Does cooking in a nonstick pan affect the finished food?

Question: Whenever I cook in a nonstick pan, the food doesn't seem as crispy as compared to when I use simple aluminum pans. Is this due to the pan material or is there another factor behind it?
Comment: I'd suspect that the difference depends on the pans. Aluminum has a fairly high heat conductivity. So is the nonstick pan aluminum too? Same thickness?
Comment: Welcome, Anum.

So that people can help you better with your question, can you share what you are cooking and how you cook it?  And what the method for your comparison between nonstick and other materials is?
Comment: It does depend on what is being cooked. If you use oil in a nonstick pan, you can make extremely crispy potatoes, let's say. So yes, please, Anum, let us know what you are referring to.
Answer: IMO, it's about firstly, temperature, and secondly, cooking time. Proposed solution is in the last paragraph. =-)
Explanation:
non-stick pans (referring to the coated type), while being convenient, is not steel to oil, thus the oil is not heated at the required temperature consistently for the required length of time.  This affects the crispness that you mentioned.
Take for example fried chicken, to get it "crispy on the outside, moist on the inside" requires a high enough temperature, and the oil needs to hold this high temperature somewhat consistently for long enough to cook the chicken. in non-stick pans, the temperature drops drastically as soon as you drop in the chicken pieces, and typically takes more time than one expects to get the temperature up again.
Solution:
If non-stick pan is preferred, get one with a thick heavy base, preferably 2 layer designs. A deeper bowl design to hold more oil for the frying is preferable. Use medium heat to get the oil temperature up, before dropping the chicken pieces in. turn the heat up a notch after, for a short while to get the oil temperature up again, then turn it back down to medium again. experience will tell you what to do over time and practice. =-)
Answer: There are a lot of variables in getting food crispy, a non-stick pan being just one of them.

The type of food being cooked. A piece of onion will cook differently from a piece of meat or a patty covered breadcrumbs or batter etc. This is due to the moisture content of the food and also the Maillard reaction etc.
The type of oil or fat being used in the cooking process. Different oils and fats are more effective at crisping food, hence the use of duck fat to roast potatoes. I have found coconut or rapeseed oil to be better for crisping than cheaper vegetable oil, mainly due to their higher density and smoke point.
The temperature and cooking method employed. If you put cold oil in a pan, add food, then apply the heat, you will end up with oily, soggy food. Likewise, if you heat the oil to smoking and add the food, it will rapidly crisp up on the outside (but may not cook properly in the inside as the heat has not had time to penetrate).
Whether a lid was used or not during the cooking process. A lid will trap hot, moist steam and cause food to soften. Allowing steam to escape efficiently will improve crispiness.
As mentioned, the weight and materials used in the pan. My preferences in descending order are aluminium, anodised aluminium, steel and non-stick. The surface used has a lot of bearing on the quality and depth of the fond developed, the less "porous" the material, the less crispy. I can't really think of a better description than porous, as it is not smoothness as such (a mirror finish steel pan will result in crispy food, a smooth non-stick pan less so if you are trying to develop a fond rather than frying). By using an aluminium pan, you are allowing the food to initially stick to the bottom of the pan when added, and once a high enough temperature is reached, the food will come away with a crispy base. When using a non-stick pan, that "stickiness" will not occur, and the crispiness will be different.
Answer: Aluminum doesn't hold heat well.  That's why it is used so often in the bottling and electronics industry - it simply wicks the heat away!  Since the food is actually placed on the aluminum surface, the only place for the heat to transfer to is directly to the food.  More heat per surface area equals more cooking to that particular area.  Simple physics at work, and nothing more.  Non-stick pans are typically steel based, and iron holds heat well (thus the deep, rich browning cast iron skillets are known for).  Hope this answers your question.


Carry your PhD project with you to post-doc and beyond

Question: Say you develop your own research project during your PhD years and want to carry on the research project with you to post-doctoral and beyond, are there any restriction that you can or cannot carry on the project?
Answer: From a career perspective, it's a bad idea to carry your PhD project as your primary work further into your career. It's perfectly normal for people to finish up the publication of papers related to one phase in a later phase of their career, but it's not so good to keep working on basically the same project.
The reason for this is that you don't want to be "pigeonholed" as a researcher who only studies a narrow topic. In most fields, it's not conducive to a successful career, because it makes a researcher look as if uninterested in other research fields (even if that's not the case).
So even if the funding and willingness of the advisors is available to support such a path, it's not one you should follow (absent a very specific reason to do so).
Comment: I think switching to a different topic for you post-doc can be a good experience and career move. However, I've seen PhDs around me remain in the same field for their postdoc (e.g. studying sandbar behavior right before the coast), and successfully found professor positions in that field. The advantage of staying in the same field is that you have a good start, you are already familiar with the subject.
Comment: There's nothing wrong with staying in the same __field__. The issue is staying in the same __project__.
Answer: In general, this depends primarily on your supervisors (old and new) and/or funding. If they give you the green light you're good to go.
If you have been working with industry or parts of your research have been patented there may be legal issues if you intend to collaborate with other parties (both companies or universities).
Answer: As soon as the article is published, any laboratory can plan experiments described in that article, continuing the research. I see no reason why the original author should not be allowed.
However this is often not as good idea as it may look like. Assuming the PhD student have worked seriously over PhD time, all "low hanging fruits" of the topic may be already picked up and published in journals. And if your parent laboratory continues that project as well, they put up the competition that may be very difficult to win.
The probable exception would be if the continuation of the topic requires to apply methods that are not well developed in the originating laboratory, and you are starting a post-doc in the new laboratory with your current project.


If my pay period is split between 2 calendar years, which tax year do I file them in?

Question: The pay period is from Monday 12/23/19 till Friday 01/03/20 and this pay period gets cashed into me on 01/10/20 (Not sure if this piece of info is relevant). Do I have to include this on the 2019 tax year or the 2020 tax year, or do I pro-rate it by days? Or, can I chose any of these options?
Comment: Dupe https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/52446/taxable-income-computed-by-date-earned-or-pay-date and https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/58238/confused-about-tax-year-for-income and similar https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/76965/which-year-to-use-to-pay-us-taxes-on-business-income https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/73689/what-tax-year-does-my-income-get-assigned-to https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/87696/is-income-from-a-check-taxed-according-to-the-date-written https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/87712/semantics-of-taxation-for-year-end-money
Comment: Do what your W-2 tells you to do. This is not something you need to worry about unless you are a contractor.
Answer: Income is considered to be part of the tax year in which you receive the paycheck.  Thus, even though you earned it in 2019, it'll be on your 2020 W-2.
This is fair, because you'll have a similar situation at the end of 2020.  IOW, the "extra" 2019 income on your 2020 W2 will be offset by the 2020 income that will be on your 2021 W2.
Comment: Under IRS rules, the pay date is the date that you have access to the funds "without substantial limitation or restriction". If you are supposed to be paid this year but you do not have access to the funds until next year, the pay counts toward next year's wages.
Comment: Beware this answer assumes "cash" accounting rules. 99.999% of people are on "cash" accounting rules, but if you're not you can't use this answer.
Comment: Exactly, it's not up to taxpayer, the W2 (or 1099) dictated the year.
Comment: The most important point is that you file based on what's on your W-2. If you report an amount on your 1040 which is different from the amount shown on your W-2 you're basically begging to be audited. Resist the temptation to overthink things. Put your W-2 amounts on your 1040 and you'll be fine.
Comment: Is that the date you get paid, or the date you are supposed to be paid? If you are supposed to get paid on the last working day of the month, and there is a problem with the payroll system or cashflow and you receive the money later?
Answer: You're over-thinking this.  Assuming you're an employee, you use whatever amount is shown on your W2 form.  If you're an independent contractor, whatever's shown on your 1099s, likewise if it's income from stocks &c.
Comment: Not really. Not all contractor payments, or investments, are required to be reported on 1099, and even when it is required the payer can make a mistake -- but _you_ are still rwequired to file a correct return and can be penalized if you don't. Do _look at_ those forms, and if something is on the edge and their determination is reasonable and doesn't hurt (i.e. balances out as RonJohn said) go with that to save work.
Comment: A person needs to know the answer to this if they want to know the number of paychecks remain in the year when making changes to their 401(k), HSA, FSA deposits. They also need to know if they changed companies in the middle of the year and the new company won't halt the deduction when they meet the IRS limit. They need to know if they need to adjust tax withholding to not have too little withheld...
Comment: @dave_thompson_085: While that's true, it applies to a small fraction of contractors &c.  The OP is not one of those, unless s/he phrased the post in a very confusing way.
Comment: @mhoran_psprep: I think not, but in any case, that's not the question.  The question is about what numbers to put on your tax return, which (except in exceptional cases) will simply be the numbers on your W2/1099.
Answer: The default accounting rule for personal income is "cash method". Under this method, the tax year for income is not based on when the income is earned, but when you have "effective receipt" of the money, which as MTA says in the comments, is when "you have access to the funds 'without substantial limitation or restriction'." If you have an in-office mailbox, for instance, and your paycheck is placed in it on Dec 15, but you don't bother picking it up until Jan 1, then your effective receipt is Dec 15: even though you didn't actually have possession of it until Jan 1, picking up the check and depositing it is not considered a "substantial limitation". On the other hand, if your company is late on payroll and doesn't get the check out until Jan 1, that will probably be the date that will be considered your "effective receipt". Basically, as soon as you either have the money, or could have the money if you wanted, you have effective receipt.


