How can I be sure if the Buddha actually woke up?

Question: waking up to the ultimate truth of reality and that anyone can do like him. I feel like I'm living in the matrix. but i'm not so sure if waking up is possible.
Comment: When you meet the person with the red pill, take it! You will find out.
Answer: I feel the reason why people struggle to see that becoming " Awakened" is impossible or very difficult is because of ignorance. How can anyone possibly see something that they can't comprehend, it's a paradox!
But......this is why we know the Buddha was "enlightened" and "awakened" to the truth of suffering because He created the Dhamma, the Noble Eightfold  path, the way out of suffering.( It would be impossible for someone to show others the way out if they themselves were not free!)
The matrix you speak of is the delusion, it is the ignorance which blinds us of the truth, but once you come to realize the truth, you will see that in fact it takes more energy and creation to live in a world of fantasy, a world of fantasy that will bring pain and suffering to all!!
I hope i have helped you in someway!
Metta
Answer: Why care if anybody woke up?
What use is it to you?
I'll answer that for you: the only use you have of getting qualified answers from qualified people (like the Buddha, Jesus, etc.) is that they have a case history of their answers working for many people (who actually did what they said not just learned about it).
So what do you do? Is believing anything gonna do you any good?
No! Develop your own curiousity for it.
If you don't like it then go somewhere else, find something you like, find something that clicks with you and go for it!
Back to Buddhism, you are living in the matrix and the Buddha outlined a method to escape social conditioning (including media brainwash) and:

achieve permanent happiness no matter the situation
escape the matrix of your body and mind and be able to reincarnate where you want
attain super-powers which have certain signs

That's my perspective and it's based on the various Buddhist teachers I've had, Taoist, Tantric, Zen, Esoteric, and Consciousness-Only, all of which I reccommend you study.
But you can't just believe all that amazing stuff about the Buddha and other superheroes by reading and thinking alone--which can be convincing alone if you read enough material and study enough bioenergetics--you've got to achieve it!
After you learn enough about it and gain the confidence about the overall path.
My personal reccommendation on where to start? Pick up a book by Master Nan (he passed away a few years ago but the human journey remains the same). Or if you're poor, start here and read the articles you like.
Learn about the 5 overall stages of the path and the different things that happen to your body when you meditate and do yoga correctly.
But whatever you do, don't answer to anyone by blind faith. And always be open to reading and learning for yourself independently going as far as you can with that amazing mind of yours!
Don't believe me or anybody as originally said by the Buddha:
"Now, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them."
Answer: Normally, those who are sure that the Buddha is enlightened are those who experience a "retrograde realization" (to quote Andrei Volkov) upon hearing and understanding the teachings of the Buddha. Upon reading some explanation by the Buddha, you might think, "oh! that's right! It matches my observation of how my mind works. But I never explicitly thought of it that way before, till I read this". This means that you have definitely observed how your mind works throughout your life, but it never became obvious to you, till you heard Buddha's explanation. As you experience more such aha moments, you realize that the Buddha really knows.
Answer: My 2 cents: Before you can judge whether another person is accomplished, at anything, or not, you have to be accomplished yourself. You have to develop your sensitivity such that you know true from false even in very subtle cases. I'd say that as long as the Buddha inspires you, pushes you to do things which deep down you know are right, you stick with it to the best of your ability. Ultimately it is said we should know for ourselves. There is no clear-cut proof for a claim for which its axioms have not been laid down and understood. And by what teachers tell us, nibbana is not a logical conclusion based on our pervasive daily axioms, it's an axiom to be verified for oneself. Until we realize the truth of this axiom, our job is to stick with it and see what it leads to, where it leads us. And we just keep pushing forward, chipping away at our mental defilements, each one at their own pace. But any steady pace is better than staying in place, to say nothing of regressing.
As for living inside the matrix, you should realize that this perception is a modern one, and brings with it quite a load of baggage from science fiction, so you should be very careful with it. To the extent of my readings, the Buddha never spoke about delusion in terms of the existence of objects (in fact he did not approve of such discussions), but rather in terms of the benefits we perceive in our conventions, which simply keep us in the cycle, because the nature of our objects is to appear, cease, and reappear, over and over again. Each time they near perishing, we should be very careful about our suppositions. We should realize their nature, that our control over their ways is limited, so as to not crash down with them.

Dwelling at Savatthi. There the Blessed One said to the monks: "In one who keeps focusing on the allure of clingable phenomena, craving develops. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origin of this entire mass of suffering & stress. -- SN 12.52
Answer: I don't know what "living in the Matrix" means (although I've seen the movie).
I'm not a psychologist -- is it Dissociation, Depersonalization, Derealization, or something like that, that you think you're feeling?

Anyway, back to the topic of the Buddha: you're asking whether he awoke to the ultimate truth of reality.
Well, the main truths, the first truths, that he taught were that unhappiness comes from:

Wanting things you that don't have (e.g. because we are not infinitely rich/wealthy)
Wanting to keep things you can't keep (e.g. because people get sick and die, things get old and worn out)
Wanting to be someone who you're not
Wanting to be not yourself

He also taught that it's possible to let go of that unhappiness, by letting go of all that wanting.
If you stop wanting the wrong things (see above) then that removes the cause of your unhappiness.
I don't know about you but this seems like a sensible teaching:

It's helpful (how to stop being unhappy)
It's practicable
It's testable (you can try it for yourself, perhaps even easily try it)

He then goes on to give a lot of other good advice: for example about how to prevent anger from arising. It's difficult to summarize what he taught because there's so much of it; but when he summarized it, he summarized it as "the truth of suffering, and the truth of cessation of suffering" ... i.e. he taught about what causes unhappiness, and taught a way which if you follow it will lead to the cessation of suffering.
That 'way' includes many components: e.g. you have to 'understand' what the way is, you need 'will' or intention to follow the way, you need some mental 'concentration', etc. etc.

There's a sutta called Buddha Sutta: Awakened which starts with,

At Savatthi... "Monks, the Tathagata — the worthy one, the rightly self-awakened one, who from disenchantment with form, from dispassion, from cessation, from lack of clinging (for form) is released — is termed 'rightly self-awakened.' And a discernment-released monk — who from disenchantment with form, from dispassion, from cessation, from lack of clinging (for form) is released — is termed 'discernment-released.'

... and ends with,

The Blessed One said, "The Tathagata — the worthy one, the rightly self-awakened one — is the one who gives rise to the path (previously) unarisen, who engenders the path (previously) unengendered, who points out the path (previously) not pointed out. He knows the path, is expert in the path, is adept at the path. And his disciples now keep following the path and afterwards become endowed with the path.
"This is the difference, this the distinction, this the distinguishing between one rightly self-awakened and a monk discernment-released."

In summary the Buddha is called "self-awakened" because he himself figured out what he taught; monks can now follow the path which he discovered and taught.
I guess that "being enchanted with form", having "passion" for forms, and "clinging" to forms is being described by analogy as a kind of being asleep, being unskillful, being unaware.
Comment: In "The Matrix", The Matrix is a false reality conjured by machines for people to live in; a reality which most assume is the real world. This is often taken to be a metaphor for samsara.
Answer: I think, the best answer here is "you cannot be sure". It's a tradition from which you heard it.
However, you can try to get familiar with that what has also been transmitted about the practize and the teaching of the Buddha. If you find out that -by following the proposed path- you get a little bit nearer to understanding, freedom-in-thought, awareness, mindfulness, compassion ... then you might become more convinced . Such thing is even a many-times reported experience, which can be found many times in the suttas but also in the whole evolution of the buddhist practice and experience up to today.
But when you'll become sure - that shall be a very individual, personal moment which cannot, in my opininion, ever be formalized as a general rule (perhaps even in some  bureaucratic/scientific or the-like account). (a nice composition about this is in @ruben2020 's answer)

Because this question came up on the mainpage again, just another thought.
You can't know it, you only can believe it. I think similar situations in the samana discourse have been the reason for the convention of the "Lion's roar" . That seems to be one possibility to announce such a thing like "awakening" that was not on the disposal of the outer world. The outer world could only believe/or not or try to disprove by showing that the content of the "Lion's roar" of someone could be disproved factual and/or by outcome in that real practice.
So there is one sutra, I think it is the MN12 showing the "Lion's roar" of the Buddha, but there is also another sutra (don't have the source at the moment)  where this is only a part and only expressed shorter; but there is also one sutra about Sariputta's "Lions-roar" which the Buddha probed when asked him "by what do you know that your master is enlightened/behaving enlightened?"
I think that term occurs somewhere else casually in the PK and I'm sure some discussion of it should be in contemporary literature, and possibly wikipedia, because of it being a feature of the widespread samana's culture.
Answer: In a sense, it's not relevant.
The Buddha found his enlightenment or awoke from the understanding of life which caused him a great deal of emotional suffering because he searched (which is an understatement) and one day uncovered his great gift of love and compassion. For life, humanity, and himself.
This was taken from the Wikiquote page listing quotes from Gautama Buddha (I almost typed in 'The Buddha's WikiQuote page'... makes me wonder if The Buddha would edit his own page... for accuracy's sake, of course. ;)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha

Do not go by revelation;

  Do not go by tradition;

  Do not go by hearsay;

  Do not go on the authority of sacred texts;

  Do not go on the grounds of pure logic;

  Do not go by a view that seems rational;

  Do not go by reflecting on mere appearances;

  Do not go along with a considered view

  Do not go along on the grounds that the person is competent;

  Do not go along because "the recluse is our teacher."

  Kalamas, when you yourselves know:
  These things are unwholesome, these things are blameworthy;
  these things are censured by the wise;
  and when undertaken and observed, these things lead to
  harm and ill, abandon them...

