What is in the east of Middle-earth, and why is it all subservient to Sauron?

Question: There are a number of times in Lord of the Rings where the "east" is mentioned -- the pirate ships, the slave-driven farms. And of course all of the peoples subservient to Sauron who come to fight Gondor and the West. Are there any maps of the East of Middle-earth, and what is out there?
Comment: It is on the movies.SE site, but I did ask the same quesiton there. http://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/9608/what-is-east-of-rhun
Comment: Great answer there too.
Answer: There are plenty of maps of Middle Earth.
One such map is

The pirates you're talking about are the Corsairs of Umbar.
The LotR wikia states:

The Corsairs of Umbar are a nation of Men, or corrupted Númenóreans, in Middle-earth known for their piracy of ships along the coasts of Gondor.

The slave driven farms I'm pretty sure are the people from Khand who fought for in Sauron's army.
An excerpt from the LotR Wikia about Khand:

Khand was the name of a land which lay to the south-east of Mordor and to the east of Near Harad. Almost nothing is known about Khand or its nomadic people. "Variags" (men of Khand) fought for Sauron's army, but nothing aside from their name was mentioned.

Pretty much I believe when they talked about East they are talking about lands to the far east of Middle-earth, more specifically ones to the east of Mordor.
There is a list of far eastern lands in the Wikia.
They include:

Cuiviénen
Hildórien
Khand
Orocarni
Rhûn
Sea of Helcar
Sea of Rhûn
Sea of Ringol
Yellow Mountains

Another type of map I found was of Middle-earth and the Undying Lands.

For more sources about the information regarding Umbar

Gondor's power, however, eclipsed that of Umbar as the Third Age progressed, and at one point, perhaps around the time of Tarannon Falastur, Umbar acknowledged the sway of Gondor[6].
↑ J.R.R. Tolkien,
The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, "The Window on the West"

For more sources about Khand there are a few sources of information on Tolkien Gateway as well:

Khand [...] lay to the south-east of Mordor[1]
↑ 1.0 1.1 J.R.R. Tolkien, "Unfinished index for The Lord of the Rings", in Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (eds), The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, entry Khand, p. 566

The Men of Khand were called Variags.[1][3]
↑ 2.0 2.1 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the
King, "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields", p. 846

Khand was under the influence of Mordor and supplied it with horses, and twice came into the history of Gondor: first in T.A. 1944 when the Variags together with the Wainriders attacked Gondor,[5] and later during the War of the Ring when they fought at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, "The Númenorean Kings", "Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion"
Comment: Do you have book references as well as wiki ones?
Comment: I can try to find some I have to see if I still have my copy of the book... I read it when many years ago xD
Comment: According to Tolkien Gateway it states that Khand was South East of Mordor.. ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), Unfinished Tales, "The West of Middle-earth at the End of the Third Age" [map]
Comment: The Men of Khand were called Variags.[2] on Tolkien Gateway it's cited from ↑ 2.0 2.1 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields"
Comment: Finally about the Khands on the same site it says hand was under the influence of Mordor and supplied it with horses, and twice came into the history of Gondor: first in T.A. 1944 when the Variags together with the Wainriders attacked Gondor,[3] and later during the War of the Ring when they fought at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, "The Númenorean Kings", "Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion"
Comment: they might be better placed in your answer
Comment: Umbar is also mentioned in the Tolkien Gateway website... Gondor's power, however, eclipsed that of Umbar as the Third Age progressed, and at one point, perhaps around the time of Tarannon Falastur, Umbar acknowledged the sway of Gondor[6].....↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, "The Window on the West"
Answer: The East (and South) of Middle-earth, beyond the main published maps, was only ever mapped in the "Ambarkanta," which was written in the 1930s and published in The Shaping of Middle-earth (HoME 4).

However, and as you can see, this mapping was very basic, and shows no geographical features aside from coastlines and major mountain ranges.  It also pre-dates Lord of the Rings, so you're not going to see anything you know from the LotR maps on it, and it's also necessary to question exactly how valid it might be in terms of later work (and also later Ages - this was pre-Drowning-of-Númenor and World-made-Round geography).
Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth builds on this map to provide more detailed world maps, but of course they're not based on anything else in Tolkien canon so take them with the appropriately sized grain of salt.
David Day has also constructed his own maps in his own books, but his works are generally held in low regard.

For the second part of your question - why it's all subservient to Sauron - this is just a matter of geographic necessity.  The West was where the remnants of the old Elven kingdoms were, it was visited by the Númenóreans, and the North-west in particular was the closest part of Middle-earth to Aman in the First and Second Ages, so Sauron is naturally going to expand in the opposite direction.  See Letter 229:

The original stronghold of Evil was (as traditionally) in the North; but as that had been destroyed, and was indeed under the sea, there had to be a new stronghold, far removed from the Valar, the Elves, and the sea-power of Númenor.

Also remember that in the Second Age Sauron had completely overrun Middle-earth with the exception of this North-western region; for most of that Age he had effectively "won".  When Gandalf says (in "The Shadow of the Past") that "The Enemy still lacks one thing to [...] cover all the lands in a second darkness" — this was the "first darkness".
Comment: Remember too that all men were fallen and corrupted by Morgoth (or maybe Sauron) shortly after their awakening. A few rebelled and fled to the west - eventually becoming the Numenoreans and a few other nations. Sauron's power over the east was therefore natural and expected.
Comment: There we go! At last, one of Tolkien's maps. I thought I would have to post myself, before I saw you answer. I might still, if I find that reference to the blue wizards who went to the east.
Comment: Wait, so Sauron held fealty in all the Harrads (Knightsbridge was pretty down-market in those days), Hildorien, Rhun, the Northern Wastes, the Forodwaith, Utumno, Beleriand, Doriath and Angband, etc, yet was held up long enough preparing the necessary hordes from those masses to over take the tiny little piece of middle earth that is Gondor, Rohan and the Shire, that Frodo had time to waltz in and chucked his jewelry in the fire right under his nose eye? Little far fetched...
Answer: There is a complete Middle-earth map:

This one was published by Iron Crown Enterprises for the Middle-earth Role Playing Game, under license by Tolkien Enterprises (1984). Tolkien Enterprises got the rights from United Artists in 1976. AU, on its own, got the rights directly from JRRT in 1968.
This means that this map is "in canon", but not Tolkien-made.
Another one is the one pointed by DoctorWho22, which is again not Tolkien made, where you can see the second age (note that Middle-earth is still united to the Undying Lands, that Númenor is there and also Beleriand). A better quality image is

But note that the only one Tolkien-made map is the sketch pointed by Jimmy Shelter.
Comment: Funny enough Tolkien gateway lists the first map you provided as non-canon..
Comment: @DCShannon That map was made by Iron Crown Enterprises for their Middle-Earth Role Playing game.  It should not be considered accurate in any context outside of that game system.
Comment: The undying lands is only connected through the top middle piece... The 2nd picture is actually just of middle earth.  In fact I also read elsewhere on stackexchange that a person made numerous canon maps
Comment: http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/09/30/are-the-maps-at-the-beginning-of-each-lotr-book-hand-drawn-by-tolkien/                               Specifically the Ballatine maps that were accredited to Christopher Tolkien
Comment: Seems like that color map has an awful lot of extra land not on the other maps on this page.
Answer: The East wasn't always under his fealty. Gondor settled Harad and Umbar, but they later rebelled in Gondor's civil strive over whom should be king of Gondor, etc.
Comment: That's part of the east and south, though this question goes further, to areas that have little to no mapping.  The only confirmed 'freedom' from Sauron for these areas would have been coastal areas under Numenorean control in the Second Age.
Answer: One theory being that the slave-driven farms refer to the fertile southern region of Mordor around the inland sea of Núrnen which functioned as the major agricultural basis for his armies.
Post-war they were granted both their freedom and lands by Elessar.
Remember that the reunited kingdom claimed all lands once part of either state, at its greatest extent, in the case of the East this covered most of the land around the Sea of Rhûn.
Comment: Hi, welcome to SF&F.  The question isn't what are they, the question is where on a map of Middle-earth they would appear, and in what relation to the other named places of the East.


List available updates but do not install them

Question: I want my cron-run reporting script to notify me in case there are updates for my packages. Is the a way to make apt-get give me the list of available updates but don't do anything more?
Answer: apt
For modern versions of apt there is a specific switch for this:
apt list --upgradable
apt-get
For the old apt-get command the -u switch shows a list of packages that are available for upgrade:
# apt-get -u upgrade --assume-no
From the apt-get man page:
-u
--show-upgraded  Show upgraded packages; Print out a list of all packages that are to be upgraded. Configuration Item: APT::Get::Show-Upgraded.
--assume-no  Automatic "no" to all prompts. <== To prevent it from starting to install
Comment: If you type "Y" and press Enter, this command _will_ install updates. I would definitely recommend to add "-s", otherwise this answer is misleading
Comment: I was hoping this could be done without root
Comment: This is a *very* wrong answer because (without additional options) the command waits for input and if the user enters the wrong input, the package are installed, *which modifies the system* which is not what the OP wants (just happened on my system)
Comment: @ThorSummoner '-s' will do what you want & works without root
Comment: And btw: `-u` is a default option of `apt-get`
Comment: @nevelis Ah and your comment is reflected in this answer too, perfect! http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/86335/61349
Comment: I prefer the first option because does not require sudo. The second does.
Comment: `apt list --upgradable` is not an equivalent of `apt-get -u upgrade --assume-no` .. the former will only respect UPgrades, no downgrades, while the latter does respect downgrades - i would consider the latter to be the better universal option
Comment: On my Debian9, the "apt list --upgradeable" command isn't recognised. Try "apt list --upgradable" instead. Not sure if that's a typo or just a difference between Debian9 and other systems.
Comment: There isn't a parameter `--assume-no` in [apt-get man page](https://linux.die.net/man/8/apt-get); instead, there is a similar parameter `--trivial-only`
Comment: `apt list --upgradable` is not well suited for a cron-job:
1) It will emit a warning about its "unstable" API and therefore
2) it will always produce output and generate mails even if there are no packages to  upgrade
Answer: apt-get --just-print upgrade

