In Common Priesthood, what will be our sacrifice?

Question: In Catholicism, we believe every baptized Christian participates in the common priesthood (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1547). A priest offers sacrifice to God. In that case what will be the sacrifice in common priesthood?
Comment: @Geremia -   See article 1547 in the Catholic Catechism http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4T.HTM
Comment: Can you provide a source for your assertion that "In Catholicism […] every baptized Christian participates in the common priesthood"? That sounds more like Protestantism, which denies the ministerial priesthood.
Answer: While it's true that it's the role and prerogative of the ordained priest to offer the sacrifice of Calvary on behalf of the people, the Mass is full of instances showing that it is also the people's Sacrifice (in the context of the Mass, the Sacrifice is Christ's once-for-all Sacrifice, mingled together, or rather offered together, for the greatest effect, the sacrifice(s) of believers consciously united with His): what makes the ordained priest unique is the exclusive ability to confect the Eucharist, something laity cannot ever do, in addition to his right as priest to perform the Sacraments (excepting Baptism and Matrimony, only a priest can perform the Sacraments technically speaking).
A representative example of this concept of the 'united effort' of priest as leader, and laity as united with him as their representative head, is found in the old Latin Rite (essentially Mass in the West for most people for most centuries in the history of the Western part of the Church, up to around 60 years ago and the introduction of the new Mass, with slightly different wording): "Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours [ut meum ac vestrum sacrificium] may be acceptible to God the Father Almighty."
In this sense, laity, all believers, are also priests!
Except you perhaps mean outside the context of the Mass (the Sacrifice).
The priesthood of all believers refers to the fact that offering to God in sacrifice is inherently and historically a priestly act (and not only within Christianity). It is in this context that our prayers and personal penances, good works, and anything which can be "offered up" to God, essentially, is viewed as sacrifice.

Hebrews 13:10-16 (DRB) We have an altar, whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle. 11 For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the holies by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. 12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people by his own blood, suffered without the gate. 13 Let us go forth therefore to him without the camp, bearing his reproach. 14 For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come. 15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise always to God, that is to say, the fruit of lips confessing to his name. 16 And do not forget to do good, and to impart; for by such sacrifices God's favour is obtained.
Answer: Ministerial priesthood ≠ "common priesthood" of all the baptized.
Pope Pius XII's encyclical Mediator Dei §83 condemns those who think there is only one priesthood common to all the baptized:

For there are today, Venerable Brethren, those who, approximating to errors long since condemned* teach that in the New Testament by the word "priesthood" is meant only that priesthood which applies to all who have been baptized; and hold that the command by which Christ gave power to His apostles at the Last Supper to do what He Himself had done, applies directly to the entire Christian Church, and that thence, and thence only, arises the hierarchical priesthood. Hence they assert that the people are possessed of a true priestly power, while the priest only acts in virtue of an office committed to him by the community. Wherefore, they look on the eucharistic sacrifice as a "concelebration," in the literal meaning of that term, and consider it more fitting that priests should "concelebrate" with the people present than that they should offer the sacrifice privately when the people are absent.

[…] Hence, he [the priest] goes to the altar as the minister of Christ, inferior to Christ but superior to the people.† The people, on the other hand, since they in no sense represent the divine Redeemer and are not mediator between themselves and God, can in no way possess the sacerdotal power (iure sacerdotali).

All this has the certitude of faith. However, it must also be said that the faithful do offer the divine Victim, though in a different sense (diversa ratione).

*Cf. Council of Trent, Sess. 23. c. 4.†Cf. Saint Robert Bellarmine, De Missa, 2, c.4.

Thus, only ordained priests, by perpetuating Christ's sacrifice throughout the ages in the Holy Mass, offer Himself to God the Father.
cf. ch. 6 (PDF pp. 23-31) of Vatican II preparatory commission's De Ecclesia
Laity's sacrifices are united to the priest's sacrifice of Our Lord.
Pope Pius XI's encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor explains that laypeople are to offer sacrifice "in much the same manner as every [ordained, ministerial] priest":

[…] Nor do those [i.e., ministerial priests] only enjoy a participation in this mystic priesthood and in the office of satisfying and sacrificing, whom our Pontiff Christ Jesus uses as His ministers to offer up the clean oblation to God's Name in every place from the rising of the sun to the going down (Malachias i, 11), but the whole Christian people rightly called by the Prince of the Apostles "a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood" (1 Peter ii, 9), ought to offer for sins both for itself and for all mankind (Cf. Hebrews v, 3), in much the same manner [haud aliter propemodum] as every priest and pontiff "taken from among men, is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God" (Hebrews v, 1).

He continues by explaining how all the baptized's sacrifices are united to the priest's:

But the more perfectly that our oblation and sacrifice corresponds to the sacrifice of Our Lord, that is to say, the more perfectly we have immolated our love and our desires and have crucified our flesh by that mystic crucifixion of which the Apostle speaks, the more abundant fruits of that propitiation and expiation shall we receive for ourselves and for others. For there is a wondrous and close union of all the faithful with Christ, such as that which prevails between the head and the other members[…]

See also part 2, ch. 31, § "How to Unite Ourselves to the Eucharistic Sacrifice" of The Three Ages of the Interior Life: Prelude of Eternal Life by Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
Comment: So you're asserting that there is no difference between priests who have "holy orders" and believers (the whole Christian people)?  Whould other Roman Catholics agree with you?
Comment: @SLM The quote from Pope Pius XI's encyclical states it consists in making sure oneself "corresponds to the sacrifice of Our Lord", which consists in "immolat[ing] our love and our desires and hav[ing] crucified our flesh of which the Apostle speaks" in [Romans 6:4-5](http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/s?b=drl&q=Romans+6%3A4-5), [Galatians 5:24](http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/s?b=drl&q=Galatians+5%3A24), [2 Peter 1:4](http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/s?b=drl&q=2+Peter+1%3A4), etc.
Comment: @SLM What makes you think I'm asserting that?
Comment: Your bolded parts seem to imply no difference between priests and believers.  "the whole people"... "same manner as every priest".  So it appears there is no distinction between the "common priest" and "priest with holy orders".  Please clarify.
Comment: @SLM The Pope is most likely (definitely) referring to what I describe in my post than that the priesthood is superfluous. After all, "in much the same manner" precludes the notion that he is saying what you said.
Comment: I'll just admit I don't see the difference in the answers between what an ordained priest and common priest are doing in offering a sacrifice, although I understand Catholics do believe there is a difference.
Comment: @SolaGratia See the quote from Pius XII's encyclical that I added to my answer.
Comment: @SLM In addition to the baptismal character, an ordained priest also has been imprinted by another character (*characterem*) of the Sacrament of Orders; "a character is imprinted which can neither be effaced nor taken away" ([Council of Trent, Sess. 23. c. 4](http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds2.v.i.i.x.html#v.i.i.x-p2.5)).
Comment: "... the whole Christian people rightly called by the Prince of the Apostles "a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood" (1 Peter ii, 9), ought to offer for sins both for itself and for all mankind (Cf. Hebrews v, 3), in much the same manner [haud aliter propemodum] as every priest "  Again, from the outside POV, that sounds exactly the same for an RC ordained priest and a common priest (believer).  Can you clarify that?  What offering for sin is efficacious besides Christ's sacrifice?  Does RC teach that other religions have the ability to offer acceptable sacrifices?  Call it confusing.
Comment: Apparently, that is what the OP is asking.  What efficacious sacrifice for sins does a believer offer?  So far, there is no answer IMO.
Answer: We don't offer our sacrifice solely in that sense. We offer the sacrifice of Jesus.

The sacrifice of Jesus "for the sins of the whole world"416 expresses
  his loving communion with the Father. "The Father loves me, because I
  lay down my life", said the Lord, "[for] I do as the Father has
  commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. C606

For example: in divine mercy chaplet we pray:

Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of
  Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our
  sins and those of the whole world.

and with this prayer we can say:
in unity with my sacrifice(fasting, this prayer, etc.) through Mary's unblemished hands and the Divine Heart of Jesus I offer this for here-say-your-intention...
Here is also a prayer similar to the Chaplet of divine mercy.
Comment: The answer is perfect, Can you project the Divine Mercy prayer at the Foot of the Cross? St.John represent the "Holy Order" and the other Mary's as the "universal priesthood", the ministerial & universal priesthood must offer it in the Maternal Hands of Mary the Mother of baptismal and ministerial priesthood and Mary will be the one to offer Jesus sacrifice to the Eternal Father. This is the Highest form of the Holy Mass, higher than TLM.


Can I not delete own post on SO that has an answer?

Question: I have asked my technical question on stack overflow. I got satisfactory answers. Now I found that my question is duplicated by topic, so I want to delete it. But since it has an answer, I'm not able to delete it. Why so? Then how do people get badges like peer pressure/cleanup?
Answer: First off, your question being a duplicate is not a good reason to delete it. Your question being a bad question in general is a good reason to delete it (presuming you're not willing to fix it). If your question is merely a duplicate, it will be closed as such and serve as a "signpost" allowing users with a similar search to find your question, which will direct them to the duplicated question.
As you stated, you received satisfactory answers and therefore deleting it yourself doesn't serve justice to those who took the time to answer your question. One user having the power to delete the entire question and all of its answers simply because they're the one that asked isn't fair to anyone.
As for the badges, most people probably earn Peer Pressure on answers, realizing that it was wrong after receiving several downvotes. The Cleanup badge has nothing to do with deleting posts at all.
Answer: You cannot delete it because there are too many answers, people have responded to your request. If someone has asked a question and others have contributed answers which have been deemed valuable by the community, you can't delete the question because that would delete those valuable answers too.
If you really need it deleted for some reason I would suggest flagging it for moderator attention and explaining your rationale for needing it deleted.


