letters" of the form $(a,b)$ where $a,b$ are from the input and output alphabets respectively (or empty), and $h,g$ select  the input/ output components from those pairs.
Comment: Thank you. Does this property hold true for *non-deterministic* Finite State Transducers?
Comment: Indeed, it does hold. The fact that the output language of a FST is again regular on regular input is proven in a way similar to the intersection of regular languages. Run the automaton for the input in parallel with the FST to obtain an automaton for the output language.
Comment: Thank you. I guess you mean $g$, $h$ select the *output/input* components, right? (I'm not familiar with the concepts involved, so I want to make sure I understand at least the basics.)
Comment: @EOL you are right, I will edit and swap $g,h$.
Answer: It is not possible to sort an arbitrary string with a fixed size transducer. For simplicity, let's say you are working over the alphabet $\{0,1\}$, where $0<1$.
Proof: assume by way of contradiction that there exists such a transducer $A$ with $n$ states. Consider the input $1^{n+1}0$. Since $A$ has $n$ states, it must repeat a state before it finishes reading $1^{n+1}$. Consider what was printed so far. If $0$ was written, then we can consider the run on $1^{n+1}$ alone: it outputs a 0 and therefore $A$ does not sort its input.
If $1$ was written, then the transducer is again wrong, since $0$ will follow in $1^{n+1}0$.
If nothing was written, then the output is the same if we remove the loop (the run from the state that was repeated, back to itself). So we get the same output for two words that differ in the number of $1's$, which is again wrong.
This proof has some nuances that need to be taken care of, but the ideas are there.
Comment: Thank you! However, I am stuck at the first step ("If 0 was written…"): in fact, there exists a transducer with $3 \le n$ states that correctly sorts both $1^{n+1}0$ and $1^{n+1}$ (with two final states, one for strings that end with $0$ [it starts by outputting a single 0], the other for strings that end with $1$ [it only outputs 1s]). Thus, I can't see why "the run on $1^{n+1}$ alone necessarily outputs $0$" (it does not, in the small transducer I described)… Could you elaborate on the "If 0/1 was written…" steps?
Comment: I assumed you are using deterministic transducers. What you describe here is a nondeterministic transducer (that "guesses" whether there is a 0 at the end).
Nondeterministic transducers are also unable to sort arbitrary strings, but the proof is slightly different. I think using similar argument on the word $1^{n+1}0^{n+1}$ should work, by removing cycles in both parts of the word.

Finite state transducer that sorts


Substituting margarine for butter in cookies

Question: I want to make cookies but I am allergic to dairy. Is margarine an acceptable substitute for butter in cookie recipes, and if so, how do I substitute it?
Comment: Welcome to Seasoned Advice! Could you add in more detail, for example what kind of cookies? Or are you just asking in general?
Comment: I didn't have a specific type of cookie in mind; I'm hoping for a general rule of thumb so that I can bake cookies in the future.
Comment: [This article on About.com](http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/techniquessubstitutions/a/nobutterbaking.htm) may be what you are looking for.
Answer: I have a family member who is lactose intolerant, and we often substitute margarine (or various oils) for butter in cooking. We've found that this is mostly interchangeable, but can be unpredictable in baking due to different melting properties. Also, as Marti noted in a comment below, it's a challenge to find unsalted margarine (important if directly substituting for unsalted butter).
I'd love to see any answers on strategies for adapting recipes to account for butter-margarine differences, but in my experience it is easier to either settle for slightly sub-par cookies — or (preferably) to try non-dairy or vegan recipes instead, which are designed with a non-butter fat in mind and therefore have better results.
Comment: I thought butter was mostly lactose-free? Also, remember that most recipes call for unsalted butter, but it can be very, very hard to find unsalted margarine. (Well, at least in the US. In Hungary, unsalted margarine is the norm.)
Comment: Butter is mostly lactose-free, yes, but there is still enough to trigger problems if she eats it too much/often -- the simplest solution is to avoid it. That's a great point about the salted/unsalted problem, and I incorporated it into the Answer :)
Answer: You might want to try clarified butter, it has negligible amounts of lactose and casein. Since they use it in Indian cuisine (they call it ghee) I reckon it should not cause problems to lactose intolerant people (like most people living in Asia are). It doesn't have the same rich flavor as regular butter, but in my opinion it is still better tasting than margarine.
Maybe add a bit more water when baking, since clarified butter has almost no water, while regular butter has about 20%.
Comment: I'm actually allergic to dairy, so I'm afraid this wouldn't help me.
Comment: As I've stated in my answer, ghee is made almost entirely out of fat and has virtual no proteins that may cause allergic reaction (casein) and negligible amounts of lactose (that causes unwanted bowel movement). Of-course, consult with your doctor before consuming, but several lactose intolerant people I know, consume ghee on regular basis, without a problem.
Comment: Ok. To be clear, my issue is not lactose intolerance but rather a whey (not casein) allergy. This is interesting information though; I will look into the whey content of ghee.
Answer: It's absolutely no problem to replace butter with margarine in cookies and actually in any other kind of dough. Just substitute butter with margarine keeping the same proportion.
Comment: "No problem" is indeed an exaggeration. Cookies are pretty sensitive, so if you're hoping for a specific texture, this substitution might mess things up.
Comment: This sometimes leads to unexpected results when cooked (cookies rise/flatten differently, or perhaps are crispier than desired) -- often it can be substituted directly, but it's not infallible.


Preserving vegetables in the fridge

Question: I have a very challenging task every time I buy vegetables in preserving them even though I have a refrigerator at home. Tomatoes, carrots, beets, and bottle gourd always collect moisture in the plastic in which I store them. How do I avoid this?
Comment: How long are you storing them? What do you mean by "moisture"? Is the moisture detrimental to your produce somehow?
Comment: see http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/9612/, also http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/22992/, http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/23117/ and of course it is important to know if you are just hitting the maximum storage time, best found on sites like stilltasty.com but we also have a short list: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/21068.
Comment: I'll buy vegetables once in a week and use them for at least 5-6 days, so I keep them in a refrigerator. Moisture, I meant to say the process of condensation, which happens and degrade the vegetables.
Answer: I tend to be kind of lazy and store my vegetables in plastic produce bags from the supermarket.  I have found two things that help the produce keep longer:

Put a dry paper towel in the bag to absorb moisture.
Leave some air in the bag when you tie it, so the plastic is not resting right up against the vegetables.

Also, I'll sometimes put the produce right in the crisper drawer without a bag or container.
Comment: I do the paper towel thing, but I specifically wrap herbs and lettuce in the towel, so the plastic bag isn't touching the leaves.
Comment: Yes, for lettuces especially!  They wilt so easily; wrapping them in a paper towel really helps.
Answer: Do not store vegetables in plastic bags; it will create condensation and accelerate the degradation. At worse leave the bags open or pick some holes in the bags, the vegetables need breathing room.
Tomatoes do not need to be refrigerated  (at least for 3, 4 days)
You could just pop them in the fridge as-is with no real problems or you could wrap them in a damp paper towel (need to change it at regular intervals.

