Android OS High Mobile Data usage

Question: Guys the android OS data usage on mobile data seems to be unusually high..
I have blocked data access for all the apps and whitelisted only a few 4-5 apps in AfWall firewall.. While play store , play services are disabled too..
Also I keep Google sync off when on mobile data and use it only on Wi-Fi..
And one cannot turn off background data on android OS
Settings > Backup and reset is turned off And all the photos backup etc too.
Anything related to Google or backup is turned off in short
The mobile is Moto G first gen and most of the OEM Motorola apps are freezed
So why so much usage by Android OS..
What packages are part of it.
Or how to check what services or packages are using the data and how to disable or freeze them.
Also can post if somebody needs to analyse

iptables firewall rules
Apps frozen or disabled

Screens:

Also:

backup is turned off
sync is turned off
no OTA updates for a long time
my normal data usage was ~20MB per month for Android OS
Answer: One way to reduce data usage it to turn off Data Roaming. This can be found under Settings > Wireless & Networks > Mobile Networks.
Comment: How does this even affect when one's never on roaming

Android OS High Mobile Data usage


Some hardware for multiple SIM cards SMS sending

Question: I need some hardware for multiple SIM cards SMS sending. Preferably 200 sim cards. I would use Linux and some development boards like Raspberry pi etc. I have used raspberry with a USB dongle. Please advice solutions for multiple sim cards.
Comment: Consider TWILIO
Comment: Your question is somewhat unclear to me. A SIM Card is a data storrage and cannot send SMS. What do you want to ask? How to clone one image onto 200 SIM cards?
Comment: "I need some hardware for multiple SIM cards SMS sending" I don't know what is unclear but imagine that instead of using 200 phones to hold IM cards I use a "hardware for that. I am aware that SIM does not send a ting. So I need a hard part.
Answer: You can get a multiple of this 64 port bulk sms gsm modem with M35 module, 64 port gsm modem pool with IMEI change or go to AliBaba to request quotes for custom sms gsm modem. The Alibaba vendors list in 128 port multi sim bulk sms gsm modem may give you some ideas on how you can contact the seller to customize for your order.
I hope this helps.


MS Project Calendar

Question: I'm new MS Project user; I'm trying to sync my Ms Project 2016 calendar with Outlook 2013, I want tasks due dates give notification in Outlook. How can I do that?
Comment: Is your organization using Project Server 2013 or 2010?  If so, your Project Server administrator would need to make some configuration changes to allow for synchronizing project tasks between Project and Outlook.
Answer: Currently there is no way out of the box to directly import Microsoft Project tasks into Outlook. There used to be an Outlook Add-in for Project Server 2007 and an Exchange Sync for Project Server 2010/2013. All of those have been deprecated since.
There are some third-party add-ons that can do what you want, the only one I have implemented is Allocatus.
From personal experience, I can tell you that everyone wants a Project/Outlook integration, until they actually get it. Project and Outlook don't work on the same level, Outlook tasks and appointments are usually more detailed and have more accurate scheduling than tasks in Project. Tasks in Project are linked to each other while tasks in Outlook are not. Those two tools don't have compatible logic. This leads to intense frustration when you move something in Outlook, and this in return wreaks complete havoc in your Project plan, for example. Or if you only import tasks from Project, but don't sync back, you have accurate information for a day and a half until you don't know which date is valid anymore. If there is a product on the market that handles all these issues gracefully, I haven't encountered it.
Answer: You can read it :
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_project-mso_other/microsoft-project-and-outlook-sync/37bbc611-8495-4487-a4f5-27a56a133658
If you use project server then :
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Install-and-set-up-the-Microsoft-Office-Project-Add-in-for-Outlook-4fe87c04-c6f0-4995-bf56-e44858a5ae51?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US&fromAR=1
Comment: While these links may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the links for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes.
Answer: I used Allocatus at a previous company I worked at and thought it would be helpful. As I mentioned in my comments, it automatically updates your calendar to a to-do list form in MS Project. I believe it can also do this in the reverse direction but we didn't use that feature.
Answer: Look at this software as it should do what you are trying to achieve.
https://www.allocatus.com/
It synchronizes MS Project with a calendar or to-do list and automatically sends updates.
I hope it helps.
Comment: While this links to something that appears to be tangentially responsive, it looks a lot like spam. If you're affiliated with the product, say so. More importantly, you should explain *how* your link solves the problem, rather just linking to something and saying it does.

MS Project Calendar


What is the term for a statement that becomes true by being uttered?

Question: I though those were called tautologies, but I just found out that that is incorrect. Is there a term for a statement like "I have lied", that becomes irrefutably true as soon as I say it? In this example, either I have lied in the past and I am speaking the truth about it, or I have never previously lied; this is my first lie.
Comment: Self-fulfilling?
Comment: I don't know the name, but "I am speaking" is a good example of a sentence that becomes true by being uttered.  Ultimately, I think these sorts of questions are best examined in formal languages.
Comment: Check out [performativity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity).
Comment: Your example requires an odd theory of tense.  If this is he first thing you ever said, it is false when you say it.
Answer: The question in the title seems to be different from the elaboration below it.
In pragmatics, utterances are called "speech acts". Specifically, sentences like I now pronounce you man and wife are an illocutionary speech act, and more specifically, are declarations. These become true with just their utterance.
The elaboration below the question's title seems to allude to the liar paradox, which is beyond the scope of pragmatics. After all, the content of our speech need not be bound by rules of logic.
Comment: Everything about this answer is correct. But there's one detail where my memory could be off, but I think the term is **performative** rather than **declaration**. It's been a long while since I read Austin and the Searle I've read recently is not on speech acts.
Comment: do speechacts have a truthvalue?
Comment: @Lukas Only sometimes. Directives, expressives, etc. don't have a truth value.
Answer: To complement a little prash's answer, let me clarify something.
In Logic, a tautology is any sentence that is true by virtue of its logical structure. In this case, the truth values of the atomic sentences in it doesn't matter. So it will be true in every possible interpretation.
In other case, if a sentence is true but is not a tautology, then is true by the combination of the logical structure and the truth value of atomic sentences.
Now, some authors consider the liar paradox to be true and false. This is called dialetheism, in this view self-contradictory statements are considered "true contradictions".
Answer: There would be a class of statements that are about speaking. And some of these statements would become true if and only if you utter the statement. Like "I can't keep my mouth shut", where making the utterance makes it true (while writing it on a piece of paper doesn't). Or "I'm speaking now". This kind of statement would belong to a larger class of "self-referential statements".
There are statements falling into the category of "self-fulfilling prophesies" that are a bit more indirect. Like "riding a bike is really difficult, you'll fall off and hurt yourself", where the listener loses all confidence in their bike-riding and promptly falls off and hurts themselves when they try it.
Something like "with all the stolen goods that you are openly carrying with you, I wouldn't be surprised if that police officer would arrest you" could likely cause exactly what was uttered to happen, if the police officer hears it. Not sure if it falls under "self-fulfilling prophecy".
Orders. An officer yelling "everyone stands still" and promptly everyone stands still. So you see there are many different kinds of statements that become true by being uttered.


Configure package manager to use an NTLM Proxy

Question: I've seen a few examples of how to setup Emacs to use Basic Auth proxies - is there a way to configure it to use an NTLM proxy?
Answer: If anyone needs to answer this question, here's how I solved it:
Install CNTLM and configure it with your NTLM creds.
Set environment variables HTTP_PROXY & HTTPS_PROXY to the localhost presented by CNTLM
that should sort it


Why did Bigtan and Teresh want to kill the king?

Question: I am very puzzled by the whole episode with Bigtan and Teresh (Esther 2:21-23). What exactly made them so mad that they wanted to kill the king? The gemarah (megillah 13b) says they were complaining of not getting any sleep because the king was sleeping with Esther every night. Which I assume means their job was to guard the door? So on a night that the king didn't sleep with the queen they weren't guarding the door? Do they not get to sleep during the day? And if their job was to guard the door how were they planning on poisoning the king? Wouldn't the king summon some other servant to bring him food and drink? see Pirkei D'Rebbi Eliezer 50 for full description of their plot.
Comment: [This blog post](http://megillatesther.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/esther-221-question-3-why-were-bigsan-and-seresh-angry/) lists various explanations for their motives.
Answer: The basic answer is that because the king was sleeping with Esther so often he became thirsty very often so they were constantly having to bring him water and then later bring him his lavatory. See Rashi's comments on Megillah 13b.
It was their job to both guard the door and supply any of his needs during the night. When he wasn't sleeping with Esther they just guarded the door, but now that he was sleeping with her their workload increased significantly. Since their job was to both guard the door and provide for the kings nighttime needs they were able to have one person slip off to get poison while the other did double duty. See the Ben Yehoyada on the above cited gemarah who goes into great detail of the problem and how the plot was detected.
Comment: [From Me'am Lo'ez] For various reasons there was a lot of hatred inside the palace for Achashveirosh and many people wanted to see him go therefore they knew that the crime would not be investigated to deeply.
Comment: So why not just kill Esther?
Comment: I have seen at least one commentator who explains that they intended to do exactly that. A double homicide. Furthermore, there are those who explain that they were angry with Achashveirosh for having appointed Mordechai to an office of prominence and demoting them which was another reason for targeting him specifically.
Answer: The Targum to Esther 2:21 says that Bigtan and Teresh were jealous of the many honors given Mordechai by Esther, and worried that they would be replaced by him.
Comment: But that doesnnt make sense since Mordecai was only recognized after Bigthan and teresh's death.
Comment: @TheTribeOfJudah by the king


Is it healthy for toddlers to play outside when it is cold?

