Why are padded shorts banned in rugby union?

Question: Rule 4.4f of Rugby Union states that "a player may not wear shorts with padding sewn into them". What is the rationale behind this rule?
Answer: Padding was traditionally not permitted at all, except for scrum caps. Soft, thin shoulder pads covering only the shoulder and collar bone are a relatively new addition to the game, coming along shortly after the transition to professionalism. In World Rugby Regulation 12, which specifies the technical requirements for permitted padding, the introduction reads:

The intent of this standard is to specify requirements ... without compromising the form or appeal of the game.

Basically the concern is that bringing padding into the game would turn it into something else, for example the way American football players tackle by just launching themselves as a missile into an opposing player and hoping they hit them hard enough they fall over without having to be brought down in a controlled manner.
Answer: TO add to MattW it also has to do with the physics of how rugby union tackles happen.
A lot of rugby tackles have do with position your shoulders at the ball carriers hips and driving his feet from under him. There is quite a large amount of force that goes trough your shoulder to stop these rampaging giants from moving forward.
I would think that the rugby lawmakers thought that any sort of stiff padding in the lower half of the body would adversely effect players shoulders who always had to take a fair amount of punishment anyway.
In regards to the padding that is allowed generally it is considered poor tackling technique to tackle as high as shoulders. These padding protect players against the occasional high tackle or shoulder charge. While not effecting the vast majority of technically correct tackles.
Here is a few pictures to demonstrate my point.


Contact list and chat box disappeared

Question: My contact list and chatbox has suddenly disappeared from the left hand side of Googlemail. It has disappeared on both my desktop and laptop computers.  Chat is on, browser is good, black box at bottom checked...still nothing.
Answer: Have you simply turned off chat in error?
What happens when you click the "Chat" icon (the one that looks like a speech bubble)?

Contact list and chat box disappeared


Why are there so many "in Wonderland" episodes?

Question: Many series that I have seen have "x in Wonderland" episodes where they have retellings/variations of Alice in Wonderland with the characters from the show. Examples of this include Ouran High School Host Club (episode 13), Black Butler (season 2 OVA 1 and 4), Cardcaptor Sakura (episode 55), and Code Geass (OVA). What is the origin of this? Is there some sort of cultural basis for this?
Comment: It probably has to do with being public domain now. Also, it is not limited to anime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland#Adaptations
Comment: It could be just a general popularity of the "Alice in Wonderland" story. I'm going to guess that most of the "X in Wonderland" episodes were just fillers. I know the "Ouran High School in Wonderland" was. So I don't think there is a deeper meaning for referencing "Alice in Wonderland" asides from cute referencing of a very gaudy and stylized American cartoon. If it helps a lot of people contribute the anime drawing style to typical disney cartoons of the 50s, so a lot of anime artists are very familiar with disney cartoons.
Comment: I'm not asking about the popularity of Alice in Wonderland adaptations but of this specific type of episode. I don't think I've generally seen this specific type of episode outside of anime, though I could be wrong.
Comment: You might be right, just figured I might throw out food for thought...
Comment: I think that anime runs in the anime cloture so they usually add an "in wonderland" episode.
Answer: I guess this is because of it's overall popularity. According here,

Alices Adventures In Wonderland is a pretty well-known work: it can be
  associated with world-crossing fantasy, drug imagery, lolita fashion
  and other aspects of Victorian England, political satire, and who
  knows what else. No wonder it shows up a lot in anime, shock horror
  (it's a frequent target of Grimmification, usually with lots of
  blood), and emo teen novels. (You know the kind — usually involving
  vampires, eating disorders, or vampires with eating disorders.)
Comment: Vampire with eating disorder, sooo Twilight  ?
Answer: This is interesting because I see many answers saying it's not limited to anime, but from what I've seen, it's not limited to Alice in Wonderland.
While it seems to be the most popular one by far, I also have seen re-editions of the Japanese fairy tale 'Momotaru, the Peach Boy', examples include: Assassination Classroom, Maid-Sama and Free!!! (All of which are amazing and I would recommend watching from the bottom of my heart.)
I agree that they are many for the purpose of buying time for the animators to work on bigger pieces such as finales, they also are comic relief episodes that put loveable characters in familiar situations.


What is the difference in pronunciation between 왜 and 웨?

Question: What is the difference in pronunciation and meaning between these syllables?
Comment: https://www.italki.com/question/56827?hl=ko
Answer: Theoretically, 왜 is a sound that combines ㅜ and ㅐ, while 웨 combines ㅜ and ㅔ. However, it is realistically difficult to differentiate the two pronunciations.
Both of them sounds [we]. (It is not [wee].)
Answer: Well,
You can think 왜, 웨, 외 those three sound the same.
However, the exact sounds are a bit different.
ㅗ+ㅐ / ㅜ+ㅔ / ㅗ+ㅣ
oe / ue / oi
That's it.
And in general, Koreans pronounce them the same[we].
Answer: Pronunciation
The standard pronunciation still differentiates 왜 /wε/ from 웨 /we/. /ε/ is the open-mid front unrounded vowel, and /e/ is the close-mid front unrounded vowel. If you are not familiar with IPA symbols, checkout the links to see if you speak any of the languages that distinguish the two.
However, the distinction is completely gone in the modern Seoul dialect and also in most regional dialects. Only the elderly population in certain regions articulate them differently. Today, the two phonemes are merged into one, which is often written /E/ by Korean phonologists. It is not a standard symbol, but one specific to Korean phonology, referring to the vowel ranging from /e/ to /ε/. Accordingly, 왜 /wε/ and 웨 /we/ have merged to /wE/.
If you are a learner and don't distinguish the pairs of phonemes /e/ and /ε/ or /we/ and /wε/, (the Wikipedia pages I linked above have audio samples, so give it a try), it is totally fine to pronounce them identically. If you distinguish the phonemes, feel free to pronounce them the standard way if you want to. It won't mean any difference to most native Korean speakers, but may help you memorize some spellings.
Note that another vowel, ㅚ also underwent a sound shift to /wE/. Its standard pronunciation allows both /ø/ and /we/, but you will hardly hear it pronounced /ø/ in most regions. Now, the three vowels ㅚ ㅙ and ㅞ don't sound different to a contemporary Seoul speaker.
Meaning
As you also asked of meanings, 왜 is most likely the interrogative "why", but may also refer to Japan in a historical or derogatory sense.
The syllable 웨 does not appear in any native Korean word (at least in the standard spelling), and if you see one, it is most likely a misspelling of 왜/외 or a transcription of a foreign sound, for example, 웨스턴 /wesɯtʌn/ from English western or 웨이브 /weibɯ/ from wave.


How many words should I create in a conlang?

Question: Question 1: How many words are minimal for a naturalistic conlang? (1000, 1500, 3000 or even more)
Question 2: How many words do the conlangers usually create?
Answer: The answer to both of these questions lies somewhere between "it depends" and "let's speculate a little".

