Does taxiing time gets considered in a pilot's flying hours?

Question: Basically the title. This could be referenced to US or European rules.
Answer: In the US, taxi time can be logged. 14 CFR 61.51 says the pilot must log (emphasis mine):

Total flight time or lesson time.

And 14 CFR 1.1 says (emphasis mine):

Flight time means:
(1) Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own
  power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to
  rest after landing; or
(2) For a glider without self-launch capability, pilot time that
  commences when the glider is towed for the purpose of flight and ends
  when the glider comes to rest after landing.

Note that in reality, general aviation pilots (I don't know about airline pilots) usually just log whatever is on the Hobbs meter, which may include some time sitting still on the ramp doing post-startup checks, setting up avionics etc. That might not be strictly correct per the regulations, but absolutely no one cares.
This question is closely related.
Comment: Airliners don't have Hobbs meters but many airlines use data link to establish block times. Data link automatically sends the "out" time when the park brake is released with all the doors closed, and "in" time when the park brake is set and a door is opened. This doesn't strictly correspond with the legal definition of flight time but most airlines and pilots use this for pay and logbook purposes.  For the aircraft log, the data link also records the airborne and touchdown times which I assume is just weight on the wheels.
Comment: Note that §61.51 applies when logging toward a certificate. Thus it may be perfectly legal for some GA pilots to not log their time or to log by a different definition. However, pilots flying under §121 and §135 have limits on how much *commercial* flying they may do in a given period, and this is limited in accordance with the official definition: essentially block to block time.
Comment: Sometimes brake release for pushback can result in a lengthy delay before the engines are started and the aircraft moves under its own power. Airline pilots don't really care about the hours for the logbook but they do pay close attention when those hours determine the size of their paycheck.
Comment: It's perhaps worth pointing out that taxi time is only loggable if it's before/after a flight. If you move your plane from one part of the airfield to another that can't be logged.
Comment: @MikeSowsun At first read the automatically recorded block times you describe sound like the §1.1 definition of flight time. But I suppose brake release for the purpose of pushback would precede the time when the "aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight" by some significant amount. That is where the difference lies, right? Do you know of Ops Specs or company GOM that define flight time differently than §1.1? Our GOM defines "flight time" in terms of the start of taxi, so it is essentially in line with §1.1.
Answer: Yes, taxi time is considered as pilot hours because even though the airplane is not flying actions by the pilot are required. Basically, the US rule is in FAR 61.51

(e) Logging pilot-in-command flight time.
(1) A sport, recreational, private, commercial, or airline transport
  pilot may log pilot in command flight time for flights-
(i) When the pilot is the sole manipulator of the controls of an
  aircraft for which the pilot is rated, or has sport pilot privileges
  for that category and class of aircraft, if the aircraft class rating
  is appropriate;

The "sole manipulator of the controls" is the main thing here, and there's 2 interpretations of this for logging time that I know of, one is that you log from engine start to engine shutdown, the other is that you log from when the airplane starts to when it stops moving (ie. brakes off to brakes on). Both scenarios include taxiing.
I can't find the UK regulation but that's pretty much universal from what I've seen.
Comment: Sorry, my downvote, didn't get around to addressing it till now. The first sentence is good. However, the definition of flight time is given in §1.1, as @Pondlife's answer correctly points out. The PIC as SMotC paragraph you quote from §61.51 really has little or nothing to do with the matter. Pilots should, may, or must (which depends on the situation) log—or otherwise keep track of—all applicable flight time, whether it is PIC as SMotC, PIC not as SMotC, SIC, CFI giving dual, or any other type of loggable flight time. Flight time is as defined in §1.1, and that what is or can be considered.
Comment: This adds nothing.  I could have sworn I just stated that above.
Answer: EASA
Easy Access Rules for Aircrew AMC1 FCL.050 Recording of flight time states:

(g) Flight time is recorded:
(1) for aeroplanes, touring motor gliders and powered-lift aircraft, from the moment an aircraft first moves to taking off until the moment it finally comes to rest at the end of the flight;
(2) for helicopters, from the moment a helicopter's rotor blades start turning until the moment the helicopter finally comes to rest at the end of the flight, and the rotor blades are stopped;
(3) for airships, from the moment an airship is released from the mast to taking off until the moment the airship finally comes to rest at the end of
the flight, and is secured on the mast;

So yes, taxi time is also considered a flight time in logbook.
Answer: Yes. 14 CFR 61.51.e.1.i states a sport, private, commercial, airline transport pilot may log flight time whenever the pilot is the sole manipulator of the controls of the aircraft for which the pilot is rated, or has sport pilot privileges for that category and class of aircraft, if the aircraft class rating is appropriate, or when ii)  The pilot is the sole occupant of the aircraft.  The regs make no distinction between flying the aircraft and ground operations.
Comment: This is true insofar as §61.51 is quoted or paraphrased. However, as @Pondlife's answer correctly points out, the definition of flight time is given in §1.1. This §61.51 reference regarding PIC as SMotC or PIC as sole occupant does not adequately address the issue of what can be considered flight time. Pilots should, may, or must (which depends on the situation) log—or otherwise keep track of—all applicable flight time, whether it is PIC as SMotC, PIC not as SMotC, SIC, dual given, or any other type of flight time. Flight time is as defined in §1.1, and that is what is or can be considered.
Comment: No, you didn't ask for my opinion; I was giving you the courtesy of letting you know why I have downvoted this answer. Your "Yes" is correct, but the reasoning behind it that you offer is not. The definitions of §1.1 are what are important in regards to the meaning of flight time. §61.51 gives additional types of flight time, but does not address whether the flight time in question includes time spent taxiing.
Comment: Did he ask about hours logged solely for the purpose of ground ops?
Comment: The OP asked about whether time spent taxiing could or would be  (original wording is "*gets*") considered part of flight hours.
Comment: Which is covered under 61.51.
Comment: Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/58097/discussion-between-jonathan-walters-and-carlo-felicione).
Comment: I disagree. §61.51 addresses when *flight time* may be logged as *solo* flight time, *PIC* flight time, *SIC* flight time, etc. §61.51 does not define what this flight time is. §61.51 does not inform us whether or not time spent taxiing is or can be considered part of that flight time. Only §1.1 does that.
Answer: In our flying club we charge by TACH not Hobbs.  Some people log hobbs time, but I record the actual engine start on my kneeboard, and then the shutdown time.  So the flight time is the wall clock time for the flight.
This can come into play with student operations where there are minimum experience requirements.  TACH time is based upon rotations of the engine, and Hobbs time is normally based upon the time the oil pressure is up on an engine. Student experience is based upon logged time.
Since not every aircraft has a working Hobbs meter, and I fly all kinds of different aircraft, logging the start time and stop time gives me accurate data for log entries. Practically, motion begins right after start, because the aircraft is pulled away from the tiedown as soon as the oil pressure comes up. Similarly, one normally stops the aircraft, and begins a pre-shutdown checklist, which is normally complete within just a few seconds of engine shutdown.
Answer: Yes, in most cases, taxi time is considered to be part of a pilot's flight time.
Pondlife's answer does a very good job of giving the official definition of flight time as found in 14 CFR 1.1. I want to expand on what that definition means practically in terms of what pilots (under FAA jurisdiction) legally may, or legally must, consider flight time.

When is taxi time considered part of flight time?
For the purpose of clarity, I am going to quote §1.11 again:

Flight time means:
(1) Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing;

I am going to make the assumption that any time spent taxiing is time spent with the aircraft moving under its own power.2
When time spent taxing is for the purpose of flight (for example: starting up, taxiing to the runway, and taking off on a flight), this time is considered part of the pilot's flight time. Since that time spent taxiing is time spent with the aircraft moving under its own power for the purpose of flight, it meets the definition of flight time as defined in §1.1.
When time spent taxing is not for the purpose of flight (for example: starting up, taxiing to the fuel pump, and shutting down to fuel the aircraft), this time is not considered part of the pilot's flight time. Though that time spent taxiing is time spent with the aircraft moving under its own power, it is not for the purpose of flight and does not meet the definition of flight time as defined in §1.1.

Why does this matter?
A pilot may want to keep track of flight time for many reasons, whether toward a pilot certificate, a flying job, a better insurance rate, or merely for personal gratification. Having the agreed-upon definition of flight time as given in §1.1 is helpful for all these ends. However, the important reasons are those where keeping track of flight time is legally required.
In several cases, pilots must keep track of flight time by legal requirement. In some cases, this involves logging the flight time; in other cases this means knowing a record of certain types of flight time with no explicit requirement for written record keeping.
A pilot must document and record (or, log, to put it simply) flight time that is used to meet the requirements for a certificate, rating, or flight review. This requirement is given in 14 CFR 61.51. Since §61.51 does not define what flight time actually is, we have to go back to §1.1 for that definition. In this case, the pilot could log the taxi time if he or she chose to use it to meet the requirements for a certificate, for example.
Pilots flying for Air Carriers or certain Commercial Operators may be subject to flight time limitations. For example, pilots flying under §135 are limited to a certain number of hours of commercial flying. See, for example, 14 CFR 135.267 where a pilot member of a two pilot crew would be limited to 10 hours of commercial flying during any 24 consecutive hours (let's call this "10-in-24"). This commercial flying would include flight instruction, commercial flying for compensation under §91, and other §135 flying, etc. In this case, whether the pilot chose to log any of the above flight time or not, flight time spent taxiing for the purpose of commercial flight would—by legal definition—be included toward that 10-in-24. Let me emphasise this, since it is important to this subject: the totality of commercial flight time—including taxiing for the purpose of flight—is by the legal definition of §1.1 considered to be flight time. Furthermore, since such a pilot is prohibited from accepting any flight assignment that would exceed that 10-in-24 (see more on why in 14 CFR 135.263), the pilot must at least be aware of his or her running 24 hr commercial flight time total, if not logging or otherwise documenting it.
If flight time is tracked either according to a Hobbs time that includes ground time (such as one that starts and stops with oil pressure) or according to block to block time including pushback, the pilot should not have to worry about compliance with flight time limitations since these meet or exceed the definition for legal flight time. However, if flight time is tracked according to either a Tach time or a Hobbs time that excludes some or most time on the ground (such as one that starts and stops according to a weight on wheels switch), the pilot is at risk for non-compliance since these do not record the full legal flight time.