Question: Assuming the child is dressed properly and it isn't extremely cold (I'm thinking high 50ºF or 10ºC with wind).  Their hands and face will be exposed and they may be sweaty from running around, but does it impact immunity or health generally to be outside in the cold while young (toddler age, 1-3 or so).
Comment: High 50's?  Seriously?
Comment: I think it is conditioning.  I have a friend from Edinburgh who moved to Cairns, and complained about the heat when he got there.  We visited last year, and outside at night, it dropped down to 24 celcius and he put on a jumper.  My kids roam around like feral sheep in all temps and we encourage it to be honest.  They're rarely ill, in fact, I can't recall in 8 months since we moved to our new house them being ill once.
Answer: Per
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5184405

Pediatrician Lynn Wegner says, in this instance, the science seems to be on his side.
"A winter virus is not caused by going out in the cold air," says Wegner. "It's viral transmission." In other words, colds are caught by coming into physical contact with someone who already has a cold virus.

In general no.
http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/6/608.abstract

A recent study by Eccles is one of the few to suggest a link. Ninety college students dunked their bare feet in a bowl of chilled water for 20 minutes; a control group kept on their shoes and socks while they sat with their feet in an empty bowl.
Volunteers in the bare-foot group were three times as likely to develop cold symptoms within five days, according to the study published last fall in the journal Family Practice.
Eccles' working theory is that many people carry around traces of rhinoviruses — the bugs responsible for the common cold — in the back of their noses. Exposure to chilly temperatures causes blood vessels in the nose to constrict, cutting down the flow of the immune system's white blood cells. The virus then flourishes, triggering cold symptoms.

Criticism of the study:

But there's a flaw in the Cardiff study, says the University of Virginia's Dr. Ronald Turner: The researchers didn't check to see if a virus was ever present. "They measured symptoms," says Turner, a pediatrician who investigates the effectiveness of cold remedies, like echinacea. "They didn't do any virology, so that study has nothing to do with becoming infected," he says.
A 1968 New England Journal of Medicine study remains unchallenged as the definitive word on cold and the common cold, says Turner.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM196810032791404
Volunteers were first infected with a cold virus, then chilled and checked for symptoms. The study showed that dampness and cool temperatures didn't increase the chance or severity of a cold.

However, I sometimes wonder if heavy breathing in cold air can irritate the throat and make it more vulnerable to opportunistic viral / throat infections. I don't have any citation to support that, and certainly I wouldn't prevent my child from playing outside all the time just because they might get sick .. so take it for what you will.
Good common sense moderation is perhaps the best advice here -- kids want to play, so let them, but don't stay outside in the cold too long.
Comment: Skeptics also touched on the topic of the common cold and cold weather: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/88/cold-and-catching-colds-temperature-and-disease
Comment: My wife is Chinese and believes this to be true, in some instances this is a cultural thing.  I just avoid the situations for marital harmony.
Comment: If you dress appropriately you feet or any other part of the body would not be cold so this experiment with feet in cold water does not apply.
Comment: Only in places like Houston is 50F considered cold. In NY or Colorado once it gets back up to 50F people start wearing short sleeves and sandals. Good references to scientific research.
Comment: Re the criticism, I suspect that all most parents care about is the symptoms, not the virus :)
Answer: When I read the title I thought you were talking about temperatures below freezing, but even then my answer would've been the same. I believe that going outside as much as possible, even when it is cold, improves immunity and reduces susceptibility to the colds, it is also important for mental health and overall development. Some of benefits of spending time outside (improves distant vision, helps to stay fit, reduces ADHD symptoms, etc) are listed here with references to the studies. Honestly, for me 50F is very comfortable temperature and I would not even think twice about going outside with my son. If you are afraid about hands and head exposure, you can put a cap or light hat and gloves on.
It is always important for the child (and adult) to be comfortable: not cold, not sweating. So it means hat, which covers the ears, mittens and warm snow boots when temperatures are below freezing, appropriate layers which can be taken off when warmer. Personally I believe that it is very important to make sure that feet are not cold. Then you can stay outside for a long time, getting a lot of benefits of outdoors.
Answer: I would talk to a doctor because this touches on issues that only someone with access to your child's chart would know.  A condition like asthma or being born with a heart defect may change the answer.  My overall philosophy is that it's not a good idea to give medical advice sight-unseen over the internet; all anyone can tell you are generalities or what works for their child.  Even referencing studies isn't always helpful because your child could fit into some kind of out-lier case not covered by the study.
I don't consider 50*F cold at all, and frequently played outside in that kind of weather as long as I was dressed comfortably.  That said, I was used to far colder weather, and made sure to wear a scarf over my mouth because I am asthmatic.


How do I install a GFCI receptacle to replace an old non-GFCI receptacle in a switch controlled outlet?

Question: I wish to replace an old non-GFCI receptacle with the new GFCI receptacle in a switch controlled outlet in my bedroom. The photo shows the bare ground wire connected to the ground screw, the two white neutral wires "backstabbed" into the neutral wire slots, and with the two black hot wires pigtailed together. Also there is a red wire which only occurs on a switch controlled outlet, which is backstabbed into one of the hot wire slots. So which wire goes where on the GFCI? The Leviton instructions that came with the new GFCI receptacle declare that if there are more than two wires inside each of the two  Romex cables (four total, excluding the ground wires), to consult an electrician instead.
Comment: Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/51688/discussion-between-mjcallinall-and-tester101).
Answer: If the box is being fed by a three wire cable (black, red, white, ground), and a two wire cable is going from the box to other outlets.  Here's what you have to do...

Leave the black wires alone.
Connect the white wires together with a short bit of scrap wire, in a twist-on wire connector.
Connect the other end of the short bit of scrap wire (pigtail) to the neutral LINE terminal on the GFCI.
Connect the red wire to the hot LINE terminal on the GFCI.
Connect all the ground wires and create a pigtail to the GFCI and the box if it's metal.

NOTES:

This will not provide GFCI protection to any down stream devices (since there are none).
Make sure the GFCI you have, does not require you to reset it whenever it loses power (some do, and that will be a pain in the butt).
Comment: @ Tester101 [Electricity is not my "thing" (except quoting NEC)], wouldn't adding an adjacent outlet that is GFCI protected; up-current of the light switch (but, perhaps, from within the light switch box) allow the GFCI to always be hot while retaining a use for the wall switch and avoid having to reset the GFCI all the time?
Comment: @JamesOlson If you put the GFCI protection *before* the switch, then feeding the switch from the LOAD side of the GFCI would provide GFCI protection to the switch controlled receptacle.
Comment: @ Testor101, Is there a downside to having the OP do it that way?
Comment: I don't need a reply.  Just wondering if OP had a more convenient solution that wasn't considered before asking question.
Comment: Tester101...I have more photos to show you. But can we correspond by email (I just put in a request with stack exchange to have responses to my questions sent via email)? I can't figure out how to upload any more photos. I'm using an iPhone. Perhaps you thought I was using a PC. I'm using my iMac PC right now hooked up to my iPhone via my "personal hotspot". But I still can't figure out how to upload my photos. I only really know how to send photos via email. Thanx.


How much data traffic does participating in Bitcoin mining cause?

Question: I have a limited amount of data included in my internet plan. If I exceed that limit I get charged extra. So, before signing up for Bitcoin, I'd like to know whether Bitcoin mining causes a lot of internet traffic. Does it involve a lot of downloading and uploading throughout the day?
Comment: Will you be solo mining or joining a pool?
Comment: If you make enough from mining you might still make a profit and be able to pay for the extra charges :p
Answer: If you mine with a pool, your actual internet activity will be fairly small.  I just took a look at my network statistics and BFGMiner used 9MBytes down and 11 MBytes up over the previous 24-hour period.
The Bitcoin-Qt application on the other hand maxes out my upload bandwidth since I always seem to get 2-3 peers who want to download the entire 12 GB blockchain from me.  Other than that, the main Bitcoin-Qt network usage occurs when you are receiving or relaying the latest block (blocks are typically 100-400 KBytes).
Since you have limited internet bandwidth, your best bet would be to run a lightweight client such as Electrum or Multibit.  If you are mining in a pool, you don't need a local Bitcoin-Qt.
Answer: If you use a light wallet like Electrum, definitely not.  But even if you run a full node, it is unlikely.  You could also use a web-based wallet like blockchain.info which would mean that nothing at all is running on your local computer and you can access it from anywhere.
Comment: OP is not asking about running a wallet, but about mining he could probably benefit from knowing statistics on bandwidth utilization.


Installation Problem

Question: I recently installed Ubuntu 12.04 alongside Windows 7 in my laptop, I have experienced a few problems after my installation however. Firstly when I restart my computer I am not presented with the option to run Ubuntu, it just goes straight into running Windows. Secondly my hard-drive is partitioned into two, C and D, Windows is installed on C and Ubuntu got installed on D. Lastly whenever I want to run Ubuntu I have to insert the USB I used to install Ubuntu with, restart the laptop, press F12 for boot options and select the USB for me to be able to run Ubuntu, after this I can remove the USB and Ubuntu will run fine until I restart which will require me to use the USB again. I should mention that I don't know much about computers. How do I solve this problem I want to be presented with the option to run Ubuntu when I reboot and also want to install Ubuntu in C.
Answer: If you are trying to run 2 systems you should have 4 partitions: one for windows, one for Ubuntu, one as a Swap area and one for your documents. That should keep them apart. It should work, because Ubuntu installs it's boot loader over the old one. Are you sure that you installed it correctly.If yes, you should change your boot loader to GNU GRUB. It detects all kinds of operating systems. It should do the trick for you. But research about GRUB before you try anything, because you could not be able to restore your windows boot loader after applying it. Good luck.

Installation Problem


Ubuntu.com download of ubuntu 12.10 failing

Question: I've been trying to download wubi as well as the normal iso for 12.10 and after 30 seconds of loading i get
<code>Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to glug.nith.ac.in
</code>
Is some known issue going on ?
Comment: Look like problem that mirror, try other mirrors :)
Answer: It looks like your particular mirror (or your connection to it) may be having issues.
Assuming you're not trying to download it at work (where this option may be restricted, regardless of its use), one of the best options for downloading is the torrent download option on the alternative downloads page. You can pick up Transmission for Windows (the Windows port of the Bit Torrent downloader used by Ubuntu) if you need a client.
Doing it this way allows you to connect to more than one different place to download it, eliminating connection issues and helping ease the pain of a flaky Internet connection.
However, I don't know if you can get Wubi this way (I've never used Wubi), but this will let you get the normal ISO file.
If you do need a direct download connection for whatever reason, you may be able to try one of the other mirrors, which are also listed on the alternative downloads page that I linked earlier.
Answer: I don't know if this will help at all, but because of my internet speed, I find FlareGet to make the best downloads.
It breaks the downloads up into segments and then downloads them individually


What is the length of an A380 aileron?