2000 Honda Civic ex brake driver brake fluid

Question: I recently changed my pads and rotors and then started to bleed my front brakes. I noticed that the passenger side fluid comes out but not the driver side. I already took the hose out and check to see if there is any rust but it wasn't the problem. Is there something else that I could check or part that goes wrong that maybe sucks the brake fluid just for the driver side??
Comment: I'm assuming you mean that you do get fluid out of the hose that connects to the caliper but not out the bleed valve.  In that case you have a blockage inside the caliper and you'll need to disassemble the caliper and clean it out.  It likely has debris or burned brake fluid inside it that is preventing bleeding.
Answer: The front brake calipers are very simple devices. The fluid goes into one hole (the brake hose attachment) and goes out one of two other holes (the piston bore or the bleeder hole). If the caliper is not bleeding and the input seems fine, check the bleeder hole.
If you have the brakes assembled (i.e. brake hoses connected), do the following:
Unscrew the bleeder completely on the bad caliper and take it out of the caliper. Inspect the bleeder threads - are they covered in rust? When you take the bleeder out, brake fluid should start coming out of the bleeder hole. Bleeder hole is big enough that it should never be plugged. What may happen is the bleeder is seized in the caliper and trying to take it out just breaks it in two, at which point you need to either extract the rest of the bleeder out of the caliper or get a new caliper.
With the bleeder out of the caliper:
Take a paperclip and straighten it. Insert the paper clip into each of the bleeder holes as far is it will go. Wiggle it around. Is any dirt/rust coming out?
Take some brake cleaner and attach a straw to the can. Spray brake cleaner through the straw into each hole in the bleeder. The fluid should come out of the other hole.
Reassemble the caliper and try bleeding it again.
Note: if any part of the braking system is disassembled (e.g. brake lines disconnected, anything other than purely bleeding the brakes) you should bleed all 4 corners starting with the one furthest from the master cylinder.


Why use bushings of different material than what they contact?

Question: I've heard that materials that need to slide against each other should be of different materials. Why is that?
Comment: Do you have a specific use in mind?
Comment: Are bushings super finished?
Answer: As already mentioned in many contexts you will make one part essentially consumable in order to reduce wear on an expensive or difficult-to-replace part.
Similarly if you have a situation like a shaft mounted in a cast iron casing (eg an engine block) it makes sense to protect both, relatively complex and expensive parts with a cheap, expendable and easily replaceable intermediate e it a bearing or bushing.
Another reason is that a lot of materials that have good friction properties may not be suitable for both parts; e.g., sintered bronze makes good bushings but you wouldn't usually want to make a shaft out of it. A similar situation is white metal bearings, which are cast in place and a relatively low tech way to get a high tolerance fit. Similarly, bushings are generally well-supported so it's often acceptable to favour good friction characteristics over strength in a way that you couldn't with a shaft.
Another consideration is galling. This is effectively cold welding of touching surfaces under load, which ends up tearing chunks off one or both surfaces, causing deep surface damage at a much faster rate than straightforward wear. Some metals or combinations of metals are particularly vulnerable to this; e.g., stainless steel.
There are also manufacturing considerations. It's generally easier to make an accurately round shaft than a hole, so bushing materials will often be relatively easy to machine or at least tolerant of size variation. For example, if you fit a steel shaft in an undersized nylon bushing, it will fairly quickly wear itself in to a reasonable bearing fit without harming either part, whereas a steel shaft in an undersized steel bushing would be in risk of scoring or seizing up altogether.
However, there are equally circumstances where similar materials are fine, especially in contexts where overall wear needs to be minimised or where it's possible to provide good lubrication. In a fluid dynamic or hydrostatic bearing, the bearing surfaces should never actually touch as they are held apart by pressurised lubricant.
The specific materials matter as well for example aluminium-on-aluminium sliding would be much less desirable than cast iron on cast iron.
Comment: @agentprovocateur Powder-processed metals can be lube-impregnated, as an example. Unlike in many cases, the porosity inherent to powder-processing is an advantage. It is done with some steels, steel-copper mixtures (not alloys but mixtures of powder), and copper alloys as you noted.
Comment: more complete answer than others.
also some materials (like bronze?) can be impregnated with lube due to its structure/properties.
Answer: In addition to ashgetstazered's answer, some materials (Aluminum, I'm looking at you!) will gall badly when meshed against themselves, while moving reasonably smoothly against a different material (e.g. bronze bushing). So if you have a good reason to produce one part out of a given material, you then choose the mating part's material to minimize galling or wear.
Comment: Thanks Carl.  I'm a software guy, and wasn't familiar with galling.  The Wikipedia page on it was very helpful, especially to learn why brass is often the choice for bushings.
Comment: Austenitic stainless steels also have severe galling problems  when run against themselves. Aluminum is the worst, I have even seen it gall against steel.
Answer: I haven't heard this bit of advice and as with most things in engineering it really comes down to WHICH materials and in what CONTEXT.
I can think of one main reason why you might want to make them out of different materials: Differing hardness. What this means is that only one of the materials should 'wear' and then you could design it so that this part could be changed out easily. For example: if you had something following a guide, you wouldn't want to have to replace the whole guide when it started to wear, so if you make the thing that follows the guide softer then it will wear and you can just replace that.
But yes. Without more information I can't really give any more advice. That statement is not universally true though.
Answer: For a sleeve bushing, you want a soft slippery material with sufficient yield strength to withstand any deformation of the hole surface during operation. For the shaft, you want a hard smooth material with sufficent yield strength to withstand being deformed/bent in order to ensure that the surfaces of the shaft spin true to the axis of rotation at all times during operation. You want as close a possible fit as you can get, you want it to feel slightly snug with a small amount of friction. Spin the parts while not under any load and the rotating surface of the shaft will lap the bushing until there is zero friction and it helps to move the parts in and out along the axis slightly to eliminate as much material as you can from the bushing surface until it rotates freely. If you do all these steps and tolerance your parts correctly and use the right materials, you will have a perfect rotating bushing joint. Make sure to factor in the loads it will be operating under, and make sure to follow the guidelines above, and these kinds of joints can withstand a few hundreds of pounds with very low friction comparable to a ball bearing and gets smoother and looser as time goes on and the bushing continues to wear. You just want to prevent deformation and reduce friction.


Why do the Greeks have two different messenger gods?

Question: Hermes was a messenger god. And Iris, with her rainbows, was also a messenger goddess.
Why would the Greeks have two different messenger gods?
Answer: It's helpful to not consider Greek mythology as a unified, logically consistent whole. That they have two gods for one task is because humans are creating stories about the gods. Moreover, neither of the two are truly "messenger gods" per se, but rather they both manifest characteristics which allow storytellers to use them as messengers.
For Iris, the rainbow which appears to go from heaven to the ground can be conceived of as some sort of pathway from the divine to the mortal spheres. This easily lends itself to the interpretation of rainbows as pathways for gods to communicate with mortals. The Iliad, the earliest Greek work we have, Iris is the messenger of the gods.
For Hermes, since he's the "patron" (of sorts) of travelers, that function lends itself to his being cast as a messenger, as one who travels from the gods to mortals. He relays messages in the Odyssey, the second oldest Greek work we have, but not the Iliad.
Since the two oldest works of Greek literature use either of these two gods for messages, they both became "messenger" gods. Note though that they have domains far beyond that, especially Hermes, who protected flocks, looked after traders and merchants, guided souls of the dead to Hades, and even protected Horace in battle.
Answer: Hermes was a lot of things.

"Helper Hermes" (Iliad)
A companion to men (Iliad)
"pro-eminent in subtle thoughts" (Iliad)
"keen-sighted" (Odyssey)
Deceitful (Works and Days)

Other sources mention further variances.
Hermes is a clever thinker, an aid to the gods, and a guide for mankind. He plays many parts.
Iris, on the other hand, though sometimes replacing Hermes' position (as in the Odyssey), is more purely a messenger.
She is described in more single-minded terms, repeatedly so throughout the Iliad:

"wind-footed" (Iliad)
Bearing messages (Iliad)

and very directly,

a "messenger" (Iliad)