1 Note: I have only included that portion of the definition for flight time that is pertinent to this discussion, since gliders without self-launch capability do not taxi.2
2 I don't think I am wrong about this, but if I am, I would love to be set straight and learn something new!

Note: This answer only addresses operations under FAA jurisdiction.
Answer: My instructor always taught me to "test the brakes" immediately upon startup, therefore moving the aircraft under it's own power (and stopping again) so that technically, the hobbs time is an accurate loggable time.. Also a good habit to get into regarding testing brakes before getting distracted with the checklist and having the plane move itself accidentally while you're head down..
Comment: Hi, Welcome to Aviation.SE! Answers are generally expected to stand on their own and, thus, fully answer the question here. While your answer implies the answer to the question (in regards to it depending on when the airplane begins moving,) it would be better received if it stated this explicitly (and possibly cited a source.) For more information about how things work on this site, please see [answer], our [tour], and the [help].


News & Weather Widget Not Updating

Question: I have a news & weather widget on my Nexus S home screen, set to show the weather for my current location. In its settings, I have it set to update once an hour along with automatic location tracking. Neither of these things work anymore since about a month ago (possibly the 2.3.4 update?). I have background data enabled, sync enabled, and I don't have any battery saver style programs.
Answer: I solved this myself after trying a few things. I deleted the News & Weather app's data by going to Settings>Applications>Manage Applications>All, Tapping "News & Weather", and then "Clear Data". I needed to delete and re-add the widget and set my refresh settings again, but now it works.
Comment: worked for me too
Comment: Did not work for me...
Answer: All you have to do is free up your internal memory. Many apps stop working if your internal memory is near full or has reached a certain storage limit. Move vidoes and apps go your sd card and it will start working fine

News & Weather Widget Not Updating


How do you hide file extension in URL using ASP.NET WebForms?

Question: I would like to drop the .aspx extension from my webpages. One reason is that I'm not sure I will stick to ASP.NET WebForms technology. How do you do it?
Answer: Inbound URLs are easy - simply grab a tool like URL Rewriter, create a rule to map incoming requests that do not have .aspx to include the aspx in the processing of the request and you are done.
The problem, however, is outbound URLs.  Your site/app generates URLs everywhere and every one of those contains a link to something.aspx and which is the very format you are trying to get away from.  You can either rewrite your entire app to not include the .aspx or you can put something in the pipeline to filter those out of the pages before they are sent to the user.
Again, URL Rewriter can do this, but it takes a while to get the rules right.  Another fairly common approach is to simply write your own httpModule and do the processing yourself.
Bear in mind that any utility that rewrites outbound page content may cause problems with server-side caching.
Answer: you can achieve by modifying your web.config file using URL rewriting.
<code><configuration>
<system.webserver>
<rewrite>
   <rules>
            <rule name="RemoveASPX" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="(.*)\.aspx" />
                <action type="Redirect" url="{R:1}" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="AddASPX" enabled="true">
                <match url=".*" negate="false" />
                <conditions>
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{URL}" pattern="(.*)\.(.*)" negate="true" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Rewrite" url="{R:0}.aspx" />
            </rule>
   </rules>
</rewrite>
</system.webserver>
</configuration>
</code>


Fourier transform on a general finite group on a set of symbols

Question: I'd like to perform Fourier analysis on a sequence of n symbols or letters, but on a general finite group. For a cyclic group (the usual Fourier transform), I found (J. Math. Biol, 36(1997):pp.64-70) an approach where each symbol is replaced by a vector in $\mathbb{R}^n$ or $\mathbb{R}^{n-1}$.
If the same Fourier transform is considered on a finite group, I don't think one can write :
$F(k)=\sum_{g \in G} f(g) \rho_k(g)$
like it is usually the case, since the product of vector $f(g)$ by the matrix $\rho_k(g)$
 might not be defined. How can I adress this problem ? Should I consider representations in the same dimension as $\mathbb{R}^n$ ? Any help appreciated...
Comment: Look at W. Rudin's "Fourier Analysis on Groups" for details.
Answer: For finite (or in general locally compact) abelian groups, the Fourier transform involves the dual group, i.e. the (continuous) homomorphisms of the group into the unit circle.  The analogue for non-abelian compact groups involves the matrix elements of irreducible unitary representations: see the Peter-Weyl theorem.


Reusing a set of personalization rules?

Question: I am a marketer responsible for setting up a new campaign on our Sitecore website. We have content which we want to target at a very specific customer segment -- customers from a specific Geo on mobile who are coming in from links for our new campaign. I know how to set up the personalization rule for this, but I need to do it on dozens of pages. Is there a way I can do this without having to configure this complex rule on every page?
Answer: You can create complex conditions consisting of multiple rules in the Marketing Control Panel under Personalization > Predefined Rules (in 8.2, but similar location in earlier versions)  -  You can then treat the entire condition as a single rule where the condition is true, and apply this single rule to all applicable pages.

You can then utilize the "where predefined condition is true" rule condition to reuse this complex condition.
Answer: I would create a new edit frame button for the renderings. For this button you can bind a command which is modifying the presentation details and set the personalization for the selected rendering.
Comment: Do I need to get one of my developers to do this? I am a marketer.
Comment: Sorry. To do this you need a developer to implement it.

Reusing a set of personalization rules?


What is the "confirmation" field in a block?

Question: What is the importance of the "confirmation" field in a block?
How many confirmations are required to accept a block in a blockchain?
Answer: Blocks in Bitcoin, as they exist in the blockchain, don't actually contain a confirmation field. When you query for a block in bitcoin-rpc or similar, additional information is added to the block based on your client's knowledge of the current state of the blockchain.
A pure block contains only five fields (some of which have sub-fields):

Magic number (to identify that the following info is a block)
Blocksize (how many bytes to read until the end of the block)
Block header (important for block ordering/verification)

Version (the "rules" that this block adheres to)
Previous Block Hash (a fingerprint of the block this block builds on)
Transaction Merkle Root (a fingerprint of all of the block transactions)
Timestamp (UNIX epoch)
"nBits" or a compact expression of the block's PoW target
Nonce (a number the block miner used to find a valid PoW solution)

Transaction count (number of transactions in block)
Transaction list

Back to your question, the "block confirmation" count of a block is simply how many other blocks build on top of that block. Take for example the following three-block-long blockchain:

The blue block (which starts the blockchain, so it's also called the genesis block) has three confirmations (it confirms itself, plus the two blocks that build on it further reinforce it as legitimate). The green block has two confirmations (it confirms itself, plus the one block that builds on it further reinforces it as legitimate). The orange block only confirms itself, giving it one confirmation.
If another block were added to the blockchain:

All of the blocks from the previous image (blue, green, orange) would receive one additional confirmation, since they've been further "buried" in the blockchain.
As soon as a block exists (so it confirms itself automatically, giving it one confirmation) it can be included into the blockchain. In the event of a network fork, however, this isn't always the case. The number of confirmations of a block indicates how difficult that block would be to overwrite.
In the length-4 blockchain shown immediately above, attempting to overwrite the red block would only require introducing a block which competes with red as a child of orange:

Note that introducing the black block into the blockchain wouldn't necessarily overwrite the red block. If miners choose to mine on top of the black block instead of the red block, making the blockchain [blue-green-orange-black-...] the "longest" (really "heaviest," see bottom of post) chain, then the black block will replace the red block. If miners instead choose to mine on top of the red block, making the blockchain [blue-green-orange-red-...] the longest chain, then the red block won't be replaced. To ensure (assuming network miners don't explicitly favor the red block for some reason, and mine on top of it even when it isn't the latest block in the blockchain) that the red block gets forked, an attacker would need to introduce two blocks which fork off of orange:

To fork the green block off of the network, however, an attacker would need to introduce at least three blocks which build an alternative blockchain off of the blue block:

And for a much higher chance of a successful attack, would need to introduce four blocks which build an alternative blockchain off of the blue block:

Note that this attack would have (possibly-intended) side-effect of also removing the orange and red blocks from the blockchain.
Earlier, I used the term "longer" when referring to competing blockchain forks. While in reality the chain with the longest length measured in blocks is almost always the best blockchain, it isn't necessarily. Rather than count the number of blocks on the blockchain, bitcoin nodes choose the blockchain which is the "heaviest" or has the highest cumulative difficulty. Bitcoin mining involves "brute-forcing" a solution to a problem by repeatedly performing double-SHA256 calculations on a potential block header (described briefly above) searching for a resultant hash with certain properties (which can be incorrectly but essentially summarized as "a lot of leading zeroes"). A higher difficulty means that, on average, miners will have to perform more work for each valid PoW solution. The "best" or "heaviest" chain is the chain which has the highest total difficulty (which is calculated by adding up the difficulty of each block).
To summarize, a block can be accepted to the blockchain as soon as it exists, and it has one confirmation by simply existing. However, blocks of arbitrary depth can be removed from the blockchain by a blockchain fork.
Answer: The concept of confirmation in Bitcoin is a measure for how deeply buried a block or transaction is in the blockchain. It measures how many blocks on top there are. More means the block or transaction is harder to revert, as an attacker would need to at least do as much work as was needed to build those confirming blocks.
By definition, 1 confirmation equates being included in the blockchain.
If this question happens to be about the output of getblock RPC or similar APIs: it simply counts how many blocks there are on top. If the tip of the chain has height 426396, and the block you're querying for has height 426391, the result will state there are 6 confirmations (426396 - 426391 + 1 = 6).
Answer:
What is the importance of the "confirmation" field in a block?