Question: I work as a paint shop prepper at an airport in the UK and have currently worked on a aileron of a 757-200 that was 14ft long and wanted to compare it to that of a A380
Comment: Can you be a little more descriptive as to what you are looking for please?  Specs for the A380 are easily found through google so it is unclear to me what you wish to know.
Answer: A good source of public information is the aircraft characteristics document that the manufacturers typically publish for each model, including the A380.
A scale planform drawing can be found on page 310 of the PDF, subject 8-0-0. Based on this drawing, the rough size of the ailerons can be estimated.
The aileron is divided into three sections which move independently (see Why do some aircraft have multiple ailerons per wing?). The outboard section is about 4m (13 ft) long, the middle section is about 3m (10 ft) long, and the inboard section is about 2m (6.5 ft) long. In total they are about 9m (29.5 ft) long.
Derived from Airbus document:

Ailerons viewed from cabin:

Image source (other question)

What is the length of an A380 aileron?


OpenVPN web traffic routing not working

Question: My first time trying to set up OpenVPN. I followed the HOWTO guide from OpenVPN's site and was successfully connected but when I tried to route my web traffic, it seems that nothing gets through to my server.
My server is an Amazon EC2 box and my client is MacOS Lion. I'm using Tunnelblick on the Mac. I have run/tried the following:

ran iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.8.0.0/24 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE on my server
disabled firewall on the mac
enabled UDP 1194 on EC2 firewall
tried both dev tun and dev tap
tried using Amazon's name server with "push "dhcp-option DNS 172.16.0.23" as well as Google's 18.104.22.168[/list]

Here is my server config file: http://pastebin.com/izCBxk99
server ifconfig while running OpenVPN: http://pastebin.com/xM9w8kAA
server log, with one client connecting and trying to open a webpage after successful connection: http://pastebin.com/B1WAJ2XH
Client config file: http://pastebin.com/GzPeXE7E
client ifconfig while running OpenVPN: http://pastebin.com/ZQvvP9Z0
client log: http://pastebin.com/xmhEx77g
The only error I notice is in the client log, where it says:
2012-05-06 20:43:44 us=732786 /sbin/ifconfig tap0 delete
                                    ifconfig: ioctl (SIOCDIFADDR): Can't assign requested address
2012-05-06 20:43:44 us=738214 NOTE: Tried to delete pre-existing tun/tap instance -- No Problem if failure

Could that be the problem? I found some webpage that said Tunnelblick used to have problems with Lion, but the version I'm using is higher than the one mentioned as the fix.
In addition, I noticed that after running iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.8.0.0/24 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE (with su), my server still shows just the following if I do netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
10.248.138.0    0.0.0.0         255.255.254.0   U         0 0          0 eth0
0.0.0.0         10.248.138.1    0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 eth0

The server doesn't seem to have gotten the new routes. Is this the problem?
Please help. Thanks!
Answer: Have you enabled ip_forward on server?
cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward # 0 disabled, 1 enabled

enable it to allow masquerading:
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

and to make change permanent, edit /etc/sysctl.conf:
# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv4
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

OpenVPN web traffic routing not working


Hot sauce; Remove seeds?

Question: I use a recipe that calls for removing the top third or more of Cayenne peppers in order to remove most of the seeds. Seems like a waste to me. Aside from having to strain out the seeds after cooking, what would it hurt to just cut the stem and cook the peppers with the seeds in there? Would it have an ill affect on the taste? I wouldn't think so since the seeds are also used for crushed red pepper.
Comment: Statistics: Seeds generally sink, pepper pieces are more neutrally buoyant. Several rounds of vigorous stirring in a bucket of water, followed by careful pouring into a colander can greatly reduce seed count. Also, a high pressure jet of water against the pepper insides will dislodge most seeds. This latter can be done while the pepper pieces are sitting in the colander.
Answer: I just made a batch of hot sauce that was very cayenne-heavy myself. Keep the seeds.
You want to get every last bit of heat out of those babies, especially if you are diluting with a significant amount of vinegar.
The only use case I can think of for chopping the tops off as described in your recipe is if you aren't already planning to strain out the pulp as well.
Even if I was eager to keep pulp but avoid seeds in my final batch I would rather scrape seeds from the individual peppers than waste that much product.
I personally don't think you'll notice any off flavors from the seeds.
Comment: The seeds of many peppers are bitter, this may or may not work in your sauce.
Comment: And the seeds tend to be the cause of crying-twice syndrome, and they can give you a hard time if you are processing the sauce in a mortar. BTW, thin-walled chilies can be easily deseeded by cutting the top of and pushing the seeds out, not unlike dispensing toothpaste or breaking the glow off a cigarette.... cayenne are borderline there, they tend to break, but cutting half a cm or so off and shaking them violently (whipping motion) will throw most of the seeds out...
Answer: The heat isn't in the seeds, it's in the ribs which hold the seeds. Also, there is no right answer when it comes to wasting time vs wasting food, everybody has a personal preference on whether to use a technique which saves the one or the other.
You can surely remove the seeds and/or ribs any way you like, by cutting away whatever part you like, or cooking everything or straining. The point of a recipe is to prescribe an exact technique, but it doesn't have to be the only valid one.
Comment: @JasonWhipple Bear in mind that Stack Exchange is very much oriented towards correct answers and away from opinion.
Comment: Not looking for a correct answer. Just looking for opinions. Didn't know that about seeds and ribs that hold seeds though. Thanks for the answer! Learn something new every day.
Comment: [What is the hottest part of the chilli pepper](http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/15932/what-is-the-hottest-part-of-a-chili-chilli-chile-pepper)
Answer: The seeds don't contain any heat, they're only mildly hot because they're in direct contact with the parts of the chili that contain the capsaicin. See this answer over at Skeptics.SE for more details.
The real problem with the directions in your recipe is that it's suggesting you throw away a whole third of the chili instead of just properly deseeding it! Simply cut it open lengthwise and cut the seeds, pith and ribs away to remove most of the heat.
In regards to the crushed red pepper that you bring up, you can assume that they're in there either as filler or because a majority of consumers still believe that the seeds add most of the heat and would assume that pepper flakes without seeds wouldn't be as hot. As JanDoggen rightly pointed out in the comments, the dried seeds will still add some heat due to their indirect contact with capsaicin but for most cultivars their scoville rating is insignificant compared to the rest of the chili pepper and pales in comparison to the placental tissue which contains the most heat. Details of some values can be found in this related answer
Answer: Whether to remove the seeds and ribs from your peppers depends on what you want from the sauce. It's all about balancing chili heat with chili flavor - the more seeds and ribs you remove the less heat you will get without reducing the chili flavor at all, as the chili flavor is all in the flesh. This is your personal choice, there's no right or wrong answer.
Removing the seeds but not the ribs is an option you may want to consider as some chili seeds can be bitter, and having less seeds in the sauce may be better for aesthetics.
Answer: It's been a long time since I had seen my mother make her own chilli sause. I had forgotten this step.  She would remove the stems and put the rest in a blender. Add some water and blend. Once blended very finely, she would drain it all through a strainer,  into a pot. It did not seem that she waisted much in pulp, whole fairly getting rid of the seeds quick and easy.
Agsin, it's been a long time. So, I am hazy of the memory and if that is surely how she did it or my imagination.  Though I am pretty sure when I remember stuff, it tends to be spot on.
Best to use a small sample group to try and test, before donating all you, or a bulk of your peppers into this method.
I have tried to deseed the permppers before drying them out more. And, trying to strain them out of the powder, which I used the blender to grind pretty farm Both are a pain in the back.
Though with my mothers method I remember she would have a sause with no seeds. Then would poor it into a large plastic container with a plastic lid. So, whenever she wanted to use the sause, she would pull it out of the freezer, defrost,  and the start cooking the sause in a pot to add whatever other spices iused in her sause. Basically salt and pepper. Taisting it from time to time to get the desired taste.
I hope this helps for whoever's may come by and read this forum.
Bets to do an quick and easy experiment with a much smaller sample group.
Oh, keeping the seeds in the sause, which I have done before, just did not seem right. The sause was not as smooth and creamy, but had these hard sees mixed within.  It was not the taste it affected but the texture that was off.
So, if the texture of the seeds still being in is no biggy for you, then there is no need to bother reseeding your chilly before hand or when at the sause phase.
I since found a video simular to what my mother did, but not exactly. It was under the search, How do you strain chili sauce?
Watch "How to Make New Mexico Red Chile Sauce from Dried Peppers" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/A_8JS7Y4uj4
I think when my mother had them soaking in water, it was in part to get a good bulk of the seeds to wash out of the chilli, after she had removed the stems.
The oil and flour,  she did not do. Though when making the sause for others, who usually loved the sause but would say it was too hot, she would ass flower into the sause to cut the heat.
I will add, my own cooking experance, that when I had made some meals too spicy hot to eat, one thing I had tried and seems to help to a degree was add some oil to the sause or soup i,was making. It felt as if the oil would cover whatever was making it taste too hot.
It would make a  big difference. If after that, it was too hot, I would some times add cheese. Thinking it is milk that helps counter the heat in chilli. And, or, I would make an vanilla float to drink with whatever I had made too spicy
Si, just adding more experance here.
Answer: Exactly, ribs contain the hottest part. That's the point for hotness.
In regards to seeds, I do not recomend to add seeds to any hot cooked or raw sauce,  becasuse seeds are not good for our digestion, in any pepper.
Just think, do you add seeds when cooking a red sweet bell pepper? I love hotness but I always take the seeds out of my salsas.
I do not understand why chefs add seeds... Are they just lazy or ignorants about our health issues?
Comment: Do you have any citations for those claims?