Is not read that easily, below is a perl one liner to parse apt-get's output:
apt-get --just-print upgrade 2>&1 | perl -ne 'if (/Inst\s([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\s\[([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\]\s\(([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\)? /i) {print "PROGRAM: $1 INSTALLED: $2 AVAILABLE: $3\n"}'

This should output something like:
PROGRAM: grub-pc INSTALLED: 1.99-21ubuntu3.1 AVAILABLE: 1.99-21ubuntu3.9

Hopefully it will help someone else,
Comment: It could also be much more nice looking, if use `column` like this: `apt-get --just-print upgrade 2>&1 | perl -ne 'if (/Inst\s([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\s\[([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\]\s\(([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\)? /i) {print "PROGRAM: $1 INSTALLED: $2 AVAILABLE: $3\n"}' | column -s " " -t`
Comment: I'm afraid this Perl-code will hack my machine... ;)
Comment: just for the laugh:   apt-get -s upgrade| awk -F'[][() ]+' '/^Inst/{printf "Prog: %s\tcur: %s\tavail: %s\n", $2,$3,$4}'
Comment: @AntonioK Looks great!
Comment: @AntonioK How do you sort the names of the programs alphabetically?
Comment: @Richie Copy the output and paste into something easier to sort.
Answer: Another option, inspired by enzotib :
aptitude search '~U' | wc -l
This command will use aptitude to output the new packages and then wc to just count the lines.
On a sidenote, I found that enzotib's solution without the single quotes around the ~U didn't work for me. (Wheezy, ZSH, aptitude 0.6.8.2)
Update :
With the new apt you can do:
apt list --upgradeable
Comment: Nice with this solution is that you do not need sudo/root.
Answer: The easiest is:
apt list --upgradeable
Comment: It's a shame this doesn't return different exit codes depending on whether there are upgrades available or not. Would have been nice to able to use this in a script.
Comment: does not work on mint.
Answer: You can run
aptitude -F%p --disable-columns search ~U

or the undocumented
/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check -p; echo

Another method using an apt-get simulation:
apt-get -s dist-upgrade | awk '/^Inst/ { print $2 }'

Comment: This aptitude command worked great for me and did not require root
Comment: apt-get -s dist-upgrade works good too and has same output when you pipe it through that awker
Comment: thank you!  this got out of quite a bit of dependency hell.  was trying to `dist-upgrade` but not lose some packages so needed to use `aptitude`.  `aptitude install $(apt-get -s dist-upgrade | awk '/^Inst/ { print $2 }')` did the trick!
Answer: apt-get update && apt-get -s upgrade

will list available updates without actually installing.
First command updates package index files before simulated (thus -s) upgrade is done. "-s" will do a simulated upgrade showing packets that would be installed but will not actually install anything.
On the contrary "-u" instead of "-s" would actually install after confirmation.
Comment: The simulate option can be triggered with any of `-s, --simulate, --just-print, --dry-run, --recon, --no-act`, recon and dry-run are my personal favorites.
Answer: Take a look at package "apticron":
apticron - Simple tool to mail about pending package updates

Apticron is a simple script which sends daily emails about pending package updates such as security updates, properly handling packages on hold both by dselect and aptitude.

https://packages.debian.org/buster/apticron
Comment: Your link is broken...
Answer: I needed full version information on possible upgrades, so I used a modification of jasonwryan's answer:
apt-get -V -u upgrade

It's simple and IMO reasonably formatted output.
Answer: apt-get update > /dev/null && apt-get --just-print upgrade | grep "Inst "

is the most simple for cron emails; there is no user iteration, and if there are no updates there is no output.
Answer: Just filter the output of
apt-get update && apt-get -s -V -u upgrade

to have only the preferred information in your log.
Most likely, you'll need the beautiful part after the line

...
The following packages will be upgraded:
...

that has few spaces in the beginning.
Comment: Hi and welcome to the site. As it stands, your answer is basically a rehash of existing ones and so does not add anything new. You could improve it by, for example, explaining how to filter the output, adding an explanation of what the various switches do etc.
Answer: Jet another on-liner,
inspired by this answer:
function a { read input;dpkg -l ${input} | grep " ${input} " | awk '{$1=$2=$3=$4="";print $0}' | sed 's/^ *//';unset input;};{ apt-get --just-print upgrade 2>&1 | perl -ne 'if (/Inst\s([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\s\[([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\]\s\(([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\)? /i) {print "$1 (\e[1;34m$2\e[0m -> \e[1;32m$3\e[0m)\n"}';} | while read -r line; do echo -en "$line $(echo $line | awk '{print $1}' | a )\n"; done;

The output looks like this (colored):
locales (2.13-38+deb7u7 -> 2.13-38+deb7u8) Embedded GNU C Library: National Language (locale) data [support]
linux-headers-3.2.0-4-amd64 (3.2.65-1+deb7u1 -> 3.2.65-1+deb7u2) Header files for Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64
linux-headers-3.2.0-4-common (3.2.65-1+deb7u1 -> 3.2.65-1+deb7u2) Common header files for Linux 3.2.0-4
sudo (1.8.5p2-1+nmu1 -> 1.8.5p2-1+nmu2) Provide limited super user privileges to specific users

If you dont want the short description use this one:
{ apt-get --just-print upgrade 2>&1 | perl -ne 'if (/Inst\s([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\s\[([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\]\s\(([\w,\-,\d,\.,~,:,\+]+)\)? /i) {print "$1 (\e[1;34m$2\e[0m -> \e[1;32m$3\e[0m)\n"}';} | while read -r line; do echo -en "$line\n"; done;

Output:
locales (2.13-38+deb7u7 -> 2.13-38+deb7u8)
linux-headers-3.2.0-4-amd64 (3.2.65-1+deb7u1 -> 3.2.65-1+deb7u2)
linux-headers-3.2.0-4-common (3.2.65-1+deb7u1 -> 3.2.65-1+deb7u2)
sudo (1.8.5p2-1+nmu1 -> 1.8.5p2-1+nmu2)

Comment: The one liner is fantastic, except it doesn't output the description of some packages.
Answer: apt-check is probably the most efficient scripting method.
/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check 2>&1 | cut -d ';' -f 1

A very small modification shows you only the security updates.
/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check 2>&1 | cut -d ';' -f 2

Answer: I like to use this:
apt-get -qq update && apt-get -qq -s upgrade

You get an output like this one:
Inst linux-base [3.5] (4.5~deb8u1 Debian-Security:8/oldstable [all])
Conf linux-base (4.5~deb8u1 Debian-Security:8/oldstable [all])

if there are available updates, and none if there isn't. This way you can simply couple it with a monitoring solution.
Answer: After writing warning to @jasonwryan's answer, I want to provide my own solution:
apt-get dist-upgrade --assume-no

Unfortunately, this one doesn't work with debian wheezy and I had to check some lxc containers which are still not upgraded. This form will always work:
apt-get dist-upgrade </dev/null

Finally, I also wanted to reformat the output. I chose to change the call again (using --dry-run but ignoring all additional output) because it feels more safe:
apt-get --dry-run dist-upgrade | awk '
BEGIN{p=0}
/^The/{p=1;t=$0}
/no longer required/{p=0}
#optional: /been kept back/{p=0}
p && t{print t;t=""}
/^  / && p{print $0}
'

Returns:
The following packages have been kept back:
  iproute
The following packages will be upgraded:
  unzip

Answer: There's the apt-show-versions tool.  To show available updates run:
apt-show-versions -u

Answer: As a variation I use the following:
apt-get -V -s dist-upgrade \
    |grep -E "^   .*=>.*" \
    |awk 'BEGIN {
        ul=sprintf("%*s",40,""); gsub(/ /,"-",ul);
        printf "%-30s %-30s %-30s\n", "Package", "Installed", "Available";
        printf "%-30.30s %-30.30s %-30.30s\n", ul, ul, ul;
     }
     {
        printf "%-30s %-30s %-30s\n",
               $1,
               substr($2,2),
               substr($4,1,length($4)-1)
     }'

Stick it into a script named apt-updates and you can then call apt-updates to get a listing of all updates regardless of user.
You still do need to call apt-get update with privileged access.
Comment: output only shows the package name (first column), second column always prints "=" and third column is always empty. I'm on Mint.