Preserving vegetables in the fridge


What is the difference between "правильна" and "правильная"?

Question: Both of these adjectives seem to mean "correct", but I do not understand the difference.
Comment: Why the downvote?
Answer: These are short and full forms of adjective respectively. Roughly speaking, short adjectives are confined to predicative (almost) exclusively, except really archaic texts.
You may also want to look at this and this question.
Answer: Here's the difference in usage.

The short form of an adjective  like правильна (-льно, -лен, -льны) is limited to cases where a quality of something (usually put in nominative case) is declared directly:

Эта формула правильна (English: this expression is correct).

The complete form правильная (льное, льный, -льные) can be used in this sense, too:

Эта формула - правильная.  Это правильная формула. (This is a correct
  expression.)

But unlike the short form, it can also be used for any reference to something having that quality:

Я нашёл правильную формулу. (I've found the correct expression.)

As you can see, правильна has a meaning close to "является правильной" (is correct).
Answer: "Правильная" answers to "какая?", "правильна" - to "какова?". Basically they have the same meaning, but they are used in different cases.
For example, "правильная формула" is "the correct formula", and "формула правильна" is "the formula is correct".
Questions "как/каков?", "какова?", "каково?" (don't confuse it with "какого?"), or, to be more exact, answers to them, are mostly used with a definite object or subject of conversations. Like when you asking "how is/was the [something]"?.
Как порыбачили? Каков улов? - How was the fishing? How is the catch?
However, it is more likely to see in literature. In speaking, "какой" is more common.
Answer: There is no such word "правильна".
If you read it somewhere most probably it is phonetic description of speaking non-Russian (or even Russian from some region) "правильно"

Ha! Shame on me! I'm a Russian and I feel myself like Haruka Kano in "日本人の知らない日本語" (I don't know English translation).
"Правильна" - using on the end of sentence.
"Правильная формула" but "Формула правильна".
Also: "Формула правильна" have categorical tone:
"I insist that this formula is correct!"
"No!This is correct formula!"
Comment: You are wrong.  There is such a word - this is [краткая форма прилагательного](http://www.goldrussian.ru/polnye-i-kratkie-prilagatelnye.html).
Comment: I'm Russian. I don't understand why ..... . Ha! You are right. I need to edit my post ))


Boiler losing pressure only when central heating is on, and only a little, leak?

Question: I have a MAIN 30 HE boiler and it loses pressure when the heating is on, seems to be fine and no loss of pressure if the heating is not on or only use hot water. Would this indicate a leak somewhere, iv'e tried to read up on it but unsure of the answer still. Anyone able to advise where to look, on the pipe outside for any drips? Iv'e checked the radiators and can see no sign or any water/leak. It will take two days of heating for it to drop 0.5 bar. Really appreciate any help on this one :)
Comment: How is the pressure drop noticeable for you? Does the boiler shut off or give an error code? How is the system getting additional water (usually it is plumbed to the house water supply via a pressure reducing valve, but this may also be controlled by the boiler)? What are you doing to restore operation? Where is your expansion tank and does it sound like it's full of water if you tap all around it?
Answer: Your expansion tank may be the problem.
From wikipedia:

An expansion tank or expansion vessel is a small tank used to protect closed (not open to atmospheric pressure) water heating systems and domestic hot water systems from excessive pressure. The tank is partially filled with air, whose compressibility cushions shock caused by water hammer and absorbs excess water pressure caused by thermal expansion.

If it's busted you will have pressure fluctuations in the heating circuit.
Answer: I would look inside the unit. Sometimes leaks in heat exchangers close up in the off cycle. Also, is there automatic fill on this or is it separated from cold water supply? Does the system contain glycol?
Is there a sight glass looking into the burner compartment? If so get a picture through there if you can. Also if you can isolate the heating loops from the boiler one at a time, would help to eliminate a leak in the field. If no-heat would be catastrophic, I would definitely have someone out to take it apart and look for evidence of weeping on the inside. If no other leaks can be found, though pinholes can be hard to detect. some technicians carry ultrasonic leak detectors, might be worth asking around about that.


How exactly do I use RawDigger to evaluate signal-to-noise?

Question: I have a trial copy of RawDigger installed, and I understand that for my purposes I should shoot the same subject at different apertures to see if the SNR decreases at faster settings.  But how exactly do I read the screen in RawDigger to evaluate the results?  I see various acronyms and numeric values in the attached screenshot, but they are meaningless to me.  (Note, the photo is just an example; I know it's not the right kind of image to use for this.)
Comment: Possible duplicate of [Measuring SNR of a DSLR from raw image](https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/75389/measuring-snr-of-a-dslr-from-raw-image)
Comment: @RomeoNinov I don't see how this is a duplicate. The other question asks "how do I measure SNR?", and is answered with "use software, for example RawDigger." But **how** to use RawDigger? There might be an argument that questions asking aobut the basic use of software, such as RawDigger, are off-topic for Photo.SE. But I don't see how this is a dupe.
Answer: Before you can understand what RawDigger is showing, you need to understand a few basics.

Most camera sensors are actually colorblind — they only detect light intensity, not the color of light. In order to record color information, individual pixels are filtered to be more sensitive to hues in the red, green, or blue wavelength regions, thus making each sensor pixel represent either mostly "red", "green", "blue".
The individual color-filtered pixels are arranged such that any 2×2 sample of sensor pixel data will contain 1 red pixel, 1 blue pixel, and 2 green pixels. That is, there are twice as many mostly-green-sensing pixels on a sensor than there are mostly-red and mostly-blue pixels. This is arrangement is known as a Bayer filter (Wikipedia) (there are other schemes in existence, but the majority of digital cameras follow this scheme). To generate output images (such as JPEGs), the RAW sensor data needs to be interpreted according to how the red, green, and blue pixels are laid out for that particular camera model. This is known as demosaicing (Wikipedia).
Related questions:

What is RAW, technically?
Why do we use RGB instead of wavelengths to represent colours?
Filter for RGB separation and its effect on the image
What are the pros and cons of different Bayer demosaicing algorithms?
Why is a Bayer filter with three colors(RGB) preferred over one with two colors and unfiltered (RBNeutral)?

The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a digital image (or region of an image) is defined as the average value of the pixels in the image (region) divided by the standard deviation of the pixel values. Standard deviation is a measure of how spread out the individual samples in a dataset are, compared to the mean, and is denoted by  (the greek letter "sigma"). It is calculated as the square root of the mean distance from the sample set's average value — the root-mean-square deviation.

So now, we can understand what RawDigger is showing.