The act of inventing a naturalistic language does not necessarily mean that you must also create a naturalistically large lexicon. After all, it's the grammar, the syntax, the usability in a wide variety of normal contexts that determines naturalism.  A natural language might have anywhere between 15000 and 1,000,000 words. And as you can see from the several English entries, there's not even a consensus as to how many words there are in a language. The number of words you should create is entirely up to you. A more interesting question, interesting in the broad sense of course!, is how many words is enough words to create? This is not only more interesting to consider, but also harder to answer because there is no pat response and any answer given will be purely opinion.
I'd argue that 2000 is a bare bones lower estimation, given that this is the lexicon size for Basic English. But B.E. isn't exactly "naturalistic", so that figure is undoubtedly low. Somewhere between 3000 and 6000 gives you a little more than dry bones to gnaw on!, but still hardly approaches the naturalism of a natural language, to say nothing of the works of the more gung ho kind of lexicophilic glossopoets!

As for the second question, we do have some recent figures. The results of a recent survey of language inventors determined a spread of approximately 500 (+/-) to >5,000 over 246 respondents. Of note are the lowest and highest categories, with about 70% of respondents falling into the <500 & >5000 categories. The remaining 30% fall between 500 and 5000 words.
Comment: It seems to be impossible to create 50k words, ain't it? Maybe using a computer, you can write a program that will create a language, but it is very difficult (I tried to do this), and it is not conlanging.
Comment: You had a typo: there are 5k words in "the recent survey", not 50k words.
Comment: There are actually a non-trivial number of language inventors with tens of thousands of words in their lexicons. I know one with I believe over 60k.
Comment: I calculated that if you create 100 words per day, it will take 1.3 year to create 50k words.
Comment: It's also worth noting that what counts as a "word" can definitely influence these figures -- are different inflectional forms of the same root the same "word"? You can get a lot of words 'for free' if you assume certain answers to these questions and have a language with a rich system of derivation and compounding.
Comment: @Sparksbet - True that. I don't know if the surveymonger knew to correct for that or not. Typically, when I've done such surveys in the past, there's always a discussion about "what counts as a word". Agglutinating languages can come up with some pretty long and unconvincing "words".
Answer: Let's start with some numbers: Esperanto started with 900 radicals (which is different from the number of words that can be formed from that radicals) while Interlingua debuted with a dictionary containing the impressive number of 27000 words. The last number is surely very much on the upper end for a conlang creation, one tenth of it is more realistic.
So a realistic starting number for a not too schematic language (e.g., avoiding something like the Esperanto prefix mal- as an obligatory tool to construct an antonym) would lie in the region of 2000 words including some derivational morphology.
I don't have statistics on how many words conlangers create on average, but there are certainly some conlang enthusiasts out there who just love to create words and to give them etymologies (based on the real world or fictional ones). Those enthusiasts may create very rich constructed vocabularies.
Comment: At the other extreme is toki pona with 120 words, which might not be suitable for a dissertation in astrophysics, but seems to work for basic conversations.
Answer: Information on a minimum useful vocabulary size appears within this answer to a question on Worldbuilding SE.

I don't have a reference but some philologists and linguists have speculated that you could survive (explain who you are, ask for employment and food, etc.) in a foreign land with as few as 500 words. Henry C. Fenn, author of several language texts, felt that a vocabulary of 5000 words was sufficient to support learning new words by context, e.g. by conversing with natives and reading newspapers. In my own experience as a linguist and translator I found 5000 generic words plus about 2000 topical words (those popular for only a few years) sufficient for keeping up with current events. This gives you some idea of the vocabulary size you should be considering.
Answer:
It depends on the type of conlang you are creating.
I have read, for example, that certain highly polysynthetic languages such as those Eskimo-Aleut, Salishan, and Wakashan stock tend to have only a couple to a few thousand roots, while analytic and fusional languages such as the Austroasiatic Aslian languages, such as Semai and Jahut, have thousands of roots in a category completely lacking in SAE languages, namely "expressives" or ideophones.
Now, obviously roots are not identical to words, but I recall reading in a grammar Inuktitut that there are hundreds of "postbases"—suffixes with often highly salient meaning such as "to help" or "to hunt"—, while likewise the Northwest Coast Wakashan and Salishan languages have hundreds lexical affixes with similarly or even more precise and concrete meanings, such as body parts, common spatial relations, and the like. If I am correct, however, though extremely morphologically complicated, remarkably regular rules apply to these affixes; if your conlang was to adopt say a hundred lexical affixes, it could cut down on the need for separate lexical stems quite significantly.
On the other hand, if you opt for sound symbolism and a fusional and/or isolating route, you probably need at least 3,500-8,000 lexical items; I say 3,500-8,000 because that is the range I regularly run across as between the number of Chinese Characters in common usage and the number of characters the average, college-educated Chinese adult knows. I am aware that Chinese Characters and words or even morphemes do not have a 1-to-1 mapping, but nonetheless I see that as a reasonable range for an isolating language.
This I cannot answer very well, but I can say that I would assume it is significantly lower than a thousand, because so many conlangs are never fully able to be usable or are just naming languages. But for usable conlangs, I would guess around 3,000 or a little more, excluding naming languages and highly developed conlangs.
Answer: As the other comments have said, this number can vary drastically depending on how in-depth you want to go. To get literally every concept that exists in say, English, you'd need tens of thousands. However, as Zipfian laws have shown, 20% of words receive 80% of the use, and the most common words are used exponentially more than the less common. I tend to strive for 1000 words as a start; the top 207 of which can essentially be a Swadesh list. When going for larger sums of words you can use lexicon generators like Awkwords. This could be used to create phonologies, or even morphologies if you use the formatting correctly.
Answer: I think, it depends on

Language type
Language usage

First, language type plays an important role in determining the number of words in that language. i.e., Let us take English as an example. English mostly do not create words from the root, rather it kind of borrows from other languages. Languages like Chinese and Tamil do not borrow words, it creates new words from the existing words. So, if a conlang you are going to create is like English, it might need more words.
Secondly, where and how this conlang is going to be used plays an major role too. For example, take Dovah language, a conlang. This language does not need words related to technology and science as this language is not going to be used in modern timeline, but an ancient timeline. So if the conlang is going to be made for a specific purpose, it is not necessary to add unrelated words.
So, number of words could be even 340 words(Taki Taki (also called Sranan), 340 words. Taki Taki is an English-based Creole spoken by 120,000 in the South American country of Suriname.) to 250,000 words(English) and it has to be noted that Taki Taki is not a full-fledged language and English is one of the most spoken language.

And as a personal advice, before creating a conlang, please refer to the grammar and phonology of other language families other than your mother tongue language family, it would help you to make a unique conlang easily.