Trading when you work for a market participant

Question: I work in the IT department at a Futures FCM. While I'm aware that there are insider trading rules with respect to our company stock, I'm still not clear on what it means for my own participation in the market. I don't have enough capital to buy and sell futures through the company I work for (we only take >$1 million USD accounts). And I would like to start trading on my own. Is it legal for me to open my own account with another broker and make trades?
Comment: Keep in mind that insider trading is only one of the possible bad things employees might do. You could also front run your employers customers, given advanced knowledge of the trades being executed. For this reason your company probably publishes a policy on who's restricted and what those restrictions are.
Comment: I do have access to production data albeit delayed or limited. So that is where my main concern about it comes from. I can see individual positions of clients in the futures contracts.
Answer: Ask someone in Human Resources. I seriously doubt you are the first person to ask this question for their company and they should be more than happy to help.
Comment: HR will likely refer OP to legal, still no problem as long as you follow their advice.
Answer: There is normally a policy at the organisation that would restrict trades or allow trades under certain conditions. This would be in accordance with the current regulations as well as Institutions own ethical standards.
Typical I have seen is that Technology roles are to extent not considered sensitive, ie the employees in this job function normally do not access sensitive data [unless your role is analyst or production support]. An employee in exempt roles are allowed to trade in securities directly with other broker or invest in broad based Mutual Funds or engage a portfolio management services from a reputed organisation.
It is irrelevant that your company only deals with amounts > 1 Million, infact if you were to know what stock the one million is going into, you may buy it slightly earlier and when the company places the large order, the stock  typically moves upwards slightly, enough for you to make some good money. That is Not allowed.
But its best you get hold of a document that would layout the do' and don't in your organisation. All such organisation are mandated to have a written policy in this regard.
Comment: My company only does ADR's for stocks. And the 1 million was a reference to the fact that I can't just get an account with my company because they only deal with institutional speculators/hedgers so I don't have enough money. It is primarly Futures contracts and OTC derivatives. From what I have read on the web only stocks are considered insider trading not futures markets. I have sent emails to people in my company to find out for sure. I just wanted to gauge what people had experience with.


Traffic density data source

Question: Data: I am looking for traffic density for a given place, preferably averaged over a given area for the last year. Traffic density is defined as the number of vehicles per unit length of the roadway.
Context: We're building an non-profit application that lets a user choose a city to live based on multiple factors, including traffic density. My assumption is that critical traffic density, that leads to traffic congestion, has impact both on commute time and quality of neighborhood. For instance, this is traffic density map from TomTom Traffic Index. I placed arrows to show cities with high, medium and low congestion at the moment:

Region: This is for large and small cities and villages only in Poland, Europe.
License: This will be a non-profit application and we're building only a MVP, so at this stage we don't want to invest any money. Any free for non-commercial use license would be good.
Format: . It can be both structured (e.g. via JSON, CSV file or API) or not well-structured source. I am not afraid of screenscraping. Preferably, that should be a source we can query on regular, but not necessarily frequent basic (yearly) to update our estimates.
Authority: I do not have limitations here. Most of the data providers in this domain comes from anonymous GPS devices and are collected through routing applications like TomTom or Google Maps.
Answer: This might be related to what you are looking for:
CalTrans has a release of data on the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) Volumes.
More information could be found here.
Comment: Thank you, but this seems only for California. In gives me, however, some directions where to search.

Traffic density data source


Is it only the ground state of the quantum harmonic oscillator that has the minimum uncertainty product?

Question: We know that the uncertainty product of general states is bounded by the inequality described by Heisenberg's uncertainty relation. And the ground state of the quantum harmonic oscillator falls under the minimum uncertainty product ($\frac{\hbar}{2}$). Do the excited states of QHO have also the minimum uncertainty product or higher?
Comment: Gaussian wavepacket has the minimum uncertainty product . Evidently the ground state eigenfunction of QHO is Gaussian. Secondly for a general eigenstate of QHO :
$ \Delta x \Delta p = (n + \frac{1}{2})h $
Comment: Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/60655/2451 and links therein.
Comment: @Qmechanic: So the general answer is "squeezed coherent states", while for the balanced situation (when we also require $\Delta p =\Delta x$) the answer is "coherent states".
Answer: I agree with Lubos that the $n$th excited state of the harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian $H= x^2 + p^2$ does not minimize $\Delta x \Delta p$, only its ground state does. However, I have to  disagree with him a bit that only states of the form
$$ \psi(x) = A \cdot \exp \left( -a x^2 + b \right)
$$
minimize this. Let $\psi_n(x)$ denote the $n$th excited state of the Harmonic oscillator (with $\psi_0$ being the ground state), then for any $\alpha$ nonzero complex parameter define the state
$$ \phi_\alpha (x)= e^{-\tfrac{1}{2}|\alpha|} \sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{\alpha^n}{\sqrt{n!}} \psi_n (x).$$
These are the so-called coherent states (they are states of form $A \cdot e^{-a(x-d)^2 + icx}$ - with $a,c,d$ depending on $\alpha$) and they also minimize
$\Delta x \Delta p$. In fact they are the only states (together with $\psi_0$) that minimize this product in a balanced way i.e. with $\Delta x =\Delta p$.
Edit. The links in Qmechanic's link (see comment section) are very useful, and answer fully the question: the most general states that minimize  $\Delta x \Delta p$, without the requiring $\Delta x =\Delta p$, are the squeezed coherent states.
Comment: $a$ and $b$ could be complex in Lubos's answer.
Answer: Excited states of the harmonic oscillators don't minimize the product: both $\Delta x$ and $\Delta p$ scale like $\sqrt{E}\sim \sqrt{N+1/2}$ in the $N$-th excited state (just realize that $H$ is a combination of $p^2$ and $x^2$ whose expectation values we are computing to get $\Delta x$ and $\Delta p$) so it is only minimized for $N=0$.
The most general wave function that minimizes the product is a Gaussian
$$ \psi(x) = A\cdot \exp(-ax^2+b) $$
for some constants $A,a,b$ where $a$ has to be real, I guess. This generalizes the ground state of the harmonic oscillator by a "squeezing" (given by the constant $a$) in the $x$-space that is equivalent to the "expanding" in the $p$-space; by translation in the $x$-direction given by the real part of $b$; and translation in the $p$ direction given by the imaginary part of $b$. The normalization constant $A$ is arbitrary – or has to be calculated if you want a wave function normalized to one.


Allow hitting tab to go to Vote to Close button in Vote to Close dialog

Question: Right now, if you Vote to Close a question, and select one of the reasons (say Not Constructive) you need to manually press the Vote to Close button by taking your mouse to it and pressing.
Could we have it tabbed instead? So that I can select the option, and hit tab followed by enter.
Right now, hitting tab takes me to the search bar, and then the links on the SO page below the dialog in the expected order.
EDIT: Going through the flag review que, I've also noticed the same behavior when flagging as Invalid Flag or Not an Answer etc. However, hitting tab works perfectly when adding a custom message using the Other option. I'm asking for the same behavior to be applied to the options without a text box as well.
Answer: status-completed? It's possible. But if there's anything in the tab navigation "path" in between, such as a link in a flag reason's description, you will need to tab past those first.


Smart Contracts on Bitcoin's blockchain

Question: Will projects build on top of Ethereum's blockchain be able to transit to Bitcoin's blockchain when the smart contract platform is up and running?
Comment: what do you want to transit?
Comment: What smart contract platform? This sounds like it should be posted on Ethereum.stackexchange
Answer: I would like to explain a bit the smart contract situation in bitcoin, as a "smart contract platform" is not a fixed wording in bitcoin world.  As such your question is not clear. Bitcoin already has smart contracts. A good summary was provided by Andrew Poelstra here.
When you mention Ethereum, then usually solidity is used, which is "turing complete". People tend to state, that only turing complete machines are "real smart contracts". This is opinion based... Bitcoin has no plans to implement turing complete language, at least not directly. There is the concept of "Bitcoin Simplicity", and it's worthwhile to read the discussion thread in bitcointalk. There is also a link to the Simplicity white paper.
Another development is going into side chains, like this.
A whitepaper for descreet log contracts is presented here.

Will projects build on top of Ethereum's blockchain be able to transit
  to Bitcoin's blockchain when the smart contract platform is up and
  running?

At the current point in time, it is not visible, that people are working on making bitcoin compatible with ethereum smart contracts. It looks more like bitcoin devs are heading in a different direction, to avoid the problems of smart contracts with turing complete machines. When reading through the threads, you'll see how deep the politics are involved on this...
Comment: Thanks for your reply and for all the references. On twitter, Diego Gutierrez, founder and CEO of Rootstock, replyed on the exact same question I made here: "The platform is already running, any #Solidity application can be almost seamlessly ported and run with a transactional cost of 3.5 cents USD, we're also working on a bridge so tokens can be moved back and forth between Ethereums and RSK" Reference: https://twitter.com/dieguito/status/967003785653637121

Smart Contracts on Bitcoin's blockchain


Can I have two pressure tanks on my system?