The first section of the screenshot is showing some metadata from the image's EXIF information (camera model, lens, focal length, exposure settings, etc.).
The next section, titled "Image 6016x4016", is showing per-color-channel (red, green, blue, and 2nd green (as described above)) information over the entire image:

minimum and maximum values recorded. In your example, [R,G,B,G2] of [0,0,0,0] means your camera recorded "pure black" — that is, as dark as your camera can sense.
average value. In your example, the average red pixels recorded less light than the blue pixels, and the green pixels recorded more than both red and blue.
the root-mean-square deviation. In your example, a typical red pixel varied from the mean (of 1176) by 2065. The SNR is therefore 1176 / 2065 = 0.57. The green, blue, and green2 SNRs are similar (0.52 – 0.54).

Incidentally, the title of the section is describing the width (6016) and height (4016) of your image.
The next section, had you selected a region in the image, would show the [R,G,B,G2] min, max, average, and RMS deviation for that region, rather than the entire image.
The next section, titled "5529:4029", is showing the [R,G,B,G2] values for the pixels under your cursor.
The next section sets display mode options.
The last section, "OvExp/UnExp Stats, shows the per-color channel over- and under-exposed statistics for the image. In your case, it shows 7–12% (depending on the color channel) of the pixels in your image are underexposed.

The screen information can be found in the RawDigger user manual.


What is the US equivalent of Golden Syrup (UK)?

Question: Having recently moved from UK to US, when making honeycomb, what should I use as a replacement for Golden Syrup?
Comment: I assume honey comb here isn't the larvae-protecting sheets of wax made by bees? Excuse my new world ignorance. Is it this stuff? http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/honeycomb_80005
Comment: @Preston Have you come across the term cinder toffee? Or a Cadbury's crunchie bar? It's that stuff. It uses hot sugar and baking powder to create that honeycomb texture.
Comment: Maple syrup in Canada ;)
Comment: @SamLee Nope, but it sounds great.
Answer: Honeycomb can be made with honey or molasses but the flavor will not be the same. There isn't a US equivalent - we have molasses, but it's darker. You can substitute corn syrup in recipes where it isn't the principal ingredient, but here that would not work.
That being said, my local grocery store has a British food section which carries golden syrup. You probably don't have to substitute, you just need to find it in your local grocer.
Edit: Another answer suggests "King's Golden Syrup" as a golden syrup available in the US. This is not golden syrup - this is corn syrup derived product containing: Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Refiners Syrup, Water, Potassium Sorbate and Citric Acid.
If you look at the ingredients of Lyle's Golden Syrup to compare, it contains simply Cane Sugar Syrup.
Answer: I use Golden Syrup, here in the US, all the time; I find it in the regular baking section, but I have seen it, like the previous answer, in the international section. I'm sure it's the same in the UK, but here it now comes in easy-pour plastic bottles (just in case you were looking for it in different packaging), rather than only in tins like I used to buy (centuries ago) at the British NAAFI in Rheindahlen, Germany. I have actually substituted it for corn syrup (my nephew is allergic to corn) w/great results (you must stir constantly when making peanut brittle because it burns faster, but it still makes great brittle, & it makes a slightly softer truffle, but not enough that most would notice), so I'd be interested to hear what happened if you still cannot find Golden Syrup in your area and did use corn syrup...perhaps you'd have to add some cane sugar, to keep it from being too stiff (ahem)? I'm not a food chemist, obviously, but I do like to experiment with food & was happily surprised by my results. My other answer would be "Amazon. They have everything."
Comment: As an addition to my note above, I also just googled "golden syrup" & found there is an American brand, "King Golden Syrup". You might find that in your local grocery, if they don't have Lyle's. I still would like to hear how your honeycomb comes out using corn syrup! If it's anything like brittle, where you heat the sugar & corn syrup very high & add baking soda at the end (baking soda foams the mix), it would work just fine. I could see calling that "honeycomb", especially if you didn't stretch it thin when poured, as we do for brittles. Very light & melt-in-your-mouth, but w/crunch as well.
Comment: I've added a note to my answer re: King's Golden Syrup. That's a corn syrup product, not a true golden syrup.
Answer: make your own golden syrup by boiling sugar and water and add a little lemon juice to stop it crystalizing there are a few videos on youtube to show you how its made well easy hope this helps another brit now living in the usa
Comment: This sounds like a great idea but you could improve your answer by mentioning one or two in particular that you've found to work. Even better would be to include a summary of your favourite technique here to save searching elsewhere.
Comment: The classic Tate and Lyle golden syrup is a 'partialy' inverted syrup.  I don't know what that means, but I'm reading the tin as I type this!
Comment: This is an inverted syrup (which is one of the things that seem to be sold as "golden syrup"). Recipe that works for me: cook 1:1 (by weight) sugar and water for ~1h at 80-90°C with the juice of one lemon per litre water, then boil it down to ~118°C (gives a light golden color, a thin honey like viscosity). A very versatile ingredient!
Comment: This is a good guide on how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijG7Yn96B-g
Answer: I had never heard of golden syrup and found these when I googled it.
You can order it online, for example from King Arthur.
And you can make your own as in this video.
Answer: I find it odd when people say there's no equivalent in the USA, I beg to differ . We have Golden Eagle Brand golden syrup since 1928 that's made right here by hand to this day. It's made in Fayette, Alabama and it's far superior to Lyle's. You can order it online it's $3 a pint!! You can order it in the 16 oz or all the way up. I usually purchase the 32 oz for $6. If you haven't tried it please do!! Check out their Facebook page GOLDEN EAGLE SYRUP.
Comment: Golen Eagle Syrup from Alabama may work like Lyle's golden syrup in a recipe or it may not. It isn't the same thing at all. Lyle's has no corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup nor honey.Golden Eagle has all three. The first two ingredients being potentially unsafe for those with corn allergy. The flavor would be different too, causing some people to prefer one over the other.
Answer: In the U.S.A. you can buy Lyles Golden Syrup (11.46 ounce) in the International Foods section at Publix.
Comment: For those of us in the US but not near Florida, Publix appears to be a regional supermarket chain in the Southeastern US.
Answer: just make your own...its simple and for 1/4 price
Comment: Welcome! This sounds like a good idea, and has been suggested by some of the previous answers. Do you have a specific method or recipe that has worked well for you that you would like to share?