A confirmation is the act of a transaction being included in a single block within the Bitcoin blockchain.
A confirmation represents a certain degree of permanence within the Bitcoin blockchain.
The 'miners' are the entities that create blocks and decide what transactions to include in the blocks.
While a transaction included in a single block could be reversed by a miner, this would require that miner to generate both a replacement block for the block the transaction was in and an entirely new block, all before the rest of the miners can find any new blocks.
This is usually unfeasible, but it does occasionally happen and the block that gets replaced is known as an orphaned block. This also becomes exponentially less feasible when trying to replace greater numbers of blocks.
Once a transaction is included in a block, it will automatically be a part of all future blocks (via one-way cryptographic hashing of the prior block in each new block), so the total confirmations represent the number of blocks that have been generated since the transaction was initially confirmed.
Please note that when an end-user initially makes a transaction, the transaction is broadcast to the network nearly instantly, but it can often take 10 minutes or more for the transaction to actually get confirmed in a block.

How many confirmations are required to accept a block in a blockchain?

A confirmation is the act of the network/miners accepting a transaction in the blockchain.
However, from an end-user practical perspective, it is useful to consider how many confirmations would make the end-user feel confident that a transaction will not be reversed.
For small amounts, 0 or 1 confirmations could be considered secure.
For larger amounts, 2 or 3 or even more confirmations may be desired before a transaction is considered permanent/secure.
6 confirmations has generally been the standard for 'absolutely no way this will be reversed', but there have been a couple occasions where several dozen blocks were orphaned due to software bugs.


I would like to view answers and answer questions

Question: I would like to view answers (and answer) questions. I have years of experience in construction and HVAC, but little experience with computers.
How can I get a few reputation points to do above?
Comment: You don't **need** reputation to either ask or answer questions (except for the few protected questions that we have, where you need 10 rep); you **gain** reputation by asking **good** questions and providing **good** answers. Please see http://diy.stackexchange.com/help/whats-reputation for more information
Comment: There are quick, poor ways to get your rep up.  Really all you need is a few points to be able to answer and comment.  I know it wad rough early on because I could ask, then shortly after answer... but still not comment.
Answer: Just start doing it. Find some questions you can answer and answer them.
Comment: @macston you don't need reputation to answer unprotected questions.
Comment: I need reputation points to answer. Where do I start?
Comment: @macston you need reputation points to leave comments, which is a different mechanism than an answer.   Answering most questions, especially new questions, is free.  I recommend searching for "newest" which is the default if you select "questions" in the top bar.   In most cases, answering a months old question is not very useful, but for some reason, they have high visibility on the site and in search engines.
Answer: A tiny fraction of the questions that seem to have drawn spammers or non-answers (usually as a result of somehow getting widely circulated, often long after they were asked) are "protected" and require something like 10 reputation on the site (ie, one answer upvote or two question upvotes.)
No rep is needed to ask a question.
No rep is needed to answer the vast majority of questions.
When you get a lot more rep, you'll be able to see deleted answers, and realize WHY those questions are "protected." When you see an old question answered by a user with rep(1) on the active page, more often than not it's flag-worthy material, sometimes quite vile, sometimes just not understanding the model.
I have only been on the site for a few years. Like everyone else, I started with rep = 1. (once you get 200, you can start at "101" on other SE sites as a "free pass" from the initial restrictions, on the basis that you understand those from the site you got 200 on...)
My first question was a good six months after my first answer, so you definitely don't have to start by asking questions.


How to calculate RSA CRT parameters from public key and private exponent

Question: Given the public key (n, e) and private exponent (d), how to calculate CRT parameters (p, q, dP, dQ, and qInv) of this RSA key pair?
Comment: You may be interested in [this question / answers](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2921406/calculate-primes-p-and-q-from-private-exponent-d-public-exponent-e-and-the) on SO.
Comment: Actually, that answer (despite being given by Thomas Pornin, who is generally accurate) is wrong; $ed-1$ needn't be a multiple of $\phi(n)$.  Actually, Thomas notes this himself; for some reason, he doesn't give the full answer (possibly because he didn't want to get into number theory)
Answer: The first (and hardest) step is to factor $n$; the easiest way to do this (given $e$ and $d$) is with this randomized procedure:

Select a random value $z$ from the range $(2, n-2)$
Compute the value $\lambda = (ed-1)/2^k$, where $k$ is that integer that makes $\lambda$ an odd integer.
Compute $t = z^\lambda \bmod n$.  If $t = 1$ or $t = n-1$, we fail on this selection of $z$.
Do this repeatedly, at most $k$ times:

Compute $u = t^2 \bmod n$.
If $u = -1$, we fail on this selection of $z$.
If $u = 1$, we have success (and we have the factorization $p = gcd(n,t-1)$, $q = gcd(n, t+1)$)
Otherwise, set $t = u$, and continue with the next loop

If we run through the above loop $k$ times without hitting either success or failure, then either we happened to have selected a $z$ that's not relatively prime to $n$, or $d, e$ are not a valid RSA exponent pair.

A random value of $z$ will fail at most half the time; so we run this procedure (selecting different random $z$ values) until it succeeds, and gives us the factorization.
Once we have the factorization of $n$, computing the rest of the CRT parameters is straight-forward.
Comment: The $\lambda$ in that calculation, isn't necessarily the usual $\lambda(n)$, right? Only a multiple of it.
Comment: @CodesInChaos: nope, it's just a temporary variable name.


Should I use a roll or spray method to paint my textured ceiling?

Question: I have fresh knockdown textured ceiling. I plan to give it a coat of primer and a coat of white ceiling paint. The whole house is undergoing complete remodeling. There is no furniture, and no flooring. There is no need to cover anything and/or tape stuff up. I have access to commercial grade sprayer. The area to be painted is rather large. That's why I am trying to find more effective way to accomplish the project. What is more effective way to paint ceilings? What is spray and roll method?
Answer: Spray and roll, more commonly called spray and backroll around me is when you spray the paint on and then another person follows behind you with a roller to roll the freshly spread paint. One of the reasons to do it is to get more even coverage in textured ceilings.
It's easier to do with two people so if it's just you might just want to skip the sprayer to keep things simple.
If you've never used spray equipment before it can take some time to get used to. Chances are you're going to mess up the first go (drips, sags, missed spots, etc) so at least practice on some cardboard or something.
I own and have used sprayers but I also own a Wagner Power Roller. It's a system that feeds paint through a tube into a roller so I don't have to keep a tray of paint. I eventually got good with the sprayers but with the power roller there was very little learning curve, no need to tape as much and cover everything. In almost every way I found it easier than the sprayer.
They make roller arms that attach to airless sprayers that do the same thing. There called pressure rollers. If you have access to the airless sprayer maybe you can find one to borrow or rent.
Comment: This is the way I would go spray and back roll. If you are a novice at spraying with a big rig, shadowing the crevices, thicker in spots than others can easily occur. I speak from experience on this. This takes time to learn and get an even coat. Back rolling gives the chance to even out the coat, and the nap of the roller will have a better chance of "dipping" into the varied surface of a textured ceiling.
Answer: Definitely spray, especially since you don't have to cover anything, and the area is large. This is based on my experience spraying walls and ceilings at our home over 40 years. I find spraying to be kind of fun because it goes on so fast. And I like how smooth the surface is after it's sprayed.
That being said, I've also learned (the hard way) to test the sprayer for leaks each time before use. Since I have only sprayed latex, this is easy. I just put some water in my Wagner Paint Crew paint tray and turn it on. If there are any leaks, this finds them. Also, while you do this, spray some on a wall you'll paint later. That will give you a feel for spraying the ceiling. When done, dump the water out, add the paint, and spray into a 5-gallon bucket until the paint starts flowing.
I recommend that you go over the ceiling twice. After you put the first coat, go back to the starting point, and spray a second coat perpendicular to the first. This is to ensure full and even coverage.
One other thing: start on the least conspicuous part of the ceiling. You'll get better as you go. So save the most visible part until last.


What does it mean to subvert a trope?