Question: I have a 3000 gallon water storage tank that my 4 inch well pump (800 feet down) fills up and the water tank then gravity feeds about 5 feet into a shallow well pump that pumps water into a 60 gallon pressure pump about one foot away.  The pressure pump sends water to the house about 300 feet through one-inch pvc pipe into the house.  The shallow well pump and pressure tank are located inside my pump house.  The water pressure inside the house is OK but I would like it to be much higher than it is.  Can I cut into my one-inch water line right before it goes into the house and install a second pressure tank and then connect the out pipe to the water line going into the house and if so, will it raise the water pressure substantially so that the showers have more pressure and etc. or would I have to install another shallow well pump before the second pressure tank or am I wasting time and money on all of the above. I can live with it the way it is but it would be nice to have greater water pressure coming out of my spigots and shower heads.  Thanks for any advice.
Comment: Pictures and current pressure settings/readings  (as the system goes through a pump cycle on the use side) would be helpful here.
Comment: Are the house and the pump house at the same level, or is there a slope between the two?
Answer: That sounds like an overly complicated setup with far more pumps than it should need. Or else you said pump when you meant tank in two places, actually, re-reading it.
In short, you can have as many pressure tanks as you like. Locating them closer to the point of use (the house) would be helpful, to a limited extent. That limited extent is the "effective volume" of the pressure tank at the house - while it's got pressure, you get better pressure at the house. As soon as it runs out of water and you become dependent on the pump, the pressure loss of the 300 feet of 1" PVC to the house comes into play, until you slow down your water use to the point where the pressure tank at the house fills up again.
If you do not change the setpoint pressure, the peak water pressure in the house will not be affected at all. Once the pressure tank at the house is depleted, the pressure will be the same as it is now. If you have a pressure gauge at the house now (or can add one) it might be useful to know the pressure at the house when "loads of interest" (showers, say) are drawing water.
Most pump controls can be altered to have a higher setpoint pressure, and most well pumps will provide that, within reason. General recommendations are to stay below 80 PSI - but if you are now running your pump on at 20 off at 40 (a typical default) you could turn it up to on at 30 off at 50, or on at 40 off at 60 - you will need to adjust your pressure tank (and any you may choose to add) for the higher pressure, particularly if they are bladder-type tanks - with the system drained, a bladder tank should typically be 2 PSI less than the low water pressure setpoint (ie, 18, 28, or 38 for the three ranges I've just given) and you may need additional pressure tank volume (because the effective volume of water a pressure tank can hold goes down as the system pressure goes up.) So, you can probably get more pressure without another pump, and possibly without another tank, but we'd need more details of what your system is doing now to know that for certain.
Unless your water use is extreme, 300 feet of 1" PVC pipe should not have a lot of effect on the pressure - at 5 gallons per minute, about 2.2 PSI - at 10GPM, 8.2PSI, 15 GPM, 17.4 psi
Comment: "The pressure pump sends water to the house about 300 feet through one-inch pvc pipe into the house." - What if the pump's in the house, *pulling* on 300' of pipe... and there's square elbows? https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/283936/what-should-be-changed-in-this-well-source-residential-water-system-to-prevent-f
Answer: Because the output of your 3000 gallon tank is gravity fed. Get a Grundfos MQ pressure boosting pump. No external pressure tank, switch etc needed.  It's built to turn on as soon as you open your faucet. We are using one in a similar situation and are very happy with it.
http://us.grundfos.com/products/find-product/mq.html


Is a sitemap always needed when designing a microsite?

Question: I'm managing the design and development of a microsite that will sit on a subdomain. It will only consist of 5 pages so is a sitemap needed? I would expect the answer is no, but wanted to know if people had any good practice guidelines.
Comment: What sort of sitemap are you referring to? One that's prepared as part of the site IA documentation? One that's a link in the site to show the hierarchy or do you mean the sitemap.xml file itself?
Answer: It's worthwhile creating a sitemap that's part of the IA documentation. You'll find that a microsite is always a few pages bigger than expected. This includes Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy, Response pages and Landing Pages if part of a campaign. It's also a useful negotiating tool if client has signed off on a project and wants to add more content.
As far as sitemap.xml is concerned, someone else will have to answer that question!
Comment: I always include a sitemap, or a flow, for multi-screen projects. It seems like overkill, but you'd be surprised how often it forestalls objections from stakeholders or developers.
Answer: If you mean publishing a sitemap page for the users to use it, IMO it's only needed when the navigation is not clear enough.
Comment: +1. I totally agree with this statement. If you think you have to add a sitemap to your site, it means you are doing something wrong.
Answer: I would think no, not always needed.  Particulars broken down by audience:

For the sake of the page builders, content creators: no, not needed for 5 pages.  You would likely just list these out in other documentation (or be creating the pages yourself).
For the sake of the end users: no, it just becomes an extra link with little value, and is possibly confusing.
For SEO: I'm guessing it wouldn't hurt, but not sure of the value. As long as it's a sitemap.xml file, and not in the navigation to confuse users, that is.
Answer: If the site structure is essentially flat and there is a link to every page from every other page (often the case with microsites that have no second level navigation) you probably don't need to provide users with a sitemap. The main navigation provides the same information.
If, however, there is a second level of hierarchy and those second level pages cannot be reached directly from every other page (i.e. you have to go to a particular section before you can see the sub-navigation for that section) there is often benefit in providing a sitemap from an accessibility point of view. A sitemap provides an alternative method of navigation (WCAG SC 2.4.5 requires multiple methods of navigation) and also gives a very useful overview of content and structure.
Answer: I'd say, it depends:
For the first few of your microsites ever designed: yes.
For the rest: not necessarily.
The thing is that creating the sitemap for a five-page-long site takes less time than what you took in writing this question. If it was your 100th microsite, perhaps you wouldn't ask it on the first place.
You need to learn to do things properly first, then you can go the easy route, as otherwise, it's easy to underestimate each task. I usually tell youngsters that it's better to overshoot first than to underdeliver.


Canon 60D Live View mode Not taking picture

Question: I have looked through some articles on how to shoot in live view mode on 60D. Sometime when I try to focus on a specific point (by moving the focus rectangle on the screen to that point and press the trigger half wat), the dot will blink in red and will not take any pictures. Most articles that I found only teach you how to focus on either one of the 9 points but didn't mention anything about this issue. My guess is the camera doesn't have enough light to focus on that point (But this happens under daylight). Waht's the cause and is it possible to work around this?
Comment: What happens if you set the focus switch on the lens to Manual focus? Does it take a picture in live view mode then? Also, what happens if you have the lens focus switch set to auto focus, and then change the focus rectangle, but try taking a photo when not in Live View?
Answer: Live view mode uses contrast detection to achieve focus. This means that if you try and focus on an area with low contrast, it can have trouble focusing. You can either switch to manual focusing (and zoom the LCD view to help achieve sharp focus), or move the point to an area with good contrast (ie an area with a dark area next to a light area).


Content types not updating from the hub.

Question: We have a web application for Intranet. Inside this web application I have created a site collection for content type hub, and the Intranet is on the root site collection.
Until recently I could easily update the content type hub, i.e. add new site columns to a content type, and they would be synchronized down to the root site, but that is not working anymore.
I have tried all the steps as mentioned here, http://morg.nl/2011/11/content-type-hub-not-working-possible-causes/,  including disabling\enabling the timer jobs for content type hub.
I have some other site collections in the web-application also, but I have no issue synchronizing the content types to these site collections. The only difference between these site collections and the root site is that the content typed are used in lists on the root-site collection.
This is not making any sense to me at all. We use SharePoint 2013 on - premise.
Please advice.
Answer: You need to carefully examine the ulslogs. And post back here with findings, otherwise it is total guess work.
Comment: I found no error in "Content Type publishing error log". I just and recreated everything. So it works now, so far,,,


Screen won't rotate in any apps on my Nexus 6

Question: So, quite some time ago I upgraded my Nexus 6 to Android 6.0.1. At that time, my screen rotation worked fine. A few days ago, I noticed I couldn't rotate the screen in Snapchat or on other social media apps. Even things like YouTube wouldn't rotate automatically. I know the hardware is working fine because there are readings from the gyroscope sensor and the screen breath's when its picked up or moved too much. Any one have any idea?
Comment: I don't think Gyroscope sensor is used for orientation. See [Which hardware sensors are supported by Android?](http://android.stackexchange.com/a/29221)
Answer: Just download accelerometer monitor app from Google play, and literally slap the back of the phone kinda hard. It has fixed many others! Source : reddit
Comment: Please link the source


Rename [soundcloud] to [soundcloud-api]

Question: Following Reach out to SoundCloud about outsourcing their support to Stack Overflow and that recent questions are mostly off topic for Stack Overflow (since Dec 16, 4 out 8 questions are closed or downvoted), I believe that the name of the tag should be changed from soundcloud to soundcloud-api so it makes more obvious that questions are about the API, and not SoundCloud in general.
Answer: Same could be said about facebook, android, iphone, windows, wordpress, google-maps, etc...
I don't think it needs to be explicitly changed because no matter how someone chooses to interpret the tag the scope of on-topic questions doesn't change.
If it's not "obvious" to the person that they are on a "site for professional and enthusiast programmers" then the wording of a tag probably won't change their mind.
Comment: This answer fails to address the fact that I see way too many questions tagged [soundcloud][api]. The same problem happens in your other examples, such as [google-maps][api].
Comment: @Laurel - I feel that your point might have more to say about the [api] tag rather than soundcloud or google-maps
Comment: I've been spending a lot of time getting rid of [api] tags. There's still ~45k questions with the tag, so any other avenue of reducing new tagging is helpful (this q is similar to one I was proposing as a step towards killing [api]). I also don't have enough votes to close all the off topic [api] questions.

Rename [soundcloud] to [soundcloud-api]


Do I need a multiple entry visa to go from Abu Dhabi to Jeddah for my Manila flight?

Question: I am Filipino. I work in Saudi Arabia and I have a single exit re-entry visa. I'll be going to Abu Dhabi (UAE) from Jeddah, for a week. I'll be coming back to Jeddah for my flight to the Philippines. I have 2 hours and 50 minutes between my time of arrival at 9 pm and the 11:50 pm flight to Manila, Philippines. Do I need to get a multiple visa?
Comment: Did you book a single itinerary from AUH-MNL or separate tickets?
Answer: You don't need a visa if you meet these requirements:

Passengers transiting through Dammam (DMM), Jeddah (JED) or Riyadh
  (RUH) with a confirmed onward ticket for a flight to a third country
  within 12 hours. They must stay in the international transit area of
  the airport and have documents required for the next destination.

Source: Timatic


How does elevation affect a tower's ability to attack?

Question: Is there any way to tell whether a tower will be able to attack enemies at a particular point?  I find myself confused by all the various stairs, ledges, etc, and while the area of effect overlay seems to ignore elevation, I'm not sure that is accurate.  Is it just a matter of having line of sight, meaning I could "test" it by standing where I would place the tower and determining whether I can see the point in question?  Or are there also limits on how far up or down towers can attack?
Answer: Two towers, Deadly strike and lightning towers can shoot through walls while others, like the fireball tower, magic missile, and squire harpoon cannot. The projectiles, when they hit a wall, will not continue through and thus cause no damage to the mobs.
Line of sight does play into the game for some of the maps, but all of the huntress traps, and monk auras have a spherical area of damage.
Comment: also, the squire's bowling ball tower works best if the ball is rolling downhill
Comment: also, projectile towers, like Harpoon, etc. can shoot through other *towers*.
Comment: All towers shoot through other defences. The game tells you that.
Answer: With towers like the Fireball, where it shows you an area of effect, there is a vertical limit to how far above and below the tower it can fire. It shows that in the area of effect, however, and it's pretty big. Place a tower on the roof on The Ramparts and move it around, paying attention to the ground next to the roof. As you move the tower up the roof, you will notice at some point that, even though the ground would still easily be within the area of effect, it is no longer green. (Note that you might need to have a decent number of points in tower range for this experiment to work.)
So there is a limit, but it's easily noticeable when placing a tower in game. Still, a Fireball tower can't shoot through walls or floors, so line of sight is important.
Comment: Except on maps like Endless Spires, towers near the two southern crystals on the edge won't show the 'area of influence' on the bottom path, yet it'll still attack mobs.