Understanding ties

Question: I'm rather new to playing the piano and reading sheet music. Because of this fact I want make sure that I understand this correctly and have been doing it right.
Does the tie in the second measure tell me to hold that note until the second beat in the second line on this page?
Also the chords in the bass clef of the fourth and fifth (and three more) measures have a line that seemingly breaks them up. I've been using this as an indication to play the notes above the line with my right hand. Is that correct or should I just use my left?!
Comment: hi, welcome to SE. Did you check the related questions (look at the right of this window. This question is surely answered there.
Comment: I don't see a tie in the second measure. If you mean the large curve that goes to the end of the line, then that's a *slur*, which is different from a tie.
Answer: The notation starting in the second measure, isn't a tie, but rather a slur. More specifically, it's a phrasing slur indicating to play everything within that slur as a continual line and within a single phrase. You only need to play that quarter-note A in the second measure for the duration of one beat.
And your intuition regarding the brackets in the chords is correct; that's telling you to play those upper pitches with your right hand.
Answer: A tie is always going to join two (or more) notes that are the same note. Usually across a bar line, but sometimes within the same bar. But always the same note pitch. Those lines would be way too long for ties! As Richard states, they are from the beginning to the end of a phrase. It's like each note is a syllable or word, and it's all said in one breath.
Again, as Richard says, and you guess, the lines join up notes to be played with the right hand. Easier than writing them in the treble clef; but only because of their duration.

Understanding ties


Which ND filter should I use?

Question: I have a Tiffen variable ND filter. I was wondering if the quality is good enough for video, since I'm pretty new to this. I've heard people using other filters but they are way too expensive for me right know, so I was wondering if, quality-wise, the Tiffen is a decent filter for DSLR videomaking.
Answer: If a filter is good enough for photo, it is good enough for video.  Video is much MUCH lower quality than photography.  Ultimately, it really depends on your standards though and we can't tell you if it is good enough for your particular tastes and needs.  The reason that there are more expensive cinema lenses is because of how focus works while zooming.
Answer: Bob, if you ask 10 ASC Cinematographers which filters they think are best and which lenses are higher quality, youll get 10 different answers.
Point is, it is subjective. You have to test and choose for yourself.
Frame a nice picture, with dark and light elements in frame, with a bare bulb in frame, add something highly textured (like plants or a piece of clothing), and with some skin tone (a model). Then shoot some tests with your lenses, with and without the ND filter, with the lenses wide open and also with your most common shooting stop (f/2.8 to f/4 probably), and screen the results. You will clearly see if your ND filter flares, or has a color cast, or makes you lose resolution, or not. And then you can decide if you are ok with it or not.

Which ND filter should I use?


Should one regard deities as Superior and Inferior as per Adi Shankara?

Question: Adi Shankara is the upholder of Advaita (Non-dual) philosophy. There is popular belief among Advaitins that one shouldn't differentiate between Gods as they all are same. But is this thing explicitly told by Adi Shankara in his works? Also what is the reason to consider that all deities are same?
Comment: Perfect non duality is to experience oneness in many. And so, not only all gods are one; yourself, the animate and the inanimate spheres are all one, united by the cosmic spirit (Atma).
Answer: Adi Shankaracharya in the Bhasya of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.6 states:

यथेयं श्रुतिर्व्यवस्थिता तथा प्रजापतिरेव सर्वे देवा इति निश्चितोऽर्थः। स्रष्टुरनन्यत्वात्सृष्टानाम्, प्रजापतिनैव तु सृष्टत्वाद्देवानाम् । अथैवं प्रकरणार्थे व्यवस्थिते तत्स्तुत्यभिप्रायेणाविद्वन्मतान्तरनिन्दोपन्यासः, अन्यनिन्दानाय स्तुतये। तत्तत्र कर्मप्रकरणे केवलयाज्ञिका यागकाले यदिदं वच आहुः- 'अमुमग्निं यजामुमिन्द्रं यज' इत्यादि --- नामशस्त्रस्तोत्रकर्मादिभिन्नत्वाभिन्नमेवाग्न्यादिदेवमेकैकंमन्यमाना आहुरित्यभिप्रायः । तन्न तथा विद्यात्, यस्मादेतस्यैव प्रजापतेः सा विसृष्टिर्देवभेदः सर्व एष उ ह्योव प्रजापतिरेव प्राणः सर्वे देवाः ।
  Just as told in this Shruti; by that Prajapati himself is form of all Gods (prajApatirEva sarvE devA) the direct meaning of this is because manifestation is indifferent from manifestor and Prajapati has created all Gods. Now, this being the import of the section, the views of some ignorant people are being put forward as a eulogy on that. The criticism (nindA) of one serves as a praise (stutI) to another. When, in discussing ceremonials, the priests, who know only mechanical rites, talk of particular gods, saying at the time of performing a sacrifice, 'Sacrifice to Agni,' .'Sacrifice to the Indra,' and so on, thinking, on account of differences regarding name, type of hymns recited or sung, function, and the like, that they are separate gods, it should not be understood that way, because these different Gods are projection of Prajapati himself, for Prajapati in Prana form is all Gods (prajApatirEva prAna: sarvE devA).

The last line 'Prajapati in Prana form is all Gods' is of significant importance because it's fully described in Prashna Upanishad where there is Prana Stuti. One such verse is:

इन्द्रस्त्वं प्राण तेजसा रुद्रोऽसि परिरक्षिता ।
  त्वमन्तरिक्षे चरसि सूर्यस्त्वं ज्योतिषां पतिः ॥ ९ ॥

  Indra thou art, O Prana, and Rudra, too, in prowess. Thou art the Protector. Thou movest in the sky; thou art the sun, the lord of lights.

Adi Shankara commentary on this is as:

किंच, इन्द्रः परमेश्वरः त्वं हे प्राण, तेजसा वीर्येण रुद्रोऽसि संहरन् जगत् । स्थितौ च परि समन्तात् रक्षिता पालयिता ; परिरक्षिता त्वमेव जगतः सौम्येन रूपेण । त्वम् अन्तरिक्षे अजस्रं चरसि उदयास्तमयाभ्यां सूर्यः त्वमेव च सर्वेषां ज्योतिषां पतिः ॥

  Further, O Prana, you are Indra, the Supreme Lord.  By valour you are Rudra, engaged in destroying the world.  Again, during the time of the existence of the universe, you, in your  benign aspect, are the preserver (of the universe) on every side.  You move for ever in the sky by rising and setting.  You are the sun, the lord of all the luminaries.

Thus it is clear that Prana itself is in the form of Gods like Indra, Destroyer Rudra, Protector (Vishnu), Sun etc...
Thus as a final conclusion we have:

1) Lord Prajapati himself is in the form of all Gods ( prajApatirEva sarvE devA).

  2) Manifested things are non different from manifestor thus all Gods should be regarded as same.

  3) Prajapati through Prana Form, manifests himself as different gods like Indra, Agni, Rudra, Vishnu, Surya, etc... Thus they are all one same God.

  4) Owing to the difference in names, use of different hymns and rituals, the Gods shouldn't be regarded different because all Gods are projection of Prajapati himself.


Number of hands played by a November Nine?