Thanks,
Comment: thanks for answering my question
Comment: @VictorVosMottorthanksMonica You are welcome.
Answer: The number of words in a conlang is up to you- you can start small, then add on layers and layers of vocabulary.
For example- Toki Pona started with just 120 words, but added on a few extra words.
Remember that you can never stop adding words. Whenever you find that you need to add words, just add them.
Comment: Thanks for answering my question!
Comment: Note though: Toki Pona has been designed specifically to be minimalist, not naturalistic.


How do I measure bacterial growth in agar dishes (either by cell mass or by cell count)?

Question: I am doing an experiment in which I am growing S. mutans in agar dishes, and I am not sure how I would measure the growth of the S. mutans. I am also not sure if I would do this by measuring cell mass or by cell count. Any ideas?
Comment: @aaaaaa he hasn't been here for over 2 years.
Comment: please specify what exactly you starting with and what exactly you want to achieve
Answer: The most simple way is seeding the plates with a suspension of bacteria ensuring that you spread the solution properly. Then you can count the number of colonies, wich would be equal to the number of single cells.
If you want to mesure the growth speed, usually it's simpler to just measure the diameter of the colonies, always ensuring you inoculate the plates with the same amount of inoculum.
Lastly, it's even easier to estimate the growth if your culture is un liquid media and you measure the optic density with an spectophotometer.
Comment: I don't understand the effect of not "always ensuring you inoculate the plates with the same amount of inoculum."
Comment: If you inoculate a plate with 100bacteria/ml and a second plate with 1000bacteria/ml, the second one will have more colonies, even if the effect of the experiment would have the opposite effect.
Comment: Thank you so much. And thank you for clarifying that statement. I was about to ask the same question. Also, I understand the second part, but I am still confused on what you mean by "seeding the plates with a suspension of bacteria ensuring that you spread the solution properly. Then you can count the number of colonies, which would be equal to the number of single cells." I'm sorry if this is a silly question, it's just that I'm in 8th grade and pretty new to this. I am doing this for science fair, actually.
Comment: Imagine you have a liquid media with a concentration of 100 bacteria/ml and you inoculate a plate with 1 ml. In theory, every single cell will grow to form a colony, so you must have around 100 colonies. If you don't spread it properly, all 100 colonies will appear clustered, and you won't be able to identify single colonies. That's why you must spread the inoculum yo form an homogenous layer over the agar, normally using an inoculation loop.
Comment: "Then you can count the number of colonies, wich would be equal to the number of single cells." - it won't. It will be equal to the number of CFUs, not cells.
Answer: you will almost certainly want to perform serial dilutions of your suspension, and plate the serial dilutions using the spread plate method (or pour plate method). The dilutions will make it much easier to count the number of bacteria.
Generally, it is not recommended to count more than 250 colonies on a plate for reasons of accuracy (but I never count more than like 50, because that is the whole reason for doing serial dilutions). Here is a nice picture of what I am talking about. It includes a description of how to calculate the number of organisms in the original solution. They have chosen to count the number of bacteria on the fourth plate (1:10,000 dilution) in order to estimate the number of bacteria in the original inoculum. Hope this helps]1
Comment: By the way, the prototypical selective media for S.mutans is mitis-salivarius agar. You should check out this paper about growing S. mutans http://jcm.asm.org/content/4/1/95.full.pdf
Comment: Ehhh alright, well CFU stands for colony forming unit. Each one of those dots on the plate is a colony, and we are assuming that each colony is the result of a single cell from the original solution. So by counting the number of colonies on the plate we are also counting the number of single cells in the original solution that started the colonies on the plate, aka colony forming units(CFU). And sure, you could do this in dup or triplicate if you want and report the average of the counts, but this method is understood to be just an estimation, so choose the methodology that fits best for you.
Comment: Your answer makes me happy, because it provides a real microbiological technique used in labs. You would make it even better by clarifying the difference between CFU counts and cell counts. And it would be nice to add that the process must be replicated to estimate error.


How to achieve a super leavened cake as the Pierre Herme ones?

Question: I made several cakes in my life. I know the difference between different leavening agents. I know that low temperature tends to make flatter cakes, but I never could get this kind of shape. If I use a super hot oven I burn the surface and I don't get this shape, there must be something else. Does anyone have experience doing this? Does anyone have a recipe from any modern pastry chef showing this kind of cake? Maybe gluten content in the flour could help?
Thank you
Comment: It is necessary to see a cross section of the cake to see what is under all the pink stuff.
Answer: Pierre Herme's "Cake Ispahan" is basically a pound cake flavoured with rose, raspberry and litchi, then glazed.
Let's look at the ingredients as reported on PH's own online shop:

Sugar
water
wheat flour (GLUTEN)
EGGS
cream (MILK)
butter (MILK)
freeze-dried raspberries (2,6%),
freeze-dried litchis (2,6%),
hydrogenated vegetal fats (coconut and palm kernel oils)
whole MILK powder
cocoa butter
natural rose flavor (0,6%)
chopped ALMONDS
baking powder (E450I, E500II and corn starch)
emulsifier : GMO-free SOYA lecithin
potato starch
Guérande salt
natural vanilla extract
dyes : cochineal carmine, E129 and E171.

Emphasis mine on the ingredients that are functional to the cake texture and leavening.
The above looks like the product of some serious food engineering. It's a recipe highly tuned to keep cost down, be highly reproducible, keep well for long periods of time, and of course still be delicious.
Now, how do you get a good tasting pound cake with a huge, cartoon looking dome like Herme does, but without the resources (or just the time) to tinker until you find that 0,3% of potato starch is the right amount? luckily you don't have many of the constraints that lead to that recipe: you can increase food cost (since you don't want to make a profit on it), you can tolerate some variability in the product, and it doesn't have to keep as long (we all know it will be gone in two days after baking)
So, here's the key elements to obtain a big dome:

Cream the butter in a stand mixer, and don't stop until it's very fluffy
Keep creaming while you add eggs (adding them slowly and at room temperature helps the stability of the emulsion

or:

Whip eggs in a stand mixer, and don't stop until they're very fluffy
Add oil or melted butters, keep whipping

then:

Use the weakest flour you can find
You can make your flour even weaker by swapping 10% of it with potato starch
Don't skimp on chemical leavening. Don't even think of skipping it entirely.
Either just before putting it in the oven, or as the crust is beginning to form (5-10 minutes), make a cut on the surface lengthwise, to make sure the crust will split there and not make different splits in undesired places
A smaller pan size seems to work better
Answer: You don't want a 'super hot' oven.  50°F/25°C can make a big difference in how fast the cake rises.  It's likely he's also using a fan-assist oven.
You can reduce how quickly the top browns by either making the batter slightly more acidic or putting a sheet pan above it to reduce the radiant heat so that you can get more lift before the top sets.
You'll also get a more dramatic curve if you use a dark metal pan, as the sides will set faster.
I'd also suggest looking How do you make a cake lift equally and minimize doming? , and doing the opposite of whatever is recommended.
Answer: Have you baked it in the right pan shape?
This is pretty normal rising for cakes baked in a pan with a narrow shape, so either the loaf pan your picture uses, or a bundt (guggelhupf) pan. When you have a standard chemically leavened cake in it (the closer to a pound cake, the better, as opposed to some more demanding batters), it will almost automatically do this. Or you could use a mufin recipe, technically there won't be much of a difference and they obviously tend to create muffin tops when baked in small cups.
Make sure that the pan is also quite full, so the rising has no space to go but up. Cakes in round pans have a much gentler rising behavior.