Question: Recently, I've been seeing a lot of discussions about works that subvert a given trope. I think I have an understanding of what this means (from context) but can someone offer a clear definition or explanation?
Comment: There's some explanation and examples, of course, on [TV Tropes](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SubvertedTrope). [Obvious warning, TV Tropes link if you're trying to be productive.]
Answer: A writing "trope," generally speaking, is a commonly used thematic element.  The term is sometimes used interchangeably with "cliche" or "stereotype."  To subvert it is to make deliberate use of it, but with a change that undercuts or reverses the typical meaning.
For example, the "Man in Black" turning out to be the hero of The Princess Bride subverts the trope of the hero dressing in white, the villain in black.
Comment: I think a better example would be "Frozen", subverting several very classic Disney tropes - "Evil Queen" or "True Love at First Sight". When the trope in question has a continuity, and is switched upside down, first building, then shattering our expectations with an amazing outcome - that's a typical subversion. Don't confuse with *averting* a trope, that is doing that reversal since moment one. In The Princess Bride we learn "the man in black" is not an antagonist early enough I wouldn't count it as an actual subversion.
Comment: @SF I think you're underselling the Man in Black.  He's introduced in an antagonistic role, which he inhabits for a fairly substantial portion of the narrative, and his costume, including the mask, is meant to be threatening. In point of fact, he actually *is* the "Dread Pirate Roberts" at least nominally. He's also a deliberate counterpoint to another subverted trope, the handsome prince as rescuer of the princess (years before *Frozen* did the same thing).
Comment: @stannius: sometimes one trope is a subversion of another :)
Comment: Example of *averted* in "Frozen" would be Anna not falling in love with Kristoff, just remaining friends with him - the classic "romance forged by fire" trope fizzling with no spectacular effects, instead of either being brought to conclusion (love) or subverted (say, the two becoming sworn enemies at the end.)
Comment: Another subverted trope in Frozen is, I think, the love interest turning into a bad guy. Is it still a subverted trope if it's another trope (in this case Face-Heel turn)?
Comment: @SF. Anna and Kristoff not falling in love would have been an averted trope, if that's what had happened, which it wasn't.
Comment: The villain dressing in black was pretty much a Dead Horse Trope by the time *The Princess Bride* was written (and filmed). There were enough characters dressed in black (or otherwise dark colours), sometimes even masked, who were heroes (Zorro and Batman spring to mind immediately, who had both been around for decades) that "the good guy dresses in black; surprise!" isn't much of a surprise.
Answer: A trope is a cliché setup; of any kind, that audiences have come to expect.
An example in a commercial is the great looking guy catching sight of a jaw-dropping girl, dropping everything to approach her as she smiles, and walking past her to the new car, or picture of a stacked burger, or to the nerdy guy with the new iPhone.
Another commercial: A man hears music blasting in his front yard; cut to a teen holding a boom box up, looking to the window on the second floor; cut back to man with his iphone punching a button, cut to teen -- lawn sprinklers come on full blast and the teen is surprised and runs for cover.
In Deep Blue Sea, they subvert a racist trope: LL Cool J plays a black cook in a film where nearly every main character gets eaten by genetically engineered clever sharks. The racist trope, built up over numerous movies in the previous decades, is that black characters die first. (This is racist and was not invented or ever used by ME, please hold any angry comments.) However, in DBS although Samuel L. Jackson does get eaten by a shark, LL Cool J the lowly cook comes close but always escapes by wit and action; in fact he ends up one of the two survivors. (But Samuel L. Jackson breaks the same racist trope in Die Hard with a Vengeance; as a black store owner reluctantly caught up in Bruce Willis' bid to stop a lethal heist; but Jackson's character (Zeus Carver) ends up a brave and useful sidekick that survives the entire ordeal).
Broke Back Mountain is subverting the trope of Cowboy Masculinity.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer subverts the trope of the helpless teen cheerleader that is typically an eye candy cardboard character.
In the series Heroes, Hayden Panettiere played Claire Bennett; another cheerleader type that looks like a petite, beautiful, helpless teen. But she has unlimited magical healing powers and (for a few seasons at least) apparently cannot be killed; making her one of the most formidable fighters of all heroes.
The Truth About Cats and Dogs is a romantic comedy that subverts a trope: Unlike other romantic comedies in which the female romantic interest tends to be beautiful (younger Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts), here the love interest is a short, plain girl (played by Janeane Garofolo).
In the series Psych, the "Sherlockian" detective (uses hyper-observational powers) subverts the Sherlock trope by being an immature, lazy, get-rich-quick liar. (The Sherlock Holmes trope is more like the series Elementary; but they then subvert that trope by making sidekick Watson a female doctor, and often the smartest person in the room except for Sherlock -- and sometimes beating even him to the punch.)
In The Mentalist, the Sherlockian detective subverts the Sherlock trope by being a carny con man. (also female sidekick and eventual love interest.)
In the series Monk, the Sherlockian detective subverts the Sherlock trope by being an obsessive compulsive afraid of just about everything (in advertising, the Defective Detective; although they were not the first to use it).
Subverting a trope is just writing against any "formula" the audience has come to expect (even subconsciously) from a genre; be it horror, romantic comedy, action/adventure, war or drama. It can be a minor part of the movie or a major component of it. It is a way of injecting surprise into the work. But it can be overdone or come off as flat or unsatisfying: Some tropes are founded in human nature, and often if audiences cannot identify with the character violating the trope, the story will fall flat.
Answer: Here's a good example of subverting a trope and then subverting the subversion: in the original Mass Effect game trilogy, one of the alien species you encounter is the asari. Asari are the stereotypical beautiful all-female humanoid alien species that have long been a cliché in science fiction, especially when one of the ones you first encounter on one of the first side-missions is, for all the talking around about it, a glorified prostitute, and soon you find more as strippers at a low-life bar. So that's following the standard hypersexual Green Skinned Alien Space Babe (although they're mostly blue, but you get the idea), just like the portrayals of the Orion women in the original Star Trek.
Okay, now subversion: although you see asari as stereotypical initially, as the games go on, most of the asari you meet subvert that stereotype. Liara is a shy, geeky archeologist and a virgin. You meet asari commandos, who are deadly opponents, and asari politicians and diplomats and business people and scientists, and so on and so forth. The Green Skinned Alien Space Babe trope is subverted and although the player can still encounter asari strippers in bars, that's not what you think of the asari as. Now there's several new tropes in play, one of which is that you shouldn't think of the asari as just sexy aliens who will have sex with anyone of any species.
Then they subvert the subversion: you meet one asari matriarch who complains that young asari spend too much time whoring it up around the galaxy. You meet another asari who is a ruthless crime boss who seized control of a space station by having her subordinates sleep their way into the confidence of her rivals before she took them out. And you find out there's a quirk of asari biology and reproduction that makes it desirable for them to mate outside their species. In short, the stereotypes people have about the asari are somewhat justified, as the asari themselves admit (and some take advantage of).
So there is an example of subverting a trope: the game set up the player to believe the asari were following a standard SF trope, then subverted it, then went and subverted that by justifying the original trope.
Note that the original Green Skinned Alien Space Babes, the Orions, likewise subverted their own trope on Enterprise when it was revealed that the females emitted pheromones that controlled their males and could affect other species. They intentionally played up their role as simple sex objects in order to manipulate others.

What does it mean to subvert a trope?


Can I use Olympus OM lenses on a Pentax DSLR?

Question: I have some Olypus lenses that were used with my OM20 camera that I would like to use on my Pentax K-r camera. Is this possible, and what would I need to do it?
Answer: Early this year, I saw this on Pentaxforum where someone made a replacement mount ring for his Pentax DSLR to allow mounting of other mount lenses like Nikon, Olympus (your case), Contax/Yashica and even Konica. Quite a feat I say and he actually fabricated some for sale. Below is the original post:
http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/247977-manual-focus-galore-nikon-f-olympus-om-c-y-konica-ar-mount-lenses-pentax-dslr.html
Answer: I am using the Olympus Zuiko 50mm f3.5 macro lens with the Pentax K-x, but only for macro as it won't focus to infinity. For this purpose I have adapted a T2 to PK adapter by taking out the T2 thread and simply screwing the PK part on to the Olympus mount (non destructively).
Answer: A Google search for "pentax olympus adapter" turns up "Leitax", a provider of replacement mount that you have to screw onto the olympus lens.
You will also need to turn the Pentax camera into a mode where it works with the missing aperture lever that regular Pentax lens provide for measuring. This mode is called stop-down metering. You can read more about this on this pentaxforums page.
Answer: Fotodiox offers an adapter (http://www.fotodioxpro.com/selective-35mm-olympus-zuiko-lens-to-pentax-k-camera-lens-mount-adapter.html). I have not tried this particular adapter myself, but I use another adapter from Fotodiox that works fine for me. The Olympus to PK adapter contains corrective optics that might influence the quality.
Answer: It is possible, but not ideal.  You cannot use a simple ring adapter, because the registration distance for Olympus OM mount is smaller than that of Pentax K.  And as you can't simple jam the lens back into the camera body the required distance, if you use a simple ring adapter, and have the lens sitting too far forward, it's like using a macro extension tube--you lose the ability to focus to infinity.
The only adapters that can compensate for this distance difference will either have a glass element to act like a short teleconverter (which will decrease the max. aperture, increase the focal length, and, if it's cheap, probably add softness), or you need to shave off the difference from the lens mount somehow (e.g., a Leitax mount replacement kit).
Understand, too, that you will not have autofocus, you will not have communication between the camera body and the lens. You will not be able to control the lens's aperture from the camera body, so you have to use stop-down metering, you can only shoot in M and A modes, and lens EXIF information will be missing (focal length, lens, aperture, etc.) There is also the fact that modern dSLR focus screens are not ideal for manual focusing, as they no longer have the prism color or split-circle aids we were used to from film SLRs, and dSLR crop body viewfinders tend to be smaller and dimmer than the viewfinders in film SLRs (the mirror is no longer 100% effective, since some of the light has to be diverted to the AF sensor array).


How fast should a Honda CBR 600 F4i idle when the engine is cold

Question: My CBR 600 F4i idles at about 3000 rpm when the engine is cold, after about 2 to 3 minutes when the engine warms up, it settles back down to regular idle speed of about 1300 rpm.
Is this normal for this bike?
Answer: This is a (rather annoying, imho) characteristic with this particular bike. It doesn't happen with "all bikes", although some may be slightly higher when turning the engine on after a cold night.
The Honda CBR 600 F4i, particularly in cold weather, tends to rev it's nuts off for the first few minutes (it's the automatic choke) until it warms up and calms down. I had a 2005 F4i and I believe that was the last year they tended to do that.
So for this particular bike which is a bit old now, it's about right. Don't let it just sit there revving for ages though; you can set off within a minute of switching the engine on. Just take it slowly until the engine has warmed up and the idle speed is back to normal.
Answer: Almost all engines will idle faster when cold than when warm. My fuel injected ZGR-1400 does so. My car does so. My KLR 650 and my girlfriend's Ninja 250, both carbureted, idle fast with the choke on.
When your engine is cold, the fuel mixture needs to be richer in order to achieve combustion. That will cause the engine to idle faster, and that is why every engine recommends that the idle speed be set when the engine is nice and warmed up.
A fast idle for a cold engine in cold weather is normal.
Answer: The owners manual for a 2008 Honda CBR600RR is 1,400 RPM's +/- 100.
Here is a link to the owners manual.
See page number 219
Answer: It is perfectly fine. Its much better for the engine to warm up on steady 3k RPM before you start reving it to maximum. This will make sure the oil has proper density and all components are well lubricated.
A friend of mine has a Fireblade and the behavior is very much the same. Until the engine gets warm its running on ~3k RPM and then drops to just a bit over 1k
Answer: I have a CBR600 F4 - which is essentially the same engine but with carburettors instead of injection. On cold start, just a small amount of choke adjustment will cause high revs (i.e 3000+) versus sitting at 1500-2000. As I have a manual choke, I'll warm it up at 1800-2000 RPM and then go easy riding it until temp gauge comes into the zone.
Factory idle for a CBR600 F4 is 1500 - which feels somewhat high but does let you pull off easier from a standing start as the engine makes all it's power above 4000 RPM.
Answer: Not too sure but this looks usefull;
http://www.bulkky.com/honda-motorcycle/cbr600/cbr600rr-03-04/honda-cbr600rr-2003-%E2%80%93-2004-fuel-system-lubrication-system-specification
Thought that might be the case, I suppose alternatively phone up your local garage or tuning specialist and they might be able to tell you?
Comment: Thanks, but the link only shows the regular idle speed once the bike is warmed up.
Comment: Thought that might be the case, I suppose alternatively phone up your local garage or tuning specialist and they might be able to tell you?