Other sources describing her, such as the Argonautica, were probably written later than the Iliad and the Odyssey, so their adherence to this structure can probably be largely disregarded.
The reasons for the difference between Hermes and Iris, and the need for both of them, so to speak, could be debated; I'm not expert enough to offer any real opinion on the matter. Certainly Homer (if he was indeed the author we believe him to be) wrote wrote works containing both Hermes and Iris, so the real reason for the parts they play may be buried in author's intent.
There may not really be much of a reason other than that. Deities tend to double up on duties and roles as they serve the needs of their authors. Especially for humanistic deities such as those in classic Greek mythology, it makes sense for writers like Homer and others to use and discard them as needed to make the plot and lessons flow. After all, it is more imperative for them to make a clear point than to uphold a certain standard for one individual deity.
Answer: One must also remember that the Greeks, like the Romans after them, "never met a god they didn't like." That's why the Greco-Roman religious Panthenon greatly resembled that of the Indian subcontinent, with so many gods one may often require a programme from which to select the more appropriate god to whom one should pray, for one's specific problem.
It is difficult to prove at this remove in time, but it's very possible that, at an earlier point in Greek history, Iris and Hermes had been the messenger-gods of different independent Greek city-states.
Others have pointed out the approximate chronology---Iris being described as more of a "dedicated messenger-god" from the earliest literary references, while Hermes really seemed to have come by "messenger-duty" a bit later. The larger numbers of diverse and disparate "duties" assigned to Hermes suggests he had originally begun "god-life" as a sort of "composite-god," who had united the functions of a number of earlier male deities who had been worshiped by the people of smaller Greek city-states, which had later been vanquished by or incorporated into later and more-powerful city-states.
From the "deceitful" reference to Hermes' behaviour, it's evident one of those earlier "incarnations" had been a "trickster-god;" while the "helper of men" role may have come from an agrarian god whose original function had been to assist men with completion of hard tasks; and the chronology continues.
I believe, (though after 45 years and more I freely admit I may be mistaken) that it was Dr. T. C. Lethbridge who had explored at very great length the habit of Mankind to "recycle" the gods worshiped by earlier peoples (and, those who had later been "assimilated peoples") of a particular area, into either later versions of gods. This also included merging traits of earlier gods into the "aspects" of later manifestations of gods belonging to later and more powerful regional peoples.
(One of his related, comprehensive, projects had been to demonstrate how the monuments and churches dedicated to more modern Christian Saints throughout Greater Britain had been "recycled" from pagan holy places that had originally been dedicated to gods of the so-called "Old Religion.")
Sorry for going on at such length, but I've always been fascinated by the European, Middle Eastern, and Oriental propensities for "Bending Knee At The Drop Of A Hat," so to say! [As shown by the chronicle of "Moses and the Wandering Hebrews," people would cast a "golden calf" to worship, rather than wait about a bit over a mere month, for "something better."]
I'd a "tertiary Minor" (covering about 270 hours) in "comparative religions" as a recreational venue at university: I'd found it supremely interesting and entertaining to examine how humankind had seemingly so missed childhood that they created gods to be "surrogate parents" during their adult lives! Not content merely to have "matergod" and "patergod," however, they created extra "parents" (or perhaps "elder-god-siblings") to assist them with virtually every civic, military, and domestic task imaginable.
This may seem laughable, and it's obviously easy to sneer at forebears who're 3,000 years and more removed, but please remember: The Romans, Greeks, and their far-eastern kinfolk, the Indians, had all been pleased to adopt the gods of both the older cultures from which they had come, and the newer cultures whom they had met in transit, behaving (on the whole) in very unselfish manners, rather than acting like spoiled and pouty little children.
There's nothing more demeaning and depressing than observing two or more cultures gearing for battle, shouting at one another: "My God Can Whup Yer God!" like little boys brandishing "heavenly fathers" at one another. (The addle-pated ninny who'd invented the first "jealous god" should have been sent to bed without supper for the rest of his life!)
Comment: This answer is incredibly confusing to read. Could you only use quotes if you're quoting from a source, and can you cite the sources you reference? Right now you're use of quotes is incredibly confusing: for example, I'm not sure why you put *jealous god* in quotes; are you quoting from a source, indicating skepticism of the idea of a jealous god, or what? Another example: why do you put the phrase *golden calf* in quotes?
Comment: The idea of people "recycling" the features of previous religions into new ones is a good start for this answer. But I wish you had cited someone other than T.C. Lethbridge: he's a pseudo-scientist. Also, you outline an interesting theory, but you need to support this theory with facts: can you demonstrate that Iris and Hermes originated from competing regions/different time periods?
Comment: Dear Ham: It was said 45 yrs ago, at Eton, research was proceeding apace. After so long, I'd consider it "proven." Perhaps this didn't cross the Atlantic? Be careful also of using "pseudo-scientist:" A top man in the same Sci. field at Be'er Shiva University has often said such of Carl Sagan. I merely mentioned Dr. TCL because his research closely paralleled the Greco-Roman example--- and because his unvarnished zeal amuses me. It's delightful that "Mary's Chapel" was "Maaev's Chapel" and "St. George's Church." was where "Herne the Hunter" was worshiped! Bon chance, mon ami!
Comment: *It was said 45 yrs ago, at Eton, research was proceeding apace* that's not how research works. If I say that the sky is green thirty years ago, and start conducting research into proving that the sky is green, the fact that it's been 30 years since I started researching doesn't make me right.


House of Cards - Camera Shots

Question: Did anybody notice the extended shots of the backs of characters' heads in House of Cards? I am wondering if those have any symbolism or intended value.
Comment: Do you have any particular examples of such camera shots?
Comment: I really haven't noticed this at all, but I might not have been paying enough attention. Wondering if it's a look past shot, where they are showing the back of someone's head while focusing on someone else's face? Like @NapoleonWilson said, please provide some context.
Comment: Thanks for answering and I'll be on the lookout for each one as I rewatch with a friend. The shot I'm talking about centers the frame around the back of the head,  and it is the only thing in focus. I'm sure that both Underwood have had a couple of these shots. And I'm pretty sure I remember one with Rachel and Russo. Each time has been quiet and after a decent sized moment.
Comment: Example? Make at least one screenshot, pls
Answer: Opinion-based, but one of the major themes in House of Cards is control of information. The Underwoods thrive because they are able to conceal their own intentions, find out as much as possible about their targets and feed the proper information to proxies like Zoe, Stamper or Russo. Although I can't think of specific examples off the top of my head, back-of-the-head shots involve the viewer in this information play. They're almost the equivalent of Underwood's camera asides. They make the viewer feel like most of the characters, under informed and manipulated.
I thought of a specific example. There's a moment around the end of Season 1 beginning of Season 2 where there's a ten second or so shot from behind of the Underwoods sitting on a couch. It's an invitation for the viewer to try to be smarter than they are, to figure out the plans and emotions of that monolithic partnership. It makes the series more entertaining to put the burden of decoding their characters on the viewer.
Comment: That's so sweet of you to genuinely thank me! I think we won the Internet.
Comment: Thank you for that! I appreciate the time it took to answer. This is great stuff and Thank you for geek in out with me!

House of Cards - Camera Shots


How do I remove Not Enough Items?

Question: I have not enough items, and after seeing how Too Many Items is better, I want to remove it. I open my MC Jar File, and I have no clue on what to remove. What do I need to remove so I can input Too Many Items?
Comment: wouldnt it be easier to do a clean install and then just install too many items?
Comment: Ya, that is what I did.
Answer: If you're using a recent version of Not Enough Items then it uses the forge mod loader. All you need to do is remove NotEnoughItems.jar from the coremods folder located with your minecraft data installation.
Answer: There is no easy uninstall procedure. You need to know which files were in the version of "not enough items" that you installed and remove those manually.
To do that, you have to re-download the "not enough items" version that you initially installed and look at the files in its archive and match those with the ones in the current minecraft.jar, remove them there.
If you do not have an extreme amount of other plugins installed however, the easier way might be to simply re-download the minecraft.jar by clicking "Force update" in the options of the launcher and then install whatever plugins you need.
Comment: Note that this will not work with all mods because some mods replace the class files in vanilla minecraft.jar, corrupting minecraft.jar if you choose to remove them like that.
Answer: Open the launcher, click options, and click force update. Note that this will purge your Minecraft.jar, leaving you with a vanilla game. Consider looking into the Magic Launcher, which allows for easy installation and uninstallation of mods.

It has come to my attention that Not Enough Items uses Forge Mod Loader (FML). You should remove NotEnoughItems.jar from the coremods folder in your .minecraft folder. Alternatively, back up your saves and nuke your .minecraft folder.
Answer: just delete the first five files including Modloader if you dont need it and delete all files in the bin folder. then log on and let it do the loading to return the files and the mod will be gone. works for me and is simpler than some procedure

How do I remove Not Enough Items?


Delay in getting badges

Question: I recently was awarded the Enlightened badge for the first time, and I'm proud to say it was for an extremely difficult question with an extremely insightful answer.  Of course, this implies I also was awarded a Nice Answer badge, though I had one of those before.  However, I was awarded the Nice Answer badge maybe 30 minutes before the Enlightened badge.  I am just curious how this works?  Is it that the voting systems are separate and take longer to update or something?  Thanks for any insight.
Comment: A related question at meta.SO: [How long until a bronze tag badge shows up?](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/72816/how-long-until-a-bronze-tag-badge-shows-up)
Comment: @MartinSleziak Thanks!
Answer: There are some jobs running at specific intervals handing out the badges. The badges that are more expensive to calculate are checked less often than the simple badges.
So there can always be a delay between fulfilling the badge criteria and the time you actually get awarded the badge.
Comment: Okay, thanks, that's all I was wondering about!
Comment: @daniel You have voted more than 600 times, but the electorate badge is for voting 600 times **on questions**.