Should I install drywall or plywood above a drop ceiling to increase the insulation value?

Question: I am currently insulating a new room in my house. I am planning to put up a drop ceiling. I have  insulated between my roof trusses. Do I need anything else between my drop ceiling and attic space other than insulation. I thought of putting either drywall or plywood but not sure if I need it or not.
Comment: Drop Ceiling = massive air leak through all the seams. Having a sealed air envelope is a major step towards heating efficiency. Plasterboard with sealed joints will always be more efficient as it allows you to trap the heat and control air egress instead of chimneying it out through all the cracks. See if some sort of vapor barrier can be used over the ceiling tiles and tee bar under the insulation to cut down on the air flow.
Comment: I would up vote the above as an answer.  40% or more of heat loss is via air leaks, and drop ceilings are far from air tight.  Drywall taped and seamed well makes a good air barrier, and it is less expensive and more fire resistant than taped plywood.  Once you've sealed all the leaks, blow in at least the EPA recommended amount of insulation over top.
Answer: If your in a cold weather area a layer of poly creates a vapor barrier, otherwise Drywall and plywood have no insulation value. Notes for the insulation between roof trusses:
4" cavity space: R-13 or R-15 batts,
6" cavity space: R-19 or R-21 batts,
if it's a wide open attic, use an R-30 or R-38 batt.


Why daven ke-vasikin on Hoshana Rabbah?

Question: I know that some people specifically daven ke-vasikin on Hoshana Rabbah. Is this only because they stayed awake all night and thus want to daven as early as possible, or is there a more direct and symbolic connection between davening ke-vasikin and Hoshana Rabbah?
Comment: Many do it who haven't stayed up all night. I'm not going to post this as an answer, but perhaps it's because people need to go to work and the prayer service is very long, so they need to pray early (and once they're praying early, might as well pray _k'vasikin_ on the _yom hadin_).
Comment: related: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/10765/2091
Answer: There are very big benefits of Davening K'vasikin, and often people can't do it for assorted reasons. Hoshana Rabba is a hidden Yom Tov, similar to Purim and Erev Yom Kippur, it is also considered the end of the Gezar Din. Many people want to take advantage of the Vasikin benefits in order to have a Gemar Tov.
Comment: That does make sense, but can you think of any sources that touch on this?
Comment: @Aaron See Alex's [answer](http://judaism.stackexchange.com/a/10775/2091) to a related question
Answer: Mateh Mosheh 958 notes that there are five mornings where the custom was to pray early: Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Hoshana Rabbah, Purim and Tish'ah B'Av.
He writes that praying early on Hoshana Rabbah is hinted at by the verse (Eichah 3:23):

.חֲדָשִׁים לַבְּקָרִים רַבָּה אֱמוּנָתֶךָ
They are renewed every morning — Ample is Your grace!

The word רבה is taken as a reference to Hoshana Rabbah, with the verse pointing to a connection between Hoshana Rabbah and the morning.

Why daven ke-vasikin on Hoshana Rabbah?


Facebook App: How to get interest-lists posts/feed?

Question: I'm new to programming Facebook apps, so please forgive my ignorance and my use of non-formal terms.
There is an option on Facebook to create mixed lists of friends, liked-pages, and subscriptions so that you can see a "custom feed" containing posts only from the members of the list.
If a user is subscribed to such a list, can my app access the "custom feed"? Or at least the array of members of this list? (which I can then iterate through and fetch the posts published by these members)
I've read about the FriendList object of the Graph API, but when I tested it on myself with This Link (sources: Graph API, FriendList), it didn't show all of my created lists, but only those that are strictly defined as "friend lists" - i.e. lists containing only friends (and not liked-pages or subscriptions).
But I've noticed three things-

On my homepage the "friend-lists" (those that do appear in the above link) have a different icon (a little blue person) than the "mixed-lists" (a blue square with an "rss-wave" icon)
All of my "friend-lists" are old lists which I have created a few years ago. The newer lists are "mixed-lists". I can tell the difference both by the icon and the fact that the new lists don't appear in the above link.
When I added a liked-page to one of my "friend-lists" it did not change its type (same icon and still appears in the above link).

Which leads me to these questions-

What is the difference between these types of lists?
And for that matter how many types of lists are there? Are they managed differently?
How can my app access these "mixed-lists"? I want a list of all the lists the user is subscribed to, and I want my app to be able to read the posts published on these lists.

I hope that was clear enough.
Thanks!
EDIT:
I noticed another big difference between these types of lists: the "friend-lists" show up under the "Friends" headline on the left side menu (when you press "more" you can see all of them). The "mixed-lists" as I called them show up under the "Interests" headline. So this must be the difference. I think they are pretty much the same as far as what types of members you can add to the list. The difference must be that "friend-lists" are only for the user who created them, while "interest-lists" (a.k.a "mixed-lists") can be published and subscribed to by other people.
I'll try to find documentation about "interest-lists". If anyone already knows the answer please share :)
Answer: I just tested it – created a list, added one of my friends and one of the pages I'm a fan of to it.
It shows up in the Graph API explorer with <code>"list_type": "user_created"</code> – but /listid/members only shows the friend I put onto that list, not the page.
This is consistent with what the docs say on the members connection,

members: All of the users who are members of this list.

So there currently seems to be no way to get info about pages on such lists. (Anybody knows something different, they might correct me.)
Comment: Thanks for the answer. I found something else and edited my question. Do you know something about that?
Comment: Thanks again for your answer. Just wanted to let you know that I'm not checking it as the "accepted answer" on the off chance that there will be a way to do it in the future and I'll get another response.


Has it ever been established as to who the strongest trainer in the Pokemon Anime is?