Does the neutron star collapse from the surface to the center or from the center to the surface?

Question: I think the collapse begins at the surface because in this place the gravity is always more intense than in the center. That's right?
Comment: It is likely that the collapse starts at the center because that is where the pressure is greatest
Comment: @ safesphere you say that there is nothing inside, and the shell's mass is zero. So the black hole's mass is zero?
Comment: "at the surface because in this place the gravity is always more intense" Where did you get that idea from? It is wrong.
Comment: This article has the most detailed simulation of neutron star formation so far https://phys.org/news/2013-06-violent-birth-neutron-stars.html
Comment: @CriglCragl Now is clear to me. The bigining is in the center.
Comment: @ÁrpádSzendrei Mass is the energy of confined massless objects: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/137316/photons-inside-a-box - Also please make sure no space after @. Otherwise there is no notification.
Answer: I am not clear about your question - it is either about the formation of a neutron star or perhaps about the collapse of a neutron star after it has formed.
If it it the latter, then the instabilities that lead to the collapse of a neutron star would begin near the centre of the star at the highest densities. Since the density of a neutron star is much higher in the interior than at the surface then the assertion in your question about where gravity is strongest is untrue.
If the density scales as $r^{-a}$, where $a$ is a positive number, then the mass inside a radius $r$ is given by (ignoring GR for a moment)
$$M(<r) \propto \int r^{2-a}\ dr \propto \frac{r^{3-a}}{3-a}$$
The gravitational  force at radius $r$ (again ignoring GR) is
$$g(r) \propto \frac{M(<r)}{r^2} \propto \frac{r^{1-a}}{3-a}$$
Thus if $a>1$, then the gravity increases with decreasing radius, and this is certainly the case inside a neutron star. The effects of GR only increase this central concentration effect.
Collapse timescales go as the free-fall timescale, which is $\propto (G\rho)^{-1/2}$ where $\rho$ is the density. Thus dense regions collapse quicker and the collapse would proceed on an inside-out basis.
The formation of a neutron star occurs during "core-collapse" and this terminology alone I think would answer your question in this case.
Just prior to core-collapse, the neutron star progenitor is a massive star with an iron core, of a bit more than a solar mass, surrounded by further shells of nuclear-burning material (silicon, neon, magnesium, oxygen etc) and then a large envelope of hydrogen and helium.
The collapse is triggered by instability in the core. Any contraction of the core raises it's temperature; the iron photodisintegrates; protons capture electrons to form neutrons; and since the electrons provided the principle support for the core via electron degeneracy pressure, then that pressure disappears. As a result, the core collapses very rapidly, basically according to the "free-fall time" of the material.
The free-fall time is roughly equal to $(G\rho)^{-1/2}$, where $\rho$ is the density. So the dense centre collapses even faster than the outer parts of the core. It is an inside-out collapse. The whole core collapse takes less than a second, before the rest of the star has any clue about what's going on. Eventually, on longer timescales associated with the sound speed, the outer parts of the star also start to collapse inward. Some of this material may get incorporated into the final neutron star, but much of it will be blown away by the supernova explosion that results from the core-collapse.
Answer: The reason giant stars don't collapse immediately is because they're supported by outflowing heat produced by nuclear fusion. When they run out of fuel, they lose this support and collapse until they can be supported by degeneracy pressure. So you could say the collapse starts from the inside in the sense that that's where the power former power source was before turning off.
Answer: increasing pressure at the center of a neutron star might trigger a phase transition to new state with higher density and while matter settles down the warping of space time might reach some critical value creating the full fledged event horizon at some radius below the surface of the neutron star.
this is all speculative, because very little is known about interior of neutron star and what densities matter reaches, there are ongoing astronomical observations tat might shed light on the problem
another possibility is that accretting mass build up would lead to the formation of the event horizon directly at the surface of the neutron star as you guessed, if there is no matter state with higher density to trigger the phase transition at the center of the neutron star


How to use a DS18B20 temperature sensor in my Pi?

Question: I have a few DS18B20 temperature sensors. These are normally used in Arduino projects, but I don't see why not to use them with a Pi. There is a software called DigiTemp that seems to drive the device and I have compiled and installed it on the Pi. The not so clear thing is, how do I connect them? Directly to the UART?
Answer: Adafruit has released a distro called occidentalis which has 1-wire support built in.

One wire is most commonly used for DS18B20 temp sensors. The Pi does
  not have 'hardware' 1-wire support but it can bitbang it with some
  success. Connect a DS18B20 with VCC to 3V, ground to ground and Data
  to GPIO #4. Then connect a 4.7K resistor from Data to VCC.

This will allow you to read the temperature with commands like
<code>cat /sys/bus/w1/devices/28-*/w1_slave
</code>
I don't know if digitemp can be made to work with those, but it should be fairly straightforward to write a munin plugin if you just want to get the temperature graphs
Comment: 1 wire on GPIO 4 is now supported by official kernel (update from Aug 23) so any distribution that is using it will have this supported. You have to update the kernel however (ensure it's based on kernel 3.2). Then insert `wire` and `w1-therm` modules.
Comment: Is there any way to use the 1-wire driver in Arch Linux?
Comment: @Tomas, I'm not using Arch Linux, but I expect they'll get the module in there eventually. In the meantime you'll have to patch the kernel yourself.
Answer: I think the secret sauce is the last line on this page
It links to DS9097U which does the UART to 1-wire conversion
I have previously use the "pic arbiter" with these devices. It works in a similar role getting the data from the 1-wire devices and making it suitable for consumption by the UART
It's also possible to connect I2C devices such as the MCP9804 directly to GPIO pins. The downside is that you need 4 wires
Comment: Thanks. If it is possible, I'd want to use the sensor without adding yet another IC. I don't mind spending 3 GPIO pins. Is it easy to interface a 1-wire device using GPIO directly?


Are the technologies in Serial Experiments Lain based on real world technologies?

Question: There's quite a few different types of technology (and computers) referenced in the world of Serial Experiments Lain, while some of them are easily matched, some of them aren't. In addition, some of the technologies weren't available at time of production (for example: speech recognition).
Answer: Familiar technologies:

The Wired
The Wired is similar to The Internet and runs on IPv4.
Tachibana Industries
Based on their naming schemes and designs, they're most likely a reference to Apple Inc.
Alice's Navi:
Alice's Navi looks like the bubble iMac G3:

Lain's original Navi
Lain's original Navi is based off the 20th Anniversary Macintosh:

C Language
The Navi systems run C:

Common Lisp Language:
The Navi systems also run Common Lisp (A dialect of Lisp):

MIPS-ASM
During one of the scenes where Lain is on her Navi, Assembly code identified to be MIPS-ASM flashes across the screen.
Copland OS:
The OS that the Navis run, Copland OS is based on a failed Apple project from two years prior.
PHANTOMa
PHANTOMa is similar to dungeon games like Might and Magic and Dungeon Master.

HandiNAVI
The HandiNAVI is similar to the Apple Newton line.

Protocol Seven
Protocol Seven is Internet Protocol version 7 (drafted in 1993) an RFC that was never implemented in favour of Internet Protocol version 6, whose RFC was drafted in December 1998, after the series had finished.

Unfamiliar:
Psyche chip
In Layer 02, Lain gets a chip that lets her interact with the Wired without standard input devices. This is similar to the concept of Virtual Reality, yet is beyond today's technology.

Unavailable at time of production:
CU Mail
In Layer 11, Alice is in a video call with Juri. This is similar to today's video calling services like Skype and Google Hangouts.
Navi's speech recognition:
Lain is seen controlling her Navi via speech recognition. This is similar to today's Cortana and Siri.
Comment: CU Mail sounds like it could have been inspired by [CU-SeeMe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CU-SeeMe), one of the most popular early video chat applications from the '90s.
Comment: Some other references (like Lain's father's UI resembling NeXTSTEP) are pointed out here: https://www.cjas.org/~leng/apple-lain.htm
Answer: Maybe too late but I'd be willing to chime in and note that Mac OS had speech recognition with assignable actions (Speakable Items) back in Mac OS 9 if not even earlier, and, though a bit limited, it could not only wait for a keypress, but constantly listen for a keyword that designates a command will be said after it.
So, in fact, this was, not as idealistic, but a reality of that time.
And for video chat there was a program called iVisit also in the times of Mac OS 9 which was a bit limited yet could provide some entertainment :-)
Comment: While they're close, Lain predates Mac OS9. Lain aired in mid-1998, while Mac OS 9 was released in late 1999. However, other commercially available speech recognition programs existed prior to 1998, for example [Dragon NaturallySpeaking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_NaturallySpeaking).
Comment: According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlainTalk) the first time Macs were able to recognize speech was 1993. So yeah, even if the Lain's creators were inspired solely by Apple products, this was still a thing back then.


Using too much dialogue?