Delay in getting badges


How does one prove (A - B) - C ⊆ (A - C) - (B - C)

Question: When proving this I'm not sure how to 'take out' the C on the RHS of the equation.
The LHS is
(x ∈ A) ∧ !(x ∈ B) ∧ !(x ∈ C)
The RHS is
(x ∈ A) ∧ !(x ∈ C) ∧ !(x ∈ B) ∧ !(x ∈ C)
How does how prove LHS is a subset of RHS?
Comment: Take an element in the LHS and prove it must be in the RHS.
Answer: Just show that each $x\in(A\setminus B)\setminus C$ belongs to $(A\setminus C)\setminus(B\setminus C)$.
Suppose that $x\in(A\setminus B)\setminus C$; then $x\in A\setminus B$, and $x\notin C$. Since $x\in A\setminus B$, we know further that $x\in A$ and $x\notin B$.
Now put the pieces back together. First, $x\in A$ and $x\notin C$, so $x\in A\setminus C$. Moreover, $x\notin B$, so certainly $x\notin B\setminus C$, since $B\setminus C$ is a subset of $B$. But that means that $x\in A\setminus C$ and $x\notin B\setminus C$, which is exactly what's required to say that $x\in(A\setminus C)\setminus(B\setminus C)$.
Since $x$ was an arbitrary element of $(A\setminus B)\setminus C$, this shows that every element of $(A\setminus B)\setminus C$ belongs to $(A\setminus C)\setminus(B\setminus C)$ and hence that $(A\setminus B)\setminus C\subseteq(A\setminus C)\setminus(B\setminus C)$.
(I call this approach element-chasing. It's one of the most straightforward ways to prove that one set is a subset of another.)
Answer: Note that according to set theory Theorems, we have $A-B=A\cap B'$ where in $B'$ is a complement of $B$ recpect to our universal set $U$. So we have then:
$$D=(A-B)-C=(A\cap B')\cap  C'$$ so if $x\in D$ then $x\in A\cap B' $ and $x\in C'$ then $x\in A, x\in B', x\in C'$ so $$x\in A,x\in C'\longrightarrow x\in(A-C)\\x\in B', x\in C\longrightarrow x\in B',x\notin C\longrightarrow x\in(B'\cup C)\longrightarrow x\in(B\cap C')'$$ therfore $x\in(A-C)$ and $x\in(B\cap C')'$ which leads us to $$x\in(A-C)\cap (B\cap C')'$$. THis is wht you are looking for.
Comment: Nicely done, Babak! +1
Comment: @amWhy: :-) ...
Answer: Note that $(A\setminus C)\setminus (B\setminus C)$ is obtained by removing from $A\setminus C$ the part that is in $B\setminus C$. So we are removing a set that is a subset of $B$. It follows that $(A\setminus C)\setminus (B\setminus C)\subseteq (A\setminus C)\setminus B$.
But $(A\setminus C)\setminus B= (A\setminus B)\setminus C$, since each is obtained by removing from $A$ the part of $A$ that is in $B$ or $C$.
Answer: The LHS is as you have written
$$ x \in A \land x \notin B \land x \notin C \tag{1}.$$
However, your RHS is wrong, it should be
$$x \in A \land x \notin C \land \neg (x \in B \land x \notin C)$$
 which is equivalent to
$$x \in A \land x \notin C \land (x \notin B \lor x \in C).$$
Still, if you look closely, then you can see that we have $x \notin C$ there, so $(x \notin B \lor x \in C)$ simplifies to $x \notin B$.
Finally we have
$$x \in A \land x \notin C \land x \notin B \tag{2}$$
which is the same as (1) because commutativity of conjunction. Note that we in fact proved equality
$$ (A-B)-C = (A-C)-(B-C). $$
I hope this helps ;-)


Is there any expression/word for "almost inaccessible"?

Question: Inaccessible means, with respect to a place -"unable to be reached". But I want a word or expression that signifies that a place is "almost inaccessible but can be reached ultimately with great effort"—like the North Pole or the hill area around Mount Everest. It is not like they can't be accessed at all; they can only be accessed with great difficulty. So what can I say these places are?
Comment: You've got the expression in your question: "almost inaccessible". See this article about [Inaccessible Island](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inaccessible_Island). If it's truly inaccessible, you can call it Erewhon (Nowhere).
Answer: If you had asked for a word for the journey itself, rather than an adjective to describe such destinations, I would have suggested expedition, which is often used in historical contexts to describe arduous treks to hard-to-reach locations such as the Earth's poles, its highest mountains, or its deepest ocean floors.
I checked a couple of reverse dictionaries to see if I could find a word that would fit your request, but came up empty-handed.
Depending on the context of your description of such places, I might suggest saying something along these lines:

it requires an expedition to reach
you'd need provisions to reach it
that's no day trip
you don't just walk there – you need a supply line
Answer: I would go with "near inaccessible". But "almost inaccessible" is clean too.
As in

To get to the near inaccessible Mount Doom we trekked for weeks while facing countless dangers.
Comment: In this case, a hyphen is needed.
Answer: Maybe this simplest word is hardly. Collins dictionary defines it as the following:

scarcely; barely ⇒ we hardly knew the family;
  just; only just ⇒ he could hardly hold the cup;
with difficulty or effort:

Use it like this:

— Can I reach Everest?
  — Hardly. Everest is barely reachable if you have not trained well.

One may also consider hard to reach, depending on the connotation to convey.
Comment: Your Everest example doesn't work for me.  In that example, I read "hardly" as meaning "absolutely not", as in [this definition from Macmillan](http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/hardly#hardly_24).
Comment: FWIW, "hard to reach" was the first thing that popped into my mind, too, although it might be worth noting that the phrase is often used for things that are trivial to reach in comparison the Everest and the North Pole (such as a book on the top shelf of a library).
Comment: @snailboat, Does not "barely" or "hardly" here mean "Not impossible; with a great difficulty"?
Comment: @Mistu4u I don't read sentence-initial *hardly* as a synonym for *barely*.  If the response had begun with *barely*, it would have made sense to me.  I think *hardly* is different when it's in the middle of a sentence, so in bytebuster's first two examples (*we hardly knew the family* and *he could hardly hold the cup*) I think it **is** a synonym for *barely*.
Answer: There aren't any good, simple words that convey this meaning exactly to my knowledge, but there are some similar ones:
Inaccessible is perhaps the most obvious one, meaning that the place is difficult to reach.
Inhospitable is a similar word, meaning that the place is difficult to live at. For example:

Antarctica is the most inhospitable continent on Earth

You might want to add emphasisers to make your sentence more clear that the place is really inhospitable, for example:

We had to delay sending supplies to the Antarctica Scientific Outpost because after the weather declined because the entire place became practically inaccessible from the ground.
Answer: There are a couple of words I can think of for specific scenarios - for example a "redoubtable fortress" is one that is awe-inspiring and difficult or near-impossible to break through. "Forbidding" can also be used idiomatically to mean "making an approach difficult or impossible", as in "the forbidding terrain near the North Pole": http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forbidding


Which heroes can soak xp in a lane without being there?

Question: Abathur can gain xp in a lane without being there with his symbiote, or if he has a live locust in the lane.  What other heroes have a mechanic like this?  Do Azmodan's spawns earn xp in a lane without Azmodan himself being there?  What about Gazlowe's turrets, Malfurions Treeant, etc.?
Answer: While any hero that summons other entities to do damage can get experience from a lane without being in the lane, Abathur is the only reliable one. Summoned creatures (Malfurion's treeant, Zagara's zerg summons, etc) or weapons (such as Gazlowe's turrets or Sgt. Hammer's spider mines) only give you experience if they get the last hit on a wave minion. If they do not get the last hit then you do not get experience, even if they are near the wave or have done damage to it.
Abathur is special in that when he places his symbiote on an ally, whether that is a wave minion, a camp minion, or his own locusts, the symbiote counts as him being there and will soak experience. His locusts act like any other hero's summon and do not give experience for just being nearby, only if they get the last hit.
Comment: So that would make Abathur and The Lost Vikings unique in their abilities to soak multiple lanes?  (Since Aba can put the symbiote in one lane while hiding in the brush of another lane)
Comment: Correct. Their strengths (and a huge part of their difficulty) come from being able to not necessarily push lanes by themselves, but to soak and let another one of their teammates leave their lane to go roam. At the moment, they are the only two heroes (Two? Four? I'll count TLV as 1) that can do this to more than one lane at a time.
Comment: Is Murky's pufferfish counted as a summon? Would it give experience even if Murky is dead already?
Comment: Murky's pufferfish itself would not give experience for just being near a minion because the pufferfish is not a hero. If Murky is alive, then he is likely close enough to soak experience for being in the lane himself. If he is dead, then as far as I am aware (and Leoric testing in [this comment](http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/18300734751#19) suggests) that the moment you are dead you are considered out of combat and no longer get experience if something near where you were died. If the pufferfish kills any minions, then Murky would get normal experience for the kill.


Pressure increase on rate of reaction

Question: For reactions involving gases, an increase in pressure is no different from increasing the concentration of reactant particles, thus increasing the rate of reaction. But for reactions involves different phases, such as both solid and liquid, what will the pressure increase cause? Will it increase the rate of reaction? Or, because the rate also depends on other reactants and in reactions involving different phases, will pressure not change significantly even if gas is present?
Comment: I'm afraid this question can't be addressed generally
Answer: There is probably going to be a separate reaction rate law for each phase, assuming that the reaction even occurs in other phases.  Of course, in liquid and solid phases, the pressure is going to have much less of an effect than in a gas phase.  Another consideration is that there may be interphase mass transport between the various phases (at their interfaces), and this may have to be taken into account in the chemical species mass balances for the individual phases.

Pressure increase on rate of reaction


Can I earn achievements in the Classes category while playing as another class?