Question: I know the games, manga and the anime all follow different plot lines. Has it ever been stated in the show as to who the strongest Pokemon Master is? Is it Tobias since he had already captured 2 legendary pokemon and it is implied that he probably has more and legendary pokemon are the strongest.
Answer: Unlike the Pokemon League concept in the games where you battle the elite four after collecting 8 badges, in the anime, the trainers after collecting 8 badges, first compete in a Tournament called the Pokemon League and the winner then gets to take part in the Champion League, where they compete against the Elite four and then challenge the current Pokemon Champion for the title.The reason for mentioning the same is because, it has to be emphasized that challenging the Elite four and even the Champion, is a lot more complicated in the anime. Hence, making them highly skilled and a lot more overpowered than any other trainer.Tobias is not the strongest trainer in the Anime. This can be easily disproved with three reasonsCynthia "The Sinnoh Champion", makes in appearence in the Unova Series after Tobias won the Sinnoh Pokemon League. It was stated that Cynthia was still the champion of Sinnoh. I think that would imply, Tobias didn't defeat her in battle.Tobias's strongest pokemon was most likely Darkrai considering he used it the most. This was defeated by Ash's Sceptile which is no doubt a high leveled pokemon but it is no where close to the strength of an Elite Fours/ Champions Pokemon. In the same series, we watch Cynthia fight Paul( A trainer with the same level of experience of Ash). His " Torterra ", the starter pokemon that he used and his strongest(Considering he took part in 3 Pokemon Leagues with it). was knocked out with a single blow by Cynthia's Garchomp. The same Garchomp, also defeated Flint's Infernape, which effortlessly pummeled Ash's Infernape and Pikachu. I think it's fair to say Sceptile is certaintly not as experienced as Flint's Infernape and even Paul's Torterra, yet was able to take out Tobias's Darkrai. This sort of indicates that Tobias's Darkrai is no where close to Elite Four tierDuring the course of battle, Tobias stated that the Draco Meteor from Ash's Gible would've taken out any of his pokemon except Darkrai. Ash's Gible is no where close to an Elite Four tier pokemon. This again proves Tobias is definitely not the strongest trainer.If one were to take certain Evil Teams in the Anime, gaining control of a Legendary Pokemon into consideration, it would end up complicating the answer for the same. So disregarding them (Considering the fact that the Pokemon aren't technically owned by them & they eventually lose the pokemon cause of plot), that would leave the Elite Four and the Champions. Although, the Champions can be considered to be stronger than the Elite four Members, it is certainly possible for a few elite four members to be stronger than the Champions of another Region. However, ultimately, the strongest train would be one among the list of champions, so the next task would be to determine which out of all the Pokemon Champions across all the regions, is the strongest. The answer for the same would Primarily be opinion based as we haven't really seen Pokemon Champions of Different Regions Battling it out. At the same time, Type advantages aren't as significant in the anime, hence eliminating that factor from a comparison.Hence, the answer to your question would be a No. Since we do know that the strongest trainer is one among the Champions, in the anime, the strongest trainer would be one among the following list:LanceStevenCynthiaAlderDiantha
Comment: Nowadays Lance was actually defeated by Leon, the Galar Champion, so there's a new power balance to consider. But then again, battles in the anime have some very specific ruling sometimes that it is hard to draw conclusions from exhibition battles. That was a singles, 1 on 1 battle with 1 Pokémon each, and it wasn't even Lance's signature Dragonite. Sometimes how strong a trainer is in the anime just boils down to apparent skill, experience, willpower and plot armor, unlike in the games which can be measured by numbers.
Answer:
Leon (world champ)
Lance (runner up)
Other champions
Raihan (top 8 member)
Tobias *
Alain
Ash
Wallace (former hoenn champ)
Elite 4
Brandon (frontier brain)

We have a clear answer for this now....even though most of the fans will find this disappointing.
Leon (galar champ) is officially the strongest pokemon trainer in the anime now. In the anime he is undefeated and current title holder of the world championship tournament.
Lance was the runner up of the previous tournament. So he is the 2nd strongest after Leon. New info about other champions haven't revealed yet.
*Full strength of Tobias was never revealed. He could be even stronger than some champions.
Alain already defeated Malva (e4) which means he is stronger than an E4 in general.
And Ash with his best team can defeat Alain. If they 2 are stronger than Elite 4, then Tobias is easily above E4.
Tobias > Ash = Alain >= Elite 4
Available rankings in current MASTER CLASS (TOP 8) are :

Leon (world champ)
Lance (runner up)
?
?
?
?
Raihan
?

So my guess for the TOP 8 are :

Leon
Lance
Steven
Cynthia
Alder
Diantha
Raihan
Wallace/Tobias
Answer: The climax of Pokémon Journeys involves the Masters Tournament, which is intended to settle exactly this question: who is the strongest trainer in the world? As well as Ash, it features every champion from the previous series.
The winner is Ash himself, defeating Leon in the final, so it therefore stands to reason that - as of the time of writing - he is the strongest trainer in the world.
Answer: While the introduction of Galar has led many to believe that Leon is the strongest Pokemon Trainer, it is never mentioned that participation in the Tournament is compulsory. I believe that certain notable and strong Trainers like Steven and Cynthia may have been excluded from the Tournament by default because fans will riot should they not defeat Leon whom the franchise is trying to establish as the strongest Champion.
Cynthia has long since been regarded as the strongest by many fans due to her incredible accolades such as holding her own against Legendaries like the Forces of Nature and Dialga's Roar of Time. It it not a stretch to imagine that should she be granted Mega Evolution like other recurring characters, her Garchomp will be a fearsome beast. As such I don't see her or Steven returning to challenge Leon because either outcome is a lose-lose situation for GameFreak -- if Leon wins, the fans will go on a rampage and perhaps rightly so, and if Leon loses, what is the point of previously hyping him up to be the best Champion?
Hence on paper it may be Leon, but we will never find out.


Why is there a left ventricular volume overload in patients with Ventricular septal defect?

Question: With VSD left to right shunt in systole logically should dilate right ventricle due to volume overload since left side pressure is higher then the right.
Answer: This happens because with the left to right shunt blood is shunted directly into RVOT and and into pulmonary artery and thus right ventricle is spared but left atria and ventricle become enlarged because of increase flow through the lungs.


Is the Yongnuo YN-622C transceiver compatible with the Alien Bee 800?

Question: I am thinking about buying a second hand AlienBee 800. I currently have a pair of Yongnuo YN-622C Wireless TTL Flash Triggers for Canon. Would they be compatible with the AlienBee?
Answer: You can, using the sync port on the Yongnuo trigger. However, AlienBees use a 3.5mm mono sync, so you'll need a cord that can connect the two up. Fortunately, they exist and Paul Buff sells them. You can probably also find smaller cables, but you may want to consider the long ones anyways as they may let you do some funky strobe positioning, behind things that might block the radio signal.
As a note, if the AB800 you get has the complete shipping kit, it will include this cable. It's used, though, so may have long since been lost. You never know.
Answer: I've discovered that all six of my YN-622C work only intermittently with either of two Alien Bee 800 units, but work fairly reliably with an AB-1600 and 100% reliably with Flashpoint heads.  Upon investigation, I've learned that the Flashpoint heads supply 6.0 volts on the trigger pin.  The AB-1600 heads supplied 4.72 volts but the AB-800 heads each only had 4.25 volts.  There's a direct relationship between the reliability and the DC voltage on the trigger pins.  I tried to contact a technician at Paul C. Buff, but the secretary diverted my call and dismissed my concerns and observations as irrelevant to the Paul Buff company.  Because of my experience with the Paul Buff company and their lack of interest in researching the compatibilities, I can not recommend using the YN-622C remotes with AB equipment.  That seems a shame, as the YN-622C triggers are an excellent product.
Answer: They're compatible for given values of compatible. :) They work as manual radio triggers, if you get a PC-to-3.5mm sync cable to connect one unit as a receiver to the AlienBee 800. However, the "supersync" (aka hypersync, tail sync) feature, which allows for faster-than sync-speed shutter speeds, does not work with the AB800.  The YN-566C-TX dedicated transmitter unit has the ability to adjust the timing, but so far there are no field reports of successful use of supersync with any of the Paul Buff lights and the 622s at this time.
If you want YN-622C features with a studio light, Yongnuo has announced the YN-300W, which is essentially a Canon TTL studio strobe.  But it has no HSS capability, and is considerably more expensive than an AlienBee.