Question: I'm working on a novel of my own and, looking back at the bits of it I have so far brought into light, that almost everything in it is dialogue. Is this a bad thing? How could I fix this if it is?
Comment: The advice I have heard from professional writers published multiple times: Dialogue should either deepen our understanding of character or advance the plot.  We should not be using dialogue to give out information, rather it should be used to explore the desires of the characters speaking. Dialogue is it's own form of action.
Comment: Were you *actually* writing a script or a screenplay?
Answer: It is hard to overdo good dialogue; but not all dialogue is written well.
Too often a great deal of dialogue is a one-sided speech about how the author feels; it sounds preachy and unrealistic, because other than actual speeches by politicians and other leaders (e.g. preachers in church), we encounter few "casual" speeches where one person is allowed to hold forth for several minutes. It doesn't sound natural. And no matter what speech is given, even by a character that IS a leader, it is probably preaching some message the author wants to get out.
Dialogue should be treated as a form of action. The setting should be fully visualized, the characters should be doing something as they talk. "Talking Heads" should be avoided, where the reader quickly gets a sense that the "back and forth" occurs in a vacuum with nothing else going on. Between lines we need visual clues, even minor actions of what characters are doing, the expressions they make, the thoughts they have and emotions they feel which they don't express.
Characters should ask questions to clarify something, they should disagree and refuse to concede their own point, or go off on a tangent because they were reminded of something similar. They should not be passive, if you find yourself tempted to write a character saying "Go on," or "Tell me more," your dialogue sucks. (Some exceptions, a psychiatrist might say that to a patient, or a girlfriend to another girl after some revelatory statement:

Susan said, "Okay. I went out with Josh last night."
Cheryl was dumbfounded. She waited for Susan to say something else, but she didn't. "Go on!"
Susan laughed. "Well ... Not disappointed!"

Avoid talking heads, avoid passive participants, avoid speechifying, avoid predictability, it is boring. Find tangents and disagreements, don't be afraid to write dialogue that ends in a stalemate. Dialogue should have conflict. That is what keeps the reader reading; they want to see how it turns out. The dialogue should matter to what happens next. Even if Josh is declaring his love for Susan, the reader should see Josh is taking a risk and Susan may not reciprocate; they should be waiting to see what Susan says or does, or how she feels, or what Josh is feeling in the interim. (So what happens before the dialogue matters here, too.)
The length doesn't determine whether the dialogue is good writing or bad writing. Good writing is interesting and fun to read, it has unexpected moments (but they make sense). A long dialogue can accomplish that. Bad writing is boring and predictable and doesn't seem to matter to what happens next. A long dialogue can be that instead.
Answer: The problem with too much dialogue, is that dialogue alone doesn't create a picture.
A story should immerse the reader in a scene, and that immersion should be so complete that the reader forgets they are reading. To do that requires a balance of all the elements that make up a scene (setting, dialogue, interior monologue, non-verbal cues, physical action, etc. etc.).
I think the best way to grasp it is to see every individual scene as if it's the loading program in The Matrix. If you have nothing but dialogue, Neo and Trinity are standing in the loading program having a conversation. There's nothing else there except empty white space. If you bring in setting: a chair, wallpaper, carpet, etc. you've made a start on creating the room they're standing in. But, conversely, if you go too far with setting, at the expense of other elements, you still just have a pretty room and a conversation.
You can dive into Neo's head with interior monologue and get an idea of how he feels about the dialogue. You can have them move around, sit down, use non-verbal cues and so on. But only the things you've written into that loading program exist for the reader.
So, the reason dialogue alone doesn't work is because, for the reader, it would be like watching Neo and Trinity having a conversation in the loading program for the entire movie. Imagine how boring that would be.
Another mistake that beginner writers often make is to tell their story instead of showing it. They have the same problem of a lack of balance, only now there's too much exposition. The writer has created a character and sat them down in a room and made them tell their story. There's no action. And it's akin to watching Neo tell the whole Matrix story from a chair in the loading program. Again, it's boring.
You have to create EVERYTHING from scratch for every scene. You have to balance every element so the reader can see the scene taking place in their heads.
It's not easy!  But it gets easier with practice.
Good luck!
Comment: +1 Great example/metaphor.
Answer: The question isn't whether you have "too much" dialogue, but whether you have "enough everything else."  There are successful novels that are composed of almost all dialogue, and very little else, but those are definitely rare exceptions.  A book without rich descriptive passages is like a cake without flour.  It's possible to create, but you'll working without most of what normally holds the structure together, it will feel like something crucially important is missing to most people, and some people will reject it entirely.  So let's say yes, your novel is unbalanced.  What are options for fixing this problem?
One option is writing a play or a screenplay (or a graphic novel script) instead.  These are centered much more around dialogue and plot --it becomes someone else's job to provide the rich visual images that will help people become immersed in your fictional world.  Let's assume, however, that you are committed to a novel.  I have the same basic inclinations as you --left to my own devices, my writing is all dialogue --and these are things I've done that have helped me develop my descriptions:

Pay more attention to the visuals in real life.  We write what we notice, and what we love.  You probably pay a lot of attention to things people say, and less attention to what they look like.  Practice seeing the things you usually miss.
Remember, descriptions should never be dry catalogs of visual details.  Every description should come with a mood, a point of view, an attitude and an context.  Is the sky paradise blue?  Or pitiless blue?  The actual color might be the same, but the way you describe it conveys a wealth of info about your character and helps put the reader in the character's mind.
Something I learned here, on this SE, from @MarkBaker, is that metaphors tell their own stories and carry their own narratives.  "I walked through a forest of trees that stood like angry soldiers, with branches like spears."  That gives a strong visual image, but it also carries its own story, one that can inform the main narrative.

It might be worth spending some time going through some description-based writing exercises to develop your descriptive "muscle."  Once you learn more about what descriptions can do for you, they'll seem less like an onerous duty or hoops to jump through, and more like an opportunity to add depth and layers to your storytelling.
Answer: First Drafts, Writing and Rewriting
This is your first draft, right?
Your process could be that you produce a lot of dialog.
You can fix that when you edit the text.
To quote Hemingway (or Arnold Samuelson?): "The first draft of anything is shit."
Go back (now or once the first draft is done) and look at your scenes. Do you see things (character action, setting, etc) that are not on paper? Then add that.
Imagine what your first-time reader will see in their head (or won't see) when they read your text and edit to make that image what you like it to be.
As long as your final version of the text has a good mix of dialog, internal emotion, description, action, etc, it does not matter what the text looks like right now!
After all, writing is rewriting (also a quote from someone or several someones...)
(Case in point: click the "edited" link in the center of the footer of this answer to see my edits... or click that link on any other edited answer on Writing.SE. I'm pretty sure you'll find that the answers improve with each edit.)
Conflict
So what does that good mix in a scene look like then?
You have several good answers here already (avoid talking-heads, center the scene in a room with things and people, paint a picture, etc), but I'd like to add that dialog, as well as a whole scene should have conflict.
You get conflict by having characters with opposite or incompatible goals.
If you find yourself writing a scene where all the characters have the same goals, consider putting the whole thing in a sequel instead of a scene, if it's important enough to not warrant being cut completely.
Subtext
Dialog is also special in that it can (should!) have subtext.
It can, in contrary to many other parts of a text, have the characters say one thing and mean another.
Good dialog has a surface level containing what is said and done, and a sub-level where something else is going on, something that can change the meaning of the surface level or enhance it.
In order to show the dialog has a double meaning, you need more than just the words. Goals and internal emotion are most often used, but facial expressions, body tension, and action can also show something else is going on.
If one of two passionate-talking lovers is backing away there's something up with the "passion."
Not using subtext in dialog is wasting an opportunity to make the scene do double duty.
Obviously, this means that much dialog along the line...

"Let's go to a movie."
"Yeah! Let's!"

...could easily be placed in a sequel ("They went to see Endgame.") unless the subtext is along the line of...

"Let's go make out in the darkness!"
"I'm famished and would love to be near your juicy, blood-filled neck in a dark room!"

...hinting at conflict due to pretty incompatible goals...
Answer: Do you think it is possible for a reader to follow your story of 80,000 + words simply by writing the whole story in the form a of dialogue between or among characters? I believe it would drive most readers to distraction. Try this: put your story in a drawer for a few weeks.  Then take it out and read it.  If you hear everything you wanted to say then you are on the right track.  If you get confused, then try describing what you want the reader to feel.
Answer: Welcome to SE.
Others have said this, but it bears repeating: The purpose of non-dialog portions of a story are to provide context, setting, interiority (thoughts, emotions), and so forth. Too much dialog means you probably have too little of something else.
Of course the approach can work... See the first chapter (Chapter A) of New York 2140. All dialog, almost all of it, and a grand total of only two or three attribution tags, but it works. The writing is fully intentional on the part of the author, and Chapter B is a different style altogether (and a different viewpoint.)
My answer, without seeing the excerpt, is: Probably you have a 'bad thing' in your draft, yes.

Using too much dialogue?


The frame buffer layout of the current display cannot be made to match

Question: I get this error when I have VM running in VMWare Workstation on my work PC and try Remote Desktop-ing in from my iMac at home. I just upgraded VMWare Workstation to 7.0 from 6.0 and now I'm getting it when I try to resume my VM at work.
It then asks me the scary question of whether I want to preserve or discard the suspended state. I don't want to lose stuff! ack!
Update I backed up my VM and tried hitting that "discard" button and the result was a reboot of the VM. I then tried restoring to a snapshot, and none of my snapshots work! Is there anyway to fix this so I can run 7 but still have my old snapshots?

The frame buffer layout of the current
  display cannot be made to match the
  frame buffer layout stored in the
  snapshot.  The dimensions of the frame
  buffer in the snapshot are: Max width
  3200, Max height 1770, Max size
  22659072.  The dimensions of the frame buffer on the current display are: Max
  width 3200, Max height 1600, Max size
  20512768. Error encountered while trying to restore the virtual machine
  state from file "C:\Documents and
  Settings\adam\My Documents\My Virtual
  Machines\dev\Windows XP
  Professional.vmss".