  Kalamas, when you know for yourselves:
  These are wholesome; these things are not blameworthy; these things
  are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to
  benefit and happiness, having undertaken them, abide in them.

The part that is important is that the Buddha asked 'Don't take him at his word. Find out for yourself.'
If you don't think the Buddha awoke... Good. That personal truth that you don't believe or don't 'know' the Buddha awoke is alot more valuable than having faith in someone's actions or realization despite the respect and praise of the wisdom of his teachings.
Whether you know it or not, your pose of the question makes you 'Buddhist' in essence even if you don't meditate or chant or believe in the enlightenment of the Buddha.
The only difference between you and the Buddha is that you feel that the 'Matrix' is blocking your freedom and love and compassion for your whole, fully realized potential as a human being and the potential of others.
Continually testing the 'Matrix' and also testing your own intents and motivations for 'seeking' enlightenment and noticing the results of your questions will help you cultivate the 'awakening mind' that is the heart of living a full and rich and loving life.
Blessings
Answer: If you're not sure that waking up is possible, then you don't know how this matrix works yet.
You have to find out how this matrix works.
How beings come into this matrix?
Why do they come into this matrix? What's the reason? The cause?
Answers to these questions can only be found through own experience in meditation. Anything else is "religion" or "belief", which is better than "doubt".
Answer: The truth is you cant be sure if the Buddha woke up. I would imagine it would be like trying to tell someone who is blind from birth, what light is.
No words could ever do it justice. Therefore the only course of action is to find out for yourself what you can. Dont rely on any scripture for truth. Because even if the words are true, you still wont know what it is.
Answer: The Gods had the same question about Lord Buddha & Lord Buddha answered the question by performing "Ruwan Sakmana". Also when the Paswaga Thawusan had the doubt Lord Buddha simply answered it by asking "Have I ever said a lie to you?".
Answer: You can't be sure.
What you can do is: (1) give his doctrine a sincere try for some time (2) see if it works... If it doesn't work, then leave it. If it does, there's your surety.
Answer: You can be sure that Buddha woke up( got enlightenment) because after he attained nirvana he thought to himself that "I have attained Buddhaship. I am the teacher of three worlds. "


What are all of the speed numbers for a bike?

Question: If you are buying a bike, there are a lot of different speeds. Is there a complete list of speeds? I'm trying to create an array...
var allSpeeds = ["single-speed","3-speed","12-speed"];
Comment: This doesn't seem like a particularly useful thing to do. Why do you want to do it? From a computer programming point of view, the number of gears is just an integer, so why not store it as one?
Comment: I'd use `const` instead.
Comment: Its got to be a positive integer value, unless its a CVT.
Comment: @Criggie a balance bike is surely zero-speed.
Comment: @ChrisH You gotta be That Guy don'tcha ....   but yes you're totally right. Scooters or balance bikes or run bikes would be zero gears because they don't have a transmission or pedals at all.
Answer: While not everything is commonly available new now, every number from 1 to 33 has been found on new bikes except 13, 17, 19, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, and 32. If you start counting quad chainring setups and internal hubs with clusters hacked on to them you get access to a bunch of other weird numbers.
Note that looking at the number of speeds itself is basically trivia. The gearing range and the interval between available gears tell an equally or more important part of the story.
Comment: You probably don't even need exotic hardware to get those numbers, it's likely the right combo of front and rear can produce ratio overlaps that effectively reduce the number of true speeds.
Answer: The number of 'speeds' a bicycle is quoted as having is really the number of gear ratios available. There is no definitive list.
On a single speed bike this is, by definition, 1.
On a internal hub geared bike the minimum number is usually 3, maximum I've heard of is 11 14.
On a derailleur equipped bike the number of ration is usually said to be the  number of sprockets on the rear wheel multiplied by the number of sprockets on the crank, hence the classic '10 speed' with 5 rear and 2 crank sprockets. Bikes that have more than 1 front sprocket have significant overlap between ration available in each, so the effective number of ratios is actually less.
In recent times less expensive bikes tend to have 6, 7, 8 or 9 rear sprockets combined with 3 crank sprockets. Road bikes have 9, 10 or 11 rear x 2 front. A recent development is 11 or 12 rear and a single front sprocket on mountain bikes and some road bikes.
You can see that there are many gear ratio choices. The only hard rule is that derailleur bikes with more that one crank sprocket cannot have a number of ratios that is a prime number (3, 5, 7, 11, etc.)
Comment: [Rohloff](https://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub/) makes a 14 speed internally geared hub
Comment: You also have to hope the OP never has to deal with some of Sheldon Brown's more adventurous creations, like hub gears combined with derailleurs for (IIRC) 63 combinations.
Comment: Actually, if one "subtracts out" the combos that are identical, due to, say, the 1-3 combo being the same gear ratio as the 2-5 combo, then likely it *is* possible to have a prime number (though it makes my head hurt to think about it).
Comment: @DanielRHicks I was ignoring that complication
Comment: You forgot about 13-speed cassette by Rotor!
Answer: The "meaning" of gear "speeds" is different depending upon the type of gear system:

"Single speed" is clear. There are no variable gears. You will travel the same distance for each revolution of the cranks, which the pedals are attached to. If you pedal faster, you will go faster. If you pedal slower you will go slower. A special case of "single speed" is "fixed gear", where you can't freewheel. If the bike is moving, so are the pedals.
Bike with "hub gears". Also known as IGH (internal gear hubs). Examples include Shimano Alfine, Shimano Nexus, Sturmey Archer, Rohloff. All the mechanism is contained within the rear hub. You change gear to change the RATIO between how fast you pedal and how fast the bike goes. So going up a hill you will change to a "low" gear. You will pedal at the same speed as you were pedalling on the flat, but the bike will go up the hill slower. If you couldn't change gear you would have to pedal very slowly, and with a lot of effort. Which is what you have to do on a single speed. Hub gears have a set of 3 to 14 gears. My hub gear bikes all have 8 gears (Shimano Alfine or Nexus).
Bike with derailleur gears have separate, visible cogs at the rear and often at the cranks too. Look at the right-hand side of the rear wheel of a bike and you will see them. If there is only one "cog" attached to the cranks and 7 "cogs" attached to the rear wheel then you have a 7 speed bike. As there are 7 different gear ratios. If you have, as I do, 3 cogs attached to the cranks and 9 cogs at the rear SOME PEOPLE DESCRIBE THAT AS "27 SPEEDS". Because 9 times 3 is 27. However, that isn't really accurate. Because the various combinations of cogs don't really give 27 discrete, separate ratios between pedalling and road speed. My bike for instance has 9 "speeds" when I'm using the middle crankring (the one attached to the pedals), 2 higher ratios above it for the larger crankring, and 2 lower ratios when I'm using the small crankring. There are many different ratios in the middle, but they overlap. So I have effectively a "13 Speed" bike.

What is slightly more useful to look at is gear "range". Which is the difference between the lowest and the highest gear. Usually expressed as a percentage. On mine I think it is about 530%, which is considered wide.
So comparing gear "speeds" isn't necessarily always what it appears. My nominally "27 speed" derailleur bike has the same gear RANGE as a bike equipped with the "14 speed" Rohloff hub gear system.
My Shimano Alfine hub gear bike has a range of about 300%. I sometimes find that bottom gear isn't low enough (difficult to get up hills) and top gear isn't high enough (I 'spin out' on downhills).
A man called Sheldon Brown (RIP) has a very useful calculator to work these things out:
Sheldon's gear calc
Though you do need to know what sprockets and chainrings you have on the bike you are looking at to make use of it.
Comment: Sheldon's not dead - he's just on a really long ride.....
Comment: Actually, three chain-rings times nine sprockets usually _does_ give 27 discrete gear ratios. It's not feasible to use them sequentially and often there are ratios that are so close that they're practically the same but they are usually different. You might have two ways to choose 2:1 but, given the standard chain-ring sizes, there aren't many ratios that can be made in more than one way.
Comment: Yes, David Richerby is correct. My use of the word 'discrete' was very wrong.

What I am saying is that comparing a hub gear system to a derailleur gear system doesn't make sense using the number of distinct gear ratios, because many of them are so close together as to be practically the same

So for instance my 9 x 3 system does, it turns out, give me 27 DIFFERENT gear ratios. The rohloff hub gear has ONLY 14 gear ratios. But attempting to compare those two gear systems using only the number of gears is nonsensical, because they both have an overall USEFUL range of 530%.


Do modern DSLRs use a rolling or global shutter?