Hot sauce; Remove seeds?


Type Ratio Formula

Question: Is there a set ratio to harmonious type, Header, Subheader and body..  say if you body was 9pt, then subheader would be 12 pt header 14/16pt? Os this done how i normally do it by eye untill it looks good?
Answer: There is a similar question to this already floating around on here, which pretty much comes to the same conclusion as I will.
In essence though, there are two main things that would make a golden ratio hard to apply to any typefaces or hierarchy:

X-height.
Font size.

A font that uses a high x-height will look short and fat, even when compared to another font with similar sized ascenders and descenders.
Some fonts are also considerably taller and shorter than other fonts by design, even at the same point size. It's entirely up to the foundry/typographer how they wish it to look.
Here is an article I think you might find interesting:
https://pearsonified.com/2011/12/golden-ratio-typography.php
It doesn't talk so much about the relation between levels of hierarchy, but more about font-size, line-height, line-length, and their relationships to one another. It does contain formulas for getting a "Golden Ratio", but once again, it's entirely subjective.
Here is a great example of font-pairing for hierarchy:
https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/best-font-combinations-typeface-pairings-guide/
In summary, there are far too many typographic styles and font variations to ever achieve a perfect ratio. Use your instincts!

Type Ratio Formula


Are there any exercise that engage almost all of your muscles?

Question: Are there any exercises that engage all or almost all(about 50%) of your muscles? If there are any exercise like this what are they called?
Comment: Obviously there's no exercise that will engage literally all of your muscles at once. You should be more specific on what you mean by "almost all". Swimming, for example, engages most of the main muscle groups, and is considered a fairly "complete" exercise in some sense.
Comment: Shovelling snow...
Answer: Assuming that you're talking about weight based exercises only, my answer would be no: there is not a single exercise that works every muscle.
My reasoning for this is that your body is made up of agonist/antagonist muscle pairs. Think bicep and tricep. They work together but oppositely. If you flex your bicep and tricep at the same time, you stay static. For this reason, I believe it isn't possible to work out every muscle. At a minimum, I believe you'd need two ridiculous movements to cover every base.
In practical gym workouts, I think the closest you'd get would be with compound exercises. These are multi-joint multi-muscle-group workouts. Things like deadlift, snatch, clean and press, bench press, etc.
Comment: All muscles are antagonist muscles to another set of muscles. I'm not sure what you're asking here.
Comment: @Zheer -- the terms interchange. During a bicep curl, the biceps are agonist, the triceps are antagonist. During a tricep extension, the triceps are agonist and the biceps and antagonist. I think I get what you're saying though, an exercise that works half of your muscles; one from each pair? If there were it would still be classified as a compound exercise. Although nothing comes to mind I'm sure you could make up an "exercise" that did -- sort of like barbell man-makers -- or a crazy superset but that feels like cheating.
Comment: Are there any exercises that can engage all of your antagonist or agonist muscles, one of them at a time?
Answer: Yes*, they're called complexes.
Before I get into complexes, and the caveat, an argument could be made that pretty much any of the power lifts or olympic lifts engage almost all of your muscles (assuming you're training close to your max and using full body tension during the lift).
Think, leg drive in the bench press, driving the elbows up in the front squat, grimacing while pulling a heavy deadlift (engaging the facial muscles). Want big arms? Work up to a 600lbs deadlift or squat.
Now, complexes...
A complex is a series of movements chained together to form a single rep. An example with a barbell would be:
deadlift > bent over row > clean > front squat > overhead press > good morning > behind neck press

A kettlebell complex (double kettlebells) could be:
bent over row > clean > front rack walk > front squat > overhead press > waiter walk > collapse

Bodyweight? Slightly tougher but with a bit of imagination:
laying face down under a chin up bar > press up > burpee (grab the bar) > leg raise > muscle up

*it depends on your definition of an exercise. If you want a single, recognisable movement, then I'd say the Olympic lifts are your best bet. Mind you, you could argue that the bear is a single, recognisable movement.
Some complexes have you perform multiple reps of a movement before moving onto the next in the chain, being pedantic, I wouldn't say they count, but a single movement flowing into the next does. After all, what is a clean and jerk other than an explosive deadlift, front squat and overhead press into split squat :)
Comment: This is what I was alluding to in my comment about barbell man-makers. A complex could definitely hit every muscle group but I don't really consider them a single recognizable movement. But then you bring up named complexes like Clean and Jerk and the Bear... which I definitely did on Saturday... +1.
Comment: What is the difference between a complex and  full body workout?
Comment: @C.Lange I find it's all about terminology. Part of my shoulder warm up is a single kettlebell waiters walk for 20m into front rack carry for 20m into farmer walk for 20m. I consider that a single movement as I don't stop moving and don't put the kettlebell down, but I know others would call it a series of movements, or a complex, or an interesting way to punish myself ;)
Comment: @Zheer A full body workout is generally a workout session, lasting a period of time that involves a number of exercises performed for sets and reps with rest periods in between. There's normally also a warm up and cool down period. A complex is a series of moves chained together. So, for example, you could carry out the three complexes above in a single workout (which would definitely be a full body workout).
Answer: Sprinting will do it, and respects your biology - unlike purely sagittal, dysfunctional exercises like squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts, pullups, etc.


How to fix eaten/rotten rafter

Question: I need to repair some rotten 5"x3.5" (actual size) rafters (the one in the pic is the worst). I'm thinking about using a pair of unequal length 2x6s to create a sort of half-lap joint with the cut-back timber, and adding a trim board. Is there a better way? How do I make clean, square cuts to the rafter?
Answer: I think your staggered-joint idea is a good one. From the look of it you'll have a solid enough base to get another decade or two from that tail.
I'd cut back just enough to get solid wood at the center, then notch the sides back to wherever you can comfortably fit the saw. Something like so:
<code>|        |
|__    __|
|  |  |  |
|  |  |  |
|  |  |  |
|  |  |  |
|  |--|  |
|  |  |  |
|__|__|__|
</code>
Fasten the cedar or pressure-treated repair pieces with good exterior-grade adhesive and trim screws. (You can even fasten the most conspicuous side from the inside to keep the surface smooth.) Caulk against the wall, and stain or paint to seal the new wood.
Comment: What should I use to fill gaps when mating the new wood to the old? Some of the cuts are bound to end up less than perfectly flat.
Comment: Since it'll be painted, use any exterior product you like. Something that hardens and is sandable would be better than latex caulk, for example.
Answer: How do I make clean, square cuts to the rafter (tail)?
You may want to try to gently insert shims to add a little extra space between the rafter and the 1x4 roof boards. I would use a circular saw to start; you will not be able to cut all the way through (5") with a common circular saw, but it will give you a clean cut through a few inches. You'll need to use a reciprocating saw (and care) to finish the cut. You might be able to wrap the tip of the saw blade with tape to help prevent damaging the roof boards. Alternatively, an oscillating (bare) tool might be helpful.
Bare tool:

Is there a better way?
It would be ideal to remove and maybe replace the 1x4 roof (above the rafter), but I suppose that this house doen't need a new roof any time soon? The most expensive but obvious solution would be to replace the rafter(s).
Comment: wow, those rafters are grim!
Answer: I would use a combination of approaches for this. To cut away the rotten wood I would use a small door jamb saw. It's handle is offset - it will make working in that space easier.
You probably won't be left with much good wood. To shore up the rotten wood, I would inject epoxy. The West system is ideal for this. It's not cheap, but it's cheaper than taking the roof off.
The West system is designed for wooden boat repairs - that should make it a good fit for this application.
Comment: West System  is a fantastic all-around system that will have 1000 uses in a workshop, and is well worth the investment on that basis alone.  Git-rot is another system specifically designed to reconstitute rotted wood.   The penetration of Git-Rot is much better than West because it is much more watery.  Of course that also means it'll leak away if you don't contain it.  There are many competitors to Git-Rot.

How to fix eaten/rotten rafter


Why can't quantum annealing be described by a gate model?