Question: Achievements such as the Monk's "Like Water" (Dodge 15 attacks in a row) don't rely on a class-specific skill. Does this mean that they can be earned with any class?
Answer: You must be playing the class in question to receive their achievements, even if they have general triggers. (Another example is the Demon Hunter's Longshot, requiring you to kill 100 monsters from over 45 yards away - if you're not a Demon Hunter, you can't get it, even if you're a Wizard routinely killing things from offscreen.)
Answer: There definitely are achievements you can get even playing different class.
My experience: I playing Wizard, my friend playing a Barbarian, we were killing Belial if I remember correctly, he finished him with his throw weapon skill and got and achievement for that, but more importantely so did I.
My hypothesis (speculative) it only works with those "finish a boss with something" achievement (I think there are 1 or 2 more in the game)
Comment: The boss related achievements are different from class specific ones mentioned in the question.


What are typical job interview questions related to game development?

Question: I've already looked at some examples from StackOverflow, but I'd like to know if any of you could show concrete examples of job interview questions... Are they different with a job related to game development?
Comment: Shouldn't this be a community wiki, since there's no single right answer but just a list of questions?
Comment: ... but if I told you, you'd have an unfair advantage if you interviewed with us.
Comment: By "game development" are you referring primarily to programming?
Comment: Yes, forgot to mention sorry
Answer: Am I a bad person because I think of these?

What do you do for fun? (Translation: Do you have a social life that will interfere with putting in 60 hour weeks normally, 100+ hour weeks in crunch?)
How do you balance your personal life with work? (Translation: Have you had experience with a normal job that you put in a day at and then go home from when you're done, or can we format your brain with the insane expectations that make us money?)
Where do you see yourself in five years? (Translation: Do we have a reasonable shot at keeping you in the same code monkey role for several product cycles?)

Disclaimer: Please note that this answer contains a high quotient of bitterness and cynicism, and that its contents reflect a worst-case scenario that the gaming industry is unfortunately notorious for.  There are many ethical and benignly-motivated people performing hiring and management in the industry, and being asked any of these questions does not automatically mean that the "translations" apply.
Comment: Is there any evidence that the games industry promotes less than others? Most things I've read say that job-hopping is more profitable _everywhere_, if you want to deal with the stress and risk. If anything, games is probably the only software industry where you can get a "senior" or "lead" title in five years.
Comment: The last question is very dangerous in the game industry mind you.. Average time someone works in the games industry (especially programmers) is 5 years and that usually includes 2-3 job switches (Games industry is not known for internal promotion)
Comment: You're a realistic person for thinking of these, but it would be good to at least add a disclaimer that this is a worst-case, not every-case scenario.
Comment: I think you're being a little too cynical. For example, when I ask those questions of people I am looking to make sure that they have and value a work/life balance because that's important to me and I want the people I work with to feel the same way. Similarly, I want to know if the candidate is somebody who wants to move to more senior roles or not, because that may or may not be what we're looking for at the time, et cetera.
Comment: I applaud you.  Do you believe that your motivations in this are typical of the industry, or are to some degree exceptional?
Comment: @Ian Schreiber: Yeah, you're right.  Edited per.
Answer: The context of the questions might change, but not really; if you are looking to program, you will still be asked questions that apply to Computer Science in general, including, but not limited to:

Mathematics
Programming Syntax
Programming Methodology
Debugging

At least, I was.  My programming methodology question was phrased in terms of game related terms, such as ships and bullets, but it was really a design question and a math question.
Answer: From my experience being interviewed:

Expect some technical questions relating to your specialty (i.e. if you're trying for a graphics programmer position, expect some questions about what graphics libraries you've worked with and some of the more prominent graphics algorithms)
Some companies give you programming tests, of the "write code to do X" variety. This might happen at your interview in real-time, or they might ask you to do this ahead of time and send it in with your application. Expect to struggle red-faced through the embarrassment of having to correctly identify the bugs in your own code.
You may have some questions about other fields, such as audio, visual art, production and game design, or questions about your ability to play nicely with people in those fields. You don't need to be expert in non-programming fields, but you do need to be able to communicate effectively with non-programmers. (My favorite question: "Describe [polymorphism / A* / quaternions / whatever] to me in terms my technophobic grandmother would understand.")
Since game dev is so team-oriented, expect lots of non-programming questions that are trying to find team fit: questions about how you handle stressful situations, disagreements with superiors, eleventh-hour requests from publishers, impossible-to-implement specs from designers, and just generally if you're the kind of person that other people would like to spend more time with than they spend with their families.

Every company's interview process is different, of course, but I think you'll find more similarities than differences between game industry programming, and greater software industry programming, in terms of what the interview is like. The biggest difference is that in the game industry, the person interviewing you probably won't be wearing a suit :)
Answer: Of course, there are the standard interview questions (programming, personal, etc.). But then there are also the games-related questions, for example:

What kinds of games do you like/play?
What is your favorite game?
Are you okay with working on genre X?

Furthermore, they might ask you about specific technologies/APIs/SDKs and what your specialization is (graphics? physics? audio?).
Comment: And just a piece of advice - when someone asks what your favorite game is, don't just give the name. Talk about why you like it, what you don't, what you'd change in it. Otherwise, it tells the interviewer you really aren't thinking that much about games.
Comment: Around graduation time years ago, I knew a handful of people who interviewed at a local established game company after a job fair.  All of them mentioned that the interviewer asked about their favorite game, and none of them had played any games except maybe Pac Man or Pong, and this was in the era of Quake 3 engine games.  I have no evidence how this affected their interviews, but it couldn't have been positive.
Comment: Well, if they could talk at length about why Pac-Man is a great game, I'd prefer that to the common response I got when interviewing, of "Yeah, I love $X" with no followup. (And 80% of the time, X was either WoW or the most recently released high-marketing-budget game.)
Comment: Most common answer I get is "Need For Speed". When I ask which one, the answer is _always_ "I don't remember."
Answer: For the question like this there is great website: glassdoor.com. It is specialized mostly on inteviews and also offesr some other things about companies. Membership is free (or was a half of year ago) if you after some time you spend there fill yours interview in your company. Propably you will find lots of people attending on similar position at similar company.
And for me as a computer graphics engineer

Describe graphic pipeline on gpu (not
just programmable part, but how it
really work)
How would you do ... something related to the game engines (mine was shadows for omni-directional light.)
shadow mapping, environment mapping, shading models, ambient occlusion ...
Answer: You didn't specify a discipline, but for programming almost every game company test I've seen has included:

A question about virtual destructors in C++. What they do, when are they needed, etc.
A question about dot products and cross products, what they do, how they're used, possibly how they're derived.
Answer: There is no other answer that is also not a good answer.
Programming Tests: Generally want to see what you are capable with and what your turn around times are.. Just remember that a Wrong answer is never a good one so do not rush these in order to make it look like you can turn them around quick. Just do a google search for programming tests. Also, take a look at the Sucker Punch programming test.. that one is Infamous and has been around forever (hundreds of forum posts generated from trying to get a good solution to it).
Over the phone: These will generally be light tech questions and mostly personal questions. Why do you want to make video games, why do you want to make Their video games.. etc so on and so forth.
In Person: Usually the final stage.. Making video games is VERY stressful.. you need to show you can be accommodating, interact with the person you are interviewing with and I can almost guarantee you will be shown around to a few other key members of the team. Also, some hands on tech questions can be brought up here... I have however been very successful in avoiding receiving them... Might be something to do with telling Them what their code/script is doing with out them asking me to write something ;)
Please note though, as mentioned at the start.. No other answer here is a bad answer, the questions will be wide and many.. Mostly game or game object oriented, but programming is programming.. video games just have to do it 60 times a second :)
Good Luck!
EDIT: Cached link to an old Sucker Punch Job Listing w/ Programming Test referenced at the bottom.
Comment: I can't find the sucker punch programming test via google...could you provide a link?
Comment: @Bill. Sorry it seems they have no open programming positions so the programming test is not on their site.. I did however find a Google Cache link to an old programming job and have put the link in the post. Enjoy!
Comment: Guess it's expected, but the link is dead now, and I can't find a new one.
Comment: @leetNightshade I will see if I can dig a new one up but yeah, it kind of went away.. it was about building on on-stack queue system using as few bytes as possible.


How can I store root ginger for maximum shelf life?

Question: I have root ginger which sometimes dries out and goes a bit wrinkly.  Currently I just store it on the side in a bowl.  Is there a better way to store it to maximise its shelf life?
Answer: It will definitely last longer in the refrigerator than at room temperature.  You can also freeze it whole and then grate off what is needed as you need it.
Comment: I use a microplane to grate frozen ginger. It gives a 'snow' of ginger that melts invisibly into a dish.
Answer: Fine Cooking did an experiment and found unpeeled in zip-top bag, in the crisper of your fridge lasted two months.  They had longer time with peeled, in vodka, in the fridge, but that's more effort in my opinion.
Still Tasty seems to agree on a bag in the fridge, but claim only 2-3 weeks for it.
Comment: This is what I do, and I very rarely have a problem. (I almost always go through say an eight inch piece of ginger in a few weeks).
Answer: I read in Madhur Jaffrey's book that burying ginger in sandy soil was a popular storage method, but have never tried it myself.
Answer: I put plain un-peeled ginger in white wine in a mason jar.  It lasts a LONG time, many weeks.  The wine is also useful when you need a little burst of ginger but don't feel like dealing with the root.