Unable to afford a lawyer, can I go into court by myself?

Question: A lot of people are unable to afford a public defender, so I was wondering if this is possible.
Comment: What country are you talking about?  In the U.S. at least a "public defender" is provided at *no cost* specifically to defend individuals charged with a crime who can't afford a private representative.
Comment: In the U.S., you've probably heard of people who are arrested being "read their rights," specifically referring to their [Miranda Rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning). Not only will the cost of a public defender be paid for by the government if you can't afford it, whoever arrests you must inform you of this fact or any information you give them can't be used in court against you. Of course, this only applies to the U.S. and other jurisdictions will be different.
Comment: @feetwet ...its good to know that individuals in the U.S. who _can't_ afford a private representative, is provided a public defender at no cost. Thank you for that information.
Comment: @feetwet I'm in the US but a friend of mine is inquiring and she is in Europe.
Answer: The UK does have free lawyers for those who cannot afford an attorney. In fact, it is even more liberal than the US, including representation in civil cases for the most part as well (there are a few exceptions, like libel, and from what I've read, even that is changing).
Rather than the main source of free representation being called public defenders, they are referred to as Legal Aid, which is a government funded agency much like public defenders are in the United States.
Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union provides that legal aid will be made available to those who lack sufficient resources, in so far as such aid is necessary to ensure effective access to justice.
In the event legal aid is too busy to accept a new client, the court will appoint a solicitor from a list of private firms/practitioners that will act in the same capacity.
Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) guarantees the right to a fair trial in both civil and criminal proceedings. This has been interpreted as providing for a general requirement of some measure of "equality of arms" between the state and the individual or between the parties in the case, and the overall structure of the article, as well as the case law of the Court, stresses the vital connection between the right to legal assistance and the general interest in guaranteeing the right to a fair trial.
When faced with a criminal charge, the right to legal assistance is explicitly set out in Article 6 (3) (c). An entitlement to free legal aid in civil cases is available in cases where the absence of legal support would make any equality of arms impossible and would effectively deprive an applicant of access to the proceedings as such, for example, when a case can be filed to a court only if assisted by a lawyer in circumstances when an applicant cannot clearly afford one.
My guess is, if your friend was denied counsel under legal aid, she has too much income or to many assets to qualify, or she is involved in a case that does not qualify. That said, the right to counsel in in the UK is a right for the indigent in most types of cases (even civil) and is becoming more and more fundamental as imposed by findings of the European Court of Human Rights Jurisprudence.
Here is a link where you can at least begin to get some information.
https://www.gov.uk/legal-aid/overview
Answer: The short answer to your question is: yes, but you shouldn't if you can possibly avoid it.
You didn't specify which jurisdiction's law you were curious about, so in some jurisdictions (especially civil law jurisdictions, such as continental Europe), the the answer may be different. But under the law as it exists in most U.S. jurisdictions, a natural person may act for himself or herself in most legal proceedings; this is known as appearing "pro se," for oneself. (Corporations may not appear pro se in U.S. courts.)
However, while the court will grant pro se litigants a lot of leeway, the pro se litigant is still bound by the same rules of law that bind an attorney. In practical terms, for anything more complex than small claims court, this means appearing pro se is a terrible idea.
Think of it this way. There's nothing stopping you from performing your own vasectomy at home, either--but you shouldn't be surprised if the results aren't as satisfactory as when someone does it who went to med school and studied anatomy.
The analogy works in another sense, too. I've seen many people bring or defend lawsuits pro se because every lawyer they went to refused to make the improper/false/nutty/frivolous arguments they wanted made. In other words: sometimes a lawyer's best contribution to your case is some much-needed perspective. That's one reason most lawyers would never dream of appearing pro se if their own necks were on the line.
Comment: As a side note: There *are* some instances where pro se litigants have won cases, including some very notable and high-impact cases. That doesn't mean it's normally a good idea, though.
Answer: I agree with @chapka's answer.
However, I would just ask you to re-consider the premise of your question:

[...] unable to afford a public defender [...]

Public defenders only work criminal cases. If you have been arrested and charged with a crime, you are entitled to have the court pay the fees of your attorney.
Comment: The question does have a false premise, but you are only entitled to a public defender if you cannot afford to hire a criminal defense attorney yourself.
Answer: In the United States, a public defender is a right guaranteed by the 6th Amendment in criminal prosecutions.  The right to a public defender is not guaranteed in civil trials.