Question: This is a question I was inspired to ask based on this question, which notes that quantum annealing is an entirely different model for computation than the usual circuit model. I've heard this before, and it's my understanding that the gate-model does not apply to quantum-annealing, but I've never quite understood why that is, or how to parse the computations that an annealer can do. As I understand from several talks (some by D-wave themselves!) the fact that the annealers are confined to a specific Hamiltonian plays into it.
Answer: A Quantum Annealer, such as a D-Wave machine is a physical representation of the Ising model and as such has a 'problem' Hamiltonian of the form $$H_P = \sum_{J=1}^nh_j\sigma_j^z + \sum_{i, j}J_{ij}\sigma_i^z\sigma_j^z.$$
Essentially, the problem to be solved is mapped to the above Hamiltonian. The system starts with the Hamiltonian $H_I = \sum_{J=1}^nh'_j\sigma_j^x$ and the annealing parameter, $s$ is used to map the initial Hamiltonian $H_I$ to the problem Hamiltonian $H_P$ using $H\left(s\right) = \left(1-s\right)H_I + sH_P$.
As this is an anneal, the process is done slowly enough to stay near the ground state of the system while the Hamiltonian is varied to that of the problem, using tunnelling to stay near the ground state as described in Nat's answer.
Now, why can't this be used to describe a gate model QC? The above is a Quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) problem, which is NP-hard... Indeed, here's an article mapping a number of NP problems to the Ising model. Any problem in NP can be mapped to any NP-hard problem in polynomial time and integer factorisation is indeed an NP problem.
Well, the temperature is non-zero, so it's not going to be in the ground state throughout the anneal and as a result, the solution is still only an approximate one. Or, in different terms, the probability of failure is greater than a half (it's nowhere near having a decent probability of success compared with what a universal QC considers 'decent' - judging from graphs I've seen, the probability of success for the current machine is around $0.2\%$ and this will only get worse with increasing size), and the anneal algorithm is not bounded error. At all. As such, there's no way of knowing whether or not you've got the correct solution with something such as integer factorisation.
What it (in principle) does is get very close to the exact result, very quickly, but this doesn't help for anything where the exact result is required as going from 'nearly correct' to 'correct' is still an extremely difficult (i.e. presumably still NP in general, when the original problem is in NP) problem in this case, as the parameters that are/give a 'nearly correct' solution aren't necessarily going to be distributed anywhere near the parameters that are/give the correct solution.
Edit for clarification: what this means is that a quantum annealer (QA) still takes exponential time (albeit potentially a faster exponential time) to solve NP problems such as integer factorisation, where a universal QC gives an exponential speed up and can solve the same problem in poly time. This is what implies a QA cannot simulate a universal QC in poly time (otherwise it could solve problems in poly time that it can't). As pointed out in the comments, this is not the same as saying that a QA cannot give the same speedup in other problems, such as database search.
Comment: If I understand correctly, you are basically saying that a quantum annealer cannot describe a quantum circuit because the problem of finding the minimum of an arbitrary Hamiltonian is NP-hard. I don't understand this implication. Simulating quantum circuits is also in general hard to simuate classically (see e.g. [1610.01808](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1610.01808.pdf))
Comment: Also, some problems solvable via algorithms expressed as quantum circuits are known to be also solvable via quantum annealing. A notable example is database search (see e.g. section II of [1006.1696](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1006.1696.pdf)). This means that in some sense one *can* in some circumstances map a q circuit into an q annealing problem. Doesn't this also invalidate your third paragraph (specifically, the claim that *this [can't] be used to describe a gate model QC*)
Comment: @glS no, not at all - it still takes exponential time to find the min (as per the paper in your second comment) of an NP-hard problem, so while there are problems in P (e.g. database search) where the speedup may be able to match that of universal QC, solving an NP problem still takes exponential time to be within bounded error, where a universal QC may be able to solve the same problem in poly time, e.g. integer factorisation. As QA can't do this, a QA cannot simulate a universal QC in poly time
Comment: Ok, but that is not what you are saying in the answer (or at least, not explicitly). From the answer it looks like you are saying that QA can never be used to solve a problem solved via gate model QC. This is very different than saying that QA cannot efficiently solve an NP-hard problem (which *could* sometimes be solved by a quantum circuit... though I don't think this has been proven, as we don't know whether Factoring is really NP-hard, and most other problems in which a quantum advantage has been shown are not decision problems, to my knowledge).
Comment: I've made an edit that hopefully clarifies things. It's not known whether P=NP or not, sure, but it's still a specific example of QC being exponentially faster, according to current knowledge
Comment: And I've just realised/remembered that it's not *quite* exponentially faster for factorising, although to paraphrase Nathan Wiebe, it's exponential in spirit
Answer: Annealing's more of an analog tactic.
The gist is that you have some weird function that you want to optimize.  So, you bounce around it.  At first, the "temperature" is very high, such that the selected point can bounce around a lot.  Then as the algorithm "cools", the temperature goes down, and the bouncing becomes less aggressive.
Ultimately, it settles down to a local optima which, ideally, is favorably like the global optima.
Here's an animation for simulated annealing (non-quantum):

But, it's pretty much the same concept for quantum annealing:

By contrast, gate-logic is far more digital than analog.  It's concerned with qubits and logical operations rather than merely finding a result after chaotic bouncing-around.
Comment: @EmilyTyhurst Technically, any problem can be described in hill-climbing terms.  It's moreso a question of how well-behaved the problem looks when described in hill-climbing format.  Problems that don't fit it well can be incredibly ugly.  For entirely non-convex problems, hill-climbing would, at best, basically be a brute-force search.
Comment: @EmilyTyhurst Yeah, they're definitely all inter-convertible.  I mean, it's kinda like the concept of Turing completeness - if we have any sort of complete logic, we can construct just about anything else with it.
Comment: An important point of quantum annealing is that of changing the Hamiltonian adiabatically so that the state remains a ground state of the (changing) Hamiltonian at all times, and you end up with the gs of the final Hamiltonian, which is the goal of the protocol. How does this relate with the "jumping" you are describing here? This paper ([1006.1696](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1006.1696.pdf)) may be of interest on this regard (specifically, the last part of the second column of the first page).
Comment: Thanks, this clarifies certain limitations for me. Do you know of any problems that aren't possible to rephrase as an annealing problem (I know Wikipedia stated that Shor's algorithm was not possible because it is a "hill climbing" problem, but if you know more about the specifics of that, I would love to hear them :)
Comment: @EmilyTyhurst Hah opps, misread your comment in the opposite direction.  xD  But, yeah, you can do simulated annealing on a quantum computer just like you can do it on a classical computer.  Then, I suppose whether or not we call it "_quantum annealing_" becomes more a matter of semantics.
Comment: Maybe I need to clarify further-- what I mean to ask is what problems don't seem to be addressable by the "search for a local minimum" method that the quantum annealer offers. I made a mistake too-- the wiki entry claims that Shors algorithm is not a hill climbing process. In retrospect that makes more sense because that does seem to be the problem landscape this describes.


Why was this closed as not a real question?

Question: "Sorting on" vs. "Sorting by"
I'm stumped.  What did I miss here?
Comment: I just voted to reopen - probably unnecessary since waiwai933♦ can just do it anyway. I think it's a trivial question, but not helped by the changes OP was asked to make. Basically, so far as I'm concerned, you *sort database tables **on** fields*, and you sort everything else ***by*** the "quality/attribute" you're interested in. Maybe there's more to add, but I doubt it adds up to much.
Comment: Too much like a lot of questions another person who is a spammer has asked.
Comment: @Mitch: if that's the case, then it's a very sad state of affairs. Questions should be judged on their merits, not on subjective likes and dislikes. John: I really couldn't tell you what's wrong with your question. I hope some of the close-voters will respond here.
Comment: On first glance, the question looks perfectly valid (the only problem I see is that it is probably a duplicate of another question, but that's not what we're concerned with here). I'll take another look at the question later and give the closers a chance to weigh in in the meantime, but assuming that I still feel the same way, I'll reopen it later.
Comment: @Marthaª: Just a guess.
Answer: In a comment on the original question I said that, among other reasons, questions are incomplete (and therefore fit the definition of "not a real question") when they show no research effort. Marthaª replied that this criterion "can contribute to 'not a real question' or 'general reference', but it really depends on the particulars of the case."
Actually, though, research effort is always required, regardless of the type of question or the particulars of the case, because it is central to the site concept: by and for scholars of the English language.
This is why the first reason given in the tooltip for the downvote button is "this question does not show any research effort".
The site concept has been articulated and the same point made at various times and places by the site management. Some examples:

Questions at EL&U should be expert-level questions which are "interesting, unique, and thought-provoking".
  — Single word requests, crosswords, and the fight against mediocrity
  by Shog9, StackExchange staff
OP must "have a particularly interesting problem to solve" and put "effort and research into the question".
  — Correct word for a design in progress
  by Robert Cartaino, StackExchange staff
OP can "ask simple questions as long as they are thoughtful, intriguing questions posed as you would ask them of an expert. Overly simple questions without research or forethought should be closed. … There's no lowering of the bar for a so-called learners' status."  On the closure of English Language Learners
  by Robert Cartaino, StackExchange staff
"Requiring the OP to show some research is key, and simple: what have you tried? and in what context do you plan to use this? The sidebar that appears when you ask a question also covers this … [the]
  relevant bit being share your research. And if you haven't done any, should you even be asking here?"
  — Against single word requests
  by Jeff Atwood, StackExchange co-founder

As I pointed out elsewhere, this concept is also expressly stated in the site charter:

Stack Exchange is a growing network of individual communities, each dedicated to serving experts in a specific field. We build libraries of high-quality questions and answers, focused on each community's area of expertise. (from SE/about)
The English Language and Usage Stack Exchange is for linguists, etymologists, and (serious) English language enthusiasts. (from English.SE/faq)
Comment: By the way, one more comment, which might help you feel better about this: the same thing happens with answers. Sometimes one of us will put a LOT of effort into an answer, and it goes largely unappreciated. The next day, we can hack out what seems like a straightforward and obvious answer, and it'll start getting upvoted like crazy. For the most part, the better questions and answers get the most upvotes, but exceptions abound, and you can't read too much into a very small sampling.
Comment: Downvoter: could you help by clarifying in comments if the issue is that the answer is mistaken, or that it is accurate but you don't like what management expects.
Comment: I agree w/ your exhortation for more research, and the sharing of that research, when questions are asked. I also agree that questions without such research are susceptible to downvotes. Where I think we might disagree, though, is in your assertion that questions showing no research effort are incomplete, and therefore by default not real questions. While it's sometimes true that a little bit of research would alleviate the need for a question (and therefore be grounds for closure), I don't think a lack of research is grounds by itself. Still, your advice is good overall. [PS Not my downvote]
Comment: @J.R. Cartaino says it is, though: his comment on "Correct word for a design in progress" was nothing more or less than a note accompanying his a closevote for Not A Real Question.
Comment: You and Robert are each entitled to your opinions, of course, but I don't think lack of research in and of itself is grounds for closure in all circumstances.
Comment: @J.R. I am actually trying to stay away from stating my own opinion. I am trying to report what SE management have said needs to happen.
Comment: Thanks for the response.  What I don't understand, even now, is that I asked a (shorter) single-word-request question only a couple of weeks earlier, and the community responded completely differently.  I earned a "Good Question" badge, and received 18 answers to that question.  http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/84603/single-word-synonym-for-a-pedantic-rule-follower  Why was that question a good one, and the one I have now bad?  Based on your answer, they *both* should have been closed.
Comment: That, and if SE is "dedicated to serving experts in a specific field" then beginner questions should have no place in any of these sites -- which I know is not true.  (Unless, experts are served by the opportunity to help out beginners, but that seems to be a bit of a reach.)
Comment: @John: It's a fickle thing, I don't know if I can describe the phenomenon in just 600 characters. It's not all about length, though, it's about substance. One brief question might be thought-provoking, challenging, prompting us to pause and think deeply. Another might cause us to roll our eyes and sigh, "Yet another trivial question about prepositions?" One might strike many of us as perplexing, while another comes across trite. Moreover, as you say, the site is not for experts only, but questions should be written in a way that won't put off experts. Maybe this helps shed some light on it?