Question: I recently learned about these technologies and the differences between them. Which one of these do modern DSLR cameras (esp. Canon and Nikon models) come with?
Comment: I'm not sure if you think about still or video here, but there is a difference. Have a look at http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/24370/when-does-the-camera-use-the-mechanical-shutter-and-when-does-it-use-the-electro
Answer: Modern DSLR cameras come with rolling shutter. My Nikon has visible rolling shutter (in certain conditions).
I don't know whether exceptions exist.
Yes, this site says that CMOS have a rolling shutter and CCD uses total shutter.
Here is a search showing all cameras with a CCD sensor. Here is the same search but showing DSLR cameras only. There are no results for the second search.
However, you should consider whether rolling shutter is a problem for you. For me it is not. You can work around it in most situations, you can also remove some of it in post (premiere pro, apparently). But if you are concerned about this for video shooting, you should ask on http://avp.stackexchange.com.
Comment: I heard that CCD chips come with global shutter while CMOS chips come with rolling shutter technology. Is this correct? Does anyone know where to find this information for different models of Canon and Nikon cameras? E.g. Canon 1D models are equipped with CCD chips while other models use CMOS. How can I know for sure which shutter technology each uses?
Comment: It seems that CCD chips don't show rolling shutter (see link in text). I added a link to find DSLRs with CCD chip, there are none returned. The Canon 1D X (the latest Canon 1D model) has a CMOS sensor.
Comment: I would think about whether rolling shutter really is a problem for you.
Comment: Thanks for you answer. Firstly, you are right, the last Canon that came with CCD was the first series 1D http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer/eos_slr_camera_systems/eos_digital_slr_cameras/eos_1d#Specifications
Secondly, shutter technology is not a concern for me, I just want to understand. I have a 7D by the way.
Comment: Just like interlaces sensors are getting deprecated, the evoluaiton of CMOS sensors are going towards global shutters. My Basler cameras have global shutter CMOS. its lower res than DSLRs. In the future our DLSRs will have global shutters.
Answer: CMOS sensors almost all use a rolling shutter, CCDs are generally necessary to get a global shutter.  It has to do with the way the sensor is read.  A CMOS sensor by design has to be read in series and thus creates a rolling effect as values are sampled.  The main way that a few specialized sensors get around this is by including memory with each pixel to capture the value so it can then be read sequentially.  CCDs on the other hand dump all their information in to a buffer at the same time and the buffer is then read, thus the sampling occurs at the same moment.
Recent advances in CMOS technology has greatly reduced the extent of the rolling shutter on higher end sensors, but it is none the less still present and is not possible to eliminate entirely.  The reason CCDs aren't always used is that they are much more expensive, particularly for high resolution applications and don't offer significant advantages for still photography.
Now that CMOS has come as far as it has, it is appearing in lower cost professional video cameras such as the Canon Cinema EOS line while the higher end video gear uses 3 CCDs (one for each color, red, green and blue).
CCDs are not used generally used in still cameras because of the resolution issues.  HD video is only about 2 megapixels.  Making a color CCD at something like 18+ megapixel resolution is quite expensive.  For example, an 11 megapixel CCD camera that I found used was running for $2600 without lens.  Such cameras are often only used for industrial applications where both resolution and global shutter are needed.


Lubuntu Dual-Boot on a MacBook?

Question: Is it possible to Dual-Boot Lubuntu on a MacBook?
If so how would I do it?
I have not tried as yet as I wanted to know the proper way to do such thing.
Answer: Yes it should be possible!
You should start by modifying the size of the partition where mac is installed with the mac "Disk Utility".
Then you should install rEFIt: http://refit.sourceforge.net/ which simplify the booting of linux distros.
At last you insert the Lubuntu cd and install normally
EDIT: you may also use rEFInd: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ instead of rEFIt as the rEFIt website states, but I personally never tried it.

Lubuntu Dual-Boot on a MacBook?


CSS animation with transforms only on the X axis

Question: Is it possible to animate only the X axis with using a combination of CSS transition and transform, I want to use the translate3D value as its hardware accelerated on mobile.
The code below works great with my left to right animation however the issue comes when I try to interact with the element in any other way as I end up getting an unwanted animation as the transition is set to 'all'.  I thought changing this to 'left' would do it but it dosent work with trasnlate3D which I suppose makes sense as you are not animation the left position but moving on the x axis with translate3d
<code>.slide-xy {             -webkit-transition: 0.25s all ease-out; }
.slide-xy {            -webkit-transform: translate3d(0,0,0); }
.active .slide-xy {    -webkit-transform: translate3d(-80%,0,0); }
</code>
Answer: The correct syntax is:
<code>.slide-xy {             -webkit-transition: 0.25s -webkit-transform ease-out; }
.slide-xy {            -webkit-transform: translate3d(0,0,0); }
.active .slide-xy {    -webkit-transform: translate3d(-80%,0,0); }
</code>


Am I missing something with Beer Can chicken?

Question: I've tried beer can chicken a few times, BBQ and in the oven, but it doesn't seem overly special to me.  I am not sure if I should also be covering the chicken with some kind of sauce, but the chicken never seems to absorb much flavour, so I am wondering if I am using the wrong kind of beer, or if I am doing something wrong.  While people seem to rave about the juiciness, it doesn't seem any more juicy than rotisserie or just baking in the over with some kind of marinade.
Comment: I suspect you were talking to a Jamaican, and he meant "Bacon Chicken". Observe: http://www.baconorbeercan.com/
Answer: Beer Can Chicken has a few tricks to have it turn out amazing as opposed to just average.  I always take my thawed chicken and rub it all over inside and out with vegetable oil and pureed garlic (about one large clove). Then I coat the skin with seasonings like salt, pepper, seasoned salt or chicken/poultry seasoning like sage or an \Italian mix; you can use anything the you want. Cajun spice and lemon are also pretty good.  The beer has to have some flavour to it, don't use a light beer. Apple ciders (strong bow, perry's pear cider, black thorne) or a white wine/cooking cherry will also do the trick. I use a half a pop/beer can and then stuff the chicken and the bottom tray with onions, red peppers, garlic and celery. The key to crispy skin and moist chicken is low heat on the BBQ, turn one side onto medium heat and put the chicken on the off side with the lid closed for 20 minutes per pound of chicken.  Practice makes perfect....chicken.
Comment: I like the apple cider idea, I'm sure that you'd get that apple hint in there.  I'll try to lather on more seasoning next time as well.
Answer: In my experience beer can chicken usually allows you to cook the chicken until the skin is much crispier than you would normally be able to without drying out the entire chicken.  The beer is in the cavity keeping the chicken moist.  I can see how a rotisserie would mimic many of these qualities, and even a well-done roasting technique can do great things for chicken skin.  Unless, however, you are basting your chicken's meat in beer, adding wood chips to your heat source, and putting on a delectable spice rub, you won't quite get the same flavors.
Steven Raichlen has written an entire book dedicated largely to beer can chicken, and you can find a Google Books preview.  Here's an excerpt from the introduction.

So what is it that makes beer can chicken so irresistable?...The rising vapors impart a delicate beer flavor, simultaneously keeping the bird juicy and tender.  And because the steaming takes place inside the chicken, the meat stays moist but doesn't become soggy.  Then, there's the benefit of cooking the chicken upright.  The vertical position allows fat to drain off and the skin to cook evenly, even on the back.  The result is a bird that's crackling crisp on the outside, moist and tender on the inside. (page 2)
Answer: The idea is that the steam from the beer will keep the chicken moist while the can holds it up. There isn't much flavor transfer from the beer, since it isn't in direct contact with the meat.
If you want to flavor the chicken, a dry rub is probably your best bet. You can also use injectable marinades, often used when deep-frying whole birds or roasting larger birds to help keep them moist. Basically you get a giant syringe and hypodermic needle and inject some flavorings into the meat directly.
Answer: A couple of people have done side by side comparisons of various approaches to beer can chicken and came to the conclusion that you're better off just spatchcocking the chicken and roasting/grilling/smoking it that way and applying the seasonings directly.
http://www.nakedwhiz.com/beercanchicken.htm
Comment: I'm a big fan of spatchcocking.
Comment: That was a great read, thank you for sharing.  I love experiments like that.  I actually just bought a roaster last night and was going to try beer can this week; I'm not even going to waste my time now.  Spatchcocking, here I come!
Answer: Are you just using beer, or are you using other flavors and spices?
I open a can of beer and pour it into a sauce pan, and mix in a couple tablespoons of butter and my spices. Then I use a funnel to pour about half back into the can, and save the other half for basting.
After I stick the chicken on the can, I use a toothpick to loosely seal the neck cavity and trap the steam a little better.
Several times during the cooking, I use the saved liquid to baste the chicken.
After it's done, I take the drippings and remainder in the can and thicken it in a sauce pan. Then I either pour it over the chicken after it is cut up, or serve it as gravy.


If an heuristic is not admissible, can it be consistent?

Question: I am solving a problem in which, according to the given values, the heuristic is not admissible. According to my calculation from other similar problems, it should be consistent, as well as keeping in mind the values, but the solution says it's not consistent either. Can someone tell why?
Comment: A consistent heuristic is always admissible, but an admissible heuristic does not have to be consistent. Someone may be able to give some examples for you in an answer. However, if you want to know why *your* heuristic is neither, you need to share details of the problem and your attempted solution
Answer: For a heuristic to be admissible, it must never overestimate the distance from a state to the nearest goal state.
For a heuristic to be consistent, the heuristic's value must be less than or equal to the cost of moving from that state to the state nearest the goal that can be reached from it, plus the heurstic's estimate for that state.
What this means is that, as you move along the sequence of nodes from start to goal that the heuristic recommends, a consistent heuristic should monotonically decrease in value. A consistent heuristic is thus also always admissible.
Notice that this means that if a heuristic is not admissible (like yours), it is also not consistent (by the contrapositive).
Therefore, if you already know your heuristic is not admissible, you should not be surprised that it is not consistent.
It seems most likely that you may have confused the definition of consistent for monotone. A consistent heuristic is both monotone and admissible.
As Neil Says, if you want to know why your specific heuristic is inadmissible, you should post another question about it, or modify this one.
Answer:
If a heuristic is not admissible, can it be consistent?