Tracing bitcoin wallet with the address

Question: I once created a bitcoin account and obtained an address. When i needed to transfer some bitcoin, i didn't check the address hoping it was active. After the transfer, I tried opening it but it did not. I thereafter created another account. What happens to my transfer?
Secondly, how do I use the address to locate the bitcoin wallet so my money wont be lost?
Thanks.
Comment: There's no concept of an "active" address or a Bitcoin account. If you have an account with a company, they control your bitcoin address (they hold the private keys), and you'd have to contact them.
Answer:
I once created a bitcoin account

This implies you created an account with an online business through a website. Perhaps they managed your money for you in their wallet. This is arguably the most insecure way for you to hold Bitcoin.

and obtained an address

You don't mention a private-key. If you don't have sole control of your private-key from its creation until now, then you don't really own any bitcoin yourself.

What happens to my transfer?

If you have an account (or two) with some online business, you have to contact them to find out what happened to any money you gave them.
If so, this isn't really a question about Bitcoin itself - which was designed to work without the need for any online business to hold your Bitcoins for you.
Bitcoin transactions cannot be reversed or cancelled. The Bitcoins are owned by anyone who knows the private-key for the address you sent Bitcoins to.

how do I use the address to locate the bitcoin wallet so my money wont be lost?

You can't use an address to find a wallet.
You can look inside wallets to see which addresses they contain. If a wallet contains an address that matches the address you originally obtained - then you have found one of possibly several wallets that can spend the Bitcoins associated with that address.
20-30% of all Bitcoins are lost forever and can never be spent by anyone at all.

Tracing bitcoin wallet with the address


Issue in configuration of SSRS

Question: Windows Server 2003 R2 with SQL Server 2008 R2: During installation accidentally I selected "instance for Sharepoint server". Now I want to install the SSRS, in fact I installed it, by adding features from the DVD.
Now from reporting services configuration, I have changed the port from 80 to 120 (with 80 it is not running as well).
When I go to deploy my report (developed in VS) on Report Manager I am getting this error:
<code>"This operation is not supported on a report server that is configured to run in SharePoint integrated mode. (rsOperationNotSupportedSharePointMode)"
</code>
I do not want to run report server in SharePoint integrated mode. I want to run Visual Studio developed report standalone. How can I switch back to non-integrated mode?
Answer: If you go to SQL Server Reporting Service Configuration, you should be able to switch from Sharepoint Integrated mode to native mode. You may have to recreate the ReportServer and Reportservertempdb databases.

Issue in configuration of SSRS


How come we attribute the general theory of relativity to Einstein?

Question: How come do we attribute general theory of relativity to Einstein when David Hilbert published first?
Comment: We actually do attribute GR partially to Hilbert in naming, e.g. the Einstein-Hilbert action, though Einstein alone gets his name on the field equations. From what I remember, this is one of only a few cases in which history actually mostly gets the naming right (contradicting Arnold's principle), but I don't remember the sources or the story very well so I'm leaving this as a comment.
Comment: At least one hundred authors did. See http://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/3602/an-english-copy-of-one-hundred-authors-against-einstein
Answer: This seems a bit of a naive question to me. Einstein had been working on this problem for several years (starting as early as 1907), and had developed much of the physics by 1912. He greatly struggled to find the correct mathematical formulation of his theory, finally discovering the necessary tools from differential geometry during a collaboration with the mathematician Grossmann in 1912-1913. However, Einstein's ideas on e.g. the equivalence principle were already known in the community by the time he and Hilbert finally found the correct formulation in terms of the Einstein Field Equations or, alterntively, the Einstein-Hilbert action. It is therefore only natural that the physical theory is regarded as Einstein's.
Answer: First, to echo and elaborate on previous answers, Hilbert only appeared on the scene during the last few minutes of the last act, so to speak.
Einstein made his first step towards the General Theory of Relativity (GR) in a 1907 paper "Relativitätsprinzip und die aus demselben gezogenen Folgerungen" (On the Relativity Principle and the Conclusions Drawn from It), in which he first introduced the Equivalence Principle; he later called that "The happiest thought of my life". In 1911 he returned to it in the paper "Über den Einfluss der Schwerkraft auf die Ausbreitung des Lichtes" (On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light) (This paper is available in English translation in the collection The Principle of Relativity.) In that paper he calculated the bending of a light beam passing close to the sun, getting half the correct value.
Both these papers were a response to the clear incompatibility of Newton's theory of gravity with Special Relativity.
Einstein continued to work on the theory after 1911, eventually realizing the need for the mathematics of differential geometry. There followed a long series of papers where Einstein (with help from Grossmann) overcame various misconceptions. Pais's biography Subtle Is The Lord... gives a detailed technical discussion of the path Einstein traveled.
In June and July 1915, Einstein spent some time in Göttingen, giving lectures on his work and having prolonged discussions with Felix Klein and David Hilbert. In Oct-Nov 1915, Einstein surmounted the final obstacles and obtained the field equations of GR.
Independently Hilbert obtained the field equations, via a somewhat different approach. (As Pais points out, Hilbert had to overcome his own, somewhat different, misconceptions.) During the crucial month Nov 1915, Einstein and Hilbert exchanged several letters. The publication by Hilbert and by Einstein of the field equations was nearly simultaneous (5 days apart).
So Einstein had made a whole series of fundamental conceptual advances, before Hilbert ever became engaged with the topic. Hilbert had the benefit of Einstein's personal discussions. Incidentally, Hilbert also needed a crucial assist from Emmy Noether with the math (the famous Noether's theorem on symmetries came out of this).
Felix Klein wrote, regarding the field equations:

there can be no question of priority, since both authors pursued entirely different trains of thought to such an extent that the compatibility of the results did not at once seem assured

and Pais's final verdict:

I do believe that Einstein was the sole creator of the physical theory of general relativity and that both he and Hilbert should be credited for the discovery of the fundamental equation [i.e., the field equations]

Finally, I should mention the "priority dispute"; the Wikipedia entries "Did Hilbert claim priority for parts of General Relativity?" and Did Einstein develop the field equations independently? contain a detailed discussion.
Answer: Michael Weiss's answer is excellent. However, some clarificaiton is needed. Historians as late as 1997 went back to reevaluate the priority dispute and, the same way Newton created differential and integral calculus before Leibniz did (albeit independently), Einstein arrived at the correct field equations before Hilbert did (weeks before, not five days):
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/18/science/findings-back-einstein-in-a-plagiarism-dispute.html
Hilbert's published equations were not generally covariant, Einstein's were, and it took him a few weeks to sort it out. Excellent point on the brilliant Emmy Noether (the most under-appreciated scientific genius of the 20th century). I also think the question is a bit silly given the fact that without Einstein's lectures at the University of Gottingen in 1914 and his numerous letters to Hilbert, Hilbert doesn't even come close to finding the final field equations.
In a way, Hilbert's behavior during the entire episode was a bit unethical.
Also, Hilbert's general theory of gravitation (he created his own) is riddled with errors - pointing to the fact that one can be a mathematical genius without necessarily being a scientific one. His conceptual understanding of physics was somewhat lacking.
Comment: Check this [paper](https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0405075.pdf) for massive problems with this 1997 paper. They seem to lack any understanding of mathematical physics.


Remove oil build-up on the touchpad

Question: Any good ways to remove oil build-up on the touchpad of the laptop?
It's always getting oily ( not sure it's oil or not ). Is there any way to avoid or remove it?
Comment: As a quick solution, I splashed a pinch of telcom powder on my slippery touchpad and its slipperiness was gone.  Be careful while applying the powder as it can go into under the buttons and can cause damage to it so restrict its application to the touchpad only!!
Answer: I use  windex or any other brand degreaser (not corrosive).
If it proves  too hard to remove, just keep in mind that sometimes due to heavy use the "shine " on the pad is not grease or dirt, but a pad that got its surface worn out over use the same way mouse buttons or keyboard keys get worn out and shiny.
Comment: You might also try water with a drop of mild dish-washing detergent applied with a barely-damp cloth.
Answer: I've always used rubbing alcohol, but that's out of laziness. Any alcohol based solvent will begin to wear away at the plastic if you use it too frequently. I clean my laptop every few months with 70% Isopropyl Alcohol, and haven't noticed any wear or functionality issues, but just be cautious of it.
To clean any salt residue, use water, or something water-based (but only a small amount). I just lightly dampen a cloth and wipe. Never pour water directly onto the surface that you want to clean unless you know for sure that it's waterproof.
Answer: According to JOFEL (a plastics manufacturer), most laptop trackpads are made from ABS plastic.  This is from their website:
Answer: As prevention is far better than cure, by personal experience the best solution to an oily touch-pad (or touch-screen) is to avoid having it in the first place.
<code>How?
</code>
Wash your hands before any touch-pad/touch-screen use, but not with soap, you have to use a mild water-detergent solution -- any detergent will do. The reason for this is that most detergents consist of amphiphilic compounds.
(Amphiphilic (from the Greek αμφί, amphi: both and φιλíα, philia: love, friendship) is a chemical compound possessing both hydrophilic (water-loving) and lipophilic (fat-loving) properties).
Detergent removes any oily traces on your fingers but you have to be a bit cautious when washing your hands because as human skin contains fatty compounds, prolonged exposal to a detergent may wear down your skin. But you can very easily avoid that through the following procedure:
Use ¼ of a spoonful of detergent dissolved in a bowl of lukewarm water and bath your fingers in it for about 30 seconds. Then rinse your hands with plenty of water and wipe them up thoroughly with a towel. That's it, you are done and good to go.
Using your touch-pad/touch-screen with your hands cleaned this way never allows any oil buildup on these surfaces and this additionally eliminates any danger of causing any damage to your machine while cleaning it.
Answer: Use a soft and non-abrasive cloth for cleaning your laptop. Even paper towels and tissues should be avoided as they contain wood fibers. You can use a clean eyeglass cleaning cloth, though. Interestingly, if you
It is suggested to avoid cleaning the laptop with regular or tap water as it may contain minerals and chemicals. Furthermore, do not use soap solutions, window cleaners, or other similar detergents as they can harm the screen. Ammonia and other strong solvents should also be avoided.
If you wish to use liquid cleaners, use Diluted Isopropyl alcohol on a cloth is the best for removing oils and grease.
Answer: I had the same problem with my P1 Gen2, i7-9850H (a quite expensive laptop), and had a wide range of discoloration on my touchpad. It seems discoloration but actually it's oil, smeared from your fingers which got deep into the plastic. To remove, use only a detergent like Palmolive OXY (full is about 3 CA$) + water on a clean cotton cloth.
I used it as above rubbing firmly for a minute or so and afterwards used the same cloth washed completely just with the water. The detergent + water completely removed the oil left on the trackpad. Now my trackpad is as new.
Answer: I use cleaning spray for glasses on a paper towel and it works fine. But as stated by Arana, it can just be that you plastic is worn. It then becomes smooth and shiny.