Where was the "garden of Eden" located?

Question: According to biblical tradition, where was the garden of Eden located? The garden of Eden being the earthly paradise where God placed Adam and Eve.
Comment: Considering he used the tag "bible", I assume he means the Biblical location rather than the location according to Mormons or even modern Christians. The triadic "folklore, legend or myth" does seem a bit imprecise, but I think that's an accident of language choice and not intent.
Comment: The answer to this question really depends on who you ask. For example, [Mormons believe that Eden was located in America](http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Garden_of_Eden_in_Missouri). Other Christians who I've talked to believe that Eden was located near the Tigris and Euphrates. Still others believe that the garden of Eden doesn't have a location, at least one that corresponds to a current day map. Until you narrow this question down (possibly by giving a clear definition of what you mean by "folklore, legend, or myth"), this question isn't going to be answerable.
Comment: @C.M.Weimer You are on the right track!
Answer: The second book of Genesis (or Bereshit in Hebrew) contains the passage:

A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

(Genesis 2.10-14)
This is geographically impossible. The Tigris and the Euphrates, for example, which, by the way, did not merge in ancient times, were in Mesopotamia, while Kush is south of Egypt.
Tigris and Euphrates:

Kush:

Havilah appears to be south in Arabia:

They settled from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt in the direction of Assyria. He settled over against all his kinsmen.

(Genesis 25.18)
The only place plausibly in the mind of the author has to be on the west side of the Fertile Crescent, likely Israel itself, with the rivers being some sort of conceptual boundary for the outer reaches of the land and not the garden itself. Then again, it's myth, so the location, as usual, is imprecise.
Interestingly, "paradise" in earlier Mesopotamian literature is called Dilmun and was equally precise, with vague terms indicating "east" (like "where the sun rises") that probably were not meant to be taken literally. Albright (1922) noted that in general this area attached a paradise-like conception to "the east".
Sources:
Albright, W. F. 1922. "The Location of the Garden of Eden." American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 39.1: 15–31.
Howard-Carter, Theresa 1987. "Dilmun: At Sea or Not at Sea? A Review Article." Journal of Cuneiform Studies 39.1: 54–117.
Answer: This question needs to be answered from the perspective of the likely intent of the author and in light of what the term Eden meant in the times before and up to the period when the story was written (in my view probably 9th-7th centuries BCE, though perhaps somewhat later).
We must first recognize that, in the Eden story itself, the term "Eden" refers to the desolate/arid geographical region within which Yahweh both (a) created the man and (b) planted the garden (Gen 2.8: "a garden in Eden"). So looking simply and specifically for a region that could be characterized by paradise garden would be (so to speak) barking up the wrong tree. There is a Western Semitic root (ʽdn), used for example in Ugarit, meaning lush or luxuriant upon which the author may have drawn in part when deciding how to name the Garden, but this gives us nothing about the garden's location. (If anything, the linguistics would imply Syria, which does not appear consistent with the description in Gen 2:10-14.) Looking to Mesopotamia is more fruitful.
In Mesopotamia the term referred to a dry plain (Sumerian (edin) and Akkadian (edinu), including between rivers; the more attested term in Akkadian was seru, which was a translation of the same, pronounced as seru but written with almost the same Cuneiform sign as the Sumerian. Akkadian was still the lingua franca of the region, but scholars debate whether an educated scribe in Judah such as the author of the Eden story would have been familiar with this word; but he did properly use it to refer to an arid area.... In any event, this information, together with that provided by the author in Genesis 2.10-14, suggests a location generally within Mesopotamia, perhaps between the Tigris and Euphrates. Frankly, having reviewed the various attempts to be more precise, I've seen that they all have serious problems and that none of them has gained traction among scholars. So I don't think we can be more precise than what I've described here, and more significantly I doubt that the author intended any greater precision; probably he was deliberately not specific: He said only that Eden was "in the East" and that the 4 rivers flowed out of there (Gen 2:8). But we don't know where "there" is, i.e., the location from which they are said to flow. Identifying the names of the rivers only brings us to somewhere in Mesopotamia, which gets us no further than what I've mentioned above. The somewhat fashionable hypothesis of the garden of Eden as referring to a lush area that now lies under the Persian Gulf (inspired in part by the Dilmun myth) runs aground against the biblical text: (a) as mentioned, our author said that "Eden" is actually an hostile, arid geographical region; (b) the Hebrew word used for "garden" in the story (gan) means a fairly small, artificial garden (usually enclosed by walls), way too small to be a climactic area; and (c) our author said that the rivers split and flow from the garden in Eden, not into it as would be the case with the mouth of what is now the Persian Gulf.
I think the description of the 4 rivers flowing from an unspecified point on Mesopotamian territory needs to be read mythologically, rather than as an attempt to be geographically specific. As mentioned, creation on earth began in a desolate Eden, signifying a  kind of primordial chaos (only desert rather than waters) onto which the order of creation was imposed. By having Yahweh form the first human and the first plants (i.e., the Garden) there, he made the Garden the center of creation and the original center of the earth, which makes it a holy place, which is why Yahweh had his presence there. It is a Center in the sense meant by Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell (Eliade and Sullivan; Eliade; Campbell), where primordial chaos was transformed into the order of creation, which is why it is sacred. The 4 rivers flowing from that spot symbolize the Garden as that Center, and also helps explain how the rest of the earth (originally barren  outside of the Garden) became fertile and full of life. The imagery of the Center is further enhanced by the 2 sacred trees being there.
Finally, I should mention that in choosing the term Eden the author may have been making a secondary allusion to Beth Eden mentioned elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (Amos 1:5; 2 Kings 19:12; Isaiah 37:2). This was an Aramaic kingdom on the banks of the upper Euphrates in Syria (so no dry steppe here). Its name in Aramaic (bit-adini) means "House of Eden," with adini being the family name of the ruling dynasty (cf. "House of David"). By the time the Eden story was written, Assyria had taken over Beth Eden, and was using it as a launching base from which to invade Syria-Palestine. Thus, the author may have been employing "Eden," on the one hand, to allude to the military, cultural, and pagan religious threat coming from Assyria/eastern Syria at the time, while on the other hand as an ideal place (i.e., Israel, land of milk and honey) arising from within and being threatened by this surrounding hostile cultural and religious environment. (The Eden story was, after all, in significant part a polemic against "foreign" pagan religion.) From this perspective, Israel was viewed as the ideal Center of the world, and more specifically Jerusalem itself, especially its Temple (George and George, pp. 121-24).
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Further details are contained in my book about the mythology behind the Garden of Eden story, below.
Sources:
Joseph Campbell. The Mythic Image. New York: MJF Books, 1974, pp. 184-207.
Mircea Eliade. The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991, pp. 12-17.
Mircea Eliade and Lawrence Sullivan. "Center of the World," Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 3, pp. 166-71.
Arthur George and Elena George. The Mythology of Eden. Lanham, Maryland: Hamilton Books, 2014, pp. 100-24.
Comment: In terms of the symbol of Eden being at the "center": this kind of imagery is comparable to the symbolism of quatra-partitioning in Mesoamerica, the saying "all roads lead to Rome," the four cardinal directions, etc. etc. (You probably already know this -- I'm just mentioning this for other readers).
Answer: I commend to your attention www.ldolphin.org/eden for a look at the theories of Dr.Juris Karins, of Southwest Missouri State University, in Springfield. [Other data on Dr. Karins' far reaching archaeological work in the region was published in the September, 1983, edition of SMITHSONIAN Magazine.]
Dr. Karins believes that "Eden" had come into being at roughly 6,000 BC, when the world's sea-levels were considerably lower, because the so-called "Great Ice Age" had locked up vast amounts of water. Essentially, the Persian Gulf was at that time dry land forming an extended delta.
"Eden" was located to the east of Bahrain, close by where what are now called the Wadi Rinah and Wadi Batin (which were the remains of the "fossil river" called the Pison.)  The course of the Pison had been conclusively proven by  LANDSAT.
Somewhat to the east had flowed the Euphrates, and to the north flowed the Tigris. The 4th river, the Karun, is the one that had been falsely identified by sloppy translating during the creation of the King James Bible as the "Gush," or "Kush." This mistake greatly confused the issue by throwing out a "red herring" in the form of the false reference to Ethiopia.
The archaeological evidence supposedly supported the theory that Biblical events in "Eden" had been vague references to interactions or conflicts between "pioneering" farmer-peoples and older hunter-gatherers. The dynamics of this clash purportedly came down to Old Testament writers in the form of the expulsion of an "Adam & Eve" faction from the "Eden" region.
The presumed conditions in "Eden" were certainly attractive, with alluvial (flood) plains from four major rivers converging in a river-valley. The theoretical Eden climate would have been warmer than normal for the region, due to the four large rivers feeding into the area, which had also provided extremely rich soil. Conditions were reportedly very similar to what was found in Egypt, following the annual Nile floods.
Answer: I have written two books on the subject in 2010, (1) The Garden of Eden Myth: Its Pre-biblical Origin in Mesopotamian Myths and (2) Eden's Serpent: Its Mesopotamian Origin, both available at Amazon.com on the internet. So where is the garden of Eden? To answer this question I used a different approach, compared to other Eden searchers. They tended to seek Eden by locating its four rivers. My approach was to ask the question, "Are their other accounts about Eden in other myths?" If so, perhaps a study of these myths might provide a clue to the garden's location? I discovered that the Sumerians had myths about a location they called EDIN. EDIN is uncultivated desert-like wilderness waste land, in today's modern Iraq. According to the Hebrews Eden means "delight," apparently the Hebrews being unfamiliar with this Sumerian word, mistakenly equated it with Hebrew Eden. Thus a wilderness desert wasteland became a "delightful place." The Sumerian myths have the gods creating man of EDIN's clay and then placing him in the EDIN to wander its animal trails with wild animals for companions. Man is a beast in the early myths of Sumer, he is portrayed roaming about on all fours, hairy, and naked. His companions are naked hairy beasts, like them, he eats grass, they are wild cattle and antelopes. Naked man in EDIN has no knowledge about good or evil, for he unaware in EDIN that it is wrong to be naked. Only the gods of Sumer know of good and evil, for only they wear clothing. Eventually the gods take man from his beasts and replaces them with a woman for a companion. She persuades him to leave EDIN. When they leave EDIN they both are clothed, in other words EDIN's naked man and naked woman leave EDIN clothed for Uruk (Enkidu and Shamhat in the Epic of Gilgamesh). The Sumerian account for how man came to lose at a chance to obtain immortality is called Adapa and the South Wind Myth. Adapa is warned by his god, Ea of Eridu "Don't eat the bread of death you will die!" When Adapa is offered the bread of life by Ningishizda and Dumuzid on Anu's behalf, Adapa, refuses to consume what he believes is the bread of death. I understand that as God is portrayed as warning Adam and Eve DON'T EAT, YOU WILL DIE, and the same warning is given Adapa by Ea at Eridu, that Eridu is the site of the Garden in Eden, at least in pre-biblical Sumerian myths. IN reality Genesis' garden in Eden is a fusion of several sites in Mesopotamian myths. Besides Eridu where the warning was issued YOU WILL DIE IF YOU EAT, there is Anu's heavenly abode where the food of death is to be offered, and the waterhole in EDIN the desert wilderness 3 days from Uruk, where Enkidu (Asam) meets Shamhat (Eve). So behind the Bible's garden in Eden, are, three locations: (1) Eridu where is found the command Don't Eat, (2) Anu's heavenly abode were forbidden food is offered, and (3) the Edin's waterhole, 3 days in the wildernesss from Uruk where Enkidu met Shamhat. The Hunter that brought Shamhat to Edin's water hole told her to seduce Enkidu, allow him to have sex with her, strip naked for him. When he tires of sleeping with her for 6 days and nights and attempts top return to his beastly companions they flee from him. He returns to Shamhat as accepts her as his new companion. She encourages him to leave EDIN and reside at Uruk and become the friend of Gilgamesh. The Hebrews are repudiating the Sumerian myths about how man was created in a place called EDIN. The Sumerians agree with the Hebrews man is a sinner, but why differs. The gods are portrayed as indulging in all of the vices of mankind: murder, incest, lying, conning, raping, sex with animals, homosexual sex, etc. Man, made in the sinner-gods image can be no different. The Hebrews objected to this being why man is a sinner. Their god lives in a place called EDEN, not EDIN, and their god is righteous and just, and ethical, not a sinner-god, and man, is expected to be righteous and ethical being made in God's image. Enkidu's sleeping with Shamhat for 6 days and nights was recast as Adam awaking from sleep to behold a naked Eve at his side. THe HUnter who brought Shamhat to replace Enkidus' animal companions with herself and emove him from EDIN was recast as Yahweh-Elohim introduing Eve to Adam who replaces Adam's animal companions. My website, www.bibleorigins.net also deals with this subject in addition to my afore mentioned books.
Answer: According to the following article, the garden was located in Africa .
Garden of Eden in Africa: Humanity's first home traced to Botswana
Comment: This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient [reputation](https://mythology.stackexchange.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to [comment on any post](https://mythology.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment); instead, [provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/214173/why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead). - [From Review](/review/late-answers/8078)