No. Consistency implies admissibility. In other words, if a heuristic is consistent, it is also admissible. However, admissibility does not imply consistency. In other words, an admissible heuristic is not necessarily consistent.
Definitions
Given a graph $G=(V, E)$ representing the search space, where $V$ and $E$ are respectively the set of vertices and edges, and the function $w: E \times E \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ that defines the weight (or cost) of each edge of $G$, an admissible heuristic $h_{\text{a}}$ is defined as
$$h_{\text{a}}(n) \leq h^*(n), \forall n \in V$$
where $h^*(n)$ is the optimal cost to reach a goal from $n$ (so $h^*(n)$ is the optimal heuristic).
On the other hand, a consistent heuristic $h_{\text{c}}$ is defined as
\begin{align}
h_{\text{c}}(n) &\leq w(n, s) + h_{\text{c}}(s), \forall n \in V \setminus \mathcal{G}, \text{ and} \\
h_{\text{c}}(g) &= 0, \forall g \in \mathcal{G},
\end{align}
where $s$ is a successor of $n$, $g$ is any goal node and $\mathcal{G}$ is the set of goal nodes of the graph $G$.
Theorem
A consistent heuristic is an admissible heuristic.
Proof
Let $h$ be a consistent heuristic. Given that $h$ is consistent, then $h(g) = 0$, for any goal node $g$, so it does not overestimate the cost of reaching the goal at any of the goal nodes (given that, if you already are at a goal node, the cost is $0$, and $h(g) = 0$ is not greater than $0$). Let $g_{n}$ be an arbitrary neighbour of an arbitrary goal node $g$. Given that $h$ is consistent, then $h(g_{n}) \leq w(g_{n}, g) + h(g)$. Given that $h(g)$ does not overestimate the cost to reach the goal from $g$, then $w(g_{n}, g) + h(g)$ also does not overestimate the cost of reaching the goal from $g_n$, given that $w(g_{n}, g)$ is the true cost of the edge $(g_{n}, g) \in E$ and the cost to reach the goal from $g_n$ must be at least $w(g_{n}, g)$. This reasoning can be applied inductively (or recursively) on $g_n$ (then on the neighbouring nodes of $g_n$, and so on), so $h$ must be admissible.
Comment: Yes; I'm just being a bit pedantic. I would just change your proof to say that $h(g) = 0$ is by your definition of consistent. The literature on this isn't always *consistent*. : )
Comment: A proof by induction usually requires you to prove 2 cases: 1) a _base case_ (prove that a property holds for a base case of the statement) and 2) _induction step_ (assume that a property holds for $n$ and prove it also holds for $n+1$ or $n-1$). This proof by induction does not have a proper _induction step_, but I hope it is intuitive enough. This is more like a recursive proof.
Comment: $h$ being consistent doesn't require that $h(g) = 0$. If $h(g) = 10$ you could still have a consistent heuristic everywhere that was not admissible. But, typically we *assume* that $h(g) = 0$.
Comment: @NathanS. I defined the consistent heuristic in a certain way (but I am not saying it can't be defined differently). The rest should follow unless there's a mistake in my reasoning (which I don't exclude).
Comment: @NathanS. Just to clarify. If you don't define $h(g) = 0$, then consistency does not necessarily imply admissibility, i.e. the set of consistent heuristics would not be a subset of the set of admissible heuristics, unless $h(g) \leq h^*(g)$. Do you agree? By the way, could you please provide an example of a paper or book where a consistent heuristic is not defined such that $h(g) = 0$, and so what are the implications in terms of the relationship between consistency and admissibility? It's been a while since I had to deal with these topics, but my knowledge is a bit rusty now.
Comment: Yes, when $h(g)=0$ then consistency implies admissibility. Pearl's 1984 textbook equates consistency and the triangle inequality, and separately assumes that **all** heuristics have $h(g)=0$. Martelli, 1977 similarly defines consistency only by the triangle inequality, as do most other papers that define consistency. Wikipedia is an outlier, and thus doesn't necessarily represent published literature.


Is wild camping possible in Germany? Where?

Question: Is it possible to do wild camping in Germany? Are there specific zones for that?
If yes, can someone recommend a few, preferably with nice trails to walk.
The idea is to go into nature.
Comment: Do you mean *possible* or *legal*?  The two questions are completely different.  It's not legal, but if you're remote, invisible, and well-behaved, nobody's going to arrest you.
Comment: This has been addressed on [Outdoors.SE]. [(1)](http://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/3935/566), [(2)](http://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/1068/566), [(3)](http://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/96/566), for example.
Comment: @gerrit both. If legal where. If not legal is it tolerated, and also where.
Answer: Check out Freagle. Freagle is like couchsurfing, instead of your couch you can offer your backyard, barn...
It's not wild camping per se but it is trying to fill the gap between the illegal wild camping and the normal camp site. And indeed, not so many hosts available. Still worth a try.
My own experience with wild camping in Germany is positive if you keep simple rules in mind.

Don't camp in a bigger group
Don't campfire
Don't litter
Keep yourself out of sight
Don't stay more than one night
Don't camp in a natural reserve (from comments: thanks @amon)

Even if you get "caught" by a ranger or police they will ask you to move or make you pay a little fine. It is more or less a trivial offence in my opinion.
Comment: Some additions: Don't camp in a natural reserve (don't even leave a marked trail there). Don't use a tent; this makes it more obvious that you are just staying for the night, and reduces visibility. Avoid camping near hunter perches, they may be frequented at night. Avoid camping near water or moist ground: wild boars like to roll in the mud. If you sleep in the open, moving on before sunrise prevents your stuff getting wet from morning dew, and minimizes encounters.
Comment: @amon That is excellent advice
Answer: In general wild camping is illegal in Germany.
 However I could find where you can do it, but not for free. Trekiking-pfalz.de offers 10 camping places for up to 6 tents, the price for one tent is 10 EUR / night. You're allowed to stay on one place only for a night and then you have to move along. On their website there are some recommended routes, and there are also iOS and Android Apps.

The camping places are in wild areas but within walking distance. You can make a reservation online or locally
Answer: According to this page wild camping is illegal in Germany, but what is allowed is "overnight parking".
The distinction is that overnight parking just means you are parking in a regular parking lot and not setting up a table outside your vehicle or anything similar.
Comment: It would basically be illegal to set up a tent next to your car.
Comment: Do you know how does that apply to tents?
Answer: It is possible, but not legal.
Other questions have already addressed the illegality of wild camping in Germany, and offer some alternatives if you don't want to violate the law.
However, if you're in a remote place, high up in the mountains, or otherwise in a place where people do not pass by, and you are very well-behaved, the chances of being caught may be very low indeed.
Of course, whether you are willing to violate the law is up to you.
I have some experience with illegal wild camping in Belgium, with a nature organisation, and in Portugal on my own (due to unplanned delays I camped in a nature reserve where I should not have).
I don't know what would happen if you would get caught, but probably not much more than being told to leave.
See also

Tips for travelling through Europe with just a tent.
What are some things to keep in mind when stealth camping?
Where in Europe is wild camping permitted?
Answer: AFAIK almost every forest/unoccupied land in Germany is private property and therefore legally off-limits.
But I have often camped wild as resident with tent in Germany and never ever experienced problems. Conditions:

You are camping in a forest which is really big enough. Noone likes uninvited
campers in direct vicinity. An option is to ask a farmer if you may use the
lawn for your tent.
You are not seen. So go inside the forest on a place which is well concealed.
I use a green tent which is practically invisible.
Do NOT camp on roads. It is dangerous because even dead ends may used by
forest vehicles which are big and have poor visibility. You would not the first
one killed because the driver did not expect you and could not see you.
Much higher risk is camping in a national park where some are heavily patrolled.
In Rügen (island before the eastern coast of Germany) I did not camp.
Answer: I've camped 'wild' (for a single night) on a BMW1200GS in 30 countries in Europe and never been questioned. A German police officer told me not to use motorway rest areas because of the danger (to me) of being robbed. "Two kilometres off the main roads and no one will take any notice" he said. I had a police officer in Belgium take me to a good spot to wild camp on - in full view of the Police station, and in Sweden I put my tent up on the grass outside the Customs Office in a port! I only use official sites when close to towns. They're noisy and cost me valuable petrol money! You can wash your clothes though, but no better than in a mountain stream. (The ranger checked my washing liquid to make sure it was bio-safe.
I HAVE been given Hungarian goulash and a carafe of red wine for supper in Hungary, a lady brought me still-warm bread for breakfast on her way home in Germany, I've slept on a couch in a forest lodge in Poland and in a city apartment in France. (The guy said as he left early in the morning, 'Help yourself to anything you need. Just close the door when you leave" though he probably didn't mean the cannabis on the table and the magic mushrooms on the cupboard!)
People love being kind. I've been shown village greens to camp on, front lawns, hay fields - the German farmer came over with drinks for the evening - and a Norwegian invited me into his lounge to sleep after leaving a ferry at midnight. I camped in a secure beef-production farm in Portugal - that was a bit smelly though.
There's only one rule that covers all the others: Leave it as you find it - well, the grass might be a bit flatter, but I try to camp on short grass, and I'm generally round the corner out of sight. If not all the truck drivers sound their horns (for fun) as they are off to work in the morning!  I smile and give a gentle wave at anyone around - including them! - just to let them know I'm friend not foe and I know what I'm doing.  They just wave and smile back. Or come and chat.
I never light fires - even if you cover them up they destroy the soil's growing potential under the surface and will leave a bare patch for a couple of years. Human waste is no different from animal waste, and even the right sort of toilet paper kicked under some soil will be gone after the next rain. (By the end of the day in Norway and Scotland then!)
Oh, and I have a 4m long RED Hilleberg Tarra tent and a big motorbike. You can't miss it.  But that's good.  No one thinks I'm trying to hide, do they! It gives everyone something to chat to their neighbour about over coffee the next day. I'm a farmer's son, and most farmers are happy about it.  Just don't light any fires!
Go on - adventure.  It's great.  Just make sure you're a good ambassador for humanity.


Are there any Rishonim who believe that God´s existence cannot be proven rationally?