Remove oil build-up on the touchpad


Is the Navigo metro pass in Paris available for tourists?

Question: I'll be going to Paris this July for two weeks with my mother, and I'm not sure which metro pass would be best to use for a reasonable price. We were planning on getting the Navigo metro pass, but I don't think that it's meant for tourists.
Comment: There does not seem to be anything on the RATP website which limits it. Can you tell us where you found the information that it is restricted?
Comment: @Désirée The proof of address is for Paris-area residents and allows them to get the card for free (even residents from other parts of France do not qualify). Also note that a week is from Monday to Sunday, and *not any 7-day period*. If you arrive or leave mid-week, it might be less attractive.
Comment: On the website here: http://www.navigo.fr/titres/le-forfait-navigo-semaine-choix-carte-navigo-carte-decouverte/ .    I found that that you need to show proof that you are a resident of France, but I just found the pass Navigo Decouverte which also allows tourists  to use it.
Answer: There are currently two types of magnetic Navigo passes: Navigo Personnalisée and Navigo Découverte. The former is available only to residents and those working in Île-de-France. The latter is available to everyone. I think the Découverte is the card you are looking for.
The linked website (in French) states that to obtain a Découverte you'll need a passport-type photo and 5€ for the cost of the card. It can be purchased at the RATP ticket points and in some participating shops.
Since you are looking to purchase a weekly pass note that these are available for purchase at the earliest on the Friday before the week starts, and the week goes from Monday to Sunday. The pass does not cover any consecutive seven day period. So make sure you do your calculations right before investing in a Navigo card. Your other alternative is an all day multi-day Mobilis ticket which is considerably more expensive than the weekly pass given the same number of validity days.


How to resume wget mirroring from a different location?

Question: I am out of space in my home folder , where iam currently mirroring  this site for the pupose of a cygwin installation in my windows machine using wget from my linux machine.
i am aware that i can continue with interrupted downloads by using "-c" option in wget but ,since there is no space left on the drive and the mirroring doesn't seem to stop i intend to move the partial mirrored content to another drive and resume mirroring.Will this cause the wget to start all over again and render the currently downloaded contents useless ? Is there anything i can do about it or should i start it all over again from a drive with lots of empty space ? I have alredy downloaded more than 1 gb,i am low on my band width and i dont want to take chances.
(ps:currently mirroring is suspended.)
Answer: This is what I did and it works :

Copy the wget log files and paste them in the directory you wish to resume mirroring.(I don't know if it matters at all)
cd to the directory where you wish to resume mirroring.
Resume the mirroring with -c option.


Why develop free, open source programs?

Question: Why would someone use his own time to develop an open-source project for free and without compensation?
Comment: Your unspoken fundamental assumption, that the only valid motivation for human behavior is the profit motive, is dehumanizing, offensive and, most importantly, demonstrably false.  See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc for some actual research on the subject.
Comment: @ammoQ: Although you're right, this is not particularly helpful.
Comment: Why do people sit on StackExchange and help people without getting paid?
Comment: Oh really, do we have to discuss this topic again and again? Even MS creates a few OpenSource programs nowadays.
Comment: Well... I don't code for free, yet I spend 37.8 hours a week sitting at a desk writing software that is released under the GPL. Sometimes software is created to fulfill a business or operational need. The software itself has no commercial value to a consumer while still providing value to the business unit. People who don't use other products from the company won't be interested in the open-source application that won't gain them anything - and even if they did, who cares?
Comment: @back2dos: yeah, i see, that's why i posted an answer, too.
Comment: Literally millions of people work for free in voluntary organizations like for example the Red Cross. If you don't understand why people do voluntary work or just write some code for fun without thinking about money, then thats a rather pathetical mindset...
Comment: Maybe time and money isn't the only thing that matters in the world,love and sharing is what keeps people happy.
Comment: Sorry, didn't know it was already a question of this topic. Could you give me the link please?
Comment: See the top results here, http://programmers.stackexchange.com/search?q=free, specifically http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/3233/why-do-programmers-write-apps-and-then-make-them-free
Comment: People have been asking this question countless times for at least 10 years, and other people have answered again and again...
Comment: I would think one big reason would be to have a community of developers help find and fix bugs, and offer/implement something new and of value to the code. So like on Github, you can release your code on there for others to use, find problems with and fix. I'm almost 7 yrs late to this party, but I wanted to add my valuable opinion :)
Answer: For small projects, reasons might be "hobby", "getting some experience", "fame", "joy" etc. but that's not how the big open source projects like Mozilla, OpenOffice, Linux work.
Why did Sun buy StarDivision and made StarOffice an open source program (called OpenOffice.org)? Why does Mozilla create a top-notch browser and give it away as open source? Why are there people creating Linux, writing drivers and whatnot, and make it available to everyone for free? Why does Microsoft create opensource drivers for Linux so it can run better in MS's virtualisation?
Because it makes some business sense for them. They make money that way, or at least plan to.
In some cases, the dominance of MS's products, i.e. Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, was the reason the create a competing product, so it would be harder for MS to use their desktop dominance to conquer other domains, i.e. servers, internet services, too. This explains, to some extend, OpenOffice.org and Mozilla.
In other cases, open source software is meant to drive sales of hardware, other software or services. Open Source drivers obviously help to sell hardware components to Linux users. RedHat sells support for their Linux distro, and they sell the fact that their Linux is genuine RedHat. Other products, e.g. Oracle, are certified for use on Redhat, but not on CentOS, even though it probably runs just-as-well. Server hardware is certified for Redhat, even though other linux distros probably run just-as-well. Big-money-clients don't care about the price, they want the certificate.
Some companies, e.g. Google, sponsor many open source projects, because it helps their business. They don't do it for altruism. They want a free internet, a pervasive internet, a widespread internet, where people use Google's services so Google generates revenue.
Comment: Jon: free as in "not controlled by a single vendor" (arguably except them)
Comment: Somewhat sceptical about Google wanting a "free internet".  They want a widely and frequently used internet which will lead to more opportunities and ultimately profit for them.  Free is something more debatable.  +1 all the same for a good answer.
Comment: I think this not irrelevant to the subject: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html
Comment: back2dos: thanks for the link; I've read it before, but could not remember where and when.
Comment: Google sponsor open source projects like Chrome because it gets them a relatively cheap new product which is competitive with the market leaders in terms of features and performance yet they can augment it with just enough control mechanisms that it generates them a ton more revenue - the default Search provider comes to mind. Sounds cynical, but why release Chrome when other Webkit-based browsers are already (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers#WebKit-based_browsers).
Comment: JBRWilkinson: Not only that, but a browser with a real fast javascript engine (i.e. chrome) allows google to deliver more apps through the web.
Comment: @ammoQ: And thus steal, I mean data-mine, more of your data. What was 'wrong' with Firefox, which they used to sponsor?
Comment: JBRWilkinson: Honestly, I think Chrome is better suited for the kind of web-apps Google has in mind. Faster JavaScript engine, possibility to create application links.
Answer: Why does everything have to be about money? How do you think wikipedia works? Nobody gets paid to put content on the Wikipedia, yet it is arguable the best encyclopaedia around.
edit:
Let's talk money.
Open source projects, as any projects, are written out of neccessity. You have a problem X and you write library Y or application Z to solve it, because

There are not tools, that solve it or
They are not good enough or
They are not worth the money (writing your own tool probably "costs" more, but in the end you have exactly what you want and you can modify it as you want, so the cost amortized quickly).