Distance discrepancies between Strava and bike computer

Question: I have an established 16 mile mountain bike loop I've been riding for a long time. I recently purchased a Magellan Cyclo 315 bike computer which I load files to Strava Premium from. Everything works great except the distance data. The distance value on the computer is always very close to 16 miles, but when I upload the data to Strava (.gpx file) the distance is between 15.2 and 15.4 miles. Any suggestions on how to correct this problem?
Comment: @Criggie since we are already editing .gpx files, this would be a good time to run it through digital EPO!
Comment: @Rider_X  Strava rounds to the nearest GPS point which has a best case resolution of 1 second.  So already, any two rides can be inaccurate by a relative difference of 2 seconds.  To add to that, Strava makes no use of speed sensor or direction information - to ensure that all data is dumbed down to the same level in interests of fairness, and also to Strava computing costs down.
Also, all modern GPS units use some algorithms to smooth the GPS data.  This is one reason why you see tracks often heading off the road around a bend.  In summary: life ain't fair and Strava isn't either.
Comment: Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, this computer doesn't allow changes to response resolution. I have a calibrated speed/cadence sensor, and I think that's where my distance reading on the computer (accurate mileage) is coming from. The file going to Strava may be picking up the GPS distance.
Comment: Have you tried testing the device in a straight route? If you travel in straight line the discrepancy generated by "missing" points of a curve becomes (almost) zero. So, if the discrepancy persists, then the culprit is the calibration of the speed sensor. Also, testing in circuits of different length will reveal if the error is proportionally the same (0.8 out of 16 is a 5% error)
Comment: Try loading the strava activity in SNAP   http://strava-tools.raceshape.com/snap/  and see if it "snaps" to the road better.  You generate a better GPX file using that site, then upload it to strava again and delete the original.   GPS coverage might be spotty in a mountainous area leading to straight-lines between points, not nice curves.
Answer: It might have to do with how frequently the computer writes your GPS location to file.  To optimize storage some write out a location to file once every few seconds, but carry out its own calculations on a higher resolution dataset in-memory before purging. If your route is quite twisty this can result in a shorter distance as Strava (and everyone else) assumes a straight line between locations in a .gpx file (this is really the only workable assumption).
Check your bike computer settings, some allow you to specify the recording resolution (e.g., once per second). The downside could be that your computer may not be able to store as many tracks as a lower resolution setting (e.g., once every 5 seconds).
Comment: If the MTB route is a tight technical track, even 1 second updates create discrepancy. (In really technical terrain, you get discrepancy if you ran two cycle computers one off each wheel).
Comment: GPS precision is also much worse when there are trees and steep hills that block and reflect signal. Technical trails often have both :)
Answer: If you have the 315hc model with the speed/cadence sensor then there can be a discrepancy if your wheel size is entered incorrectly. Strava prefers wheel sensors over GPS because of GPS update frequency issues that the other answer notes has its own proprietary way of calculating distance (most likely also incorporating other people's data who have used the same route) that doesn't correspond to your wheel-distance or gps-distance as calculated by your GPS.
Comment: Thanks for the feedback I have a calibrated speed/cadence sensor, and I think that's where my distance reading on the computer (accurate mileage) is coming from. The file going to Strava may be picking up the GPS distance. Not sure if there is a way to change the default in Strava.  Magellan's software that uploads and analyzes the .gpx files (CycloAgent) shows the correct distance
Comment: Strava uses GPS data. They have their own algorithm differing even from other sites. My Garmin uploads to the Garmin website and to Strava. The distances that both sites compute for one track are never identical, so is the max. speed, the average and the altitude.
Comment: Strava will be ignoring the sensor data they use the gps data.  I don't think there is anything you can do to change this.  The only time they pay attentions to speed data is if there is no gps data like an indoors ride.  Try using another website if you want one that pays attention to your speed sensor data.  This is from my experience gained from writing an app uploading to over 10 different sites.
Answer: Strava has a proprietary secret algorithm for internally calculating distance, which involves smoothing the GPS data internally, although the original GPS data points are still stored in your history.  If that Strava-calculated distance varies from the device distance more than a threshold, Strava replaces the device distance with the Strava distance.  The Strava distance is not calculated by mapping your course to road and measuring the distance along a road.  Strava distance also does not account for elevation change - while that is negligent for shallow slopes, you will be losing ~2% of your distance will climbing a 10% slope.
Strava's distance algorithm tends to lose distance over windy roads, perhaps because it is by design blind to the actual road traveled, so the windiness is removed as noise.
It shouldn't be difficult to calibrate your distance sensor along a track of known distance.  Then you can know the answer.
Comment: I don't doubt that Strava is doing some behind the scenes trickery in order to make all of the GPS data (of varying quality and resolution) compatible, but do you have any references for the assertions made or are they largely hunches? I ask because I am genuinely curious about the behind the scenes mechanics.
Comment: @RiderX - I became familiar with this because sometimes an intermediate ride on a train would be included in the distance (even though GPS was off) and sometimes not.  Strava "help" explained that (including train distance) happens when Strava overrides the device calculated distance with their own calculation.  Elsewhere, strava's own documentation states that elevation is not included, and that the data is "smoothed".  Since they don't say it tracks to roads, so I am assuming it doesn't.  However, your device may track to roads (e.g. at least Garmin Edge 705 and up have that option).
Answer: There is a combination of 2 things that might be going on here.
1- The GPS trail you have has a certain degree of uncertainty (+- 1 to 10m depending on signal quality). Depending on the sampling frequency it can make it look as though you are zig-zagging and add a bit of distance vs your actual path traveled. Some algorithms can smooth this out but it is not 100% accurate.
2- Your cycle computer's readout may based on the speed sensor which uses the rotation of your wheel & the diameter of that wheel. It multiplies the number of rotations by the tire circumference in order to obtain total distance traveled. There is a setting in your cycle computer to change the tire circumference and make it more accurate. The circumference depends on your wheel size, tire size, inflation and wear. If it is not accurate, it would give you a faulty distance measurement : https://www.cateye.com/data/resources/Tire_size_chart_ENG.pdf lists some of the circumferences for different wheel and tire sizes
Comment: In terms of (1) if the error is random, the average distance measured should be an unbiased estimator of the true distance. (i.e., a single journey may show a different, but if you average all your single journeys your average should converge on the true distance as your sample size goes to infinity).  The OP saw a consistent and persistent negative bias in the measured distance for the same route suggesting that random measurement error is not the source.
Comment: Agreed, I read "recently purchased" and assumed it was not replicated many times. If the sample size is large enough you are correct that this would likely not be the issue.


Mt.5:28-30, does Jesus "means what He says, says what He means"? If yes, why they take as "hyperbole?

Question: 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.
30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Comment: Does this answer your question? [What are good contextual clues that a passage is meant to be read as hyperbole?](https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/29/what-are-good-contextual-clues-that-a-passage-is-meant-to-be-read-as-hyperbole)
Comment: @James Shewey if you would read my answer posted below, you will see why it is NOT hyperbole.
Comment: Murder is considered a sin in Judaism (Matthew 5:21), and so is maiming (Exodus 21:26-27). By extension, so are suicide and self harm. The purpose of the passage is to draw attention to the (less obvious) harmfulness of adultery (which is at least physically pleasant), not to in any way annul or mitigate the (plainly obvious) harmfulness of the other sins listed for comparison.
Comment: This is not a legitimate hemeneutics question, so it gets a down vote. See my answer below for an extended discussion.
Comment: A legitimate question would simply be: Is this hyperbole or does Jesus really want us to cut off body parts. The answer is that he means what he says, but you don't understand what he says. Answer this: Why just the right hand or eye? It is a riddle.
Comment: Yes, you are right. The question could have been short as you suggested. I wanted to hight light the contrast. To define whether He spoke a hyperbole  or the truth (He means what He says) should be the first in the order for understanding His teachings.
Comment: Here are some of my thoughts on this teaching: https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/a/47450/35539.
Comment: And it is "colloquium."  "Why just  the right hand or eye" is your basis for calling  Word of Jesus a "riddle" ?  Do you mean,   were it "left arm or eye"  or more parts of body would make it "not riddle?
Comment: @Ryan Stephen, Thks. The"knife'..." and the Jesus' parable in questions , and other  similar prescriptive  ones with a consequence attached  are different category in "signification and implication." The  "Hyperbolic and other figure of  speech" tend to lose its full meanings and weight as well, people feel less responsible. By the way, the message of the Parables in the context is not limited to  "sins" mentioned, but applicable to others moral activities and as well sins in "thought."  Jesus taught us "repentance and confession" that saves us from the horrible maiming.
Comment: @James Shewey  they are not really addressing to the  points in my question, instead are assertion of "man's" perspective. None of them pays attention to the absence of the marks  of "hyperbole" or a "figure of speech" for that matter, in the text. Thnks, though. Ultimately, it is a choice each person to make as to how one takes Word of Jesus.
Comment: @Sam - I think that there can often be two or more good arguments for interpreting a text one way or the other. This provides an opportunity - so for example, if the text lacks the marks of hyperbole, you can also show what context clues indicate a passage is *not* meant to be taken as hyperbole and show why this section of Matt cannot be hyperbolic. If it's a good answer, it will be upvoted. But the fact that they not answering the question the way you want indicates this may not be asked the best way. A good question should be open to all available interpretations.
Comment: It should read "wife", not "woman". This is related to the prohibition against coveting, not against fornication. You must not covet your neighbor's wife, his ass or his wife's ass"...
Answer: (If you already know the answer, please what is it?)
I'd say it's figurative, not hyperbole. Meaning He identifies where sin dwells: our flesh, our body. He identifies that our soul, our "us," chooses to go along with it (see also Jam 1:14-15). But then figuratively shows the drastic active choice needed for believers. To choose Christ's Spirit. He carried it out in His own body:
Who Himself bore up our sins in His body on the tree, in order that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness; by whose bruise you were healed. 1 Pet 2:24.
Therefore, coming into the world, He says, 'Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me.' Heb 10:5.
Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and greediness, which is idolatry. Col 3:5.
If you live according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live. Rm 8:13.
Just as you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness unto sanctification. Rm 6:19.
You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman in order to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your right eye stumbles you, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. And if your right hand stumbles you, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to pass away into Gehenna.
Comment: Nice answer to a bad question.  Answer to the riddle: The right side is your spiritual side. We are both a sheep and a goat, which causes Paul to cry out "I do what I don't want to do ..." hands represent works, and eyes represent understanding. If your works or your understanding lead you to sin, then get rid of them. If you have a job in a strip joint; leave. If you have bad doctrine, that leads you to sin, then get rid of it. You are correct. It is figurative.
Comment: @Bob Jones what are you implying, other than saying "it is riddle, and nice answer to BAD question?  "You are correct. It is figurative" -do you mean it is just an exaggeration?  Are we forgetting Jesus "maimed Himself on the cross" for our sins , the consequences of our sin - that we may not maim thru repentance and confession?
Answer: Mt.5:28-30, does Jesus "mean what He say, say what He mean"? If yes, why they take as "hyperbole?
The question is a classic "Greek" question which Paul says to avoid:
2Ti 2:23  But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.
Tit 3:9  But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.
Consider the first part of the question: does Jesus "mean what he say, say what he mean".  This is forcing an idea or concept feeding in the question.  One is inclined to answer in the affirmative without considering the nuances of the trap.
What is the meaning of this: "mean what he say, say what he mean"?
Does it ask if Jesus ever joked around? or if Jesus spoke in hyper literal terms not using any figure of speech?
The answer is an emphatic "No!" , which is the exact opposite of the answer given by anyone attempting to answer the second part.
Jesus spoke in such a way as to obfuscate his sayings so they would not understand.
Mt 13:13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. Mt 13:14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
Mr 4:12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and [their] sins should be forgiven them.
Lu 8:10 And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.
Jesus spoke very precisely so that they would not understand.
Let's lay to rest at least one silly argument : But this isn't a parable!
Yes it is. The Greek word παραβολή  means 'a pithy and instructive saying, involving some likeness or  comparison and having preceptive or admonitory force an aphorism, a maxim, a proverb' not simply a story as so many would assume, '
Jesus did not wish to forgive their sins AT THIS TIME. Doing so would nullify the cross. He wouldn't have to die since men could be saved by teaching alone.  So NO. Jesus did not speak plainly so that people could understand. He spoke in parable, riddle or 'dark sayings', prophecy, mystery. He hid his meaning in such a way that they would not understand until after the cross.
If Jesus's saying and doings are interpreted in a simple way which is easy to understand, then his intended meaning is missed. 'Perspicuity' is another idea imposed on scripture in the same manner as the OP.
Comment: It is a colloquialism. When Jesus uses the figure of speeches and speaks in parables, there is an identifier, i.e. "kingdom is like..; "parable, etc. Ascribing Jesus' words, such as this, especially a "prescriptive"  statement (e.g. Doctor's prescription) to figure of speeches, an exaggeration to stress His points opens a door for questioning the validity of His Words.
Comment: " When Jesus uses the figure of speeches and speaks in parables, there is an identifier, "... this is an imposed system of interpretation.  "παραβολή means 'a pithy and instructive saying" whether an identifier is used or not.
Answer: Q: Mt.5:28-30, does Jesus "means what He says, says what He means? If yes, why they take as "hyperbole?
This is one of the most perplexing text that many wished Jesus never have said it.  So, they say, Jesus spoke in hyperbole.
1. Why they want it to be "Hyperbole?"
For three major reasons:
1). The unpalatable languages and morbid implications - the mutilation of body parts.
2). It clashes with the images of God, the God of Holy, Good, and Loving God.
3). It suggests the possibility of losing one's salvation.
Therefore, for them, hyperbolizing is one solution to "kill three birds with one stone."
The statement emphatic and extreme languages, yet not as offensive and extreme in comparison with Matthew 16:24-25:

For a  whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses
his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if
he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or d  what shall a man
give in return for his soul?

(Note: No one has claimed that this also is "Hyperbole!)
Therefore, even if it is unpalatable emotionally and doctrinal, the integrity of Jesus' Word must remain intact.
God does NOT need our help to keep His reputation for the Word He utters, nor should we fear the stated consequences of His Word and acts.
Also, our loving heavenly Father sent Jesus to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), but NOT to mutilate His children. (See summary and Q/A).
Besides, the Bible is the ultimate source of theology/doctrine and not vice versa. Therefore, arbitrary hyperbolizing of the Word of Jesus constitutes a breaking of the Scripture.
2. And the text, Jesus did NOT speak in hyperbole:
a). Hyperbole - one of the many figures of speech- is rhetorical and
the literary technique in which speakers intentionally  exaggerate to an extreme
to inject emphasis into his statement but not meant to be taken
literally. Typical examples of Hyperbole are:

There is enough food in the cupboard to feed an entire army"
I've told you to clean your room a million times!
If I can't get a smartphone, I will die.
My mom would kill me if I don't clean up this mess by this evening!

b). In comparison, in the text in question, the absence of markers and the characteristics of Hyperbole, but the elements of a code- the offense(the acts), and the consequence -  identifies it as an explicit divine code of conduct for His people. Let us examine the text:

"But I say to you that everyone who looks (βλέπων) at a (πρὸς
τὸ) woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery
with her in his heart. If your right eye causes      you to sin,
tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one
of your members than that your whole body is thrown into hell. And if
you right-hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it
away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that
your whole body goes into hell."

Important Notes

"looks"(= looking βλέπων), denotes the act of continued looking;

"at a (πρὸς τὸ)" denotes to "with a view to";

"causes" (σκανδαλίζει) is indicative, present, active;  "hand"
(χεὶρ"), refers to harming others with hands, as in Isa. 58:4;59:3;
Gen. 4:11.

The case in point is the ongoing, continuous, habitual sinning. It is a warning of the love of Jesus for believers living dominated by such sins to avoid the eternal consequence. For, the Scripture says in Revelation 21:8:

"But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for
murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars,
their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur,
which is the second death." (Also see 1 Cor. 6:9-10)

c. Jesus' word has the strikingly same pattern of the first commandment of
God to Adam!

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for
in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Gen. 2:17)

Summary:
a. The clues/markers in the text as observed identifies Jesus did not speak a hyperbole nor an exaggeration.  And besides,

Jesus is "truth" and He speaks the truth, He "means what He says."**

It is a "prescriptive" statement (i.e. Doctor's prescription) with specific instruction and the warning of the dire eternal consequence.

b. Any word Jesus has spoken and recorded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit should NOT arbitrarily be lessened of its original weight of the message. Because Jesus Himself said,

"Not an iota, not a dot will pass" (Matt. 5:18); "my word will not pass away"(24:35); Peter said, the Word of the Lord remains forever (1 Peter 1:25)

Note: Jesus spoke more of the same nature - i.e. if say Raca! to
your brother (Matt. 5:22); "anyone cause one of little..better hung millstone" (Mk 9:43-47), etc.
c. Arbitrary hyperbolizing the text is not the right biblical hermeneutics
approach, rather it would constitute a "breaking the Word of
God"(John 10:35).
Q/A: Do we really have to mutilate our body as Jesus said?
Jesus maimed Himself on the cross for our sin once for all, that through the repentance and continuous confession, we may NOT maim each time our right eye or arm sin.  Scripture says:

"Repent, then, and turn to God, so that He will forgive your sins." (Acts 3:19)

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."(1 John 1:9)

We, as children of God, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, must take all sins seriously, including sins acted out and sins in thought and words.

Moreover, the vicious destructive chain of the ongoing, habitual sin as Jesus addresses in the context must be dealt with REPENT & CONFESSION in obedience to the leading, unction of the Holy Spirit and the Word before it gets too late as Jesus warned in the text!

"Repent and confession" must be taken seriously and make it an essential part of our Christian daily prayer life, holding on to His promises, e.g. 1 John 1:9). However, it should not be taken for granted as an "excuse" and "license" to sin more.
(1 JOHN 3:9) – THOSE "BORN OF GOD" DO NOT SIN!

"Always repentant and confessing" life, it will not only keep us less sinning but leads us to "Holiness," and removes the "wall" between us and God, so that His blessings, favors, and grace would flow unhindered, and our prayer will be heard.
Lord God is a good God! He says in Jeremiah 29:11-12:

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD plans for
welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
Jesus maimed Himself on the cross for our sin once for all, that we may NOT maim but through repentance, and continues confession (e.g.
washing our feet) press forward toward the holiness while we live.
Comment: It is interesting that you nevertheless conclude that Jesus does not want his disciples to follow his teaching literally. Your basis is that "Jesus maimed himself on the cross". This is incorrect. Being executed for a crime that one did not commit is not at all the same thing as maiming oneself.
Comment: Where did I say that Jesus does not want His disciples to follow hHis teaching literally? Diddnot Jesus allowed in obedience to God it to happen to Himself?
Comment: "that we may NOT maim". What are you trying to say then? That Jesus maimed himself so that we don't maim ourselves, but that he nevertheless wants us to maim ourselves? Submitting to one's death sentence is not maiming oneself nor is it suicide for that matter.
Comment: @Rayan Stephen If you would read my comments carefully: because of what Jesus took upon Himself for us, we who are in Him but fall into the old trap of sins, through  repent and confessing when we sin, we will be forgiven. Ref. "by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh" (Heb. 10:20)
Answer: Jesus himself told us how we should interpret his sayings in John 6:63:

Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

The important point is not the flesh but the spirit. No need to gouge your eye out or chop off your hand. Understand that sin causes eternal death. Let this understanding enter your mind and more importantly enter your spirit, which produces life or behavior change to not sin. It is your spirit that empowers you to overcome sins through the indwelling Holy Spirit. There is no hyperbole here or in Jesus words, only spiritual realities.
Paul got Jesus' point:

2 Corinthians 3:6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Comment: Granted. But which ever rout you take, the spirit, the letters, the Words (ῥήματα) Jesus spoken, He speaks using series of words - and words has specific meaning - and in the prescriptive statement such as  in question consist of two parts: the body & consequences.  If you read my comments above, Jesus who bore the  consequences of our sin-maimed Himself on the cross - has given us away  NOT to maim -repent and confess!
Comment: ( I assume, Jn 6:63-NIV )-"The Spirit gives life...-they are "full of the" Spirit and life," Jesus in the same verse identifies the Spirit  gives life is "the word (ῥήματα)"that I speak to you are spirit and  life, He is NOT speaking  "spirit of His word, i.e. "spirit of law, etc. By the way, "full of  the" is NOT in the Gr. text, it is NIV's presumption.
Comment: I agree with everything you wrote in your two comments and have made modifications in my answer.
Answer: There is a difference between hyperbole, and the doctrine taught by use thereof being optional or somehow not serious - everyone who uses hyperbole always means the non-hyperbolized thing it is they are conveying by means of it. Hyperbole is a form of rhetoric wherein one exaggerates what it is they wish to convey for emphatic effect (and in Jesus' case, for its didactic utility or memorability/shock factor). It isn't used (or shouldn't be used) to say anything which someone means on no level at all (here, this would take the form of claiming Jesus didn't teach we ought to avoid occasions of sin under pains of going to hell because of said).
The recognition of rhetoric is something which is inherent in the reading process; if one isn't prepared or able to recognize hyperbole (which Jesus makes profuse use of, by the way), they are by no means equipped to understand the teaching of Jesus, or really the words of anyone in the Bible (or day to day life).
As such, it should be obvious that the Son of God does not want everyone to be without eyes and arms and presumbly every member of their body, with which, at some point, everyone has sinned. Instead, it's clearly rhetorical in nature: if any thing, person, place, event, word, book, song, causes you to sin, avoid it absolutely, and 'throw it away.' Get rid of it, because it causes you to sin, and - the thrust of the teaching fundamentally - sin leads to hell.
So He means what He says, just as He does with, "If anyone does not hate father or mother..." (Lk. 14:26) He expects us to understand the basics before all basics of Christian faith ("honor thy father and mother" 18:20) and to interpret His teaching in that light: contextually (i.e. is not willing to break ties with family in favor of the gospel, "he is not worthy to be my disciple" 14:33). Clearly, Jesus doesn't want us to hate our father and mother ever, for any reason - He taught us to love even our enemies.
If one isn't allowing for rhetoric in Jesus (or perhaps worse, confuses rhetoric or non-serious teaching), that can make for a disaster of Christian theology.
The long and the short: Jesus gives the most radical measure for avoiding sin possible for rhetorical effect, in order to get us thinking about much easier, less radical measures, which are self-evident: why pluck out your eye, or amputate a limb, when you can train yourself in virtue, for example, not to look with lust?