Where was the "garden of Eden" located?


Modern Warfare 3 keeps freezing on PS3

Question: So here I am getting ready to play some good 'ol MW3. I put the game disc in, load up multiplayer and select a game mode. I enter a match, play for a while, and then BAM. MW3 freezes. I mean freezes my whole console. I press the PlayStation button and it doesn't bring up the screen. I need help. I don't want to end up buying a new MW3 or PS3. I hope someone can tell me the problem with this. Thanks.
Answer: I had the same thing happen.  At first it was once out of every 5 or so games and it got worse until eventually we couldn't get thru a game without it either giveing a "disc read error" or freezing the system completely.  We did all of the recommendations in the previous posts.  I cleaned the disc, I deleted add-ons, I tried whatever recommendations I could find.  I even took the disc into gamestop and they said it looked fine and there was no noticeable damage on the surface of the disc.  Since nothing else worked, I sent the disc back to Activision for a replacement.  It cost $20 to replace the disc if the game is no longer under warranty but that was cheaper than buying new so sent it back.  We got the replacement and it works perfectly.
Answer: Two things come to mind, clean your disc.  I use a mild soap and hot water, only wiping from the center out in straight lines (not circular) and make sure it's really dry before you put it in.  Second make sure your PS3 is not overheating.  It should have at least 10-12 inches on all sides and possibly an intercooler or fan if your ambient temperature is warm.
HTH
Answer: I've had a similar thing happen on my PS3 with Fallout: New Vegas. Go through your system and delete games and saves that you don't play anymore. If it continues to freeze, delete the game and re-install/re-update it.
Also to add to what d34dhor53 was saying, if you do feel like your PS3 is overheating you could go a step further and either blow the dust out of it, or use a vacuum to suck it all up, or both. A dusty (inside) PS3 will heat up faster and get hotter then a nice clean one, and that can affect performance.

Modern Warfare 3 keeps freezing on PS3


Did people in the Star Wars galaxy know about the Sith during the original trilogy?

Question: How well known were the Sith among the general population of the Galaxy Far, Far Away during the events of the original trilogy?
Answer: I was a kid when the original film came out. Somehow, pre-Internet, my brother and I knew the "baddie" as Darth Vader, Dark Lord Of The Sith. For me, my older brother was the Internet, and often knew stuff from magazines and books he had read, so I may have picked up the Sith title from him.
Then there's this from the screenplay, available in countless places online:

"Revised Fourth Draft January 15, 1976
LUCASFILM LTD.
...
INTERIOR: REBEL BLOCKADE RUNNER -- MAIN HALLWAY.
The awesome, seven-foot-tall Dark Lord of the Sith makes his way
  into the blinding light of the main passageway."

As far as we know, the Sith did exist then (even if Lucas hadn't formally thought of them) because he injects them into the universe later on, but as for the subject of whether or not characters in the first film knew, all we have is that a small number knew about the Dark Side of the Force, but beyond that, it's bound to be conjecture.
Comment: Shucks.  I recently found out that the out of universe Imperial March was retconned into an in universe "Sith Anthem", which later became the official Imperial Marching song, and I was wondering why people didn't worry about the fact that their military had adopted a Sith anthem as their official march. I wasn't sure if they did recognize the connection, but it didn't matter because they were already enslaved, all the Jedi were dead (as far as anyone knew), and the Emperor didn't have to hide his allegiances any more.
Comment: Note that the phrase "The dark lord of the Sith", in reference to Vader, appeared on the 1980 vinyl-record abridgment *The Empire Strikes Back: The Adventures of Luke Skywalker*. It can be heard at 9:30 and 38:47 (and possibly other times) [in this YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XL9OEqmGfk&feature=youtu.be&t=38m47s).
Answer: In-universe, the word "Sith" was well-known even if its exact meaning wasn't. Four thousand years before the events of the original trilogy, there was a galaxy-wide conflict known as "The Great Sith War", which was essentially the armies of the Jedi & Old Republic against the armies of the Sith Empire.
As for the time of the original trilogy, most people thought of "Sith" as simply some kind of evil Jedi. It was not widely known that the Emperor was a Sith, but as you stated, Vader was a different story. So, for the average person in that galaxy far, far away, Darth Vader - who was a common sight on the HoloNet and in Imperial propaganda - was essentially the "face" of the Sith.


Small world, spider's web, when lava conquers, does it give victory points at the end?

Question: When using the Lava special power from the Spider's Web expansion, do spaces with lava count as 'occupied' to score victory points?  Or do they just count as a 'defense' until your next turn?
Answer: The rules for Lava state

At the end of your turn, for each Mountain Region you occupy, you may
  place 1 Lava Token in any Region adjacent to that Mountain Region
  (excluding Regions protected by Special and Racial Powers). All tokens
  in this Region are taken in hand by the defeated player and treated as
  if the Region were conquered (except there is no loss of tokens). The
  Region may not be entered by any other player until after the
  beginning of your next turn. At the beginning of your next turn,
  remove all Lava Tokens from the board and proceed as usual.

So the Lava tokens are not conquering the regions, they are simply treating the defending tokens as if they were conquered.  Therefore you would not score points for those regions.
Comment: OK, that's how I was leaning toward interpreting it, but wanted another to verify for me.  Thanks


What materials are used to build a military runway?

Question: What type of matrix should be used on a military runway used by C130 aircraft?
Comment: Asphalt, concrete, dirt, sand, snow, ice... C-130 is pretty versatile.
Comment: Same as the one you use for civilian runway. Military does not change the physics.
Comment: Related: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/19313/how-heavy-is-too-heavy-to-land-on-a-grass-strip/19335#19335
Comment: @vasin1987 Military aircraft are more commonly designed to deal with less-improved runways than civilian aircraft, especially in the case of military transport aircraft, which are frequently designed to be able to land on and take off from makeshift grass strips in the middle of a war zone or ice fields in Greenland or Antarctica.
Answer: I believe C-130 was designed to be operated from unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings. One of the reasons for India to buy it and deploy it to forward operating base.
Answer: Depends. Dirt runways can be prepared through dust control by water.
Diego Garcia has been at least since the seventies had the coral reefs mined for aggregate.
Keep in mind that the matrix doesn't have to be high quality, it just has to last until the anticipated end of the war without excessive maintenance costs.