Question: Are there any Rishonim who believe that God´s existence cannot be proven rationally?
Comment: Not to get super philosophical on anybody but can you define exist and proof?
Comment: [Welcome to MiYodeya](https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3887/11501) Eli and thanks for this first question, hope to see you around !
Comment: @mroll any dictionary should do the trick
Comment: @heshy that's a perfect example of why I asked. From a quick google search the definition I got was to have relative reality. Meaning reality in relation to other things. Such as you and I both exist i.e.; we cannot take up each other's space, we can interact directly. By G-d those don't apply.  So he doesn't exist by this definition. Hence why I asked what definition of exist the asker meant.
Answer: In Sefer Emunas Chachamim (Ma'amar Revi'i) R. Abraham of Viterbo writes:

וכן הוא מציאות ה' שהענין אמת אע"פי שאין לו מופת זו היא כונת בעל העקרים
  וראיתו יותר נכונה מכל ראיות הרב
And so it is [with regard to] the existence of God – it is true even
  though there is no proof for it. This is the intent of the author of
  The Ikkarim [R. Joseph Albo], and his evidence is better than all
  the evidence of the Rav [Rambam].
Comment: Just to clarify, Emunas Chachamim is an Achron who is stating the opinion of a Rishon?
Comment: @user6591 It's an acharon stating his own opinion and then alleging that this is what a rishon meant.
Comment: no, it's alex taking this a bit out of context, i think
Comment: @heshy How so? If you look a couple of pages later he even goes so far as to say that had God not appeared to Avraham, he would have remained an idolater his entire life. I.e. even Avraham was unable to rationally prove the existence of (a monotheistic) God.
Comment: he seems to say that there is no מופת - sign, but that there is proof that is too difficult to understand... unless there is some very specific philisophical nuances that i am missing, if so then i apologize
Comment: @heshy (No need to apologize; you are allowed to critique my answers.) If there is a proof that no one can understand then it is essentially unprovable.
Comment: The Iqarim starts by listing three postulates. Thus, he calls belief in Creation, Revelation and Providence (or perhaps Divine Justice in particular) things one accepts as self-evident. Postulates come before proofs, they are the things accepted that one builds proofs upon. Before starting the process of proving shorashim and anafim -- derivable lemmas that are obligatory to believe or that or not, respectively. That discussion of Avraham and proof has an interesting manifestation in the Rambam vs the Or Hashem on the medrash about Avraham and the House on Fire / Illuminated Palace.
Comment: See the two posts starting at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol34/v34n010.shtml#07
Answer: It depends what you mean by "rationally". There are rishonim who believed that a philosophical proof of G-d was either pointless or meaningless. For example, Rabbi Yehudah haLevi has the Chaver say in the first chapter of the Kuzari:

That which you are describing is religion based on speculation and system, the research of much thought, yet open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on any one action nor any one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. (Kuzari 1:13)

And then later:

There is an excuse for the Philosophers. Being Greeks, science and religion did not come to them as inheritances. They belong to the descendants of Yafes, who inhabited the north, while that knowledge coming from Adam, and supported by the divine influence, is only to be found among the progeny of Sheim, who represented the successors of Noah and constituted, as it were, his essence. This knowledge has always been connected with this essence, and will always remain so. The Greeks only received it when they became powerful, from Persia. The Persians had it from the Chaldaeans. It was only then that the famous [Greek] Philosophers arose, but as soon as Rome assumed political leadership they produced no philosopher worthy the name.

We have knowledge of G-d from trusted sources -- our own ancestors. The Greeks did the best they can with less inherited knowledge and much deduction, but as he said earlier, such results are unreliable and open to debate.
The Kuzari invokes something much like what epistemologists today call "Reliabilism". Which is a pretty rational reason to believe something. If you get a lot of useful advice from a medical textbook, at some point it's irrational to double-check every fact before using it. Similarly, the information from your parents or a tradition from our whole culture.
But it's likely not the kind of "rational proof" you were talking about.
It also draws a very different image of G-d. To the Rambam, one proves G-d Exists (Moreh Nevuchim, sec II, about the first third or so) and from there that such a G-d would talk to prophets, give a Torah, halakhah, etc... (Taking us through to the rest of the Moreh.)
To Rabbi Yehudah haLevi, we start similar to the way the Aseres haDiberos start, "I am Hashem your G-d Who took you out of the land of Egypt" (1:11):

I believe in the G-d of Avraham, Yitzchaq and Yisrael, the One Who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; Who fed them in the desert and gave them a land, after having made them cross the [Red] Sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moshe with His Torah, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His Law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah--a very large domain.

The king of the Khazars is unhappy with this answer, expecting a more philosophical approach to G-d (par. 12):

I had not intended to ask any Jew, because I am aware of their low state and narrow-minded views, as their misery left them nothing admirable. Now shouldn't you, Jew, have said that you believe in the Creator of the world, its Governor and Guide, and in Him who created and sustains you, and such attributes which serve as evidence for every believer, and for the sake of which He pursues justice in order to resemble the Creator in His wisdom and justice?

And that is when the Chaver gives the response we saw above (par. 13), about how limited philosophy is at establishing truth. But his alternative is equally rationalist.
The Rambam's audience was influenced by a Moslem school of thought of the time called the Kalam, which eventually makes it to Christianity as Scholasticism. They take Aristotilian philosophy as discovered Truth, religion as revealed Truth, and try to make one picture of reality from the two. So his "Guide to the Perplexed" is a Jewish Qalam type picture.
The Kuzari was written before the Rambam's lifetime. (Perhaps it was a response to an even earlier Jewish Aristotilian, Rav Saadia Gaon and his "Emunos veDei'os".) However, the rishonim of Catalonia responded in the following centuries with a countervailing tendency. In particular, including the Ramban, the Ran, his student R' Yosef Albo and his Seifer haIqarim, and his student, Rav Chesdei Crescas in Or Hashem. There's was a staunchly rational approach, philosophical, but less accepting of Greek thought. Although in the language of the day, Or Hashem was an anti-philosophical work, that is only because "philosophy", then, was thought of as being the Greek kind in particular.
As per the name of his book, "Seifer haIqarim", Rav Albo believed that Judaism was founded on three postulates "iqarim" (essentials). From which one can derive 9 more mandatory beliefs, "shorashim" (roots), and many many other implications, "anafim" (branches). Interestingly, his list of 3 iqarim and 9 shorashim closely resembles the Rambam's 13 iqarei emunah (mandatory beliefs, none of which were held to be postulates). The 3 iqarim include belief that the universe has a Creator. (The other two are that the Creator revealed Truth to humans and that He metes out justice.) Belief in G-d is a postulate, not something proven from other postulates. (See Alex's answer.) Which is typical of this school.
Meanwhile, off in Ashkenaz, there was little organized study of philosophy. You can glean things about worldview between the cracks, by implications of comments made about Tanakh or halakhah. But nothing like the Ramban's commentary, where he would take the time to spell out a philosophical point.
An outlier case was one of the Tosafists, Rav Moshe ben Chasdai Taqu, who wrote a work called Kesav Tamim, of which only portions survived. He is usually assumed to be the one referred to by the Raavad when the Raavad objects to the Rambam labeling anyone who believes that Hashem has a body is a heretic. The Raavad says that at least one rabbi greater and more pious than the Rambam had such a belief.
However, the Kesav Tamim doesn't actually say that Hashem has a body, at least not in any text that survived. Rather, he so completely denies being able to reason about G-d that he says we cannot rule out Hashem having a body. In contrast to the Rambam, who says that G-d is so unfathomable all we can do is rule out what He isn't, Rav Moshe Taqu is saying all we can do is rely on prophecy and not reason at all.
A rational argument against rationalism. No?
That does not mean he insists we know for sure that phrases found in Tanakh like the "Hand of G-d" or "the anger of His Nostrils" was definitely meant as literal descriptions of G-d, as opposed to idioms referring to His Control and His Punishing the wicked. It seems more he was saying that in principle we cannot know for sure one way or the other. His primary topic is a polemic against R' Saadia Gaon and the Rambam for bringing philosophy to bear on the question, rather than trusting the Torah's words on their own terms.
So yes, there is at least one rishon who was anti-rationalist, saying that all theology is beyond reason. Then there were many rishonim who were anti-Kalam, who believed that the right way to ground religion was in something other than a philosophical proof from first principles. And yet, still held rational approaches.
Comment: Do any of the sources you discuss explicitly say that there can be no proof to God's existence, or are you inferring it from their general antirationalist/antiphilosophy attitude?
Comment: I don't see where (in the quoted passages) the Kuzari says specifically that God's existence cannot be proven. And you didn't cite a chapter for the Sefer HaIkkarim.
Comment: The Kuzari says that proofs as a sort don't work (read the quoted paragraph 1:13 and 1:63). And the Iqarim does say it's a postulate and not a provable lemma. Which is also a kind of based-on-experience claim; postulates are things that we take as self-evident.
Comment: The Kuzari berates proof, and then talks about how we believe in the G-d whom our ancestors relates to, and continues to talk about how proofs are inferior to such traditions. What more do you want? As for the Iqarim, it is the thesis of the opening pages where he explains what he means by an "iqar" amd why.
Comment: But it is a central theme in the books as a whole. Hard to pick just one citation.


Does brushing hamper my fasting?

Question: Will tasting toothpaste while brushing teeth break my fast?
Answer: well, on the other case. some of my country's ulama said that brushing teeth is makruh so they often tell to not doing that around fasting. but someother says it's welcome for us to do that as long as the water or the paste is not swallowed into our body.
Answer: Brush your teeth while you fast during Ramadan, but be careful that you don't swallow anything. You can use any fluoride toothpaste, but make sure you don't gulp it down.
Answer: Brushing the teeth during the fast will not break the fast until you swallow it. So be careful during brushing, don't swallow the toothpaste and water when you brush your teeth. But it can be broken when you brush your teeth due to hard toothbrush,it hurts the gums the blood come out from the gums and if that blood  mixed with saliva and you swallow it then it will break the fast.
Answer: Brushing your teeth during fasting is not hampered your fast until or unless you swallowed the toothpaste. You can use any toothpaste but be careful don't gulped it down. Dental hygiene paid heed to as one following the strict sovereignty during the month of blessings holy Ramadan
Answer: no brushing teeth doesn't breaks fast until and unless you swallowed the paste.