Jᴏʙ 31:1-2 I made a covenant with my eyes, not to so much as give thought to a virgin. For what part would God above have in me, or inheritance the Almighty from on high?

This ties in with Jesus' teaching on sin beginning with (and in a way ending in) the heart (Mt. 15:19): if sin begins, really, in the heart, then hatred and murder are degrees of the same sin, in a way (Mt. 5:21-30; 1 Jn. 3:15). To avoid murder, first avoid hatred. By this teaching, He's teaching we should avoid sins by first avoiding things which provide temptation to those sins.
Comment: Jesus uses fig. of speeches to convey spiritual things  for US, yet the weight of the message intact. Parable in question, of prescriptive ones, highlites the seriousness of sin & consequence thereof.  Just stressing the "sin" only, has no practical use.  Lk. 14:26  -no consequences attached, by the way- He speaks in context of cost of disciplesship.  In a  situation, like going to war, to choose  to follow Jesus "carrying our cross", means abandoning  families, etc, & such decision has implication of morally -hating (μισέω -on a comparative basis) We cannot choose both the same.
Comment: If you read my Notes below.


How did messages get back and forth between ship and shore during the Battle of Cherbourg?

Question: In volume 3 of Shebly Foote's book on the American Civil war, he mentions that once out to sea, Winslow got a message from France about Semmes's intentions.  Does that mean there were boats going back and forth from ship to shore before the battle?  I know there were some Yachts near the battle so they could watch.  Would they have been the source of communication?
Comment: I don't think this info is vital to the question, but out of curiosity *which* Foote [book on the Civil War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_Foote#Bibliography)? One of the volumes of *The Civil War: A Narrative* perhaps?
Comment: Well, Foote seemed to suggest the Kearsarge was waiting 3 miles off shore to wait for the Alabama in international waters. 3 miles seemed too far for flag, but I have no idea. The intentions were weather the Alabama was going to try to make an escape or to give battle.
Comment: Ship to ship communication is via flag. Is there any reason why they wouldn't use a known, standard protocol?  I've edited the substance of your comment into the question and deleted the comment, but a citation would be very helpful.
Answer: I'm confused by the phrase "once out to sea," and I don't know what Semmes' intentions were, other than to fight, but I suspect Winslow received the message on shore, after taking a boat to shore from his ship the Kearsarge.
For context: Winslow and the Kearsarge had been pursuing Semmes and the Alabama for about 2 years. The Alabama arrived at Cherbourg on June 11th, intending to dock for resupply/repair, but the dry docks were full and he was denied. Kearsarge arrived at Cherbourg on the 14th without docking.

According to the Kearsarge's logbook, Winslow sent a boat ashore but the boat was not allowed to land; a second boat with a more senior officer was permitted to land (p.309). On the 15th, Winslow "went ashore... himself to find out how things stand" (p.310) and returned with news that Alabama was planning to fight. The author of the logbook reports that Winslow "had received an abstract of a letter sent by Capt Semmes to the Confederate Agent" stating he planned to fight ("if the Kearsarge would wait for him he would not detain her but a short time," as the logbook's author put it).

On the 19th, Kearsarge saw Alabama leaving port; both ships sailed out to international waters (to ensure the fight didn't happen in French waters, Alabama was escorted by the French ship Couronne) and battled for about an hour.
After Alabama was sunk, Semmes escaped aboard an English yacht, the Deerhound, which had putatively sailed out to watch the battle but turned out to be an accomplice of Semmes that spirited away Semmes and 40 of his officers and crew, preventing Winslow from taking them prisoner.
Answer: I don't know what was used in this particular case, but I can tell you what was available at that time. Besides a courier sent by boat.
a) on small distance: flag communication (a person with two flags in his hands,
see Flag semaphore.
Used on short distances.
b) flags raised on a mast, Naval flag signaling.
Used on intermediate distances. Frequently used in a battle, or in convoy to transmit commands.
Used on intermediate distances.
c) Communication with special lights: a searchlight specially constructed so that you can dim it or open quickly with a kind of the blind in front of it. Morse code or some other similar code can be used. Advantages: it is more secure, because you direct your searchlight narrow beam at the recipient. Works especially well when it is dark.
(I don't know English name of this system, in Russian it is called "ratier", probably after the name of the inventor.) The range is limited only by the horizon,
but you can place the searchlight high, for example on a top, to achieve quite a long distance. This system has the longest range of all optical systems.

To increase the range, sometimes  a signal was transmitted through a chain of ships, two nearby ships or boats within the range of any of the previously described system.
Remark. A searchlight does not necessarily use electricity. Lighthouses exist since very ancient times, but I don't know whether non-electric "ratiers" were ever used.
Comment: @Kerry L: Radios did not exist at the time of American civil war.
Comment: @Pieter Geerkins: Thanks for the nice photo. Do you know the name of this in English?
Comment: I was thinking of Normandy when I saw Cherbourg for some stupid reason. I REALLY shouldn't do any of this on my phone!!!
Comment: The French had large land-based semaphore systems that could be seen and read a lot farther away than one guy with two flags.
Comment: @Alex: I don't know of a name; but I am confident that the descriptive phrase "*naval signal lamp*" will be recognized by most native English speakers. That is the phrase I used to Google the image. Signalling today is done in Morse Code, but that post-dates Napoleonic times.
Comment: @Peter Geerkins: Thanks. Yes, American civil war post-dates Napoleonic times:-)


Open safari pdf link in acrobat reader,not in ibooks

Question: Using an IPAD - (ios-10)
I have Acrobat Reader on my Ipad
I get emailed alink to a PDF - on a microsoft OneDrive account
Or I get a email link to a PDF
Or - I am on some web site that offers a PDF link
I click on the PDF link - and it opens in Safari, and/or I can ask to open it in IBOOK
I need to instead open the link in Acrobat directly some how.
I need to save the pdf locally
I need to mark up the PDF - so that means I would like to use Acrobat Reader instead - but - there is no "share with acrobat reader" - there is no "Open in Acrobat Reader" -
As a trivial example - this link:
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/sn74ls00.pdf
I want to (a) save the PDF locally - becuase I do not always have internet access where I am using the ipad.
I want to (b) make this available in Adobe Acrobat (becuase I can mark the pdf up) and save the PDF locally.
Key words here are: The PDF file is Saved locally, Opened Locally, and marked up using Acrobat
What I have tried:
THIS does not work: How to open PDF files stored in iBooks on iPad in Adobe Reader
WHY? The PDFS are huge - and for various reasons I am forbidden to email them, and I am not suppose to store them in icloud, dropbox, etc.

This says it cannot be done from ibooks (wow that seems really stupid)
(I would have a link here to an example, but stack exchange does not allow more then 2 links)

THIS does not work: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1615234
While some files are in OneDrive - I do not have a ONEDRIVE account, I'm sent a link to the file and - the one-drive app assumes is MY onedrive account ... it is not - I am given a link to the PDF

Other places suggest there is a way to "open in acrobat" by clicking the SHARE icon - acrobat does not show up in the lists, nor do i know how to add acrobat to the list of things I can share with

If I open the link in Safari, I can click "Copy to IBOOK" - but I cannot copy to acrobat - how do I do that?
And FYI - I have hit the share button, and acrobat is not on the top half of the list, and it is not on the bottom half of the list and I have no way, and do not know how to add acrobat to the list of apps
==========
Using my PC - and ITunes or other app - to download/move/transfer/sync the PDF file defeats the entire idea here...
Also - I don't always have the PC with me when I need to do this.
Answer: Updating to IOS-11 - fixes the problem - adobe now appears in the "Open in Adobe" as a selection.