Question: What is roughly the number of hands that a player has to play during the tournament to reach the final table of the WSOP main event? Let us say over the past five years.
Comment: I'm sorry, but I had to close this since it's not a good question for this site. Answers to this (correct or not) provide no added value for someone's poker knowledge.
Comment: Do you mean, on average, how many hands does a niner have to play to get to the FT? Also, why would you want to know this?
Comment: Yes, this is what I mean. I edited my question a little bit by adding "in the tournament".
Comment: For the reason, I think I am mostly curious...
Answer: This is a very rough estimation based on this year. 35 levels passed = 70 hours of play. If they played 20 hands an hour this makes 1400 hands. For the last 5 years the number of players is roughly the same so I would guess the number of hands should be similar.
Answer: It depends a lot on the origin of the player. Chris moneymaker for example won the main event without having prior experience, so I would guess he played no more than 2500 hands (that's just a hard guess, I don't know Chris moneymaker more than that and he might easily have played more than that before)
A professional poker player on the Internet could have played 3 years 25000 hands a month, for a total of almost 1 million hands
Comment: I think the Moneymaker comment is surely false. Just because he was an "unknown" at the time doesn't mean he didn't play a lot of hands on PokerStars where he won the satellite. He probably didn't play a lot of hands by modern online multitabling standards, but surely he had played tens of thousands of hands leading up to his 2003 WSOP appearance.
Comment: And I'm also curious about your math. It's terribly wrong. If you play 3 years at 25K hands per month, that's 900K hands. Not 2 billion. In order to play 2 billion hands, you've got a serious task on your hands. Assuming you could play 1 hand per second all day, every day, that would still take over 63 years of 24/7 play. I think it's safe to say that no human has played that many hands.
Comment: Sorry, my question was probably ambiguous, but I meant then number of hands during the tournament. I have edited my question to make it hopefully clearer.
Comment: I really hate to downvote anyone but there's just so many things wrong with this answer. None of the numbers in it make sense or are even close!
Comment: Sorry for the bad numbers, i'm not English native so i mixed up with million and billion. I also did bad calculus, do i understand the downvotes. I have now updated my question


How should I insulate the walls in a stucco house?

Question: What is the best way to insulate a 1969 stucco home in the San Francisco Bay Area? I have added a lot of insulation in the attic area but the rooms and walls are cold. Any suggestions?
Comment: You get what you got. Sorry. When you buy an uninsulated home, that is your choice. Now you have to live with the choice you have made (or sell the house and buy a different one).
Comment: There's massive risk in insulating walls on an old stucco house like that, as the iLikeDirt answer goes into.  I have learned this the hard way, in the San Francisco Bay Area also.
Comment: My mom lives in sebastopol, her 1940's era home is stucco,  she had the walls filled with insulation over 40 years ago, the company drilled holes in each stud bay and added a measured amount of insulation, I remember they said they measured it to know if there was blocking in the wall and a 2nd hole would be needed, then they patched the holes. I thought the insulation would settle and not be very effective, a few years ago I helped my step dad repair a bathroom and we needed to remove part of a wall, I was amazed that the insulation had not settled and no problems 40 years later.
Answer: I assume you mean to insulate the walls. Houses of that vintage often had no insulation between the wall studs. The easiest way to insulate them without wrecking the stucco or drywall is to drill holes through one or the other at the top of the stud bay and blow in cellulose insulation.
However, when you do this, you impair the ability of the wall to dry when it gets wet, since there's less heat flow and less air flow through those empty cavities--both of which promote drying. This isn't much of a problem with a modern wall where the stucco is separated from the wood with tar paper or housewrap, but in an old house like yours, oftentimes the stucco was applied over wood lath with no tar paper separating it from the board sheathing; in fact, in many cases, there was no sheathing at all! They simply nailed wood lath to the studs and stuccoed it.
In such a wall, adding blown-in cellulose insulation can be a problem when the stucco gets wet, since it can't dry as easily, and cellulose itself is capable of storing water. The risk of this approach depends on the climate and the construction. If your house is in rainy San francisco, it's riskier than in Campbell or San Jose. If your house has no sheathing and/or no tar paper under the stucco, it's riskier than if it did.
In such borderline cases, the prudent approach, if you really want to insulate, would be to remove all the stucco, install batt insulation (fiberglass or mineral wool) between the exposed studs, then install plywood sheathing, wrap the house in tar paper or housewrap, apply 1+ inches of rigid foam or mineral wool insulation over that, then nail 1x3 furring strips over that, and then apply new stucco or siding over the furring strips. Obviously this would be the most expensive option but it would result in a very well insulated wall and have zero risk of mold or rot.
Comment: The other issue I've seen with blown-in for walls is return on investment.  For a medium sized home, you are looking 3-4k for someone to do the job and in such a moderate climate you will only see a savings of $100-200 on the heating bill over the winter.
Comment: I advise people to stay away from foam jobs for house like this... wouldn't even think about using blown-in cellulose.  Heat readings after spending tons of money and opening 100s of holes in a house aren't much better than the before readings (and many of the foams are toxic).
Comment: My preference is no foam as well but rigid mineral wool could work instead. That said, I agree with both of you that cost-effectiveness of any such projects in the poster's region is questionable.
Comment: No such thing as "zero risk".  Also your plan requires extending window frames, a big job that could easily be screwed up resulting in mold or rot.
Answer: Not everybody would be ok with the aesthetics, but this is my family's solution to unrelenting cold bedrooms:
2" pink/purple rigid foam cut to size for the inside of 1 exterior wall in the bedroom.  We squeezed it in place between the ceiling and the top of the hot-water baseboard radiator.  The room has been comfortable for the last 2 winters.  We put the printed words on the insulation towards the wall, at least.  Not elegant, but frankly, it's in budget and warm.  My Mom likes the color. We're very chemically sensitive and this foam seems very inert.
Rainy central NJ.  -5 F to 105 F temps.


Real-time frequency recognition in python

Question: I'm a newcomer to signal processing, so forgive my ignorance. I'm working on a project in Python that will play a .wav file and pick out the dominant frequency as it plays. I've found a few examples on the web, but none seem to be accurate for stereo files. It seems like I need to do something with an FFT, but I don't know too much about it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Comment: Please clarify what your question is. Try to be as specific as possible, and also describe what you have already tried.
Answer: Here's a recent blog post that may be helpful:
https://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2013/08/28/understanding-the-fft/
You want to install numpy (and probably scipy, too), and read up on the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT; this is what the FFT computes).  I'm not that up on Python media packages for the playback part. Python's wave module may be enough.
The algorithm could be as simple as computing the FFT of the last, say, 4096 samples, getting the index of the maximum absolute value, and multiplying by the bin width.  Or you can get fancier and use a Hanning window, peak interpolation, overlap processing, and exponential averaging.