How can we be safe about code from this site that we install?

Question: There are a lot of people who code solutions and post it in forums like this one. I think, maybe I'm wrong because I'm a beginner, that these people are able to introduce "evil code". Is some organization taking care of this or is it a user's responsibility?
Comment: Read the 'code' first, work out what it will do, and only use it if you agree it will help and understand what it will do.  If you're not 100% sure, build a test environment (vm or real-hardware) and test it yourself there.
Comment: If you don't understand how to read the code and the poster has no track record I wouldn't install it. An evil person would design the evil code to explode stuff five months after you tested it in a VM. If it was on this site though the evil person would be banned and evil answer deleted. Chances are someone else would spit the evil code before you see it.
Comment: I'd suggest reading this question and answers: [If I follow instructions from a blog or Ask Ubuntu, etc, is it always safe?](https://askubuntu.com/q/649217/295286)
Answer: Stack Overflow is far ahead of Ask Ubuntu at reviewing code because it's a programming website. In addition to Stack Overflow's normal way of reviewing code by users who volunteer to be reviewers and by Stack Overflow's moderators, there are also chatrooms that were created specifically for reviewing code and several reviewing bots. Some of these same bots are also reviewing posts every day at Ask Ubuntu. It is possible for users to apply to the bot moderators for permission to participate in reviewing the results of the reviewing bots which flags false positive results and trains the bots to be more accurate. Some bots have the adaptive ability to retract their own results if enough false positives are reported by members of the bot's team.
In the end none of these methods can succeed without the participation of human beings, so there must be oversight by users who volunteer to be reviewers. Anyone can participate in improving the quality of posts at Ask Ubuntu. There is no reputation requirement for submitting a suggested edit to any post to be reviewed by Ask Ubuntu's volunteer reviewers.
Comment: You mean there are bots that scan posts for code snippets and analyse them for malicious things? I haven't heard of that yet, and tbh I would be surprised if that existed, because it would be terribly complex. Or are you only referring to SmokeDetector and similar?
Comment: There are bots that scan for plagiarized code. There are also bots that scan for short code snippets that are not accompanied by an explanation of what the code does. However afaik there are not any bots that do deep scanning of code snippets and analyze them for malicious things. As a member of several bot teams I have the privilege of manually reporting my own deep scanning results to the appropriate bot in order to submit it for further review by other reviewers. This is done transparently in a public chatroom and anyone in that chatroom can freely comment about it and frequently does.
Comment: Ah, cool. So I guess this happens in SObotics? That's nice, I'm really not familiar with most of the things people built there.
Comment: SOBotics and SO Close Vote Reviewers have helped me lot.
Comment: SO moderators do not review code! No more than any other user, anyway. And, as you say in the comments, there are no bots checking for malicious code, so I don't really understand what you're suggesting.
Comment: I review low quality posts at Stack Overflow and I always check back on my work to see if the other reviewers at Stack Overflow agree with me. I frequently see that posts that I recommended deletion of were deleted by a Stack Overflow moderator. This is one example of what I meant by Stack Overflow moderators review code. If it's no good they delete the answer. Not just one moderator, several SO moderators do this every day.
Comment: Why don't I explain this more thoroughly in the answer? Because it's not about Ubuntu, therefore off topic. I'm trying to stay on topic in the answer section. If the game runs into extra innings, I can be as off topic as I want to in a topical chatroom without flooding the answer section.
Answer: ANY code that is going to be doing something you do not want will and must have a big fat warning. Most famous one:
Why did the command ":(){ :|: & };:" make my system lag so badly I had to reboot?
More because guntbert doubts me :-)
Terminal command to remove unknown file
What does rm -rf do?
`rm -rf ` and `rm -r` have the same results
I have yet to see an answer where we did not have a warning
I personally will interpret any code I see in questions. I fix software problems for a living so I have this weird habit that I HAVE to understand code I see otherwise I keep having this itch. At work I am known for pointing out problems with code where it is not even clear to me I have pointed to a problem. Yes I know I am weird :-X
I know lots of others on AU that review code too. Besides that there are a 10, 20 people on AU I trust when they post code on AU and most elaborate answers tend to come from a select few.
Comment: You are very confident here - with **ANY** code - I suggest to s/ANY/Most/ .
Comment: Those examples are about "obviously" dangerous code - but there may still be cases where someone sticks something malicious between several lines of code/commands. Not every post is thoroughly reviewed. Mind you I don't talk about highly voted answers but according to Murphy's Law we **will** have malicious code on the site.
Comment: I reworded it but it has to be "any" ;-)
Comment: "Not every post is thoroughly reviewed." I believe that is not true. Code from new users will be reviewed. People that have shown they can code (like Jacob Vlijm) maybe not as thorough but that's why we trust them ;-)
Answer: Excellent things have been said already, but let me add a few words from someone who posts those code snippets once in a while.
How can we be safe about code from this site that we install? You can't. Any piece of code could contain harmful - intentionally or not - elements. While that is also true for snippets on AU, you probably won't find a place with less risk than on AU or other SE sites. The reason is that not only snippets are in general relatively short and clear, but more importantly: anyone can (and will) look into the code, and anyone can comment on or flag a post. Any potential critic is visible directly on the post itself.
That is unlike some private websites where we can often see bad advice or inadvisable commands. If I am a crook and want to inject malicious code, the one environment I need to avoid is SE sites.
As said, using code you didn't write yourself is a risk. In short however: in general, I believe the code posted here, especially from answers that already live a bit longer or posted by people who are around a bit longer, is probably the least of your concerns.
Comment: Also, code that's fine on MY system might break YOUR system, unintentionally.


Why is my furnace blower coming on so early in the ignition process?

Question: Alright, I installed a new furnace a few months ago and have begun to notice an issue with the blowers. When the furnace first starts up, the exhaust blower should turn on to expel gas, then the flames are lit, then the main blower turns on. My issue is that the main and exhaust blower turn on at the same time. The house still gets heated and the furnace runs it's normal cycle, but I first get a blast of cold air. I haven't done anything to the circuits on the furnace. Could this be an issue with the thermostat calling for this to happen?
Comment: Has this always happened with this furnace, or is this a recent development?  Have you modified anything (new thermostat, furnace maintenance, etc.)?
Comment: I re-located the thermostat, but a new thermostat went in with the furnace. I never noticed it until it was pointed out. It may have been doing this from the beginning but I don't think so.
Comment: Did you install the new furnace and/or thermostat, or was it done by a professional (or are you a professional)?
Comment: It was installed by a professional with me giving him a hand.
Answer: Turns out someone decided to play with the dip switch on the back of the thermostat and set it to electric heat. Switching it back to gas heat fixed the problem. Luckily it was just a simple solution. :) Thank you for your help.
Answer: Most furnaces use a preset, adjustable, time delay circuit to control the start of the blower motor. Some higher end models may use a temperature sensor to determine when the blower should come on, but this is a less common setup. It's possible that something in the furnace is broken and/or configured incorrectly, but it's more likely that the thermostat has been installed incorrectly.
A thermostat in its most basic form, is simply one or more thermally activated switches.  In the olden days, it was likely a mercury switch, that only controlled a heater.  Most more modern thermostats control heat, A/C, and the blower fan.  In your case; since you're having trouble with the fan, we'll focus mostly on the fan settings.
A typical thermostat will only have two settings for the fan, ON, or AUTO.  In the ON position, the fan will run continuously.  In the AUTO position, control of the fan is handled by the furnace instead of the thermostat.  Since your fan does not run continuously, I'll assume you have the fan control on the thermostat set to AUTO.
If you accidentally connected the FAN wire to the HEAT terminal and/or the HEAT wire, every time the thermostat called for heat the fan would immediately turn on.  Since this is the easiest, cheapest fix. I'd start by making sure the thermostat is wired properly.


Diagnosing problem with running ASP.NET app as 64-bit

Question: I need to run an ASP.NET app as 64-bit.  The app is quite large and has MANY assemblies to load.  When I run it I am getting "is not a valid Win32 application" error in the web page as soon as I go to the first page.  That page is a very simple "Hello World" page.  However, it must be having problem with loading assemblies as 64-bit.  How can I figure out which one(s) are the problem?
Comment: I have 64-bit OS and need to run the app using 64-bit
Answer: When you say "run as 64-bit" do you mean you are running on Windows 2008 x64/IIS 7? Also if you are having trouble running an app that worked fine on the 32-bit flavor, you can use CorFlags to specifically tell your assemblies to run in 32 bit mode on a x64 machine. This came very handy on our new Citrix farm which was all Win2k8 64-bit, we had a lot of vendor .net apps behave strangely/not work at all, until we discovered this tool
Comment: I need to run 64-bit.  The test machine I am using is Win XP Pro 64-bit.
Answer: are you running IIS in 64 bit mode?  http://blog.danbartels.com/archive/2005/05/18/662.aspx
Comment: yes, I am running IIS in 64-bit mode.  I want the app to run in 64-bit.


How do I ask someone not to call me "usted"?

Question: Suppose you're in a situation where you have a formal/business relationship with someone, but the relationship has become more familiar over time.  The other person continues to call you usted.  How can you politely ask them to begin referring to you in the tú form?  Is it ever inappropriate (by situation or geography) to ask to be referred to in the tú form instead of usted?
Answer: In Spain we would say either of these:

Trátame de tú.
Tutéame.

Or, in a more indirect way:

No me trates de usted.