TODO List application that uses a priority queue

Question: Whenever I try and implement GTD using Remember The Milk, I end up with over a hundred items in my Next Actions list and quite a few items in my Projects list. It eventually becomes unsustainable. Yes, I should probably be doing more weekly reviews, but it would help to have something built into the app to help me work through those reviews, to help manage/prioritize a lot of todo items.  Here are my thoughts:
1) Semi-Automated Priority Sorting
The TODO app could implement a sorting algorithm where the "custom comparator" (to borrow a programming term) is a prompt to the user. It would repeatedly ask me to compare the priority of two given items, and use the answers to sort the list. It could be done all at once, or in a heap (priority queue) structure. The goal would be to be able to open the application in a busy moment, answer a few this-or-that questions to get the heap sort up to date, and "magically" have the first item in the list be something worth working on without requiring too much open-ended thinking. Obviously priority is a more complex concept than this, but I think it would still have practical value, and there are probably alterations that could be made.
2) Help With Categorizing Items According to (User-Defined?) Tagging Rules
As suggested in GTD, some things can have different contexts, like "work", "home", "near a printer", etc. But tagging all my hundreds of items with these and other organizational tags can be daunting. It would be helpful to be able to define (or, less powerfully, have predefined) tagging/organizational rules that every item must conform to. For example, I could define a new rule that says every item must have the context of either "home" or "work". Or a rule that says every item must be tagged with a corresponding project. Or a rule that says every item with a "read-it-later" tag must also be tagged according to a media type of "article", "book", "video", etc. Similarly to #1, there would be a prompt that would present to me any items missing tags to help me step through and tag things without having to think too much. Perhaps it could even use machine learning to suggest tags. These ideas have all come from my unsuccessful attempts to corral my next actions and someday maybe lists.
Remember the Milk is very powerful/flexible, and I can do some of these things with it manually, but I'm looking for something more structured to help reduce the cognitive load, especially wrt the priority sorting. Are there any applications out there that include these concepts of 1) semi-automated priority sorting or 2) structured workflow for organizing/categorizing/tagging items (preferably with user-defined rules)?
I've heard David Allen talk about making your workflow as much like "making widgets" as possible, reducing your cognitive load, but I haven't seen many TODO list apps apply this concept to organizing your todo items once you capture them. They all seem to leave it up to you, which leaves the user with a lot of thinking to do. Perhaps this is just because most of my GTD attempts have been in RTM, but it seems like there is room out there for some wizard-like tools that handle the structure/workflow part of the daily GTD processing flow, while relying on the user for the details. Somewhat like the visitor pattern in software engineering, if I'm not confused about what the visitor pattern is.
Answer: As there is no information on platform nor on UI preferences one can only speculate.
Would you e.g. prefer quite an elaborate solution with a very nice GUI, which could even be used for managing projects of a whole group, and don't mind that at the same time it is limited to MS Windows (standalone application)? Then you definitely want to have a look at AbstractSpoon's (https://www.abstractspoon.com/) todolist (http://abstractspoon.pbwiki.com/f/todolist_exe.zip)
You can sort your tasks according to multiple criteria and group your tasks according to categories, tags, projects, filter the view still other criteria... So it provides rich functionality.
If the automatic priority management is of utmost importance, you would rather like to look at task warrior (https://taskwarrior.org/), which is however a command line program and may look intimidating at first contact.
Is your preference on a standalone program with GUI that is available on different platforms (Windows, Linux) you might consider taskcoach (http://taskcoach.org/).
None of the above does have snychronisation features across multiple devices however. If this is important to you, you may prefer one of the multiple Web-Services.
If further criteria are to be considered, even different ones my be far better choices.
So you might try to define your requirements in a more detailed manner 1st.
Comment: Thanks, but I've used two of these tools and browsed the documentation of the third, and none of them seem to support either of the 2 features I mentioned.


Can over whipped egg whites be used in other ways?

Question: As a beginner baker, I have always wanted to try whipping eggs to different stages so that I can grasp at which point egg whites goes over the stiff peak and becomes unusable. Not wanting to waste food, I am wondering, can the over whipped egg whites then be used for something like an omelette?
Comment: I suspect (but haven't confirmed), that once you have overwhippend them to the point of breaking most of the protein chains, you could add them to basically anything that called for adding a little water (eg bread)
Answer: It should be easily usable in applications where the egg texture is not that important. Find a recipe which needs both eggs (not whipped) and a liquid, and add the liquid to the overwhipped egg until the foam has subsided. Add the yolks back in (such recipes generally call for whole eggs).
This should work with different types of griddle cakes: pancakes, waffles, crepes. Also with the liquid used to top moussaka etc., or the liquid used to create straciatella soups.
Answer: You can try to cook an omelette. It worked perfectly for me, except I have added some extra vegies to it.


What primer should I use to paint over nicotine stained walls?

Question: What primer should be used before painting over nicotine stained walls?
Comment: Regular primer should do.  But you might want to give the walls a scrub first.
Comment: You could also hit it with a DA sander and 100 grit sandpaper, just to make sure all the residue is gone and to promote adhesion.
Comment: Hey @RET. How did this process go? Were you able to remove the stain/odor?
Answer: I would just use a good stain covering primer like Kilz.  I have used both KILZ 2® Latex Primer and KILZ® Premium Primer, the Premium version is noticeable better than the Kilz 2.
But it looks like they have an even better version called KILZ MAX™ Primer. I have never used this one but it does mention covering nicotine:

KILZ MAX™ is a water-based primer, sealer and stainblocker developed
  with new technology that's formulated to perform like an oil-based
  product. It tackles tough stains including medium to heavy water
  damage, rust, smoke, nicotine, grease, tannin, ink, pencil, felt
  marker, pet stains and more. KILZ MAX also seals pet and smoke odors.
  Topcoat with latex or oil-based paint.

Kilz does recommend cleaning the surface; see the "Surface Preparation" section for all of their recommendations.  The most relevant section is this:

The surface must be clean, free of dust, grease, wax, peeling paint,
  mold, mildew and wallpaper paste. If washing is necessary, use a
  non-soapy detergent or a TSP substitute. Rinse well and allow to dry.
Comment: Clean the walls first though.
Comment: I miss the old Kilz. *that I think got it's name because of what it does if you don't use it in a well ventilated area.*
Comment: I've used KILZ MAX and give it a huge thumbs up.
Answer: I've also had good luck with Zinsser B-I-N, which is shellac based.  This might be overkill for your situation, but I've used it with great success on hard to cover stains.
Answer: Agreed with all the "clean first" comments, but you might try tri-sodium phosphate (TSP) as your detergent, as it also etches the surface, providing a "nap" on the paint to make coats stick.
My favourite primer for difficult situations is white pigmented shellac, like the B-I-N product mentioned, but there are generic off-brand versions that are cheaper. It is generally titanium dioxide and shellac powder, in an alcohol base. It is suitable for both water- and oil-based paint, and is indeed ideal for covering an oil-based stain with water-based paint for that reason. Because it is alcohol-based, it dries quickly and cleans up easily.
Answer: The painted surfaces and wallboard are porous, allowing the smoke molecules and odors to become embedded, in the walls, ceilings, carpeting, and furniture. With any temperature or humidly change the embedded odors and particles reemerge creating unhealthy air quality.
Out-gassing (sometimes called off-gassing, particularly when about indoor air quality) is the release of a gas that has dissolved, trapped, frozen or absorbed in some material. Out gassing can include sublimation and evaporation, which are phase transitions of a substance into a gas, as well as desorption, seepage from cracks or internal volumes and gaseous products of slow chemical reactions.
We found using Seal Krete or shellac as a primer that only one coat of paint is required saving time and money. Both Shellac and Seal Krete has the viscosity of water use a short nap roller and do not overload as it will run on the surface. If you chose to use a sealer or shellac as a primer, when you're ready to paint use paint with built in primer, higher viscosity than regular paint, thus only one coat. Now you're ready to paint, add the ionic paint additive to the paint, turns the wall surface into a permanent air purification system


Tracking tasks across all Jira projects

Question: I have many projects that are in progress in JIRA with Scrum teams from User Experience (UX) and Development (dev). Is there a way to see all dev or UX tasks across all projects? I'm currently having to go into each project to view these tasks but I want view everything in one place. Is this possible?
Comment: The question, as it stands, might have several correct answers - Jira Dashboard and Jira Structures are the ones that are likely to be on the top... but there are other plugins such as [Jira Portfolio](https://confluence.atlassian.com/jiraportfoliocloud/portfolio-for-jira-home-715263250.html).
Answer: You can create a Jira Dashboard
I used to keep a Dashboard with the Sprint Health Gadget for each of the project. This way I can see the summary status of all the projects in the Dashboard in one place. When I see something in the summary that warrants attention, I can always drill-down into that project to see the details.
Trying to see all the tasks from different projects in one place will be overwhelming and confusing.
However, if that is what you want, see the High-priority issues example in this link. He has used the Filter Results gadget and filtered the tasks to see only the high priority issues. Here is the JQL:

sprint in (openSprints(), futureSprints()) AND project in (TIS) AND
  (Flagged is not EMPTY OR priority = Blocker)

If you add your projects and remove the filters in the JQL, you should see all the issues in one place.
Answer: Disclosure: I work for the company that makes the Structure add-on for JIRA.
If you have self-hosted JIRA you can install the Structure add-on which will allow you to pull issues from different projects into one place, group, sort and filter them, view issuelink and Agile relations in a hierarchical tree, show aggregate progress, time, story points and other numerical values.
Grouping by fields such as release, sprint and assignee you will be able to track progress from as low as sub-task level across multiple projects/sprints/releases.

Tracking tasks across all Jira projects


UniServer Coral and UniServerZ Running Wrong PHP Version

Question: I've been baffled and frustrated that I've been trying to update one of our servers that my supervisor installed and when I run any PHP installed module, it starts with wrong version of PHP. The server always starts with PHP Version 5.4.19. Regardless of what module I installed and checked that the files run with, it always starts with that version according to phpinfo. Server runs MS Server 2008 R2. My objectives are to 1) Update PHP to Version 5.6. and 2) Use ZeroXI controller for modularity of the server.
Here's what I've found and checked so far:
Supervisor installed two types of Uniservers while trying them out: Uniserver Coral don't know which version, but I tried updating to Coral 8.9.2... Initially, I uninstalled the original services but cannot verify (1) What is the name of the service in order to verify that? Also all of the apache and mysql modules are stopped and ZeroXI can peacefully start apache and mysql.
The other uniserver is Uniserver ZeroXI 1.1.6. Oddly enough, there was an installed service that wasn't running so I uninstalled that as well. I can verify that us_apache_1 service is not running. I installed php_5_6_0 which the documentation says that it supports. However, even if php56 is selected and phpinfo verifies that
Loaded Configuration File C:\uniserver\core\php56\php_production.ini

Apache Environment:
PATH C:\uniserver\core\apache2\bin;C:\uniserver\core\mysql\bin;C:\uniserver\core\php56;C:\uniserver\core\openssl;C:\uniserver\core\msmtp;C:\uniserver\utils;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.6\bin

Core:
extension_dir C:/uniserver/core/php56/extensions
Environment:
PHP_SELECT php56

Well, Apparently:
PHP Version 5.4.19

(2) Are there any other causes why the uniserver zeroxi uses 5.4.19 although it is set as php 5.6.0?
I have tried installing a new uniserver zeroxi controller under a different folder name, but to no avail, it consistenly still uses the same php version. Please let me know what other things that could point me to what is causing this.
Thanks in advance.
Answer: Just to update what happened and our solution and this may apply to various WAMPP installations as well...
We thought that
Configuration File (php.ini) Path   C:\Windows

had nothing to do with our install of Uniserver. Apparently there is this errant php5ts.dll in the Windows folder. This file loaded the wrong version of php. As soon as we copied the dir/to/php/folder/php5ts.dll (c:\uniserver\core\php56\php5ts in our case), all of the modularity of unizerver zeroxi worked again.
For other WAMPP installs, you might want to check the same php.ini path in you phpinfo and if you have C:\Windows as the path, you can backup then copy the php5ts.dll file from the php installation folder to the Windows folder.