Reults of the glacials and interglacials of the ice age on the soil

Question: I have read that the Earth has undergone five ice ages, the latest one is the Quaternary glaciation. I know that in the ice age there are glacial periods and interglacial periods, and we are currently in an interglacial, I want to make sense what is the effect of those succsessive periods on the life on Earth. Because in my text book I read that the soil has grown and become fertile since 20 thousand years ago, since the interglacial period started. But what made this change in the soil? and why it became suitable for farming? And is it a costant thing that the soil become rich and good in the interglacials of all ice ages?
Comment: It very much depends on where you are.  In areas covered by glaciers, much of the previously-existing soil will have been scraped off (along with a lot of rock) and piled up in terminal moraines.  So in e.g. New England & upstate New York, soils tend to be thin (having developed since the glaciers retreated, there are many erratic rocks, in places you can still see glacial effects on exposed bedrock, &c.  These are even more obvious in mountains like the Sierra & Rockies, where glaciers lasted longer.
Answer: First a comment on the number of ice ages - one could say 5 to 7 major ice ages, depending upon how one defines an ice age, and several more minor ice-ages, with some debate as to whether some are sufficiently separated in time to be regarded as two ice ages.
Most of the northern hemisphere has been emerging from the most recent ice age over the past 10000 to 12,000 years, but by no means at a constant rate, with some short-term reversals. As regards soil formation, it is only the most recent ice age that is of relevance - older palaeosols have been either eroded or lithified.
How long does it take for soil to form? That is primarily a function of climate, and secondarily a function of weathering lithology. That is, many millennia for cold dry climates, or as little as a decade or so for hot wet conditions. Soils take many years to form on limestone, quartzite, granite and some other resistant rocks, but are rapid on recent basic rocks such as volcanic ash. The weathering rate of different minerals varies over many orders of magnitude, and is a combination of chemical and biological processes which is far too complicated to discuss here. I suggest you read a good book on weathering processes.
Regarding soil fertility, this is also rather complex, but obviously continuous cropping will tend to remove organic carbon, organically available phosphate and potassium, not to mention other trace elements, thereby leaving the soil less fertile unless very well managed.
Ice ages are not 'normal' in the geological history, and it will take tens to hundreds of millennia for a normal soil quasi-equilibrium to be reached. This 'equilibrium will also be lost both by human intervention and by accelerated climate change.


Finding real and imaginary part of exponential function

Question: Can someone explain to me how I find the real and the imaginary part of $e^{\theta i}$?
I'm learning complex numbers but I don't quite understand how $e$ is intertwined in all this.
Comment: This is very dependent upon your definition of $e^{i\theta}$. Some people define $e^{i\theta}$ to be $\cos\theta + i\sin\theta$..
Answer: $$z=e^{i\theta}=\cos\theta+i\sin\theta$$
$$\mathrm{Re} z=\cos\theta,\mathrm{Im} z=\sin\theta$$
Answer: If your definition of $e^{i\theta}$ is the power series, use $i^{2k} = (-1)^k$ to $i^{2k+1}=i(-1)^k$ and split the summands into real and imaginary part. Have a close look at them and you will notice that you just wrote down the power series of cosine and sine.
Answer: If you expand $e^{i\theta}$ in a power series, you see that
$e^{i\theta} = \sum_0^\infty \dfrac{(i\theta)^n}{n!} = 1 + i\theta - \dfrac{\theta^2}{2!} - i\dfrac{\theta^3}{3!} + \dfrac{\theta^4}{4!} + . . . , \tag{1}$
and a careful inspection of the real and imaginary terms show that (1) is in fact equivalent to
$e^{i\theta} = \cos \theta + i \sin \theta.\tag{2}$
And there it is!
Hope this helps.  Cheerio,
and as always,
Fiat Lux!!!
Answer: You seem to not know what the complex exponential function is. I'm sure you know that any complex number $z$ can be written as $z=cos\theta + isin\theta$.
What would you get if you were to take the derivative of this function?
$$\frac{d}{d\theta}(\cos\theta+i\sin\theta) = -\sin\theta + i\cos\theta$$
Looking at this, you know it is possible to write as $i(\cos\theta + i\sin\theta)$, correct?
Now, knowledge of elementary calculus will tell you that the only solution to $\frac{dz}{d\theta}=iz$ is $z=e^{i\theta}$
So, we can define the complex exponential as being:
$$e^{i\theta}=\cos\theta + i\sin\theta$$
So, the polar form of any complex number z can be written as:
$$z=re^{i\theta}$$
Using this new definition, you should be able to answer your question. Comment if you need any further help.
Answer: For $A e^{i\theta}$, where $i=\sqrt{-1}$, and $A,\theta \in \mathbb{R}$, the real part is given by $\operatorname{Re}(Ae^{i\theta}) = A \cdot \cos \theta$ and the imagniary part by $\operatorname{Im}(Ae^{i\theta}) = A \cdot \sin \theta$.
You can derive the relation $e^{i\theta} = \cos \theta + i \cdot \sin \theta$ using Taylor series expansions.


While tuning guitar, 1st string coming as 2nd string on tuner ? What do I do?

Question: While tuning guitar, 1st string coming as 2nd string on tuner ? What do I do ?
Happening for the first time.
Comment: This question about tuning the high e string is very similar and may have additional answers that may be helpful (http://music.stackexchange.com/q/41062/16897)
Answer: If the strings are properly in place, my guess is that the string is either too tight or too loose. So, instead of the usual E that it's supposed to be, you see a B. Just tune it until it gets to E. Just make sure to understand if you have to loosen it or tighten it.
It might help you to find someone who knows how to properly tune a guitar so as to show you.
There are many youtube videos that show how to tune a guitar for beginners:

Moreover, sometimes the tuner listens to the fifth, because it's the first overtone over the octave. So, try playing the 12th fret harmonic to see what the tuner listens. Another solution could be to tune the other 5 strings and then play the B string on the 5th fret and see if the sound is the same as the the open high E string.
Comment: @user3656142 that's what it's supposed to show. Now try to tune the high E. Play the 5th fret on the B string and then the open high E string and see if the E string is higher or lower than the other one. Then you'll be able to see if you have to loosen or tighten it
Comment: 5th fret B showing high E, that's normal. 12 fret for the 1st and 2nd string is not showing up any result
Comment: If it is an electric guitar plugged direct to the tuner, you might get more tuner sensitivity by turning up the pickup volume and possibly try a different pickup. I know that tuners seem to prefer my bridge humbucker over my neck single coil.


Do birds change their diet before migration?

Question: Migration takes up a lot of energy, so I am wondering if birds (in my case mallards) change their diet / food preferences in the weeks before migrating. Do they select for more energetic foods to fuel up, or do they just eat more of the same foods to gain enough energy?
Answer: Apparently, yes. This article underlines the changes in diet in semipalmated sandpiper before its 3000 km-long migration:

Near the beginning of their journey, sandpipers stop at the Bay of Fundy on Canada's eastern coast to gorge on mud shrimp, 1-cm-long crustaceans loaded with omega-3 fatty acids. Over 2 weeks, the frantic feeding doubles each sandpiper's body mass [and i]t makes sandpipers' muscles use oxygen more efficiently, enhancing the birds' endurance.