Any of them in a cheerful manner and usually accompanied by the perceptive "por favor" if needed.
Comment: @MáximaAlekz de verdad? ese debe ser el regionalismo que mas me ha chocado en bastante tiempo :O
Comment: In Argentina we also use Tutéame but we say: Tuteame (without the accent)
Comment: Trátame de **tú** no sería correcto en Colombia. Sería trátame de **ti**.
Answer: You can say in a cheerful tone:

Puedes hablarme de tú.     (You may speak to me informally)

It might be helpful to precede the sentence with an encouragement word, like this:

¡Vamos! Háblame de tú.     (Come on! Talk to me informally)

Please note that this applies particularly to Latin-American Spanish speakers.  Some parts of Spain (and Argentina!) could be more conservative regarding the use of 'tú' and instead use the older 'vos'.
Comment: In Spain the "vos" is out of use. And you can say "tutéame por favor" or (more informal and for people around the same age or a little youger than you) "no me hables de usted que me haces viejo"
Comment: The word "vos" in Argentina is not more conservative tan "tú" (we just don't use the word "tu" for anything but the possessive form).
Comment: Spain doesn't use *vos* as a formal kind of *tú*. Spain uses *usted* for formal singular. Yes, there is an archaic way of speaking that uses *vos*, but it sounds like someone using "dost thou wish thy own?" kinda arcaicism. Perhaps if you were super-formally addressing the king or some such.
Answer: The verb tutear means precisely that. Example: "oh por favor, tutéame".
Answer: I understand that both of you are using "usted" with each other. In that case, in my opinion, it's inappropriate to address them using "tú", even if it's to ask them to use "tú" towards you.
You should just politely propose that you start using "tú" between each other. Some options:

¿Nos tuteamos?
¿Por qué no nos tuteamos?
Ya podríamos tutearnos, ingeniero, ¿no le parece?

But if the situation is asymmetric, and you already treat them with familiarity, then use some of the proposals in the other answers.

Tutéame.
Answer: I would say: "Puedes tutearme".
Answer:
Is it ever inappropriate (by situation or geography) to ask to be referred to in the tú form instead of usted?

Disclaimer: This answer could be very specific to a region but still answers this part of the question.
Indeed it could be inappropriate in some cases.
I live in Colombia and, even when this is not the case in the whole country, I use "usted" in most cases. It's not always a matter of "formality" and distance, as I use it even with my family and close friends. It's a bit complex to explain because I do use also "tú", specially with women friends in spoken language, or in other contexts like this site, it's more natural for me to use "tú" when I write.
People from other regions use "tú" even in a work environment. For example my boss uses "tú" or "vos" (another informal variant) with me. I always use "usted" to reply to him, and it'd be a bit uncomfortable if he asked me to use "tú".
So I'd say that in most cases it'd be ok to ask someone to use "tú" with you, but there is also the possibility that some people (like me), depending on their region of origin, could feel a bit uncomfortable doing that.
Comment: I agree. It is not inappropriate to ask but don't expect all people to be glad and actually switch to using _tú_
Answer: In my opinion, the best answer here is that written by @MauricioMartinez.  I will write a supplemental answer.
Before proposing or initiating a change (yes, as you get closer to the person, at some point it will often happen that "tú" feels right and "usted" no longer feels right, and things will morph without any fanfare), it's a good idea to observe how this person and the other people in this setting speak to each other while you're considering trying to change your footing with this person.
There are so many factors that can affect the other person's comfort level in using the informal with you:

region where you are interacting

region the person grew up in

the vibe in general (some historical periods tend more towards "tú" than some others)

your age and the other person's age, and the difference between the two ages

power difference between the two of you -- for example, if someone comes in to clean your house once a week, it is quite unlikely this person will ever "tutea" you, so if I were you I wouldn't even try

gender -- if you're of the same gender, tuteo becomes more likely

whether you and your colleague do things together outside work -- for example, if you help this person carry a heavy sofa up to a second story apartment, you will probably shift into tuteo pretty quickly

whether one or both of you are from the developed world such as US or Europe -- people are more likely to use "tú" with gringos

I have seen relationships in which the forcing or pushing of "tú" on another person is part of a bullying situation.
A gentle way of coaxing the relationship over into the "tú" realm is to introduce a third person into the mix.  For example, let's say you have two colleagues, A and B.  You are on "tú" terms with A, but not with B yet.  If you then find yourself (or arrange to find yourself) in a reasonably extended conversation with both A and B, and A and B are already comfortable tuteándose, then it will be pretty effortless to morph over with B.  (Assuming there are no gender or power factors that would override other considerations.)
Comment: This is a really great answer. So many factors to consider, but they are well explained!
Answer:
Puede tutearme?

to ask the person to use tu form with you (formal)

Puedes tutearme?

to ask the person to use tu form with you (informal)

Puedo tutearle?

to ask the person if you can use the tu form with him/her (formal)
Comment: Welcome to [Spanish.se]! Note, the [tour] and [help] sections give a helpful introduction to the [se] approach. A well written answer focuses on exactly what's being asked, contributes something new that hasn't appeared in an answer yet, and is documented with sources, logic, or usage examples. If you have something less well developed to contribute, please use the comment box. (To do so requires a reputation of 50.The best way to show your agreement with an existing answer is to upvote it!
Answer: It'll be like

Quiero saber de ti / I want to know about you (tú).
Quiero que tú seas mi esposa / I want you to be my wife (tú).
Usted hace todo mejor / You make everything better

.
Tú = Informally.
Usted = Formally.
Comment: This is not really answering the question. Note that the user asks about asking someone to address you using the informal _you_.


Why did so many ruling European families hold on to Catholicism during the Reformation?

Question: If Protestantism favored secular power over religious authority, why did the Habsburgs, the Valois, and other secular ruling families hold on to Catholicism? Was it a matter of faith?
Comment: Welcome to History:SE. What has your research shown you so far? You might find it helpful to review the site [tour](https://history.stackexchange.com/tour) and [Help Centre](https://history.stackexchange.com/help) and, in particular, [ask].
Comment: Devotion can be sincere.  Some people believe in their religion.
Comment: @TheHonRose It looks like you have an answer, which is better as an answer than as a comment.
Comment: @MarkC.Wallace They even believe in their god. ;)  (religion is an exercise of a belief, in the general case of the sincere adherent).
Comment: @KorvinStarmast Thanks, I've posted it as an answer, although I see that TomAu's has been accepted.
Comment: @TheHonRose Thanks, I like it. Concise, etc.
Answer: One reason was that a number of these Catholic "secular" kingdoms actually derived a lot of their power from the Church. Two of these were Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (and some of their descendants) were (in)famous for the Inquisition. They were also known as "their most Catholic majesties." Because Spain had been divided, they derived a lot of their clout from the support of the church, against e.g the Muslim occupiers of Granada.
The Holy Roman Emperor was elected by seven magnates, three of whom were Archbishops. Most of the Holy Roman Emperors came from Austria. Because the Holy Roman Empire was actually larger than their "Austrian" holdings, these Austrian Emperors tended to be very loyal to the Church. And even certain members of the Holy Roman Empire relied heavily on the tithes and rents that could be collected through the Church.
The French kings remained Catholic because it was important to the French people. In fact, Henry of Navarre (King Henri IV), converted from Protestantsim to Catholicism to win them over: "Paris is worth a mass."
Protestantism was the refuge of kings such as those of England, Denmark, and Sweden who wanted to defy the Church. These were the ones for whom the promise of secular power outweighed the prospect of support from the Church.
Comment: Do you mean "power" or "legitimacy" in terms of what benefit association with the Church offered to these ruling families? (Suggest that in paragraph 2 you spell out a bit more regarding the Reconquista, since the Inquisition had been around for a long time before Ferdinand and Isabella came to their thrones.
Comment: For a king or queen, who sees him- or herself as legitimated by [divine mandate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings), it's a touch sell to become Protestant. Besides, what's in it, i.e. what's the gain, for kings and queens when they become Protestant?
Answer: A somewhat blunt analysis, but Catholicism was hierarchical and prescriptive, Protestantism more personal and individual - the Bible etc in the vernacular. Kings were appointed by God. To oppose the king was to oppose God Himself - a pretty powerful argument! Cf the English Revolution 1688 when James II tried to claim the Divine Right of Kings'. Who is going to argue with God's chosen, anointed monarch?
Answer: They were Catholic, because their subjects were Romanised at a deep enough level to prefer being Roman Catholic. If you look at where the Roman empire's borders were:

You can see that it very closely mirrors the dividing line between Catholics and Protestants.
England could be said to be an exception, but rather it is a special in-between case, because they were more thoroughly de-Romanised by the Anglo-Saxon invasion and on the other hand, Anglicanism is way more like Catholicism with the serial numbers filed off and the King instead of the Pope, than "real" Protestantism, e.g. the Calvinism of the Scots to the north who weren't Romanised.
Comment: Hi Eugene and welcome to History SE. Providing links/sources would improve your answer, especially for the map (unless you made it yourself) as it is good practice to acknowledge other people's work (not sure if this one is public domain).
Comment: I believe the true distinction is on "how long Christian" rather than "was it part of Roman Empire - but the dividing line is just about the same.
Comment: The image is from a Quora thread I remembered reading and found again: https://www.quora.com/Was-Germany-ever-part-of-the-Roman-Empire. Quora has the same image use policy as Stack, so I presume the guy there posted it in good faith, but the problem is a bit recursive. The idea behind an answer is from a talk I attended once at uni, that made a convincing argument that the Catholic/Protestant divide mirrors the Roman/Barbarian divide, but it was a long time ago and not recorded to the best of my knowledge.
Answer: During the time of the Reformation there were only a few kingdoms in Catholic Europe except for a few dozen kingdoms in Ireland that aren't usually considered.
They were:
1) Kingdom of Scotland - turned Protestant.
2) Kingdom of England - turned Protestant.
3) (English) Kingdom of Ireland - turned Protestant.
4) Kingdom of France - remained Catholic.
5) Kingdom of Navarre - turned Protestant 1560.
6) Kingdom of Portugal - remained Catholic.
7) Kingdom of Castile and associated kingdoms - remained Catholic.
8) Kingdom of Aragon and associated kingdoms including Sicily, Sicily, and Sardinia - remained Catholic.
9) Kingdom of Norway - turned Protestant.
10) Kingdom of Sweden - turned Protestant.
11) Kingdom of Denmark - turned Protestant.
12) Kingdom of Poland - remained Catholic.
13) Kingdom of Hungary - Had meany Protestants but reconverted to Catholic.
14) Kingdom of Bohemia - already largely (Hussite) Protestant, reconverted to Catholicism after 1620.
Not counting Bohemia the score is seven protestant and 6 Catholic.  Furthermore the Habsburg dynasty ruled the Castilian and Aragonese groups of kingdoms and Hungary and Bohemia, making about only four royal dynasties that remained Catholic.   Without the Habsburgs most of Europe might have turned protestant instead of merely Britain, Scandinavia, and northern Germany.
Possibly the royal dynasties that remained Catholic did so because they thought that enriching themselves and their nobles by confiscating church lands was stealing.
Comment: This is completely inaccurate because it ignores the many *royal* (ie suitable wedding match for a monarch or heir) Imperial principalities of the Holy Roman Empire. Anne of Cleves and Albert Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha were suitable matches for Henry VIII and Victoria because they were in fact of ***royal**** - though not monarchial - blood. The distinction was based on possession of sovereignty, not title.