What do I do so I don't break things horribly?
Answer: Looks like I was screwed. I learned too late that you should only take snapshots when the guest OS is shut down :(


How to stick photographs to a glass bottle?

Question: I'm looking to cut out some pictures that are on photo paper, and stick them to a vodka bottle (on the outside) for my friends bday. Will this work? If so what kind of glue should I use? Will superglue work or do I need to buy I special kind?
Comment: did you try practicing with a picture that isn't important to you on a similar bottle? Do you want the picture to stay attached forever, or is it for a temporary decoration?
Comment: How long does it need to stick? And is the photo paper critical? Prints on standard paper can adhere with PVA and stay on for short term usage, but will eventually tear, fall, or be knocked loose.
Answer: Double-sided foam tape is inexpensive, easy to work with, and sticks to glass and photographs. It will work if the bottle surface is smooth or textured, which proves a challenge with many glues. The foam tape is white, which matches the color of photographic paper (in most cases).
Answer: The best glue for this would be hide glue, but using it is rather a process (dissolve in hot water and keep hot until the applique is finished -- dedicated container and brushes, etc.).
Second best, and easier to use, would probably be clear RTV silicone.
The issue here is that most photo paper is coated on the back side with plastic to prevent distortion, so you need a glue that will stick to the plastic as well as to the glass of the bottle.  If the paper is uncoated, you need a glue that isn't water based, so it won't distort the paper (water based glue likely wouldn't stick to the glass anyway).
Answer: Art supply stores carry paper cement (sometimes referred to as "Rubber" cement) made from natural rubber from rubber tree sap. The brand I use is "Best Test." There are other brands such as "Elmer."
The stuff is a thick, gooey, translucent non-water based adhesive about the consistency of thick cream. It is used to cement practically anything flexible to anything. Many of the components in a pair of shoes are bonded together with the same stuff. It is not water soluble. It comes in one-coat (marked "One Coat") and two coat (unmarked) variety. The One Coat is more difficult to use to get great results. Avoid the "One Coat."
Tip: If the rubber cement gets too thick to pour, you'll get better results if you dilute it with rubber cement thinner to the proper consistency to apply with a bristle brush that comes attached to inside of the screw top cap.
Warning: Rubber cement is NOT Contact cement And
Warning: Rubber cement contains hydrocarbon distillates and should be used in a well ventilated area. When you're finished there will be no objectionable odour.
There are two different "techniques" to use with rubber cement, a "wet" and a "dry" technique. I recommend the dry technique which requires two thin coats, one on the back of the picture and one on the glass surface.
Here's how to do it with your vodka bottle:

Find a well-lit, clean and dry work area.
Wash your hands
Cut the shapes you wish to mount and place them face-down on the clean work surface.
Apply a continuous, thin, even coat of rubber cement with the brush applicator to the back of the pictureDo the same on the vodka bottle where you want to put the picture. Cover a bit more of the bottle than the picture requires.If some gets on the front of the picture, it can be removed when you've finished. It's VERY forgiving of mistakes. You may wish to experiment with less valuable pieces to increase your self-confidence.
Let the cement dry completely so there is no shiny wet areas on either piece
Position the picture and press it onto the vodka bottle and it will stick immediately in place. Press the picture until it is well fastened along the edges.
Repeat the process for each picture.

Clean-up is easy by rubbing a bit of the excess which will stick to itself and "ball-up" as you rub. Work the tiny pieces into a bigger ball which you can use to pick-up more of the residue. If you make a mistake, remove the dry cement and start over. An accessory "Pick-Up" square block makes the whole process much easier.
There are demonstrations on the internet to make my instructions clearer. This one shows how to mount paper on paper. Another trick this video shows is using a credit card as a squeegee applicator. I recommend a bristle brush
Have fun, good luck.
Answer: Various manufacturers make an aerosol spray glue/cement that you can use to spray the back of the photo to stick it to the glass bottle. It's not cheap and can be anywhere from 10 to 30 dollars a can.
Art stores carry suitable spray glues for what you want to mount onto glass containers. Building supply outlets and hardware stores have lines of more aggressive adhesives that would be overkill for your craft project.
The brands are many from 3M, Uline, Gorilla, Elmer's, and LePage. The dealer will be good to consult for your purposes as there are so many to choose from. The over-spray needs a solvent to remove cleanly and neatly.
Just cut out the artwork and spray the back. Let it set. Press it onto the mount and smooth it into position. It gives great results
The down-side is that the adhesive spray can get everywhere and be difficult to remove.
As always, have fun and good luck.


please review hold on my blocker question

Question: https://superuser.com/questions/1057348/blocker-setup-to-protect-non-technical-users has been rewritten with objective criteria.
Comment: Your revised question is too broad. It is asking **us** (unpaid volunteers) to do a lot of work for you.
Comment: David, thanks, but your concerns (first too vague, now too detailed) sound a lot like Catch 22. Can you suggest a way to phrase my question that would be acceptable?
Comment: David says it's too broad, not too detailed..
Comment: That's not what Catch-22 is
Comment: Question is still out of scope.  There are better venues for this type of question, Superuser, really isn't it
Answer: For the record, when this was in the Reopen Votes queue, I skipped the review, but if somebody held a gun to my head and forced me to choose, I would have hit Leave Closed.
The question is no longer opinion-based, but it definitely is too broad. Defending against Internet malware is a massive ordeal - there's an entire industry about it! That's definitely too much to adequately sum up in an answer, even one of the maximum length of 30K characters.
Also, your opening paragraph kind of sounds like you're looking for a software recommendation. Such questions are off-topic because they go out of date quickly. If that part was wordsmithed a bit, that would help a little. Still, though, I don't know if it's possible to look for a total Internet security solution here. You might try Software Recommendations after making sure your question is acceptable there.
Comment: Amusingly, I asked at SR.SE's chatroom about this. They felt that this seemed like a howto question and if the scope was narrowed and the question rewritten as a software rec, it might be on topic


What is D-Wave's "Pegasus" architecture?

Question: How is D-Wave's Pegasus architecture different from the Chimera architecture?
Answer: Pegasus is the first fundamental change in D-Wave's architecture since the D-Wave One.
The D-Wave Two, 2X, and 2000Q all used the "Chimera" architecture, which consisted of unit cells of $K_{4,4}$ graphs. The four generations of D-Wave machines just added more qubits by adding more and more unit cells that were the same.
In Pegasus, the actual structure of the unit cells has fundamentally changed for the first time. Instead of the Chimera graph where each qubit can have at most 6 qubits, the Pegasus graph allows each qubit to couple to 15 other qubits.
A machine has been made already with 680 Pegasus qubits (compare this to 2048 Chimera qubits in the D-Wave 2000Q).
The work was presented by Trevor Lanting of D-Wave, four days ago:
Comment: You can generate Pegasus graphs with D-Wave's version of networkx now. Combined with their minorminer algorithm you can check if your problems will embed on their new architecture: https://github.com/dwavesystems/dwave_networkx/commit/fb327239960e6a9a4ac6881cb68b6493bedd237a
Comment: [PDF of presentation](https://www.dwavesys.com/sites/default/files/mwj_dwave_qubits2018.pdf) with duplicate slides.
Comment: Video of the talk at AQC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05ovPNxmfjE&feature=youtu.be
Answer: Hope this late contribution won't be a meaningless contribution, but as mentioned in one of the comments above, by using D-Waves version of NetworkX you can visualize the Pegasus network. I have attached a few images here of the Pegasus 2 (P2) and Pegasus 6 (P6) architectures using the D-Wave NetworkX.

The reason that I find Pegasus interesting is that the architecture allows for odd number cycles, and of course the obvious scale up in the maximum degree. The theoretical inability for Chimera to have odd cycles is limiting, but practically it can be approximated using minor embedding techniques and maybe imperfect chimera, but of course, Pegasus overcomes that entirely.
Comment: These are nice illustrations! But what I cannot easily determine from these images, or from the DWAVE presentation linked in the comments to the other answer is the following --- is there a nice mathematical description of the graph structure of the Pegasus architecture? It is clear from your comments that it is not a bipartite graph (a good place to start), and the diagrams suggest that something like a next-nearest-neighbour structure on a square lattice plays some role. But is it possible to more-or-less precisely describe what the vertex and edge sets are?
Comment: @NieldeBeaudrap Are you asking for the code that generates the list of vertex pairs?
Comment: @AndrewO: That would do; though I meant just a simple mathematical specification if one is available, just as $V = \mathbb Z_k \times \mathbb Z_n$, $E = \{ \, \{(a, \! b), (a'\!, \! b') \} \, : \, a, a' \in \mathbb Z_k, \; b, b'\in \mathbb Z_n, \; a' \in \{a{-}1,a,a{+}1 \},\; b' \in \{b{-} 1,b,b{+}1\} \, \} $ specifies a graph parameterised by $n$ and $k$.
Comment: @NieldeBeaudrap I emailed you some files. Also, it's still has the K44 bipartite cell if you look closely. Each "L" shape is one K44 unit cell. If you have D-Wave's stuff installed you can search for pegasus.py to see how they generate the graph. I have my own hacked together version from when the picture first came out in Oct 2017.
Comment: @AndrewO: Thanks for the files. It's nice to know that the 'L cells' are K44s. I also see a recurring pattern of K42s --- between the 'columns' of each L and the left half of  the 'row' of the L immediately to the east-south-east of it; and also between the 'rows' of each L and the bottom half of the column of the L immediately to the north-north-west --- arranged in a triangular lattice structure, and some chains of qubits in long rows and columns as well. I'll try to see if I can either find pegasus.py somewhere to dissect the code, or formalise these observations.
Answer:
How is D-Wave's Pegasus architecture different from the Chimera architecture?