Does brushing hamper my fasting?


Has anyone replaced a macbook screen?

Question: I cracked the screen on my black macbook.  I am under warranty (3 year extended) but I know they won't replace it for cheap.  Has anyone replaced a macbook lcd before?  Anyone know where to get a replacement?
Answer: ScreenTek will sell you a MacBook LCD Screen (their removal instructions are here) or you can ship them your laptop and have them replace it for you. They had the best pricing the last time I shopped around.
Answer: My favorite site for this is iFixit. I had an LCD problem that required me to take the screen off, their tools and guides were the best I could possibly hope for. I ended up not needing the LVDS replacement cable I initially ordered and they were very nice about taking it back.

Has anyone replaced a macbook screen?


Why does the Samsung Galaxy Tab2 7.0 have a built in phone app?

Question: Why does the Samsung Galaxy Tab2 7.0 have a built in phone app?  It does not have a phone.
Comment: I think 3G one can make phone call.
Answer: There are 2 versions of Galaxy Tab2 7 - WIFI only and WIFI+3G.
3G version just has a slot to insert your SIM card (near SD slot) and turns your tablet into really big smartphone :)
I've also read, that 3G version is available only in Europe.


Composition of Relations

Question: I'm in a bit confusion of understanding "Composition of Relations ". can someone help me up with an example.
i have basic knowledge about relations, good explanation from some expert on this topic would get me through this topic.
Comment: Have you tried wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_relations. Exactly what is you are unable to understand ?
Comment: Here's an example: the relation "uncle" is the composition of "brother" and "parent", in the sense that your uncle is a brother of one of your parents.
Answer: If $A$ and $B$ are sets, then a relation on $(A,B)$ is merely a subset of $A \times B$.
Suppose that $A$, $B$, and $C$ are three sets. Let $R \subset A \times B$ and $S \subset B \times C$ be binary relations on $(A,B)$ and $(B,C)$ respectively. Then $S \circ R \subset X \times Z$ a relation on $(X,Z)$ defined by
$S \circ R = \{(a,c) : (\exists b \in B)((a,b) \in R \text{ and } (b,c) \in S)\}$
Note that that $A$ and $B$ are functions, then $B \circ A$ defined above correspond to the usual function composition.
Answer: One example I find helpful is the notion of "multi-valued functions". Define a multi-valued function $f$ to be one which just satisfies $(\forall x)(\exists y)f(x) = y$ and not necessarily $(\forall x)(\forall y, y')f(x) = y$ and $f(x) =  y'$ implies $y = y'$. Just as in the case of normal functions we can associate $f$ with its graph $G(f)$. Then the composition of relations $G(f) \circ G(g)$ corresponds to the multi-valued function $h$ where $h(x) = y$ if there is some intermediate $z$ with $g(x) = z$ and $f(z) = y$.
Answer: Consider three sets $X,Y,Z$ with relations $R \subset X \times Y$ and $S \subset Y \times Z$. We want to construct a new relation, $S \circ R$, between $X$ and $Z$. For motivation, let's take an example where $X$ is the set of lines in the plane, $Y$ the set of points, and $Z$ the set of closed circles with their interiors. Then we can set $(l,p) \in R$ or $l R p$ if $p$ is a point on $l$ and $(p,c) \in S$ if $p$ is in c. What's the natural candidate for $S \circ R$? Surely we want to say $(l,c)\in S \circ R$ if $l$ intersects $c$-that is, if $l$ contains $p$ in $c$.
The example says it all: we define the composition of morphisms by
$(x,z) \in S \circ R$ if $\exists y: (x,y) \in R, (y,z) \in S$. In particular this is how we set up the category $Rel$ of relations. Note that with this definition in hand we can reformulate some of the central definitions of relation theory. For instance, a relation is transitive just if it's equal to its composition with itself.
Here's a simpler formulation, since I see by your comment this was confusing. Let's try composing the relation $<$ with itself of the natural numbers 1,2,3,... Call the new relation $<^2$. We say for two numbers $m,n$ that $m <^2 n$ if there's some third number $p$ with $m < p$ and $p < n$. So, what do we have? $<^2$ is just the relation between numbers at least two apart. So $1 <^2 3$ and $100 <^2 110,$ but we don't have $3 <^2 4$. For some relations, composition doesn't change anything: for instance, if two lines are both parallel to a third, then the two lines are parallel to each other.
We can also compose two different relations. Think about the two relations: (1) a line is perpendicular to another line and (2) a line intersects a circle. The composition of these relations is: a line is perpendicular to some line intersecting a circle.
Comment: thnks guys but the things is i'm more confuse with R⊂X×Y stuff. can you guys use example with simple english & numbers
Comment: @user1419170 $X \times Y$ is just the set of all order pairs $(a,b)$ such that $a \in A$ and $b \in B$. If $X$ is the even integers and $Y$ is the odd integers, then $(a,b) \in X \times Y$ if and only if $a$ is an even integer and $b$ is an odd integer. $R \subset X \times Y$ just states that $R$ is a subset of the set of $X \times Y$. Perhaps more familar to you, you can say that $(a,b) \in R$ then you can write $a R b$. For instance if $X = Y = \mathbb{R}$ and $R = \{(a,b) : a < b\}$, then $a R b$ is just $a < b$. So ordering is an example of a relation.
Comment: @user1419170, I added a less technical version of my answer. Hope this helps.

Composition of Relations


Connecting printer to a D-Link DSL-2750B Router/Modem

Question: I've looked around on the internet and on the router page, but I couldn't find out how to enable the print server on the router I have. I am trying to connect a PSC-1410v USB printer to a DSL-2750B Router and Modem combo.
Answer: You need to set it up from the CD. If you have installed that, a D-link icon should appear in the system tray. Have a look at pg 121 in the User Manual.


Incorrect Google Profile Results

Question: Where do Google gets the info they display along with your profile in their "Profile Results" that is shown once you hit search for a particular person? When Google shows incorrect info, there's a feedback option at the bottom and it gives you an option to report a problem on which info is wrong. However, this is a tedious task since I've already done this before and they have corrected it but then when I search again after a couple of months, wrong info is shown again. So maybe I need to correct or do something on the process of putting those info into the profile... Not sure where Google gets all these info.. Help?
Comment: Are you talking specifically about [Google Profiles](https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=profiles)? (This service now redirects to Google+ - not seeing anywhere that information is automatically added)
Comment: You'd probably need to ask (and provide the details) in the Google+ help forum: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/google-plus-discuss
Answer: Google allows 'authors' and 'publishers' to link their content to their Google Plus page via the rel attribute of links. It can be an actual "< a href..." link or it can be a non-visible "< link..." element.
Out of privacy concerns, I use the rel=publisher attribute more often than rel=author but for either you have to set up a Google profile and basically opt-in to surveillance...on the plus side, doing so will probably straighten out their search results—well, maybe.
Big Brother says hi.

Incorrect Google Profile Results


God appearing to non-believers

Question: I just want to know what bible verse is it that talks about God appearing to a group of non-believers and even after seeing God they still didn't believe.
Comment: This question asks to find a specific Bible verse, and will probably be closed because "verse search" questions are not considered on topic here. D J Clayworth has identified the specific verse I think you're looking for. If you wish to know more about the details of that story, feel free to ask a more targeted question. It may be helpful to look at the [tour] and the [help] for the site.
Comment: I have just added another Bible text to my answer that my help
Answer: Here is a text - Rom 1:18-25 that describes people who know God but refuse to obey him and thus become depraved.  V21, 22 summarises this:

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give
  thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their
  foolish heart was darkened. 22Professing to be wise, they became
  fools

Here are three more (radical) suggestions that answer the question but may not satisfy the question(!?!)

Judas Iscariot met and knew Jesus (while on earth but who was still God, John 1:18, 5:17, 18, 20:28, etc) but later, betrayed Jesus and then went out and hanged himself.
The rich young ruler, Matt 18:18-25, who went away very sad because he loved his riches more than Jesus.
There is also the instance in Rev 6:15-17 where the wicked see Jesus (the "Lamb" on the throne) and ask to be destroyed because they do not want to be in His presence.

In all these cases, the people know and recognise God but refuse to have Him as their God.
Comment: In all three cases, the recipients did actually believe they had seen God. But they chose not to believe _in_ God. This is valuable as it shows that intellectually knowing is not the same as true faith.
Comment: Just to mention that the rich young ruler may, at a later stage, have realised Jesus was God incarnate after the resurrection, and he may have believed then. The Bible does not say, but neither does it say that walking away from Jesus very sad, before Jesus had died, was his final state.
Answer: It's not an exact fit, but you may be thinking about the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. It's found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16.
In the parable, the Rich Man dies unbelieving and goes to Hell (Hades). He asks that Lazarus (who is also dead) be sent to warn his family so that they will not suffer the same fate, since they will believe if someone returns from the dead. He is told that if his family do not believe the prophets, then they will also not believe even if someone returns from the dead.
Most Christians would take the parable as a symbolic story rather than a historical occurrence, but it does describe a supernatural appearance which is not believed.
Comment: @NigelJ You are absolutely right. But I still think it's probably the passage the questioner was thinking of :-)
Comment: Think you got the right quote (place) that the OP was thinking of. +1
Comment: This describes someone who is _not_ God and their _not_ appearing to non-believers.
Answer: God is a spirit, says Jesus, John 4:24. He has no visible form, of himself. Therefore if he 'appears' to a person on earth, it is to faith that he is appearing.
If a person is an unbeliever, or, as you say a 'non-believer', there is no faith there to which God may appear.
God has appeared, in manifestation, in the Person of the Son, Jesus Christ. Multitudes saw him - and many did not believe that he was whom he truly was. But some did believe. They believed that Jesus Christ - in manifest form - was the Son of God.
But many, though they saw miracles and were impressed, did not believe in Him.
God himself, the Father and the Son (who are one, for Jesus said "I and my Father are One, John 10:30) are seen by faith, not natural sight.

In Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9 we read of men accompanying Saul of Tarsus when he was overwhelmed by a light and he heard a voice. The men also are reported to have seen the light (but were not, like Saul, blinded by it) and to have been aware of a voice but were not able to report the speech of the voice.
Only Saul, later Paul, believed in Jesus Christ because of this incident.
Perhaps this is the text in the memory of the OP.
Comment: This doesn't seem to actually answer the question.
Comment: @DJClayworth If the question is not valid, then there is no answer to it.

God appearing to non-believers


How to buy Skyrim in a country where Steam version is not avaliable and there is no retail?

Question: I'm from Tbilisi, Georgia, and steam says that game is not available for my country. There are no "official" shops here to buy retail. On the nearest Russian online shops I see a notice stating that license is for Russia and countries of the CIS (Georgia is not among them from 2008). So what are my options? How can I get a licensed version of this long awaited game?
Answer: You can get gifted a copy by someone somewhere else over Steam.
You can buy it from somewhere like Amazon.
The game is Steamworks, so it requires Steam to be run on PC. It isn't available to BUY in Georgia perhaps, but it will run (source: I traded countless Russians GTA Complete when it was on sale since it was not available in Russia)
Comment: Yes, but when i bought several keys from russian stores, and had to return them, because steam didnt allow to activate the game, because of region :(
Answer: Amazon delivery? That would work if they deliver to your country
Comment: Thank you for answer..Yes, it would work, but i want digital copy more, associated with some account..Think steam is only option here(that is NOT an option) So i think i'll have to buy from amazon....
Answer: im not totally sure how this works, but im pretty sure that any copy you get from any where will try and register through steam.
im not sure if steam checks your country at that point or not, but if it does and it blocks you, i dont see any way around no matter where you buy it from.
hopefully someone can expaned on this.
Answer: You can accress other steam regions by using the direct URL
eg.
http://store.steampowered.com/?cc=US (for US)
This is a useful tool to check the prices in three English speaking regions:
http://www.steamprices.com/
There are problems with payment within these regions though. Unless you have a credit card where the billing address is in that counrty it might be difficult to get steam to procoess your order.
Do a search for how to pay for games on steam in a different region. Here are a few quick sites I found:
Sorry can only post 2 hyper-links to avoid spam
gamers-underground.com/games-general/31856-how-save-money-steam-using-vpn.html
coflash.com/steam/
Good luck.
P.s.
Here is a link to the Steam TOS:
store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
You can see for yourself if it is against it or not. As far as I know I have been told my Steam Help to use another region than that in which I live becuase my credit card is registered in another country. Seems strange to me that they would suggest the braking of their TOS in a help enquiry.
Can you please quote where it says it's against their TOS? I founbd this forum post but things aren't 100% clear:
forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2100398
By they way I don't suggest doing anything that could lock your account so if it is so that it can be locked becuase of my advise please disregard it. I hope that I may have provided some way to help the OP with a solution to their question.
Comment: Let me clarify, using a VPN to buy a game in a different country, than you are in is against their rules, and is ban able.


Guidelines for screenshots in posts

Question: I've noticed that a lot of screenshots in both questions and answers either contain more info than needed for the question or answer (potentially account compromising information in some cases), or are way bigger than necessary (like waaaay too big). I think we could stand for having some guidelines for the screenshots we have in posts.
Answer: I propose two guidelines.

Crop out unneeded info: If you take a full screen shot of your desktop to show an error message, just crop the picture in paint or something to show the relevant error message. We don't really need to see all the stuff in the background, and if you aren't paying attention, you may accidentally include information about yourself or your accounts that you did not want to include. If you see someone who didn't crop their photo, you can copy the image url and crop it with this online tool and reupload the image into the post (I am not affiliated with this tool in anyway). Also, if you notice that there is PII or account information that could potentially compromise the users security or privacy edit the information out and then flag for moderator attention to purge it from the edit history.
Resize images to a reasonable size: If you upload a picture through stack exchange, it uses the Imgur engine. This means you can easily resize the images to a more manageable size so that they do not take up the entire screen. There are a number of different suffixes you can use to resize the image by using the form https://i.stack.imgur.com/XXXXXXsuffix.jpg where the suffix is one of the following:

h - Huge thumbnail - size: 1024x1024 and keeps image proportions.
l - Large thumbnail - size: 640x640 and keeps image proportions.
m - Medium thumbnail - size: 320x320 and keeps image proportions.
t - Small thumbnail - size: 160x160 and keeps image proportions.
b - Big square thumbnail - size: 160x160 doesn't keep image proportions.
s - Small square thumbnail - size: 90x90 doesn't keep image proportions.

Large or medium thumbnail will generally give you a decent size image in proportion to page size while still allowing you to see everything you need. You can see examples of each suffix in comparison to the original here. If you don't want to use suffixes, you could use a more complex method with using HTML like so:
Also as mentioned by Robotnik, "image links are now auto-surrounded by a hyperlink to expand the image out. You can manually change the hyperlink to point to a larger image. Where you have [![alt text][1]][1], change it to [![alt text][1]][2], then add a [2]: link at the bottom pointing to the larger version."
Comment: @DCShannon, as justifications for edits, and just something to keep in mind when adding screenshots to ones own posts to try and keep questions focused on the relevant info. I have noticed a lot of unnecessarily huge images on posts recently, and it makes it hard to get the info out of a post whether you are on mobile or not. also I recently saw someone have some information about their account in a screenshot that could put their account at risk. I just wanted to raise some awareness
Comment: How are you imagining these guidelines being used? As justification for edits? For downvotes? What's the purpose?
Comment: Note that image links are now auto-surrounded by a hyperlink to expand the image out. You can manually change the hyperlink to point to a larger image. Where you have `[![alt text][1]][1]`, change it to `[![alt text][1]][2]`, then add a `[2]:` link at the bottom pointing to the larger version.
Comment: I never knew about the suffix part with imgur.  Glad I do now!
Comment: Alright. I guess we can reference this post when giving advice in comments, if nothing else.
Comment: Also to add to your first point in your answer: if the image contains compromising information (email address, phone numbers etc), flag for mod attention so we can redact it from the revision directly - editing it out leaves it in the revision history.
Comment: @Robotnik is it fine to edit it out first, then mod flag it? that is what i have done in the past, and what i was advocating for doing here.
Comment: Oh, yes I missed your last sentence on the first point :). And yes, edit and flag is fine.
Comment: @Robotnik ok, and thanks for the info about the image links. I included that info in the post as well as updated my example post in the formatting sandbox to demonstrate this

Guidelines for screenshots in posts


Can a transaction have a negative fee?

Question: I know there are some opcodes that have negative gas costs (see this). So if I send a transaction that calls one (or multiple) instance(s) of these opcodes, will the gas used be negative? i.e. will my balance increase?
Answer: No, instructions that have negative gas can only reduce the other gas spent in the transaction. From the yellow paper:

Ar is the sum of gas refunds across all refund instructions in the transaction. The refund is capped at half of the total gas spend.
Answer: From the question you link to:

The only two OPCODEs with negative gas costs are STORAGEKILL(-15000)
  and GSUICIDEREFUND(-24000).
These occur when storage values are deleted or contacts are suicided.

You will already have had to instantiate a contract on the blockchain for these calls to be relevant. That will cost you a certain (non-zero, positive) amount of gas.
When making these negative-gas calls you will get part of that original cost back. Overall you're still out of pocket.
Comment: You are right about the overall, but I just wonder what will happen for a single transaction, let's say, that will remove the data of five previous transactions.
Comment: Can't find STORAGEKILL opcode in the new sources, Richard
Answer: Interesting question.
Unless I'm severely mistaken the answer is 'no'. From whom would the negative fee come?
The transaction itself has a cost in gas (fee). It is from this fee that the cost of negative opcodes is taken. The fee cannot be negative, otherwise, it would have to come from somewhere--and there's only two places it can come from--the winning miner for the current block (who is almost certainly a different miner than the one that won the block that set the data), or it would have to come out of nothing. Neither of those two things happen.

Can a transaction have a negative fee?


What is the ruling on completing the qur'an recitation by sharing the reading of quran?