Curl in Php - Google Analytics Api

Question: i downloaded and extracted Google Api for php and try to retrieve data from Google Analytics.
when i install google api , i recognize that i have to install the extension 'CURL'.
i made a research about it and i activate it from php.ini and install needed dll's
despite all of this i doesnt works.
i take the error below

actually there is a file named 'apiClient.php' and in apiClient.php  there are a few lines that  check CURL is activated or not.
<code>if (! function_exists('curl_init')) {
  throw new Exception('Google PHP API Client requires the CURL PHP extension');
}
</code>
is there anything that i miss ? What is the problem ? How can i activate CURL?
Answer: Restarting apache is the solution :)

Curl in Php - Google Analytics Api


Resetting usb device from terminal

Question: I am using a USB IR Toy v2 and using this excellent https://github.com/crleblanc/PyIrToy python library to get it working after failing to get things going with LIRC.
However, while it works once, repeated usage results in failure because of some sort of "buffer underrun" as detailed by the developer here https://github.com/crleblanc/PyIrToy/issues/2. Since the only solution seems is to perform a replug, can't we use a dirty hack of programatically reset (equivalent to manual unplugging and replugging) the /dev/ttyACM0 device.
Answer: I had an error with a printer doing this occationally.  I found an answer back then on an Ubuntu (also Debian basded) forum.
<code>$ cc usbreset.c -o usbreset
$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0fe9:9010 DVICO
$ chmod +x usbreset
$ sudo ./usbreset /dev/bus/usb/002/003
</code>
Comment: where did you get `usbreset.c` from?
Comment: @lenik you can get usbreset from - http://marc.info/?l=linux-usb&m=121459435621262&w=2
Comment: I already tried that but it errors : `./usbreset /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1.3/
Error opening output file: Is a directory
`
Or
` ./usbreset /dev/ttyACM0
Resetting USB device /dev/ttyACM0
Error in ioctl: Invalid argument
`
Comment: Looks like they beat me to it.  That's exactly where I got it from.
Answer: <code>#!/usr/bin/python
from usb.core import find as finddev
dev = finddev(idVendor=0x1234, idProduct=0x5678)
dev.reset()
</code>
Comment: In future do not post duplicate answers the system flags these and they will be deleted. Rather you should flag the older one as a duplicate and a moderator will close one and link to the other.

Resetting usb device from terminal


Need advice on buying a landscape lens

Question: My camera is Canon 6D Mk 2 (full frame). I already have Canon 24–70 mm f/4 and Tamron 70–210 mm f/4 lenses and I'm planning to get a landscape lens in the range of 10–24 mm. I want to shoot astro photos and normal landscape photos as well. I am leaning towards a f/2.8 lens due to the interest in astro photography. I liked what I saw in Tamron 15–30 mm f/2.8 but it needs external filter kit which is expensive. Canon 16–35 mm f/4 again looks decent, but f/4 is worrying me due to my interest in astro photography. Can anyone help me to sort this out? I am open to other brands out of Canon as well. I loved my Tamron 70-210mm.
Comment: I would suggest that you rent a couple of different lenses to see if the focal lenghts are what you are expecting for the type photography that you want to do.
Answer: Astrophotography
The popular astrophotography lenses for full-frame cameras have typically been the 14mm Samyang/Rokinon lenses.  Those are completely manual lenses.  For astrophotography that's not an issue since you can't use auto-focus on stars anyway.  These used to be f/2.8, but they now make an f/2.4 version as well.
Astrophotography and Landscape
For a more general purpose ultra-wide lens, Sigma makes a 14mm f/1.8 Art lens.  It's a bit more expensive (around $1600 USD), but it is does have auto-focus & aperture -- and it is an f/1.8 lens.  Since you plan to use the lens for daytime landscape as well as nighttime astrophotography, having auto-focus & aperture makes it a bit more versatile.  (This would probably be my personal choice if I were to buy a new lens today.)
Thoughts & Consideration
The Samyang/Rokinon lenses used to have a somewhat common quality issue with "de-centered" optics (I use quotes because I suspect it may be non-orthogonal optics).  In any lens, the field isn't actually "flat".  There's some field curvature and that means if you achieve your best focus at the center of frame then inspect the corners, you'll notice the corners aren't quite as sharp as the center ... but each corner will be about the same as any other corner.  On some Samyang/Rokinon copies, some corners were noticeably worse than others.  It's been a few years and they may have (hopefully) corrected the quality issus.  If you do decide to go for Samyang/Rokinon, give the lens a test when it arrives to make sure you have a good copy.
When doing astrophotography, some photographers pick a star about 1/3rd of the way into the frame to use for focus ... instead of a star in the center.  This somewhat helps to average the focus quality across the frame so the corners don't look as soft (the center isn't as tack-sharp, but the corners aren't nearly so obviously soft).  Also, Stopping down slightly will help dramatically with coma and astigmatism.
Tilt-Shift (Landscape)
I would be remiss if I didn't mention tilt-shift lenses.  These are lenses that are especially versatile for landscape (and architecture but you are interested in landscape).  The lenses allow you to change the plane of focus so it isn't orthogonal to the optical axis of the lens.  Here's why that can be helpful.
Suppose it's a rather breezy day and you'd like to capture a field of flowers.  But the flowers are blowing in the wind.  This means you'll need a fast shutter speed to avoid them being blurred.  But you find that when you try to use a fast shutter speed, you have to open up the aperture and now the depth of field wont let you get sharp focus across the entire field from near to far.
A tilt shift lens, would let you tilt the focal plane to match the field while still letting you shoot with a wide aperture so you can use a fast shutter speed -- freezing the action and getting sharp focus from front to back with no motion blur.
These are completely manual lenses, tend to be expensive, and have a bit of a learning curve to understand and master how to use the tilt feature.
These lenses don't have any advantages for astrophotography, but since you primarily asked about a landscape lens, I wouldn't feel an answer is complete without at least mentioning them and when/why they are useful.
Answer: What kinds of filters will you be using?
The Sigma ART 14-24 f2.8 performs exceptionally for wide angle landscape astrophotography, though it can't take regular filters due to its bulbous front element.
Files captured using the Sigma are remarkably sharp, and exhibit a very acceptable level of coma distortion in the extreme corners. The lens maintains straight lines impressively well for such a wide field of view. The barrel distortion is well controlled, and can be mitigated even further using lens corrections in post-processing.
I personally compared its performance in the field to the Canon 24-70 f2.8 mark ii as well as the Canon 70-200 f2.8 mark ii, and am continually impressed by the Sigma.
Comment: am contemplating in between Sigma ART 14-24 f2.8 (1500-1600 AUD) and tamron 16-30 f2.8 (1400-1500 AUD). both have filter issues due to the bulbous front element. Sigma doesn't have IS.
Comment: At wider focal lengths (both of then zoom lenses you mentioned), image stabilization isn't that important.

It becomes incredibly helpful in the range of 50-70 onward to the super telephoto end, especially when shooting handheld.

If you are primarily using this lens for astrophotography and landscape, I imagine you'd be using a tripod?

If you are indeed shooting on a tripod, it'd be better for image stabilization (if your lens has it) to be turned off.

Need advice on buying a landscape lens


Nivmagus Elemental interactions with nivix cyclops, guttersnipe, and young pyromancer

Question: if I exile a spell with Nivmagus Elemental, will the spell still cause the abilities of Nivix Cyclops, Guttersnipe and Young Pyromancer to trigger?
Answer: Yes. All of your examples trigger when you cast a spell. They happen whether that spell resolves or not.
I have seen multiple EDH decks built specifically around cards such as those and Cipher, where the intent is to exile spells with Nivmagus whenever you don't really need them.
Answer: The question doesn't make any sense because the casting of the spell and therefore the triggering of Nivix Cyclops's ability happens before you even have a chance to activate Nivmagus Elemental's ability.
Nivmagus Elemental's ability requires that the spell already exist on the stack, which means it requires that the spell must already have been created through casting or copying before it can be activated, which means Nivix Cyclops's ability would already have been triggered and would already have been placed on the stack by the time you can use Nivmagus Elemental's ability. In fact, you can even let Nivix Cyclops's ability resolve before you activate Nivmagus Elemental's.
Nivmagus Elemental's ability won't rewrite history so Nivix Cyclops never triggered, and it won't remove Nivix Cyclops's ability from the stack. As such, it won't stop Nivix Cyclops's ability from resolving.
Comment: "ability happens you have a chance" - I think you missed a word!
Comment: @Jonathan Hobbs, Fixed.
Answer: Yes, because you cannot exile the spell with Nivmagus Elemental until the triggered abilities have already been placed on the stack (and if you want, resolved).
From the comprehensive rules:
As soon as you cast the spell (pay costs, select targets, place the spell on the stack) the triggered abilities are placed on the stack.

601.2h Once the steps described in 601.2a-g are completed, the spell becomes cast. Any abilities that trigger when a spell is cast or put
  onto the stack trigger at this time. If the spell's controller had
  priority before casting it, he or she gets priority.

Steps 601.2a-g have been omitted and involve selecting legal targets and paying costs for the spell.
After the spell and triggered abilities are on the stack & you get priority back (either by already having it, or having your opponent pass it to you). You can then activate Nivmagus Elemental's ability. Because the triggered abilities are already on the stack they will resolve even though the spell that triggered them does not resolve.