The authors experimented the diet on a similar species to disentangle the effects of the different diet from other effects, for example due to hormonal changes:

To isolate diet's role, Weber and colleagues took exercise and migration out of the equation. They turned to the bobwhite quail, an unrelated sedentary bird that doesn't migrate and seldom flies. For 6 weeks, the scientists fed 40 couch-potato quails a combination of omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil. To the researchers' surprise, the quail's oxidative capacity - their muscles' efficiency at using fuel - shot up 58% to 90%.

This paper reviews the effects of diet changes on the digestive trait of migratory birds; however, it's quite old (2001).
I couldn't find any indication on mallard feeding prior to migration, but these links can be a start for further research.
Answer: Geese can build a lot of fat reserves before migration, it's the reason that Fois-Gras is made, because the goose can keep lots of fat in it's liver.
You can buy Spanish foisgras which is made naturally by letting the geese fatten on nuts and rich autumn foods.
Birds generally eat whatever they can get, as rich a diet as possible in protein and carbs, but it's dependent on seasons. So the diet changes anyway at that season, independently from the birds energy requirements. https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/auk/v098n01/p0065-p0079.pdf
"The natural cycle for the wild goose of Europe is to spend the summer in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, northern Germany or parts of Russia and Ukraine. Then they migrate south to Africa each autumn," Labourdette explains. "They stop here in Spain on their way, to eat and gain energy for the long flight. But lots of them never leave because they find such a good habitat here."
Geese are adaptable, he says, and they eat whatever the environment provides. Foie gras from Denmark has a fishy taste, because the geese eat seafood there. Here in Spain, they feed on calorie-rich acorns, olives, figs and seeds.


Can she give the zakaah of her wealth to her brother who is sponsored by her father?

Question: My brother got married about a year ago and is expecting a baby soon.  Is it permissible for me to give him the zakaah of my wealth to help him with the expenses for the baby? Please note that he works, but his income is limited and is barely enough for him and his wife. They are living with my father , who provides them with accommodation and food. I already know that my father will cover all the necessary costs for the baby, but I want to reduce the burden for my father. Is it permissible for me to give my brother the zakaah on my and my husband's wealth, with my husband's agreement.
Answer: So long as what he is getting from your father is sufficient, then he is regarded as being independent of means as a result of that, so it is not permissible to give him zakat.
But if his father cannot afford to spend on him, or refuses to do so, or if what he gives him is not sufficient to meet his needs, then in that case it is permissible to give zakat to him.


Is there any language that observe root changes in response to the addition of affixes?

Question: If yes, what are the examples? What change patterns are exhibited?
*modified from Area51
Comment: can you give an example of root change?
Answer: English. Many English words undergo stress shift when taking suffixes. Some examples are (quote mark precedes stressed syllable):
'progress (noun)-> pro'gression
'commune (noun)-> co'mmunity
This stress shift also happens with zero-derivation (when words change their lexical class without affixation occurring). An example is:
'permit (noun) -> per'mit (verb).
Answer: The German diminutive affixes "-chen" and "-lein" cause the root to be umlauted if it can be.  For example, "Haus" is "house", "Häuschen" is the diminutive (cottage?).
Other affixes in German do this, too, for example for forming the comparative of adjectives.
Answer: In some cases, final voiceless fricatives in English nouns become voiced with the addition of the plural morpheme -s. Some of these examples are more dialect-specific than others:
<code> wife vs. wives
 life vs. lives
 loaf vs. loaves

 house vs. houses ([s] vs. [z])

 path vs. paths ([θ] vs. [ð])
</code>
Also, in non-rhotic (i.e. r-dropping) dialects, the addition of a vowel-initial suffix to an r-final root can trigger the surfacing of a linking-r:
<code> bear [bɛə] vs. bearing [bɛəɹɪŋ]
</code>
Answer: Germanic strong-weak verbs.
Germanic verbs are usually either strong (vowel change, "ablaut") or weak (suffix), but strong-weak verbs (mostly modal verbs) are both. As far as I know, this takes place in all Germanic languages. English certainly is no exception:
can-could, will-would, may-might


How strong is Loki? Can he be destroyed by a nuclear explosion?

Question: In the Avengers movie, humans tried to kill Loki and the Chitauri by launching a nuclear weapon. However, would this nuclear weapon actually have killed Loki?
Comment: To be fair, I don't think SHIELD or the World Security Council actually had any idea of whether or not the nuclear missile would be enough. It was just the strongest thing they had in their arsenal, and were hoping that it would be enough.
Comment: As @phantom42 points out, I don't necessarily think the nuke was directed at Loki in particular, merely a general deterrent to the entire invading force of Ch'tauri.
Comment: Related: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/52926/which-of-marvels-mortals-can-survive-a-nuclear-bomb
Answer: Yes, a nuke would certainly kill Loki.
Within the Earth-19999 movie universe, Loki's powers would be insufficient to resist a nuclear blast. Odin's spell may have given him the physical form of an Asgardian (Æsir) but they're only a few times more resilient than the average human. As a Frost-Giant hybrid his tolerance to heat might even be lower than that of the average Asgardian.
Without his forcefield to protect him (and we've seen no evidence that he has this power in the movie universe), Loki's physical strength would be utterly inadequate to protect him from either the heat or percussive effects of a nuclear weapon.
That said, his enhanced physique, super-healing and superhuman immune system would probably protect him from the effects of radiation poisoning if he was outside the immediate blast zone.
Comment: Puny God indeed!
Comment: "and we've seen no evidence that he has this power in the movie universe". I have a feeling that this is not a valid argument when dealing with The Trickster...
Comment: @LarissaGodzilla - I think we can be reasonably sure that he'd have used that ability when fighting the Hulk.
Answer: Yes, a nuclear weapon would kill Loki.
(This answer includes spoilers from Thor and Thor 2)
In Thor, Odin tells Loki that they are not Gods. He said that they will die just like any other being, only that they live longer than humans/mortals.
In Thor 2: The Dark World

 Frigga, Thor and Loki's mother, was killed by a simple stab wound while she was defending Jane.

Also, if Thor, Lady Sif, and Fandral could easily kill the Frost Giants in Thor with weapons like Mjolnir and swords, a nuclear missile would be able to kill Loki.
Comment: Mjolnir is generally described as an "omega class" weapon and the swords you see the Asgardians using aren't merely bits of polished metal but highly technological weapons that are merely *shaped* to look like swords and axes.
Comment: That is a very good point. I didn't take into account the strength of Asgardian weapons as I should have.