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense." - Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Comment: You only have a right to a public defender if you can't afford a private criminal defense attorney.
Answer: You should probably watch this video, to fully appraise yourself of the status of public defenders in the US legal system.
Theoretically you are guaranteed a public defender by the government for free, but in practice you can be charged. Different states use different methods to do that.
Also, public defenders are overloaded with work. They might not be able to give enough time to your case either because they are underfunded and cannot afford a staff or because they might not have an office to work from.
In some states you will have difficulty getting one.
Please watch the video mentioned above for more references and the method of research.
Comment: Funny video, of course.  For those looking for material the only reference noted is the [Brennan Center for Justice](http://www.brennancenter.org/).  For those looking for [the hilarious summary start the video at 12:50](https://youtu.be/USkEzLuzmZ4?t=12m51s).
Comment: FWIW, studies have shown that while public defenders have much worse customer service, that their outcomes on the merits are just as good as those of paid criminal defense lawyers.
Answer: "A lot of people are unable to afford a public defender[.]"
Your question is based upon a false premise. It is wrong by definition.
The only reason you are ever entitled to a public defender (a right limited to criminal cases and termination of parental rights cases), is when you cannot afford an attorney. It is impossible to be "unable to afford a public defender." You can only be too affluent to be eligible for a public defender.
If you can afford a criminal defense attorney but would rather not spend the money (perhaps because you think it would be futile to do so) you may represent yourself in court instead.
In cases other than criminal cases and termination of parental rights cases, e.g. evictions, child custody cases, divorce cases, collection lawsuits, property disputes, foreclosures, bankruptcies, immigration cases, etc. You do not have a right to attorney and must represent yourself if you can't afford to hire an attorney.
Someone who represents themselves is called a pro se party. In some kinds of cases, such as evictions, collection lawsuits, foreclosures, child custody cases and divorce cases, most defendants are pro se.
Usually, pro se parties make stupid mistakes related to technicalities in a lawsuit and are severely prejudiced as a result, but pro se parties don't always lose, particularly when the other party is also pro se.
Answer: In civil court in the US, a pro-se litigant is a second-class citizen within the court, compared to the other side's attorney, who is considered an "officer of the court."
That basically means that anything coming out of THEIR mouth is considered true unless proven otherwise, and everything coming out of YOUR mouth is considered false unless proven otherwise.
So, it's not a good idea, if there is any other option.
Comment: There are many disadvantages faced by pro se litigants. Credibility is rarely one of them. Most pro se litigants get in trouble because they fail to follow court rules that they don't even know exist, not due to credibility issues. Still, you are correct that this is not a good idea if there is any other option.
Answer: As an experienced pro se plaintiff with currently two cases pending review in the U.S. Supreme Court (see here and here), I strongly recommend litigating in pro per, provided that (1) one engages in a steep learning curve, (2) is diligent, and (3) is able to cope with the dishonorable acts that many judges and opposing counsels commit on a regular basis.
Judicial corruption is an unfortunate reality (example: Michigan courts), and I am sure that very few attorneys would have handled my cases with diligence and competence. Even if an attorney is honest and forthcoming, the fact that his law office handles several cases simultaneously tends to impair their ability to capture subtle aspects of one's own case. Moreover, I've seen attorneys lose cases because they make novice's mistakes (for example, by filing a lawsuit without doing the prerequisite exhaustion of administrative remedies).
If more people litigated in pro per, more cases would be decided on the merits than by influence trafficking, and there would be greater awareness about judges who are unfit for judicial office.
-- Edited to add references in response to ohwilleke's comment:
In re:

lawyer Finley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stsM9hNO6ao&t=377s
judge Kuhnke:
http://www.oneclubofjusticides.com/2018/04/felon-carol-kuhnke-seeks-reelection-as.html
judge Gorcyca: https://www.leagle.com/decision/inmico20170731193
Comment: This is horrible advice. Self represented people almost always seriously screw up. Your distrust of the judicial system is misplaced paranoia.
Comment: @ohwilleke: These are not "misplaced paranoia", but documented instances of unfitness (refs. above):
Daniel P. Finley (P-65454) asked for an award of $1,500 alleging that I didn't serve papers on him. I disproved him by showing the USPS receipt with his signature on it.
Carol Kuhnke (P-55348) often showed up at hearings being clueless about motions she decided, disavowed the 9th amendment under pretext that Michigan loves anybody who's powerful", and later on she was busted for illegal possession of narcotics.
Judge Gorcyca jailed 3 kids because they refused to have lunch with their father.


07 Honda Odyssey timing belt change interval for "normal" driving conditions?

Question: The owners manual for my 2007 Honda Odyssey seems to indicate that the timing belt should be changed at 60,000 miles for extreme driving conditions.  It's not clear what the schedule is for normal conditions.  I've heard 90,000, is that accurate?
Answer: The manual should have a section for "normal" as well as "severe".  Given the expense of repairs on an interference engine (which I believe all Hondas are), I'd be inclined to replace it on the "severe" schedule unless I drove 20,000+ miles a year all highway.  Severe service may include cars that are not driven lots of miles in a year as some items (typically belts, hoses, tires) are time limited in addition to wear limitations.
Answer: I see that the online Owner's Manual for your vehicle does not specify the mileage and rather defers to the Maintenance Minder feature of your vehicle. This is unfortunate, I can check the service manual later and see if it species whether the maintenance minder is hard coded or if it would produce variable recommendations like some other vehicles are starting to do based on programming around your driving characteristics.
To my knowledge, under normal driving conditons your maintenance minder should have you change the timing belt, get a major tune-up and have valves adjusted at 105K. It's a really big hit on maintenance... but after that you are fairly low maintenance until 210K!! (supposedly)
For our 1999 and 2005 Odyssey LX models this was the dealership recommendation for our driving type.
rich
Comment: I'd definitely be interested in seeing what the service manual says.  I've heard 90k from a local shop, but that's probably because I'm at 83k now :)
Answer: Agree with Brian, that it isn't all about "miles" per se. Things like timing belts are going to degrade more with time than miles (but with both) so divide the 90K by average driving (12K per year). If you are close to that time period, go ahead and change the belt out. Interference engines are nothing to fool with.
Answer: I bought my '07 Odyssey Touring back in 2013 having 75k on it. Now, it's got about 101k. It was prolly due then based on the 60k rule...or 90. I'll wait till it gets to 120k then I'll have the timing belt changed. Based on my past Hondas that I took to their limits, they broke/worn out pretty much between 140-170K miles. Thats why I think 120k will atill be safe. One example: I had a 1991 CRX DX (died on the I-5 fwy) with timing belt's teeth mostly worn out, literally. The amazing part was, there was no issue with valves hitting the cylinders, for a '91 model. I thought the valve clearance improvement only happened in the '95s-up on Hondas.


Unique solutions for $ab = n ^ 2$

Question: How many unique solutions are there to the equation $ab = n^2$ , where $n$ is a constant, $a,b \geq 1$ and $a,b,n$ are integers.
Is there any way of counting the number of solutions?
Comment: Are you sure you wanted to ask "how many *unique* solutions ..."?
Comment: Yes, I mean (3,7) and (7,3) counts as 1..
Comment: Also, 'n' is a constant.
Answer: For any $a$ that divides (i.e., goes into) $n^2$, there is a unique $b$ such that $ab=n^2$, namely $b=\frac{n^2}{a}$.
So, to figure out how many solutions $(a,b)$ there are, now we just have to determine how many possible $a$'s there are, i.e. how many divisors $n^2$ has.
If $n=p_1^{e_1}\cdots p_r^{e_r}$ is the prime factorization of $n$, then the prime factorization of $n^2$ is
$$n^2=p_1^{2e_1}\cdots p_r^{2e_r}.$$
A number $a$ is a divisor of $n^2$ if and only if
$$a=p_1^{d_1}\cdots p_r^{d_r}$$
where $0\leq d_i\leq 2e_i$ for each $i=1,2,\ldots, r$, so there are
$$(1+2e_1)\cdots(1+2e_r)$$
divisors of $n^2$. However, because you indicated in the comments that you want $(a,b)$ and $(b,a)$ to count as the same solution, each divisor of $n^2$ other than $n$ will be counted twice ($a=n$ is the only divisor of $n^2$ for which $(a,b)=(b,a)$, because they are both equal to $(n,n)$). Thus, the number of distinct solutions is
$$\frac{(1+2e_1)\cdots(1+2e_r)+1}{2}$$
Comment: Great answer. Thanks :)
Answer: In general, your question boils down to counting the number of divisors of $m$. In your question, $m = n^2$. If you know that prime factorization of $m$, i.e. say $m= p_1^{\alpha} p_2^{\alpha_2} \cdots p_k^{\alpha_k}$, then by a simple counting argument the number of divisors of $m$ is given by $$d(m) = (1+\alpha_1)(1+\alpha_2) \cdots (1+\alpha_k)$$
In your case, if the prime decomposition of $n$ is $q_1^{\beta_1}q_2^{\beta_2} \cdots q_k^{\beta_k}$, then $$d(n^2) = (1+2 \beta_1)(1+2 \beta_2) \times \cdots \times (1+2 \beta_k)$$
If you do not care about the order i.e. if you count $ab = ba$ as just one solution, then the number of unique solutions to $ab = n^2$ is given by
$$\frac{(1+2 \beta_1)(1+2 \beta_2) \times \cdots \times (1+2 \beta_k) + 1}{2}$$
You add $1$ and divide by $2$ to take into account that $n^2$ is a perfect square and not to distinguish between $ab$ and $ba$.
However, getting $d(m)$ as a function of $m$ is not trivial. You can however prove that $d(m)$ grows slowly than any power of $m$ and the average of the divisor function grows like $$\log(m) + (2 \gamma-1) + \mathcal{O} \left( \frac1{\sqrt{m}}\right)$$
Comment: Equally great answer. Thanks :)