Tide on the Moon

Question: If the Earth's Moon had a water ocean of depth 2-4 Km, how high would the tides rise due to the Earth's gravity? (Just a hypothetical question.)
Comment: What do you mean by tides? Since our moon is tidally locked to the Earth, and thus Earth tides on moon will be stationary with respect to its surface (this is not 100% true since its orbit is slightly elliptical, which cause [libration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration)).
Comment: Slightly extending that question: What about tidal influence due to the sun? If the moon is locked to the Earth, it should experience tidal forces due to the changing distance to the sun.
Comment: The Sun's distance would not greatly affect tides, but its position would, as the Moon is **not** tidally locked to the Sun as it is to Earth. While the affect of the Earth would be rather consistent and may not qualify to the Earthlike concept of tides, the Moon would have Earthlike tides caused by the Sun, though perhaps not as pronounced - something which the current answers seem to have overlooked.
Answer: The tide would be locked in place, roughly, because the Moon always shows the same side to the Earth (tidally locked). But the height of the water at the location facing the Earth and the opposite side should be greater than the mean height, and at the limb, as we see it, the height will be lower than the mean but by half the magnitude of the high tide.
Imagine installing a pipe with cross-section 1 cm$^2$ from the top of the ocean at its high point down to the center of the moon and then back up to the top of the ocean at a point where the net tidal field from the Earth is 0.  Fill it with water until one side is equal with the water level on one side and its level on the other side will automatically be equal to the water level there.  The weights of the water on both sides need to be equal if it is static.   For now, we will ignore that g changes when one gets deep into the moon. Therefore, roughly speaking $\rho$gh should be the same in both sections of the pipe, and:
$$
\rho(g_M - g_t)(h_t + r_M) = \rho g_M r_M
$$
where $g_t$ is tidal acceleration
$$
  g_t(Moon) = 2\frac{GM_Er_M}{d^3}.
$$
Subscript M means Moon and E means Earth and d is the separation between the Earth and Moon.  Solving for h$_t$ gives:
$$
h_t = \frac{g_tr_M}{g_M - g_t} \sim \frac{g_t}{g_M}r_M
$$
We could substitute values in here, but if we do this in comparison with the height of the tide on the Earth, 54 cm, we cancel out some of the error in the approximation and get an even simpler formula, namely,
$$
\frac{h_t(Moon)}{h_t(Earth)} = \frac{M_E}{M_M} \frac{g_E}{g_M} \Big(\frac{r_M}{r_E}\Big)^2
$$
The mass of the Earth is 81.3 time greater, the acceleration at the surface of the Moon is 1/6.25 of Earth's g force, and the diameter of the Moon is 0.2725 of the Earth.  So, that is 81.3*6.25*.2725$^2$ = 37.7 time higher than the Earth's tide or 37.7*54 cm = 20.4 meters.  Note that the height of the ocean does not matter as long as it is considerably more than 20 meters.
On the other hand, the water would begin boiling since it is at 0 pressure until a water atmosphere is created, but the moon is too small to hold an atmosphere for long and the whole ocean would be gone in a while.
Comment: The height of the water relatively to what, to which level standard?
Comment: Well, relative to "sea level", of course.  Sea level would be the level that the top of the water would reach with no external gravity source, if the entire body were covered in water.   That is, if there were no earth nearby the moon.
Answer: There would be a tide of approximately 28 days due to centrifuge effect,the water being free flowing,about the mid point centre of gravity of the 2 masses.
Our tides are monthly but appear daily due to earth 24hr rotation.Variation in sub-marine land masses and ocean baison cross flow have sub tidal effect that can lag or lead the moon phased tide.On a water depth of 2-4km it may,as an independent body, go towards the outside of the rotational system leaving one side dry so to speak.

Tide on the Moon


Mass Deleting Scheduled and Sent Mailings, Drafts, etc

Question: DB has grown so huge and it started to cause problems with sending mass mailings. I want to delete old mass mailings, the sent ones and the drafts, etc. Is there away to do it in one click instead of deleting each and everyone individually?
Comment: How many mailings/what's the size? Are you sure it's the cause of the issue?
Answer: This does not exist in the UI currently. However, it does seem like a good idea to have a script that deletes OR archives mailings that are greater than N months / years old. So i'd recommend writing a api job that does the needful.
Approx steps would be:
a. Create a new delete/archive mailing job taking parameters like list of ids or mailing delivered before date XXX
b. Check and ensure that the mailing delete api deletes all the right tables. Most of the deletion is done by mysql via cascaded relationships. At a quick glance, the api delete does not seem to handle file attachments
c. Use the API from item b to implement the scheduled job
Please do share your extension so others can benefit
Comment: An extension to do exactly this is here: https://github.com/jitendrapurohit/nz.co.fuzion.deleteoldbulkmailings
Thanks jitendra!
Comment: Good idea, i was thinking about this and worried about what might break.
Comment: Oh, good find @AlanDixon! I'm going to test that extension. Perhaps they can make an official release soon.
Answer: You can try this extension Delete Old Bulk Mailings for CiviCRM (https://github.com/jitendrapurohit/nz.co.fuzion.deleteoldbulkmailings) which provides some new API calls.
You can either use the API in a script or you can use the command line tool cv (https://github.com/civicrm/cv). The README provides some good examples on how to use it.
Answer: I don't think it is likely that old mailings would cause troubles with sending a CiviMail. They would use up disk space which would likely manifest other problems when disk space ran low or was exhausted.
It's more likely that a problem sending a mass mailing is due to growth in your list size, and that sending to more recipients is causing your server to run out of memory. Can you describe the symptoms of the problems you are having when sending?
It's still going to be a good idea to create ways to deal conveniently with continual growth of disk space by old mailings.
If it turns out the issue is RAM usage for sending CiviMails, then you can tune the throttling of sending.
Certain email integrations may also be implemented to send a CiviMail by sending a single email for delivery to a synchronised list held on an external server, which would offload from your CiviCRM server virtually all of the load of sending. But I'm not confident about this. It's not true of our Mandrill extension but could be true of the MailChimp or Constant Contact ones. I don't think it is true of the CiviSMTP service.
Comment: Here's a caveat: a client is getting timeout errors when trying to schedule a mailing, let alone sending the mailing. So this isn't about sending but (I think) with the size of the recipient table and the size of the group. This is where removing old mailings can help.
Answer: I like this idea. For reference, one of my bigger installs has the following sizes of the 4 biggest files in mysql (in MB). So removing the corresponding activities (or maybe only some of the associations) is probably a good idea also.
<code>110592  civicrm_mailing_event_delivered.ibd
151552  civicrm_mailing_recipients.ibd
188420  civicrm_activity_contact.ibd
266240  civicrm_mailing_event_queue.ibd
</code>
Comment: Did you get anywhere with this?


Is it possible for two identical waveforms to have different spectrograms?

Question: Is it possible for two identical waveforms to have different spectrograms ? I am rookie in this field so please pardon if something is wrong with this question.
Answer: A waveform is a period of superimposition of all the frequencies involved, each of which can be deconstructed into sine waves. Therefore a waveform will always represent those frequencies, theoretically. If the waveform is cut or sampled too short, some lower frequencies might be excluded.
It is possible however to have different waveforms represent near-identical spectrums. This is because a waveform can be deconstructed into not only harmonics but the phase angles of harmonics, and spectrograms do not indicate phase angles. Interestingly, sometimes this can alter the timbre of the sound.
A great visual is this part of a video on Additive synthesis; it shows how a Saw wave is constructed with many harmonics from the beginning (0 degrees of phase), therefore using different phases will not result in a Saw wave, but still maintain the spectrum.
Answer: If two waveforms are strictly identical, it means they represent the same signal, and the spectrograms of these two signals will also be identical.
So the answer is : no.
Answer: Mathematically, converting a waveform (based on a signal changing with time elapsing) to a spectrum is called a fourier transform and the reverse operation (not surpringly) is called an inverse-fourier transform. So, you create a spectrum from the time elapsing signal and then you do in inverse and you theoretically get back to the same time elapsing waveform.
Every rise/fall or undulation in the timebased waveform has a precise meaning and value in the frequency spectrum - they are mathematically locked-in to each other.
Answer: Without respect to the frequency axis scale, two waveforms may look identical. Only if the frequency is the same for both waveforms you will see the same spectrogram.
On the other hand, since a spectrogram shows the absolute amplitude as intensity you can get nearly identical spectrograms from different waveforms (though you should be able to spot more or less vague harmonic changes, i.e. changes elsewhere than the fundamental frequency)


How to get a darker sound on Tenor Saxophone

Question: I currently play on a Cannonball Sceptyr Tenor sax, an Otto Link STM 7 and Vardoren Java Green box reeds. The sound is not what I am looking for as it is too bright and not that classy, warm, jazzy sound. What are some good ways to warm/darken up the sound?
Answer: In general any metal mouthpiece is going to be more strident than a rubber one.   All the same, I would hesitate to give specific advice without observing you "live."  It may well be that you are playing with an excessively tight embouchure and/or reeds stiffer than you can easily control, for example.
If you can get some sax teacher to work w/ you, that will help.
The other easy thing to do is go to a music store and play a few other brands/models of tenors with your existing mouthpiece and reed, and see if they come closer to the sound you are attempting.
Answer: Practice lots of long tones and slurs. Almost all successful jazz sax players practically only play long tones during practice time to work on their tone. I also would suggest playing with different shapings of your embouchure to see if you can find the tone you are looking for. Don't think too much about the instrument you are playing with.
The best musician can make a $10 instrument sound like a work of art.
A practice that I do on wind instruments is closing my eyes and visualizing a deep red while I play, my elementary school teacher had our band do this exercise to help the younger less experienced players focus on their tone and realize if they were out of tune, but I find that it helps in creating a rich tone, and have requested that each ensemble, even vocal, that I preform in to do this exercise, and I have found great success in doing so.
Answer: Moving up a size in reeds will give you a less strident sound. If your reed is too soft, the sound you'll get is going to be brighter.  Try switching to a french filed reed, such as Java Reds, since those will also play a little warmer because of their cut.
A rubber mouthpiece, like the Morgan Excaliber or Jody Jazz, will also give you a darker, slightly more breathy tone, especially if you go for a bigger tip opening.  The metal mouthpieces tend to be much brighter.
There are many different things that could be going on with embouchure, air flow and support, but without seeing/hearing you play, it's difficult to diagnose.  I recommend sitting down with someone in person and having them help you solve some of those issues.
Answer: Its is impossible because is it not a synth. you can only have "1" sound in THIS saxophone. Exactly like a piano or a college flûte.


Why do LED lights with a dimmer stay dim and won't go bright again?

Question: I have a chandelier with five lamps. I brought an LED compatible dimmer and changed out the switch for the dimmer.
I brought five dimable LED bulbs.
The bulbs and dimmer worked for a little while, but then the bulbs stayed dim when the dimmer was bright up to full brightness.
It's like the bulb now remembers only the dimmed setting.
If I take the bulb and put it in a circuit without a dimmer it still does not go bright?
I have tried a selection of dimable LEDs from three different manufacturers and they all went dim and stayed dim.
What is going on here?
How can I get the lights to go bright again?
Comment: Once you replace the dimmer, the low output LEDs will get bright again.
Answer: There is a fight going on between your dimmer and your lights, and the dimmer lost.
One of the (too many) bits of electronics in your dimmer died.
Dimming is not as easy as it seems it should be, well, dimming without huge size, weight and heat.
In dimming led's, you are turning them on and off, fast, really fast, hundreds (or more) times a second fast.
For each of the on/off cycle, there are parts having to do work in the dimmer. Everytime electronics turn on, they make heat. Heat is the fastest way to kill electronics.
Your dimmer likely died in its really dim setting, and simply is not going to change.
Dimmer is gone - wants to be replaced
Answer: Unfortunately, Some Guy is right in that your dimmer and LED lamps are squabbling over some electrons; apparently your lamps are the losers in this case, though.
The cure, though, is the same -- replace the dimmer with one that's designed for dimming LED replacement lamps (Lutron has a dedicated line for CFL and LED-retrofit loads, at least -- check around).