Transferring flights at LAX from United to New Zealand Air

Question: Will I have to go through TSA again when I land at LAX? I'm coming in on United and leaving on New Zealand Air. I will be leaving Montana on United; it's all booked on one itinerary through United and I go to New Zealand Air at LAX. I was just wondering once I get to LAX and I have to go into the international part of the airport, are you required to go through security to get into the international part or can I bypass TSA?
Comment: What's the full itinerary? You're flying into and then out of LAX, but where are those flights coming from/going to? Whether or not you need to go through security again at LAX may depend on whether your flight into LAX was domestic or international.
Comment: And are the flights on the same ticket?
Comment: Question seems clear to me: Depends on how you want to get there. You'll most likely be arriving in Terminal 7 or 8 on United. There is an air-side by connection to the Tom Bradley International Terminal where New Zealand most likely will depart from (check your itinerary). However, it's walk only and a fairly long walk. If you want to take the shuttle bus you need to exit the secure area and go through TSA again.
Answer: No, you will not go through the TSA again at LAX.
US airports make no distinction between departing domestic and international flights, since there is no passport control on departure.  You will go through TSA security in Montana, board your flight, then arrive on the "airside" (post-security) of LAX and simply walk to your connecting international flight to New Zealand.
Note: This applies as long as there's airside connectivity between your arrival and departure terminals.  This is the case for Terminals 7/8 (United) and TBIT at LAX, and more generally most through-ticketed connections on the same alliance at major airports, but this may not be true for all airlines at all airports.
Source: I had essentially the same transfer at LAX earlier this year (domestic-LAX-international on United).
Comment: Maybe a short clarification for other readers: Only Terminals 4 - 8 are connected airside to the international terminal. For terminals 1 - 3 (i think Delta uses them) you have to exit the terminal and go through security at the international terminal again.
Comment: Keep in mind that  it's walk-only and quite long from TBIT to 7 or 8.  It's about a mile from Terminal 8 and https://www.travelcodex.com/long-take-change-terminals-lax/ puts it as a half hour walk or so. If you want to take the bus, you need to exit out of security,
Comment: @dunni Fair point, added a note. Thanks!


Making Eggs for 50 people

Question: My first time, making scrambled eggs for buffet, my company brought in box of liquid eggs, to be cooked in deep stove top pan. Any suggestions of what needs to be done, how much butter, milk, how to cook without burning them, etc... All help is appreciated...
Comment: Do you have access to a steamer or do you have to use a pan on the stove?
Comment: no steamer, usually the cook uses large round deep pan, he is sick and I am the only one that back him up
Comment: Funny thing is, you can pretty much calculate how much time you need to cook. Say you have 10kg of egg, and that's 10*1000*4.2/2000=1350 seconds (10kg of egg, roughly same heat property as water(4.2j per gram per degree), rising from 4C(fridge temp) to 70C(cooked temp), over a high heat stove with 2000W output. This is actually a long time and you will be watching and stirring all the time. Maybe you can pour all the eggs into the oven and preheat the eggs to something like 50C then finish the cooking on the stove top to 70C.
Answer: I highly recommend using a steamer if you have access to one, but if you don't have it, you don't have it. The good news is that the process for making scrambled eggs on the stove is about the same no matter how many eggs you're making - add as much beaten eggs as you're comfortable stirring in the pan, cook over low heat stirring occasionally.
The major tips/gotchas that I can think of:

Open all your egg cartons at once before you start cooking. The last thing you want to be doing is fighting with packaging material when you need eggs quickly
Low heat, be patient, stir frequently but not constantly. Once every couple minutes should be fine depending on the size of your pot - it shouldn't be hard to figure out if you need to be stirring more or less frequently. However, don't forget to stir. This is probably the biggest way for things to come out less than perfectly. If you get distracted and forget to stir the eggs for too long, the ones at the bottom of the pot can start to develop the same green off-color as overcooked hard boiled egg yolks. It's perfectly safe to eat but who wants to eat green eggs?
You mention butter but unless you're adding it for flavor it's honestly not necessary. When you're done there's going to be eggs stuck to the pan no matter what you do. Don't stress yourself out about it.
One tip - if your eggs are cooked more than you want them to be but not at the turning green stage, you have some wiggle room in whisking in uncooked beaten eggs into the overcooked eggs. The heat from the cooked eggs and further hot holding will cook the raw eggs and it will distract somewhat from the overcooked bits. It's not perfect but it's "good enough" and it can help you save a chafing dish of eggs that you'd otherwise have to throw out.

That's really all there is too it. If you have more eggs than you can comfortable fit in the pot, you'll have to do it in batches but all that means is "cook eggs, dump into chafing dish/hotel pan, start cooking more eggs."
Comment: One other tip: if you're starting with whole eggs (and the OP seems not to be) breaking over 100 eggs takes longer than you think, and the yolks tend to stay whole once you're dropping them into a pan with lots in already. Then you end up chasing them round the pan to break them up.
Comment: If you're breaking whole eggs, break all of them into a china cap over a bucket before cooking anything.
Comment: I used a small pan, tipping into the big pan every 10 or so eggs - second time I cooked bulk scrambled eggs. The first time was when I had trouble breaking them, though I didn't break them at the stove, I took the pan elsewhere
Comment: stirring is important, but you also don't want to lose your curds. If you stir too much, you'll have an egg sauce rather than scrambled eggs. You need to let the eggs setup on the heat, then stir them off the heat so new liquid egg can be cooked.
Comment: @Escoce yeah I meant just to stir frequently, not constantly. I'll clarify.
Answer: As MikeTheLiar mentioned, a steamer would help for this:
If you have more than one pan to cook them in of the same width & length by different depths, and they're not thin disposable containers, you might try making your own bain marie (double boiler) :
Place the larger one across the burner or two, and put an inch or so of water in it.  (you should try for an inch (2.5cm), but you might need less if the depth of the containers is too similar, and placing the top container on forces water out of the lower container).
Put the other container on top.
Once the water is boiling, and you have steam, adjust the temperature so the water is staying hot and generating steam, but not a rolling boil.
Add your oil or butter, let it coat the pan well, then cook the eggs in the top vessel, stirring constantly 'til it's not quite to the consistency you want (as there will be a little bit of carry over-cooking)
...
I've also heard that you can do large batches of scrambled eggs in the oven (350°F/175°C), stir after 10 minutes, then every 5 minutes 'til they're done (technically, not quite done) ... most recipes claim it takes 20-25 minutes.
Answer: From personal experience, I have baked scrambled eggs for large numbers of people (100+ in some instances). I used a recipe similar to this, literally the first link that came up when googled. I have used steamers in the past but found the oven easier for consistency sake, without having to seek out new equipment.
Comment: While linking to an off-site recipe may be helpful in the short-term, off-site links tend to go dead. Thus, it's likely that  at some point in the future the link here will be useless. When that happens, all readers will know is that you found using the oven easier when cooking for large numbers of people, but they won't know how to do it. So, please [quote the most important portions](/help/referencing) of your off-site link.
Comment: Thank you @makyen for that illuminating comment. I will be sure to do that in the future. However, as I frequently operate off my phone (currently and at the time of writing that answer) it sometimes is difficult to do so. But, thanks for the advice.

Making Eggs for 50 people