Why does Super Sonico always wear headphones?

Question: Just as the title asks, why does Super Sonico always wear those headphones? Is there a reason behind it, or is this just the design Nitroplus came up with?
Answer: I believe this is an example of the Never Bareheaded trope in combination with the Nice Hat trope.

Never Bareheaded: A character always appears wearing a headdress of some kind, and never, ever takes it off. It doesn't have to be a hat, any kind of headgear is fine. Furthermore, it doesn't always have to be the same headgear, the point is that this character is never seen bare-headed. This gives him a certain mystique, since while it might just be that he wears the hat because he feels like it, the fact remains that we never learn what his hatless head looks like.
Nice Hat: To show that you mean business, it's important to have style. Enter: the nice hat. It may actually have utility — even conveying special powers — but more often than not it just looks cool, or even just sexy.

Considering that Super Sonic is pretty much a half-naked model for Nitroplus, the Nice Hat trope "sexy" part does most certainly fit this description.
Answer: I discovered an interesting piece of information to add to Dimitri mx's answer while I was researching my answer to Why is Super Sonico famous?. It turns out that Super Sonico was originally designed as the mascot for Nitroplus's music festival, Nitro Super Sonico, as documented on Super Sonico Wiki and Wikipedia. Nitroplus, though primarily a visual novel company, had apparently held this music festival for several years before they introduced Super Sonico as its mascot in 2006. In-universe, Super Sonico is a singer (and gravure model, of course); she had some very out-of-universe albums and singles released, which may have set off the tidal rush of Super Sonico love that resulted in the manga, visual novel, and anime.
So it made sense, when Super Sonico was first designed, to give her a pair of headphones: she was the mascot for a music festival, after all, and a singer herself. Dimitri mx's answer explains why she almost never takes them off.
Answer:
Character design distinction. Remove the headphones and she'll be any anime character with pink long hair and yeah, large oppai.
Conceal ears. Idk, I haven't probably seen an ear of a long haired female character.
Her headphones can be also sold as a character product so yeah, more $$$.

This is just my opinion though.
Answer: Sonico is a robot, pretty much. If you take the headphones off, she breaks.
See this link:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2014/01/22-1/super-sonico-child-version-figure-previewed
Comment: ((it was pretty much confirmed by sentai filmworks, not nitroplus, but whatever
Answer: In the game Sonicomi, there is a secret ending (ending 18), where if you touch Sonico's headphones she will say "- the demonic signal will be released and something terrible will happen! Everyone will die! So you can't touch them!". Touching them will result in a zombie apocalypse (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROcp5DJQBu4). Not sure if this answers the question though.
Answer: Maybe Super Sonico has hearing problems and the headphones are hearing aids. In the anime she uses 4 alarm clocks to wake up.
Comment: This was already proposed in another answer and disproven in a comment on that answer. Please read all other answers before posting to be sure you're adding something new.
Answer: She could be deaf and those headphones serve to help her hear, I mean if it is never addressed then it should be assumed that the information is common knowledge in that universe, maybe they serve to let her hear
I see them in a similar way as a blind man's shades, only with the augmenting ability that they let her hear
Comment: She is seen without her headphone in episode 5 when she is in the bath, and during that scene, she could hold a conversation with the editor normally. Therefore, it's confirmed that she is not deaf.


How to maintain the hygiene of rockclimbing shoes?

Question: I go climbing about twice a week, and after a month or so my shoes are quite dirty. Not only do they smell, but I can actually see the dirt on the inside (probably from walking around barefoot on less-than-clean surfaces). I'd like to eliminate the smell at the very least and perhaps keep them generally cleaner (but I guess this involves using slippers). I've found a similar question about running shoes, but I'm not sure if the materials used in climbing shoes make any difference? I also saw that they use some kind of spray on the boots they rent at the gym, but I'm not exactly sure what.
Answer: I had a period of serious shoe funk, and tried a number techniques before finding a system that works for me. It should be noted that shoe odor tends to be much worse in synthetic shoes.
The most important thing is prevention. Do not put your shoes in a bag, ever. Even in an open canvas bag, the shoes don't dry out as well between sessions. I've taken to always clipping my shoes onto the outside of my bag so that they're always airing out.
Even so, dirt and sweat will take its toll over time, but there are a number of ways to clean your shoes. I tried the washing machine, but it seemed a bit harsh on the rubber. My preferred method is to just hold them under the tap, run warm water and scrub the hell out of them with a toothbrush. Once the water coming out of them turns clear, I dip the toothbrush in vinegar and give them a good scrub all over to kill any bacteria. After that, I rinse them again and put them aside to dry. I've never had any odor problems survive this.
A disinfectant spray to kill fungus certainly can't hurt, but isn't as important if you're the only one using the shoes.
Comment: Are you are holding them under the tap won't mess them up in any way? That was my first idea (plus I saw people carrying around toothbrushes in the gym), but I was afraid running them under water could damage the rubber. As far as prevention goes, I keep them in the bag for about an hour it usually takes me to get home from the gym - should I really try to air them during this time too, or is it ok? Otherwise, they are always airing.
Comment: I'm only doing this once every few months, and it's fine on the rubber (although the toothbrushes you see at the gym are for brushing chalk off of holds). I suppose if you were doing it all the time the drying could take it's toll eventually. Keeping them in a bag for an hour is probably fine, as long as you're good at remembering to always take them out. I'm not so good at that.
Answer: There are a lot of things you can do to increase the shelf life of your rock climbing shoes as well as reduce the odor/bacteria in it:

Do not wear them except while climbing; the rubber grips at the bottom soak up the dirt and gravel, reducing their effectiveness and long-term durability.
Replace the soles of the shoes on an as-needed basis.
Use a damp rag or cloth to collect the dirt on the inside of the shoe.
Brush the outside of the shoe with a moderately coarse brush to get rid of the grime. Not so coarse that you scrape off the rubber, but not so light that you aren't cleaning out the packed in dirt.
Use anti-fungal deodorizing powders and/or sprays. Gold Bond and Desenex are two examples. (I believe gyms typically spray a Lysol-like disinfectant)
Wear thin socks instead of going barefoot.
Always allow the shoe to dry naturally, but not in direct heat since it can melt or deform the rubber.
Comment: Thanks! I guess I should mention that I only go indoor climbing with them (so points 1 and 7 are kinda moot for me). I guess going with socks instead of barefoot will provide the biggest difference, and I'll see about getting some kind of spray too.
Comment: After trying powders, I'd recommend against them. They work in the short term, but they can build up over time. When your feet sweat while climbing, it can mix with any residue creating a very slippery environment in your shoes.
Comment: @Dean if you keep up with the damp rag and air drying, it doesn't become such a big deal; by the time it would build up to that point, you're probably ready to do #2 and resole the shoe anyways.
Answer: I agree with @Dean that "the most important thing is prevention" but my method is slightly different.
Over my first 6 months of climbing ~2/wk indoors, my climbing shoes became unbearably (and embarrassingly) smelly, despite religiously air drying them after use. As OP mentioned, they were also visibly dirty on the inside. And it's worth noting that I never wear socks with my climbing shoes.
My friend (and much more experienced climber whose been through several pairs of climbing shoes over the years) insisted that I could wash them in the machine but I remained concerned about damaging the rubber and/or the glue that holds parts of the rubber together. I finally put them through a side-loading washing machine with a load of laundry. They came out smelling much better, looking clean and none the worse for wear.
After going to the gym with my newly washed shoes, I noticed some odor had returned, although nothing like before. So, while they were still moist with sweat, I put 1-2 tablespoons of baking soda in each shoe and rubbed it around the inside. Also, as noted, I allow them to air dry. Before returning to the gym a few days later, I banged the shoes together to remove excess baking soda out.
After 2-3 trips to the gym, the baking soda was no longer visible on the inside of the shoe, so I repeated the process. So far (about 1 month of 2-3 gym visits/wk) this seems to be preventing the smell from getting worse. When they again become visibly dirty, I'll either put them through the wash or try @Dean's toothbrush & vinegar method.


Are these insect eggs or some sort of fungus?

Question: It's been a rainy week here in Los Angeles and I noticed these today. I'm not sure if they were there before the rain but I'm completely stumped on what they are.
Answer: Cottony Maple Scale
In your picture it looks like the upper trunk is cherry and the trunk that is covered with this scale (an insect, no need to worry about your trees)looks like a different type of tree; do you know what it could be?
Can you find this scale on any other plants?
Please send a picture of the leaves and a close up of a glob that you've cleaned a bit to see an insect in the middle?
Hope this helps.
Answer: Check out Schizophyllum Commune. I'm fairly sure this is what it is. Bottomside should have gills, but in the picture they are very young. Look at it from below or hold a mirror under it. It's a saprotrophic fungus. Once it has taken hold, there's really nothing you can do to remove it, since every action to that end will likely also be detrimental to the tree, leading to a higher susceptibility to disease and pests, while we can't possibly see how far the fungus has spread inside, so we would never really be sure to have removed it all, and spore release will have made sure there are new entry points for the fungus to start it's cycle all over. Circle of life. It might take decades for your tree to succumb to this mushroom, or it might take only a few years, it's hard to say. Avoiding spores of this fungus would be a fool's errand since it's the most ubiquitous fungi in the world, and since fungi spores are ubiquitous in their own right, and if there's one thing life teaches, it's that life will find it's way!
If it is Schizophyllum, it will turn into a paper-thin scaling when dry, but plump right back into it's fluffy normal appearance after some rainfall. It can be a really beautiful fungus, especially in larger shelves, and holds promise of very high value in the fight against cancer. In fact, it is the mushroom with the most promise for it, yet, sadly, to my knowledge it is not being used as such today.
Research/source: about 5 years worth of study and hobby mycology in the fields of mushroom determination and foraging, mushroom cell culture and cultivation, medicinal use of mushrooms in the fight against neuroborreliosis, and the role of mushrooms in mythology and religion.
Comment: I have always heard that mushrooms will only form on decaying matter.  Could this be an exception?
Comment: This is not true at all. Mushroom spores will germinate and infect whenever and wherever conditions are ideal. The conditions  for mycelium to thrive will vary greatly for different mushroom species though, and for Schyzophyllum it is wet/damp weather, and preferably in wood, but an interesting side note to this most common of all mushrooms, is that it is even known to have colonized several human beings, with one known instance of a fruit body appearing inside the bronchial region. Most often this happens to immunocompromised individuals. edit: nostril cavity was wrong, it was the bronchial r
Comment: source: Schizophyllum commune: an unusual agent of
bronchopneumonia in an immunocompromised patient, a case report by VIVIAN TULLIO*, NARCISA MANDRAS*, GIULIANA BANCHE*, VALERIA ALLIZOND*, ESTER GAIDO$,
JANIRA ROANA*, ANNA MARIA CUFFINI* & NICOLA A. CARLONE*
*Department of Public Health and Microbiology, University of Turin, Turin, and $Microbiology Laboratory, S. Giovanni Battista
Hospital, Turin, Italy
Comment: One more remark that I do must add for the sake of a complete answer, is that mushroom mycelium does cause a decay of sorts to the matter they consume, since mushrooms basically turn the complex fabric of what they grow on into the simple building blocks it is made of, such as sugars from lignins and they use that as an energy source to build new mushroom mycelium and fruit bodies, so in a way, they do cause decay, but so does any tree or plant when it feeds the soil microbiome so it can in turn feed them. Decay and generation generally go hand in the mushroom and plant kingdoms.
Comment: This is officially my favorite post on the site ever. Such a great example of the knowledge that is quickly brought to the surface coming from great people.
Comment: Thank you :) Very interesting subjects indeed.