So now you spent a few evenings and weekends (and/or paid time) writing the next hot thing until you reach a point, where the baby starts walking. You now have to chose between:

Commercial distribution: this involves marketing, legal stuff, customer support, doing all the fixes yourself, getting tons of incredibly stupid feature requests and less than useless feedback. In the end you get what's left of the money once all the parasites get their piece of the cake. And probably noone will like your product because it costs way too much.
Open source distribution: this involves ... uhm ... pushing the code to a public repository and making an announcement or two on relevant mailing lists. You will get acknowledgement or even some fame. You will get a user base, that provides constructive feedback, helpful bugreports and possibly even patches. You get some donations or get invited to some conferences or get paid to implement features a or b. And you produced a lot of value, albeit nobody paid for anything. And the next time you or your company needs something, chances are good, you'll get it and you'll get it for free.

Open source works, because it is a community. Because it is mutual. You do not get money by writing open source code. You get money by consuming open source code. So why do you write open source code? To give something back.
Comment: @Diego: forgive my naivety but how can you say you love it if you won't do it for love alone?
Comment: @Matt: love is never for love alone, that's a misconception.
Comment: "Why does everything have to be about money?" of course not, but programmimg is something people usually like to be paid to do it. (even if you like it, I'm a programmer and love programming but stil I wouldn't do it for free)
Comment: I do it for love alone when it is something I want to do, some "programming challenge" for myself. Not just a "regular boring software".
Comment: @Diego: Compiling encyclopaediae is also something people usually get paid to do. BTW: updated my post.
Comment: @ammoQ: maybe for you. for me, love is the first reason. everything else is for love.
Comment: @Diego: I see. That makes sense.
Comment: Matt: there is always a (probably unconscious) reason why someone falls in love with someone else or something. E.g. women have a strong tendency to fall in love with men who have a high social status.
Comment: ammoQ: Sure, none of us has free will. That's what science teaches us. But If you ignore that fact, then you open to a lot more happiness.
Comment: @Matt Ellen - what science teaches we have no free will? I guess it has concluded that I don't believe it.
Comment: @Jeff O: Science teaches us that the the universe runs on immutable rules. If the rules are immutable, there is no free will.
Comment: Calling other departments other than programming "parasites" is narrow-minded at best. If you don't need their services, why hire them in the first place? If you buy something that you don't need, this shows your shortcomings as a businessman.
Answer: This is a hobby for some people; believe it or not.
Gillette will be happy to give you a free razor and sell you the blades.
Some people make money in other ways and want to give back to the community. I'm sure Linus Torvalds has made plenty of money 'off' of Linux without actually selling the code and probably turns money away.
Not all open source software was intended or designed for any user to just download, install and use, so you may end up spending more of your time depending on skill level and most people value their time.
Comment: You mean a free shave handle. The razor *is* the blade.
Comment: Its called bait and hook business model.  Same can be said about printers and cartridges http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_and_blades_business_model
Comment: In my area you have to pay even for a handle :)
Comment: @JoeZ. - I grew up calling the whole thing a razor. and never met anyone who didn't know what I was talking about until now. Maybe you refer to the handle, the blade holder and the blade/razor itself as a shaver?
Answer: Monetary compensation isn't the only possible compensation. Fame (although mostly to a limited circle) is another. The joys of showing off what you've done is yet another.
Me, I mostly do it because I have an urge to write software and if it happens to help someone else, everyone wins.
Comment: And it helps you in getting a job.
Answer: There are several reasons to develop open source applications.  In general, the more foundational the need is the better suited to open source it is.  For example, ASP.NET MVC, Ruby on Rails, Django, PHP, and other web frameworks are all open source.  That's right, even Microsoft has a fairly well known open source project.  The need for a well organized web framework that lets you focus on building a web application is larger than the specific web application you are building.
Many people (myself included) contribute to open source because we use these frameworks in our day job.  It's self preservation in a sense.  If I don't have to keep reinventing the wheel just because I am at a new company, why should I?
As to making money with open source, that is a tricky subject.  Most open source licenses allow you to sell your software.  The specific license governs whether you need to share your modifications (BSD/ASL style licenses do not while GPL style licenses do in most cases), or provide attribution ot the original project.
The cases that I see work most often are:

Selling support.  MySQL, Spring, and a few others follow this model and do well with it.
Selling convenience.  RedHat, SuSE, and other Linux distros package a group of applications together for the user's convenience.
Selling appliances.  In short this is the way companies like Google, Nokia, Linksys, etc. make money packaging proprietary and open source products together and keeping them safe.  It's probably the most lucrative option.
Selling T-Shirts/Mugs/etc.  Doesn't bring in a whole lot, but better than nothing.

Bottom line is that the source code may be open, but there are always people who need more than the raw code.  I'm sure there are more ways to make money off of open source, you just have to be creative.
Answer: This question is not specific to open source, because you can write code, for free, and never release it to the public (although that would be rare because of all the known benefits of sharing code).
The real question is, why do anything for free? The answer is, because it makes you happy.
Personally, I love to learn, and I learn more working on open source than working on my paying job. Because learning improves my skills it also helps me to get better paying jobs.
Answer: There's a variety of reasons.
Some people get paid for writing it, because their employer thinks it worthwhile (and there's plenty of potential reasons for that).  Some people start companies based on F/OSS because they can make money from it.
Some people use F/OSS and want to give back.
Some people treat it as a reputation game, like academic research or answering questions here.
Some people want a certain piece of software for their own purposes, and just release it because what they want is to use it, and they can sometimes get useful suggestions if other people can use it also.
Answer: Besides money, of course there is fame -- and then their is learning how something works by building it and constructing it yourself.  Gaining valuable and marketable experience outside your normal work life.  I think Ayende is a good example of this.
As an aside -- generally I've found some of the best, most intuitive projects and frameworks I've worked with to be open source -- I think that people who are truly passionate enough to spend their free time building a project up from scratch or simply maintaining it produce a better product then people who are just grouped together from 9-5.
Answer: It's not only for making money but more often for saving money.  The vast library of good OSS libraries and tools make it a natural choice.
In same cases (GPL and friends) that means you're legally bound to make the resultant code OSS too.  In other cases, it's just a personal choice, but you still get to receive other rewards (mostly some recognition, sometimes the chance of selling support, sometimes (happened to me) a good reference to show to potential employers)
Answer: You can release it under a restrictive Free licence, such as the GNU AGPL, and then charge for exceptions.
Comment: That's a horrible idea.
Comment: @WTP. It's the business model of MySQL and x264, among others (though neither of them use the GNU AGPL, as far as I know).
Answer: One more than one occasion, I've contributed a patch to an open source project simply because I wanted to make sure that feature/fix would be included in future versions.
It doesn't seem like a stretch that someone would release something as open source simply because it offered the possibility that others would use it and keep it current.
I worked with one person who wrote code that (IIRC) validated CUSIPs. He released it on the net. Years later he downloaded a CUSIP lib for a different system. He was surprised to see a reference to the code he wrote years before.
Answer: You can support it to get money.  If you have a program that is very well thought of and used by the community, say like jboss, you can offer your services and support.  People will pay for it.
Answer: The outfit I work for, started with a public domain code (written by the business owner) [Open source was years from being invented]. His original business model was to be a consultant on using it (use is not straightforward, and many hundreds of people make a living consulting). Of course the demands for feature enhancements were so great it became a proprietary commercial code(s)*. But, still most of the salaries earned are in rapidly diminishing numbers up the scale: (1) Users doing their jobs, (2) Consultants to group (1), finally (3) Developers/testers etc.
I use the plural, because several other proprietary codes sprang from the same public domain source code release.
Answer: You may find yourself in the following position:

you need good software to do things for you
you find you need much more control over how the software works
than the configuration options of available offerings provide
you have access to source code for software that almost meets your needs,
and the expertise to modify it to exert the control you need
you only need to make small modifications for your purposes,
but you want to benefit from many more modifications made by others,
and the development future of the software looks bright
your modifications are not isolated and substantial enough
to consider them to be assets worth protecting or selling,
or the added overhead in doing so would outweigh the benefits
you know your modifications can benefit many others with needs similar to yours;
getting them incorporated into the main development line will save you effort,
compared to maintaining your own forked copy

In this situation, participating in an open-source project is a perfectly sensible business decision.
It can be pretty good advertising, too.

Why develop free, open source programs?


Remove social media sharing buttons on a download page

Question: I have a couple of social media sharing plugsin installed, but wonder if there is any way of removing them from one specific page that I have as a download page for a product?
Comment: Please elaborate which specific plugins (including a link to them) you are using, when asking such questions. It is not answerable in current form.
Answer: Depends on the plugins. Some sharing plugins will allow you to set a per-page setting on whether to show or hide the sharing buttons. Jetpack's Sharing module is one of them: http://jetpack.me/support/sharing/


What was Cemetery ridge named for?

Question: Was Cemetery ridge named for the National Cemetery that was created there months later? Or was it called that before?
Answer: I'm going to guess it was named due to it's proximity to Cemetery Hill which, itself, was named after the Evergreen Cemetery. Both of which pre-date the battle and the National Cemetary.
Answer: Cemetery Ridge contained Cemetery Hill which in turn contained the Evergreen Cemetery that served the city of Gettysburg.
In was (unfortunately) aptly named, because by the time the three day battle ended, it became a cemetery that "served" the whole nation, not just the one city.
The National Cemetery was so named here for this reason. "The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

What was Cemetery ridge named for?