How do I soften a new set of 400 thread count organic cotton sheets?

Question: I recently purchased a set of 400 thread count organic cotton sheets. They arrived feeling stiff and scratchy. I tried washing them several times, both with detergent and with baking soda, and then putting them in the dryer with fabric softener. Unfortunately the sheets remain stiff. How can I get these sheets to soften?
Answer: I suggest you the following methods:
Wash with Baking Soda and Vinegar in a washing machine(as you have not specified about vinegar, I feel you should try this combination: washing soda and vinegar). More methods are as follows:

Add a cup of vinegar during the rinse cycle of washing machine.
Use turpentine: Add half a cup of turpentine to the washing water with the sheets and wash on a regular cycle using warm water.Rinse thoroughly to remove most of the turpentine. Hang the sheets outside or on a clothes horse to dry.It is very important that you do not put the sheets in the dryer after washing with turpentine as turpentine is combustible and could cause a fire.
Use Epsom salts: Fill a laundry tub with cold water and add 50g of Epsom salts. Stir the sheets around in the tub for two minutes (use a wooden spoon if you don't want your hands to get cold!)Leave the sheets to soak overnight in the Epsom salts mixture. The following morning, rinse the sheets out thoroughly, then hang them outside to dry.
Use borax: Fill a laundry tub with cold water and add 6 tablespoons of borax to the tub.Add the sheets to the water, stir them around and leave them to soak overnight.Rinse thoroughly the next morning and hang outside to dry.
Use salt: Fill a laundry tub with cold water and throw in 2 handfuls of salt. Add the sheets and leave them to soak overnight. Wash, rinse, and dry as usual.
Answer: First of all: 400 thread cottons that are "scratchy" should be returned.
Second: Maneesh's answer is way better than the current votes reflect. Vinegar is the most effective and safe for most cotton fabrics, most colours, the washing machine and the environment. (It also helps to protect the washer from built-up residue.)

That said, this is mainly to be read as a small addition to Maneesh's answer about chemicals.
Cotton, especially heavy cotton in canvas style (plain weave) or jeans (twill) or similar styles are quite stiff when brand new. That is a feature.
To break the stiffness you need to break some fibres and loosen the weave. Chemical fabric softeners are one way.
Washing them intensely (long cycle and high heat) is the method the industry uses. To amplify the effect add some tumble dryer balls (those plastic things looking like chestnuts on LSD) or just something like tennis balls  into the washing machine and the dryer. Quality cotton can withstand cooking temperatures. Some colours on that fabric might not. White sheets can go all the way.
Ageing the fabric softens it. Quality fabric will last long after this breaking in with physical or chemical stresses. That means of course to not do this every time you wash, just in the beginning.
Answer: A great way to get new fabric 'worked in' is to let them hang on the washing line for some days. Peg them well and let them hang in sun, wind and rain. Only take them down if the weather forecast predicts winds of greater than seven on the beaufort scale so they don't blow away.
Especially the motion, caused by the wind, will cause the freshly spun yarn to loosen up a bit and the fabric will feel softer.
Of course if you can't hang them outside, just using them will have a similar result over time.
If you still want to use a fabric softener, consider choosing ones that are oil or polydimethylsiloxane based. These work by lubricating the fibres to make the fabric feel softer. These products work better on cotton than ionic softeners, keep those for synthetic fibres.
Comment: If you use Downey, be prepared to live with that odour for the life of the garment. The odour of some detergents are chemical "fragrances" that are permanent, more or less. The odours will transfer to other articles by contact alone.
Answer: Try ironing the bedding after you finish the/your normal washing and drying cycle. Iron your sheets with the hottest setting for cotton. Heat "relaxes" cotton fibres that stiffen during the wash. Usually, the drying cycle heat with agitation would be sufficient to ease the stiffness. With added thickness, a few more washes will be necessary until the fabric loses some body (and fibres).
I have found that bamboo-based and hemp-based cloth to be softer and last longer than cotton which is more plentiful and less expensive.
Answer: Iron if you can, or line dry.  The suggestion of dryer balls is a good response as well - dryer balls will fluff, help reduce wrinkles, reduce dryer time and if you use wool dryer balls, the lanolin will help soften.  A 400tc organic cotton sheet set is likely a multi weft insertion, not a true 400tc.  You don't mention if the sheets are percale or sateen, but both will improve with use and age.  We have more detail and care recommendations for organic cotton sheets at this link.
And as always - line dry is awesome for any sheets or bedding.
Comment: Welcome to [lifehacks.se]! Thanks for mentioning your affiliation, as per the [Help Center guidelines](/help/promotion).


How can I remove a stuck screw that will still turn?

Question: I put a too short screw into the screw hole.  I thought this would sort things out.  It didn't.  Now I cannot get the screw out even though it will turn quite freely with a Phillips screwdriver.  Any ideas?  Could I superglue another similar sized screw to it, head to head?
Comment: Can you pull or pry on it while you turn it. This usually works for me. If you are screwing into metal and the hole is threaded and the threads are stripping, then this probably won't work though.
Comment: What about a magnetic screwdriver bit?
Comment: How much space do you have between the walls of the hole and the circumference of the screw head?
Answer: I have found two methods that work for me:

Use plyers instead of screw driver
Use a paint scraper pressed underneath the screw head while you turn the screw with driver.  Between the additional friction, and the scraper blade, frequently the screw thread will start to catch, and allow it to back out.
Comment: another variation of method two is to slip the tip of an utility knife and gently pry up while spinning.  Use a light touch, perhaps followed by the aforementioned putty scraper.
Answer: I'd just use a piece of ABC (Already Been Chewed) gum to pull the screw out, does it for me every time.


Stencil buffer appears to not be decrementing values correctly

Question: I'm attempting to use the stencil buffer as a clipper for my UI system, but I'm having trouble debugging a problem I'm running in to.
This is what I'm doing: A widget can pass a rectangle to the the stencil clipper functions, which will increment the stencil buffer values that it covers. Then it will draw its children, which will only get drawn in the stencilled area (so that if they extend outside they'll be clipped). After a widget is done drawing its children, it pops that rectangle from the stack and in the process decrements the values in the stencil buffer that it has previously incremented.
The slightly simplified code is below:
static void drawStencil(Rect& rect, unsigned int ref)
{
    // Save previous values of the color and depth masks
    GLboolean colorMask[4];
    GLboolean depthMask;
    glGetBooleanv(GL_COLOR_WRITEMASK, colorMask);
    glGetBooleanv(GL_DEPTH_WRITEMASK, &depthMask);

    // Turn off drawing
    glColorMask(0, 0, 0, 0);
    glDepthMask(0);

    // Draw vertices here
    ...

    // Turn everything back on
    glColorMask(colorMask[0], colorMask[1], colorMask[2], colorMask[3]);
    glDepthMask(depthMask);

    // Only render pixels in areas where the stencil buffer value == ref
    glStencilFunc(GL_EQUAL, ref, 0xFF);
    glStencilOp(GL_KEEP, GL_KEEP, GL_KEEP);
}

void pushScissor(Rect rect)
{
    // increment things only at the current stencil stack level
    glStencilFunc(GL_ALWAYS, s_scissorStack.size(), 0xFF);
    glStencilOp(GL_INCR, GL_INCR, GL_INCR);

    s_scissorStack.push_back(rect);
    drawStencil(rect, s_ScissorStack.size());
}

void popScissor()
{
    // undo what was done in the previous push,
    // decrement things only at the current stencil stack level
    glStencilFunc(GL_ALWAYS, s_scissorStack.size(), 0xFF);
    glStencilOp(GL_DECR, GL_DECR, GL_DECR);

    Rect rect = s_scissorStack.back();
    s_scissorStack.pop_back();
    drawStencil(rect, s_scissorStack.size());
}

And this is how it's being used by the Widgets
if (m_clip)
    pushScissor(m_rect);

drawInternal(target, states);
for (auto child : m_children)
    target.draw(*child, states);

if (m_clip)
    popScissor();

This is the result of the above code:

There are two things on the screen, a giant test button, and a window with some buttons and text areas on it. The text area scroll box is set to clip its children (so that the text doesn't extend outside the scroll box). The button is drawn after the window and should be on top of it completely. However, for some reason the text area is appearing on top of the button. The only reason I can think of that this would happen is if the stencil values were not getting decremented in the pop, and when it comes time to render the button, since those pixels don't have the right stencil value it doesn't draw over. But I can't figure out whats wrong with my code that would cause that to happen.
Answer: For UI purposes you can consider using glScissor. Just enable the scissor before outputting inner elements and disable it afterwards
glScissor(x, y, width, height);
glEnable(GL_SCISSOR_TEST);

//draw child elements here

glDisable(GL_SCISSOR_TEST);

This will restrict drawing out of specified area. The only note is that this allows only a rectangular scissoring