What materials should a new player bring to a gaming group

Question: I am a new player with almost no experience in RPGs. I have joined a public gaming group and the first session is in a week. They are playing Pathfinder. My question: should I buy some Pathfinder books for the game? What others materials is it necessary to have (MORE than ONE set of dice?) ?
Comment: A pencil and a good attitude! (I know, attitude isn't "material", but it _is_ essential.)
Comment: Welcome to the site. There are a lot of questions about this kind of thing that might answer your question for you. Have a browse through the [new-players] tag to see if you can find anything useful.
Comment: Food and beverages! Seriously.
Answer: Typically it is best to simply ask them. Groups don't assume new players will magically know things without instruction.
That said, there are some simple things you can do. The Pathfinder System Resource Document is a massive reference guide to just about all the options available in Pathfinder, completely free and legal. You could start to take a look at it. It is designed as a reference first, which can make it difficult to dig into as a new player with no guidance, but Getting Started and the Character Creation Outline should be accessible enough even reading on your own. Note that many (most?) groups have "houserules" that may change some of the details contained even in those most basic pages, but understanding the default rules will help you to understand what the houserules mean.
Caveat: I do not recommend that you create a character from scratch, with no help, and without having met the group and discussed the specifics of the game. That could be a ton of work, fraught with confusion (that can be easily clarified by working through it with someone experienced), and the character may not even fit in the game they're playing. This is more just about reading how character creation works in general, to understand how to use the system and what some basic terms mean.
Aside from that, it's a good idea to start thinking about what you would like to do with the game, particularly if you know a little about what the group is doing. I don't mean the options presented in the PFSRD, but rather purely thinking about what character you want to create, what role it is you'd like to play. A warrior-type or a mage-type or a sneaky-type? Some kind of hybrid mix of two or more of these things? A stalwart dwarf or passionate elf – or passionate dwarf? Someone loyal and faithful, a quintessential exemplar of his race, community, country, or class, or someone who's unusual, rejecting some or all of those norms?
Again, note that I'm not suggesting that you pick out a class (more like a category of classes; a warrior could be a fighter or cavalier or barbarian or paladin or whatever), much less going through choosing all the class features, feats, and so on. Those details make more sense to figure out once you have met the group and learned more about the game and other characters. Typically, a group doesn't expect someone who has never played to show up with a ready-made character. Personally, I'd find that to be an extremely unreasonable expectation.
All of these ideas are possible, at least in the right game. Even if the game is set in an unusual setting or has a very specific focus, these kinds of ideas get you thinking about possibilities; you can adapt your idea, or you can just take it as practice and create something new and more tailored for the game when you learn more details.
As for dice, most groups have plenty, but more is never a problem. I have never played in a group where a new player was expected to have their own dice, but it couldn't hurt (a simple set isn't usually expensive), and it avoids the potentially-awkward situation where they were expecting you to have your own and you don't. Along the same lines, pen(cil) and paper; they almost certainly have plenty, but it'd be awkward if they didn't.
You probably don't need to buy Pathfinder books, considering the existence of the PFSRD, but some do find that their greater detail and guidance for new players useful. Still, with an experienced group that can show you the ropes, I feel like it's a fair bit of cash for what is usually pretty generic advice.
Answer: Nothing is absolutely required. Some things that I try to always bring to a game, regardless of the circumstances, are:

A pencil
Enough dice for me to play the game (for Pathfinder, a seven-die set is a good start, although you later find you want extra instances of a die type; e.g. rogues will want additional d6s)
My character sheet, if it's already built and the GM expects players to keep their sheets.

If you have the core player book and any supplements necessary for your character, those would be welcome but not expected. It's always nice to have an extra Player's Handbook or equivalent.
Snacks and drinks will always be welcome but not always expected.
Comment: Would a digital dice roller work?
Comment: @LenieLenape - Probably, unless your group has an objection to it (which is unlikely). I find physical dice easier, but most groups will be fine with you using whatever you prefer.
Comment: +1 for snacks/drinks. A new player will almost inevitably have to borrow dice, paper or *something*, depending on the group; best to provide something universally acceptable "in return".
Answer: A new player should not be required to buy books if the rest of the group already has some on hand. That being said, familiarizing yourself with the rules is very important in keeping gameplay smooth. If the other players are experienced they will probably be willing to help you along with any questions you have along the way.
Other than that, bring a set or two of dice, your character sheet, a pencil, a couple of sheets of loose leaf or printer paper to take notes if necessary (even index cards work, I use them to keep track of spells when I play a caster). Lastly, find out if the group has a policy for food and drinks. My gaming group is always required to bring some kind of snack along to the host house to keep things cheap and easy.
Answer: As a frequent GM and gameday organizer, I find it nice when people bring their own character sheet(s), blank if they have not created their character.  If your group knows you are coming and inexperienced, they may have this and other such things ready for you, however.
If you intend to use the session to see if you enjoy the RPGs, then you may want to wait and not buy anything until you see if you enjoy it as noted above.  However, if you are planning to play long term, I think it worth owning a Core Rulebook sooner than later.  I like to peruse my rulebooks before I attend the first session of any new game I play so I have an idea of how the game system works.  Even for gaming veterans, every game system plays slightly differently.
I would not recommend buying any more materials than that for your first session no matter what your intent.  Learn the core game and let your imagination immerse yourself in the rest before you shell out a bunch of cash.
As a player, I also like to have blank paper (besides your character sheet).  Many gamers like to take notes about what is going on (critical non-player characters [NPCs], clues, other character's names (even real names), etc).  Not everyone does this, so that's just a recommendation especially if you don't know what type of gamer you are.
If you have any miniatures, you might bring something to represent your character though one of your unused dice or a coin may suffice, or likely your compatriots will have something you can borrow temporarily.  Small lego men, army men, etc may suffice as well as provide party amusement (my father sometimes uses them even though he has "real" miniatures).
Normal "mats" are about 1 inch by 1 inch (think size of a quarter) and try and pick something that won't fall over all the time, if you bring something.
Aside: Core rulebook and minis can be purchased at local gamestores which is nice if you did not buy them in advance as thanks to the owners for use of the space.
I won't duplicate what others said above, though I agree with a lot of it.
At the end of the day, I think ask them ahead (if possible) and good attitude are the best answers.
Good gaming to you!


How to calculate area between graph line and average line?

Question: I have the following chart in Excel:

I want to calculate the area under the graph line.
Any idea?
Answer: For each adjacent pair of points, take average of y-coordinates, then multiply by difference of x-coordinates, and accumulate for all pairs.
Comment: thanks, how to calculate +/- from average line(2.8)?
Answer: For your related post (How to paint area under graph line with average line?) I suggested using a column chart. The area chart overemphasizes some points more than the values should allow. Since the points are discrete measurements, the sloping lines between measurements are meaningless, and calculating areas is going to be misleading.
So the "area" above the values is the sum of (value - average) for value > average, and the "area" below the values is the sum of (average - value) for value < average.
Very simple to calculate with two simple formulas.


Do you know of a browser that won't hog bandwidth?

Question: Every time I use a browser when I'm on Skype, my Skype connection loses power and it's hard to hear the person on the other end of the call.
Do you know of a Mac browser that won't hog up bandwidth and therefore leave enough for my conversation?
Comment: Just to highlight what all of the answers (thus far) are basically saying: it's not the browser that's hogging the bandwidth, it's what you're viewing with it that's doing it. Switching to a browser that doesn't download and display bandwidth heavy elements (such as images) is one to solve the issue.
Answer: Opera has a feature called "Turbo" that might reduce your bandwidth usage: http://www.opera.com/browser/turbo/
...and yes, it's available for OS X: http://www.opera.com/download/?platform=mac
It's also possible that your browser is using up much of your system's available RAM and that is causing degradation of Skype's performance. Have you tried closing some tabs (assuming you have many tabs open)?
Answer: you could try using lynx it would most likely have the least overhead. but it is also a terminal web browser.
http://lynx.browser.org/
its cool to play with and can get your info while on your call.
Answer: AdBlock and any of the script blocking plugins in Firefox can shrink the amount of info downloaded by sites to the bare minimum necessary.
But, echoing others here: your problem is not the browser, it's the sites you're viewing.
Watching Youtube or Netflix, or even just loading Facebook or any current webmail client will take quite a bit of bandwidth and will therefore cause your Skype connection to be interrupted. Changing your browser will not change this.