Why did the anime stop having ending songs since episode 279?

Question: Since episode 279, the One Piece anime doesn't have ending songs. Instead, it has long openings: almost 3 minutes, instead of the usual 1:30 openings.
What was the reason for this change?
Comment: Do you watch online broadcasts?
Because if so, They are in most cases cut the extensions of the ending's for unknown reason.
Comment: I made a [meta](http://meta.anime.stackexchange.com/questions/150/why-did-they-write-it-that-way-questions-should-be-off-topic) about these kind of questions. Due to the reasons outlined there I'm voting to close, since I don't believe this question is answerable. Any answers will just be speculation.
Comment: I don't, I was talking about the original japanese broadcast.
Comment: I think actually this kind of questions should have place. Since a quick search on Google don't throw an answer, I come here to ask if other people had found something related or have some kind of information, I'm not asking for speculations but for reasoned answers.
Answer: I don't think any official explanations were given (I tried to search but there are only speculations).
I think the most probable reason is the fact that when you're watching broadcasts on TV, as soon as the ending theme song pops up you change to another channel. Almost nobody watches the ending credits/openings and this is true also for other things. Think about when you go to the movies: when the credits starts rolling, is there someone that will stay sit there? Maybe, but that's quite rare. Same for movies on TV, you usually change it because... you really don't care, unless you need to look up some actor/character in those rare occasions.
For this reason, and I'm quite convinced this is the case, they cut the ending theme song, made the opening longer and put the credits there instead. More people are likely to watch it, not just those that like the song, but also once you get to the channel, you're less likely to change it just because it hasn't started yet.
Along with the recap, this makes the "opening part" much longer, even cutting from the usual ~24 minutes of actual episode time.
Answer: There could be lots of reasons they did that, the most logical being that it was a production decision, they'll rather pay royalties or have one song made than two, less time and money spent on one 3 min song than two shorter ones.
Answer: It's to increase ads revenue and reduce production cost at the same time.
Historically, this happened at the same time when the timeslot for One Piece on Fuji TV was moved from Sunday 19:00 JST (Golden Time, the Japanese equivalent to prime time) to Sunday 9:30 JST (Local Sales Time -- timeslot for procuring program sponsors at each broadcast stations [Japanese Wikipedia]) on October 2006. The reason for moving the timeslot was said due to the removal of anime timeslot during Golden Time and replaced by variety shows instead (in-effect until now).
It also went into some structural changes:

Before episode 279: OP (1:50) - sponsor (10s) - CM - A part - CM - B part - ED (1:10) - preview (30s) - sponsor (10s). Total time beside main content and CM = 3:50 minutes
Episode 279-283 (morning timeslot, no ED): OP (1:50) - sponsor (10s) - CM - A part - CM - sponsor (10s) - B part - Mugiwara Gekijou (extra from manga, 2:45-4:25) - preview (30s) - end card (5s). Total time beside main content and CM = 2:45 + extra = 5:30++ minutes
Episode 284-now: OP (2:30) - sponsor (10s) - CM - A part - CM - sponsor (10s) - B part - preview (30s) - end card (5s). Total time beside main content and CM = 3:25 minutes

However, since the duration of the main content (A & B part) didn't change, the remaining time was added for CM. Also, since the ED removal, the main part starts around 9:35:40, so there were around 3:10 minutes of CM (minus the OP) before the viewers can enjoy the story. It's also said that the CM between A & B part was also lengthened to more than 3 minutes.
The reason why the duration of the CM was increased was said that it's harder to receive sponsorship on morning timeslot compared to Golden Time (less viewer → fewer ads revenue)

Source:

Japanese Wikipedia
Yahoo! Chiebukuro (Japanese): 1, 2, 3, 4
Answer: They simply wanted to change things up because One Piece had been on the air for so long. The theme songs are meant to be catchy little jingles by famous artists in Japan. One Piece had  basically surpassed a whole generation of people, so there is really no need for two anymore.
They need a longer opening sequence to either re-familiarize long term viewers or new ones who hadn't seen the first 500 episodes. One Piece started simulcasting around "Thriller Bark" arc, as mentioned most people don't sit around to watch. Maybe if it was on actual Japanese TV where there's another show they want to watch next, but not with simulcasting.
And finally, there had been too much filler, so they tested out a huge anniversary opening before making this change. During this anniversary event, they remade the classic "We Are" song, animated all the cover stories. This marked the beginning of the change and there hasn't been an ED since. The way opening and ending credits are handled is also 100% artistic.
Take Supernatural for instance, whose opening credits basically consist of what happened so far mixed with music in a huge montage of previous episodes then throwing you right into the action, or sleepy hollow whose opening credits don't happen until 15 minutes into the episode.
The whole thing is practicality and art. There's no actual rules that say this is how OP and ED should go. As long as the actors are credited, that's all that matters.
I suggest you look up some different shows and see how OP and ED are handled, like some different ones.
You'd be surprised how versatile it all is, especially in other countries (such as Korean dramas, which don't technically have OP and ED as far as i can tell)


What are the differences between alluvial, eluvial and colluvial deposits?

Question: There's always confusion and disagreement when these terms are mentioned. Need to be sure of their exact meanings.
Answer: Your question is almost a duplicate of What is the difference between eluvium and alluvium?, but you also ask about colluvial deposits. The accepted answer for that question references this convenient guide from the Australian Museum, which also covers colluvial deposits:

Alluvial: Detrital material which is transported by a river and usually deposited along the river's pathway, either in the riverbed itself or on its floodplain.
Colluvial: Weathered material transported by gravity action such as on scree slopes.
Eluvial: Weathered material still at or near its point of formation.


When did the first Dramatis Personae appear outside of theatre?

Question: According to the Wikipedia article about Dramatis Personae, Dramatis Personae began in plays and later moved into the other forms of literature. This led me to ask: When did Dramatis Personae first appear in a work of literature that was not a play?
Comment: I might have started something here ;)
Answer: The first edition of Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady (1748) by Samuel Richardson begins with:

A brief Account of the principal Characters throughout the Whole.
Miss Clarissa Harlowe, a young Lady of great Delicacy; Mistress of all the Accomplements, natural and acquired, that adorn the Sex; having the strictest Notions of filial Duty.
Robert Lovelace, Esq; a Man of Birth and Fortune: Haughty, vindictive, humourously vain; equally intrepid and indefatigable in the Pursuit of his Pleasures—Making his Addresses to Miss Clarissa Harlowe.
James Harlowe, Esq; the Father of Miss Clarissa, Miss Arabella, and Mr. James Harlowe: Despotic, absolute; and, when offended, not easily forgiving. […]
Samuel Richardson (1748). Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady, volume 1, p. ix. London: S. Richardson

This has longer character descriptions than a typical dramatis personae, but it is close, and Richardson's next novel The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1754) is even closer:

Names of the Principal Persons.
        MEN.
  George Selby, Esq;
  John Greville, Esq;
  Richard Fenwick, Esq;
  […]
        WOMEN.
Miss Harriet Byron.
Mrs. Shirley, her Grandmother by the Mother's Side.
Mrs. Selby, Sister to Miss Byron's Father, and Wife of Mr. Selby.
  […]
Samuel Richardson (1754). The History of Sir Charles Grandison, volume 1, p. viii. London: S. Richardson.

Later editions of Clarissa were revised to contain a list similar to that in Charles Grandison, for example the sixth edition (1768) has:

Names of the Principal Persons
Miss Clarissa Harlowe, A young Lady of great Beauty and Merit.
Robert Lovelace, Esq; Her Admirer.
James Harlowe, Esq; Father of Clarissa.
  Mrs. Harlowe, His Lady.
  […]
Samuel Richardson (1768). Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady (sixth edition), volume 1, p. xii. London: J. and F. Rivington.


Alternative to OpenBiblio

Question: Are there any good open source alternatives to OpenBiblio that can run on a hosting package without root access to the server?
I have tried Koha and Evergreen, but they need root access and are not compatibility with my hosting package. Are there any good open source ones that can run with PHP and MySQL and are community maintained and updated?
Answer: phpmylibrary "is a PHP MySQL Library automation application".

Alternative to OpenBiblio


What's the true purpose of dua?

Question: Allah is almighty and all knowing, he knows about our hopes and wishes and about our destiny, he knows what's best - so surely dua can't be about influencing him or making him change his mind.
But then what is dua all about?
Answer:
Abu Ayyub Ansari reported that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: If you were not to commit sins, Allah would have swept you out of existence and would have replaced you by another people who have committed sin, and then asked forgiveness from Allah, and He would have granted them pardon. (Sahih Muslim: bk. 37, no. 6621-6622, Siddique).

The true purpose of Du'a as said above is similar to Salah, the way by which we remember Allah.
Generally, Du'a is something which we ask from Allah. Usually, the prophets have been recorded asking in the Qur'an to Allah, about some or other thing, expecting help or forgiveness from Allah.
Du'a is not about this present life or destiny in this world.

Whosoever desires (with his deeds) the reward of the Hereafter, We give him increase in his reward, and whosoever desires the reward of this world (with his deeds), We give him thereof (what is written for him), and he has no portion in the Hereafter. (Qur'an 42:20)

May the creator guide us all.
Answer: http://fatwa.islamweb.net/fatwa/index.php?page=showfatwa&Option=FatwaId&Id=69140
dua is ebada same to salah .god knows what we need but as he loves us he want to see us asking .it's like seeing someone you love asking you somthing that you allredy know he want's it.also dua if god doesn't give you what you are asking he might get somthing harmful out of your way insted or it will be saved for you to after life
Comment: Even if English is not your first language, please take time to write your posts clearly and legibly.  As written, it's very difficult to even tell what you're trying to say here.

What's the true purpose of dua?