See: "Pegasus: The second connectivity graph for large-scale quantum annealing hardware" (Jan 22 2019), by Nike Dattani (Harvard), Szilard Szalay (Wigner Research Centre), and Nick Chancellor (Durham). Figures were made with their open source software PegasusDraw.

"The 128 qubits of the first commercial quantum annealer (D-Wave One, released in 2011) were connected[by a graph called Chimera (first defined publicly in 2009 [1]), which is rather easy to describe: A 2D array of $K_{4,4}$ graphs, with one 'side' of each $K_{4,4}$ being connected to the same corresponding side on the $K_{4,4}$ cells directly above and below it, and the other side being connected to the same corresponding side on the $K_{4,4}$ cells to the right and left of it (see Figure 1). The qubits can couple to up to 6 other qubits, since each qubit couples to 4 qubits within its $K_{4,4}$ unit cell, and to 2 qubits in the $K_{4,4}$ cells above and below it, or to the left and right of it. All commercial quantum annealers built to date follow this graph connectivity, with just larger and larger numbers of $K_{4,4}$ cells (see Table 1).
  $$\begin{array}{lc}
&\text{Array of }K_{4,4}\text{ cells} & \text{Total # of qubits} \\
\text{D-Wave One} & 4 \times 4 & 128 \\
\text{D-Wave Two} &  8 \times 8 & 512 \\
\text{D-Wave 2X} &  12 \times 12 & 1152 \\
\text{D-Wave 2000Q} &  16 \times 16 & 2048
\end{array}
$$
$$\text{Table I: Chimera graphs in all commercial quantum
annealers to date.}$$
In 2018, D-Wave announced the construction of a (not yet commercial) quantum annealer with a greater connectivity than Chimera offers, and a program (NetworkX) which allows users to generate certain Pegasus graphs. However, no explicit description of the graph connectivity in Pegasus has been published yet, so we have had to apply the process of reverse engineering to determine it, and the following section describes the algorithm we have established for generating Pegasus.
<code>[1]</code> H. Neven, V. S. Denchev, M. Drew-Brook, J. Zhang, W. G. Macready, and G. Rose, NIPS 2009 Demonstration: Binary Classification using Hardware Implementation of Quantum Annealing, Tech. Rep. (2009).

There are a few dozen illustrations in that paper, verified by Kelly Boothby of D-Wave, I don't want to overquote; I believe I've covered the gist of it.
A few points:

Every qubit is associated with 6 indices: (x, y, z, i, j, k).
The degree of the vertices (which is 15) has increased by a factor of 2.5 when compared to the degree of Chimera (which is 6), except the cells at the boundary.
Pegasus' non-planarity expands on the number of binary optimization problems that cannot yet be solved in polynomially time on a D-Wave.
All quadratization gadgets for single cubic terms which require one auxiliary qubit, can be embedded onto Pegasus with no further auxiliary qubits because Pegasus contains $K_4$, which means that all three logical qubits and the auxiliary qubit can be connected in
any way, without any minor-embedding.

See also: "Quadratization in discrete optimization and quantum mechanics", (Jan 14 2019), by Nike Dattani. GitHub source code.


Does keeping an MD5 hash of user data violate GDPR?

Question: If a user requests to have their data deleted, would we still be permitted to keep hashes of user data for later use, even after the original data has been deleted?
Comment: Related: [Is hash of a username still personal data?](https://law.stackexchange.com/q/29755/18215)
Answer: I believe it might be possible, and could also be useful in many cases, as long as the hashes can't be bruteforced easily. In other words, if the user's data cannot be restored or read in any feasible way, then it's not user data anymore. The problem is that in this case it seems a hash can often be reversed by bruteforcing.
For example, if you hash the user's gender that can either be "male" or "female", then you can only have two possible hashes which can easily be reversed by bruteforcing (you just have to try with either "male" or "female"). A hash of the gender is therefore very likely to be considered "personal data". But if you hash all the user's data in a single hash, maybe by concatenating firstname+lastname+gender+age+etcetera and then calculating the hash, then it's going to be harder to reverse it, but how hard? The age is probably just a number between 0 and 100, the email is often email@example.com, lots of first names might be John, lots of last names might be Davis, and so on.
In conclusion, I think that you should only keep the user's data that you really need for legitimate purposes and interests (maybe just the email to avoid another registration in the future, etc.), which should be as little data as possible, and delete everything else. Hashing it is probably a good idea, but I'm afraid hashing can't always be seen as a good excuse to keep all the data you want. It depends.
Answer: When reading the law comments then it is important to recognize that any data is either "user data" or "anonymous data" in a given context. These are distinct categories and any data falls in one of these categories. The same data can fall into different categories for different contexts.
Furthermore it is important to recognize that "pseudonymized data" is "user data".
When you must delete "user data" then you have either to really delete it or you have to anonymize it. Be aware that pseudonymization is not sufficient and that it could be very hard to proof that your data is anonymized and not just pseudonymized.
Unsalted Hashing can be easily reversed using Rainbow-Tables. For MD5 it is often enough to paste the hash into Google. Therefore it is only pseudonymized data. Therefore it is still user data that have to be deleted.


What is the process for developing a test plan?

Question: I'm an experienced tester but I don't have much experience with test planning, and no experience with organized test planning. When trying to create a test plan, I get tripped up by trying to cover every detail and having no idea how to organize it all. How do I start writing a test plan that is designed for decent coverage without getting bogged down attempting to covering every nuance? How do I organize the test cases? How do I analyze a product to guide how a test plan should be organized?
Comment: It depends on business needs and what you are testing. The process will be different if it's a small phone app vs. an enterprise client/server product. Many people/teams have different philosophies around the definition of "decent coverage" and how much documentation is required as a result. This is a difficult question to answer concisely in its current form.
Answer: Frankly speaking, too many test plans are a lot of boilerplate without substantive information. Over the years, I've tried to strip out rote process information entirely or place it in a separate process document and focus on these key items in the test plan document.
(I'll mention here that documenting a test plan is the final step. Most of test planning is the work leading up to the documentation--understanding the requirements and technology and thinking through the topics below with the other members of the development team and the project stakeholders.)
Overview - A general description of the new functionality, the intended user, etc. Trying to provide a context for determining success and asking good questions throughout the process.
Scope - What are you testing and what are you not testing? Again, these topics should be prompts to a good analysis/discussion.  What environments must be tested? What are the priorities of those environments? Are you doing load testing? Are you doing security testing? This is high level stuff-not each use case or user story, but the big chunks of functionality.
Background Documents/resources - links to specs, relevant technical white papers, etc.
Test Environment/Setup - What will be automated and what will be manual?  In which environment(s) will you be testing the code?  Identify needs for test data, test user accounts, etc.
Test scenarios/cases - For us, we keep all our actual test cases in a separate tool -- we use Rally--but this is where you can capture all the scenarios you will be going through as one or two-liners.  It is well-nigh impossible to get everyone to go through all of the step-by-step test cases for even a small project.  But you can get all the stakeholders to sign off on this list.  Be sure to challenge them to think of ways this could fail because if it isn't on this list, it isn't getting tested.  Thoughtful input from the team and sign off on this list is very important.
You should have test scenarios to cover every requirement for the software. If you are in a project with specs and itemized requirements, you should document a traceability between requirements and test case. If your requirements are drawn up in the dirt, your test plan may be the place where your team has the discussion around the itemized requirements for the project.  That isn't ideal, but it happens a lot.
Test Entry/Exit Criteria - This can get a little boilerplate, but it's important to define what it takes to get into and out of QA.
Assumptions - If you have any uncertainties or things you are assuming will be the case for the project, foreground them here so you can discuss them in review.
Answer: To answer this you have to ask a lot of questions. I would start with the following questions.
What is changing?
How significant of a change is it?
How large of an impact will the change have?
How much risk of a defect is in the change?
What is the consequences of a defect in this piece of the code?
Will people be fired if you miss something?
Answer: Before you prepare a test plan, first understand the requirements thoroughly and make up your mindset to see the software in end-user perspective.Then jot down all your requirements to chunks of use cases. With the help of use cases try to create test suites. each test suite having logical value of use cases(The logic will help you strategic the testing).
Think your self how to certify that particular software is having good quality(Objective)? for this prepare list of exit/acceptance criteria. Now to meet those exit criteria what are all required to test gives you entry criteria.
Factorize the end user perspective to design/plan the way you test the software.
If you are able to do all the points said above then We can say Testing is planned.
"The more you understand, more can be measured and more is quality"
Answer: The way test planning is done at Google might be insightful for you as it directly attempts to tackle the issues you're facing.
There's a book that goes into more detail that I personally recommend called How Google Tests Software.
Mostly they focus on describing the three most important dimensions of the product (in the book they further describe how they quickly rank and prioritize the specific the descriptions).

Attributes the adverbs and adjectives that describe the high level concepts testing is meant to ensure. Attributes such as fast, usable,
  secure, accessible and so forth.
Components the nouns that define the major code chunks that comprise the product. These are classes, module names and features of
  the application.
Capabilities the verbs that describe user actions and activities.
Answer: I think most people start by looking at the ISO standard documents for inspiration on how they might implement their own test plan.  Thankfully, such documents exist, otherwise there would be an even wider range of answers to this question.
Comment: I think you have set wrong link. It redirect to some non-useful. Please update link.
Comment: okay..great....
Comment: without going into the discussion of are "software testing standards good or evil" they are not a good starting point for developing a test plan, especially for inexperienced test planner.
He will not find there the answer to "How do I start writing a test plan that is designed for decent coverage without getting bogged down attempting to covering every nuance?"
Comment: @djangofan What evidence do you have that /most/ people use an ISO standard? Do you have /any/ evidence or observations that even a few people or testers use it?
Comment: @ Chris Kenst I bought and used  "ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-3: Test Documentation" once to get some test ideas, but never heard of anyone else doing it
Comment: If anyone else wants to suggest a better idea then please add another reply to the original question.   This question is wide-open for better ideas and criticism of my answer isn't constructive.