Question: What is the ruling about reading Quran eg like completing one whole quran not by one person but sharing Juzz among family members or friends.
Comment: This needs some elaboration: What exactly do you mean? Will they sit together and one will recite while the others listen or will each one read alone for himself etc.?
Answer: The katmah as a completation of reading the Qur'an
First how you read the quran or complete it is basically irrelevant. But if you want to complete it then each of you should have read the whole quran -no matter if it was in the correct order or not- , else you won't get the rewards of completing it (see the fatwa islamqa #50781).
The only rewards you may gain are those of what you have actually read or recited. I know the practice of distributing parts of the quran (a couple of ahzaab, aj-za' etc.) between many readers, but even if it is technically a khatmah (a complete reading) or might be more than one, as long as these readers don't listen while only one of them is reading it can hardly be considered as a khatmah for any of them.
However you might also get the rewards by reading and listening if each time one of you read a part of the Qur'an while the others where listening until you completed it.
Conclusion: one khatmah الختمة (a complete reading of the quran  ختم القرآن  from al-Fatiha -1st surah- until an-Nass -114th and last surah) only counts if you have read it yourself or at least listened to it.
The khatmah as the gathering when the Qur'an will be completed
However a person whom have recited the whole has a special supplication therefore it is highly recommended to invite and gather people to assist a khatma and say ameen during the supplication.
Here some references with my own tranlsation -with the exception of the hadith from islamqa- take it with the necessary care:

ان أنس إذا ختم القرآن جمع ولده وأهل بيته فدعا بهم
Anas (ibn Malik) when he was about to complete the quran used to gather his children adn wives and did supplication (ad-Darimi)
اقرؤوا القرآن وسلوا الله به، قبل أن يأتي قوم يقرؤون القرآن فيسألون به الناس
read (recite) the quran and ask Allah by it (do supplication) before people will come whom will read the quran and ask other people by it (Ahmad and at-Tabarni in his al-Kabir source for this in the former hadith)
Anas ibn Maalik (may Allaah have mercy on him) had completed a reading of the Qur'aan, he would gather his family and make du'aa' (islamqa #65581)
مَنْ قَرَأَ الْقُرْآنَ ثُمَّ دَعَا ، أَمَّنَ عَلَى دُعَائِهِ أَرْبَعَةُ آلَافِ مَلَكٍ
The person whom completed the quran and then makes a supplication, four thousand angels will say ameen to his supplication. (sunan ad-Darimi)

Laymen would also call this khatma, but this only the session of completing the quran not what we call a khatma.
Comment: @Faqirah none of the evidences provided in the link seem to cover the option that different people read/recite different portions of the quran and call this khatma.I know that this is widely practiced, but I couldn't find any evidence for that.
Comment: salam your last concluding point could be one of the difference of opinion, are there some references for it? yes One khatmah would not be for the individual if read by different people but still does it consider as one khatmah itself or not like its done also in taraweeh prayers etc. http://seekershub.org/ans-blog/2014/06/11/permitted-reasons-to-start-a-quran-khatm-and-its-completion-by-multiple-individuals/
Comment: ok Thanks for your guidance just I want to confirm is what about the Khatm ul Quran in the Taraweeh prayer ,There had around 7 to 8 imams last year in Masjid al Haram for the taraweeh prayer and they consider it as a khatm ul Quran https://youtu.be/tBsREZ9vmDM?t=1060
Comment: @Faqirah that is fine because usually all imams would have either recited or listened.


Shared folder between two Web Servers

Question: I'm running two webservers in a single host. One of them is a Tomcat running in a reverse proxy configuration. The front webserver is a nginx that proxies request to the Tomcat.
So far, is working ok.
A location in a domain, let's say domain.com/photos is server by Tomcat. I'd like the photos to be server by nginx. The files are stored in a folder, but the files are written by Tomcat application and the files end up with owner tomcat and group tomcat.
The nginx process is running in www-data group, so it cannot retrieve the files.
How can I accomplish that the the webservers runs under the same group?
Is a good practice to use newgrp before starting the webservers, so both runs under the same group?
Thanks.
Answer: Have you considered just adding your nginx user to the tomcat group? Seems like an easy solution...

Shared folder between two Web Servers


Upscale iPhone taken photograph

Question: I have taken a photo with my iPhone which i would love to use a my website background using jQuery to stretch it dynamically. However its obviously a fairly low resolution. Is there anything i can do in Photoshop or something, to upscale the resolution at all?
Comment: Depends on how much you want to upscale it. A little bit is one thing, but if you want to upscale a lot, then even the best algorithms are going to make the picture's focus very soft...
Answer: There are a number of resizing plugins for Photoshop that doa much better job of guessing at the missing detail than Photoshop does (OnOne Perfect Resize and Alien Skin Blowup are two examples), but while they can give you a bit larger image that's smooth, they can't really make up for data that isn't there. Amazing as they are, they're best for already really good images that need to be printed very large but will be viewed from a distance -- they just make the image a little smoother at the target size.
Answer: I kind of dispute all the answers and comments about this subject, not just here, but on most forum discussions that cover this topic. I've done some fairly extensive work lately on digital upscaling, and when approached correctly, you can achieve some considerable upscaling without too much blurring, sometimes by as much as 20x or more. In my work on "Iterative Bicubic Scaling", I've been able to take 12mp images from my Canon Rebel XSi (450D) up to some 200mp or more, print sizes of 55x44@300PPI or more. In more extreme experiments, I've scaled and image up to 96x72" @ 600PPI, an ungodly 2.4 gigapixels (not recommended for home use.)  Now, obviously, the more information you start with, the farther you can push an upscale, so if you are only starting with 3mp worth of image information, you probably won't be able to achieve a beautifully detailed 55" print. You should be able to scale up by a fair amount, however, using an iterative bicubic technique.
The key factor in upscaling is the quality of information being scaled, and the amount it is being scaled by. You can obviously take a single 3mp image and scale it strait up to say a 100mp image, however regardless of the algorithm you use, you are going to end up with a pretty blurry result. This is because you are fabricating some 90% of the resulting image content, and blurring over the original content as it gets incorporated into the final image. Instead of scaling up in a single step, do it in many, much smaller steps. Scale up with a bicubic filter by 3-5% at a time until you reach, or more likely surpass, your target size. If you pass your target size, scale back once. In each iteration, you'll be fabricating less than 20% of the final image data, preserving more accurate image information at each step, which will ultimately produce a more accurate final image. I have a detailed writeup with visual examples here:

Emprical Study: Extreme digital upscaling

I believe the camera on an iPhone is around 3mp, maybe 5mp. You probably won't be able to scale up to 55" print size, however you should be able to scale up to 8x10, 11x14, or 13x19 size without too much degredation of detail. If the final scaled image does not contain quite enough detail clarity, you can always apply a light unsharp mask to improve those fine details.
Here is a sample demonstrating the detail preserved with Iterative Bicubic upscaling compared to Direct Bicubic upscaling, when blowing up a 12.2mp original image (14x9" native print size @ 300ppi) to a 77.7mp image (36x24" print size @ 300ppi):

Wait two seconds for the animated GIF above to switch from direct bicubic to iterative bicubic, for comparison. The improved detail and sharpness with the iterative approach should be clear as day. It should be noted that no sharpening of any kind was used on either version.
Comment: It's not that detail degrades with a good upscaling algorithm (and both Perfect Resize and Blowup use very good algorithms), but that you can't put anything there that wasn't there to begin with. Line, curve and gradient continuations and smoothing can be excellent, but placement of edges is a best-guess approximation. I've managed 64" by 9' from a 4K-scanned 35mm slide (original scan 24MP) that were acceptable -- but it's still not what I would have gotten with a Heidelberg scan of an 8x10 chrome. The best guess can be surprisingly good, but it's just a guess -- math only gets you so far.
Comment: Oh -- by "acceptable" I mean for a corridor wall; the viewers couldn't get more than 8 feet away if they wanted to. That ain't bad, really, but I want to put the idea that "everything can be fixed in Photoshop" to rest, since at some point the "fixing" is the 'Shop artist drawing in things that weren't there to begin with. (I've done those "paintings based on an original photograph" too.)
Comment: Obviously you can't "put anything there that wasn't there to begin with"...that was not my point. My point is that it is possible to preserve what IS there, to at least the point of "acceptability", if not beyond. You can probably get about 200mp from a drum scan of an 8x10 chrome, sure...but how many of us have the option of lugging around such a beastly camera every day? As the old adage goes...good enough is good enough. I think we can do better than good enough with digital, and even though its not perfect, its damn good.
Comment: As for doing everything in photoshop...I never mentioned anything like that. I am a strong supporter of doing as much as you possibly can in camera **first**, and doing what remains in a tool like Photoshop. I don't see that as being any different than processing film, where you still have to do something in a dark room with chemicals and an enlarger to take your camera composition, make it several feet large, and put it on a wall.
Comment: is this work you've done in Photoshop or something similar or in Javascript on the browser?
Answer: A background image on a website doesn't really need to be larger than 1024 x 768. You're designing for the lowest common denominator.
And don't forget that the web browser has to suck down every byte you put up there.
For a reference, I searched for "web design recommendations screen size" (without the double quotes).
So... if the image you took is already 1024 x 768, you probably don't need to touch it...
Comment: I turn your attention to this: http://timlum.com/ this is what i want to achieve - try resizing your browser :)
Comment: I trust you're talking about the green icon in the top right corner? If this is the case, this is a CSS trick where he's anchored the icon to the top right of the browser.
Comment: I think he's referring to the portrait that makes up the background
Comment: Ummm, I don't have a portrait making up the background... in Firefox or Internet Explorer. I'd say we're seeing different things.
Answer: As you mentioned in a comment to Mike, you're looking at in-browser scaling.
The Jquery Backstretch plugin is designed to do exactly what you are looking for.
From the Backstretch page:

Backstretch is a simple jQuery plugin
  that allows you to add a
  dynamically-resized background image
  to any page. The image will stretch to
  fit the page, and will automatically
  resize as the window size changes.
Comment: Hi Chillis, i'm aware of that plugin (it was the one i'm going to use) but i still need a high res image, so if someone is viewing my site on a 27" iMac, its not going to blur
Comment: well.. that would depend on the iphone model.  If you have a iphone 4, then your resolution is already good enough (2592 by 1936) for a 27" (2560 by 1440 native resolution), assuming you shot landscape.

Upscale iPhone taken photograph