Unique solutions for $ab = n ^ 2$


When designing for desktop, is it still appropriate to design for standard pixel density?

Question: With new, high resolution monitors and laptops popping up all over the place I'm starting to wonder whether I should be making the desktop only design elements of my websites suitable for high pixel density displays. I haven't been able to find any solid stats on recent desktop resolution and would love input on the subject.
Answer: I do web development, and I've recently switched to exclusively SVG for icons. Slightly fiddley to get set up but it works on all resolutions back to IE9. Much easier than handling 2+ resolution images. If a client wants to support IE8 I add the standard sprited graphics.
Comment: Icons are generally well-suited to vector formats like SVG; I recommend using SVG by default and only using a bitmap image when you have specific reasons for doing so. This applies to all digital mediums, not just web browsers.
Answer: i recently took up a project and based my resolution decision on the table W3Schools provided:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp
statcounter might be able to help guide your decisions as well:
http://gs.statcounter.com/
also see this question for more:
When did 1024x768 become the standard desktop screen resolution?
Comment: I would not refer to W3schools as "W3". It creates confusion with the authoritative World Wide Web Consortium (W3C at www.w3.org).
Comment: Confusion which may be deliberate on W3School's part - through deliberate action or inaction. (More on that at [w3fools](http://www.w3fools.com/))


Dual monitor mode switch

Question: I recently dual-booted my Asus Zenbook UX480 with Elementary OS Hera and I am very happy with it in general. I tried plugging in a second monitor with HDMI and it doesn't quite work as it should. As I understand it, it swaps between mirrored and extended mode automatically and constantly. First, the laptop screen is normal and the second monitor is black. Then, the laptop monitor goes black for a split second and then both screens turn on. Less than a second later, it goes back to only the laptop screen. After much frustration from it flashing back and forward, I have discovered that keeping CTRL held down stops the switch and it stops on either one or two monitors. From there, I can enter the screen settings and enter the one I want. However, when I release CTRL, it starts flashing back and forward again. To my surprise, it doesn't flash and behaves just as it should sometimes, but after a restart of my PC, it is back. I am thinking it could be some kind of graphics drivers, or settings that is wrongly configured. For the record, when I boot into my Win10 instead, it works just fine.
If I can't fix this soon, it'll probably have to be another kind of linux that'll be my go-to, which is a shame since I love elementary for everything else.
Answer: Try setting them manually using xrandr. First identify the IDs of your monitors by just running it from a commandline

$ xrandr

You should see the names such as eDP-1, DP-1-1 etc. Then run the commands to set them as you wish, for example:

$ xrandr --output eDP-1 --auto --output HDMI-1 --mode 1920x1080

That will default automatic resolution to eDP (normally laptop display) and fullhd for an external display named HDMI-1
This will turn off one display:

$ xrandr --output HDMI-1 --off --output HDMI-2 --auto

There's a good wiki about xrandr here
Comment: I tried turning the monitor on my laptop off but it just reverts again like 2 seconds later and then keeps flashing. It seems as if there is some auto setting that goes past the settings I enter.

Dual monitor mode switch


Why does each block store a Merkle root?

Question: I understand how a Merkle root is calculated and stored in the block. But how do miners verify a transaction using the Merkle root?
Here are 18 conditions that verify a transaction. None of them uses Merkle root.
Comment: possible duplicate of [What is the Merkle root?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/10479/5406)
Answer: Merkle roots do not verify transactions, they verify a set of transactions.  Transaction ID's are hashes of the transaction, and the Merkle tree is constructed from these hashes.  It means that if a single detail in any of the transactions changes, so does the Merkle root.  It also means that if the exact same transactions are listed in a different order, the Merkle root will also change.
So the Merkle root is cryptographic proof of which transactions are in the block, and which order they are in.  It provides a convenient piece of information to be included in the block header which is then hashed and included in the next block header.  Without the Merkle root in the block header, we would have no cryptographic proof of which transactions are included in a block, nor proof that their contents haven't been tampered with.
Using a Merkle tree is preferable over a hash chain or a hash of concatenated transactions because it allows for a much quicker and simpler test of whether a particular transaction is included in the set.  For more details, see the section on Merkle trees in the Developer's Guide.
Comment: This answer would be improved if it mentioned the Merkle tree's use for membership proofs which is why a Merkle tree is used instead of i.e. just a digest over all transactions. See [Alin Tomescu's answer](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/48971/5406).
Comment: @Murch, I updated this to contain why other hashing schemes weren't used.
Answer: Merkle roots are stored in Bitcoin block headers so as to enable efficient membership proofs for transactions in a block, which are necessary for Simple Verified Payment verification (SPV) nodes that only store block headers and not block contents.
It is misleading to say that "Without the Merkle root in the block header, we would have no cryptographic proof of which transactions are included in a block, nor proof that their contents haven't been tampered with."
We can always just hash-chain transactions together and store a hash-chain root in the block header, for example. (Or, we can just concatenate all TXIDs together and store that hash in the header.)
However, that would not be as efficient: membership proofs with respect to a hash chain are O(n) when there are n transactions in the chain, versus O(\log{n}) proofs w.r.t. a Merkle tree.
Much later edit: I suppose no one actually answered your question: "But how do miners verify a transaction using the Merkle root?".
As I understand your question, the answer is they don't use the Merkle tree. Miners, just like full nodes on the P2P network, receive new transactions from other full nodes and verify them by checking their digital signature and that they spend valid coins (pretty much as described in your link). Merkle trees are not involved at this point. Later on, the miner takes all the verified transactions and creates a Merkle tree on top of them. As more transactions come to the miner, the miner verifies them and adds them to the Merkle tree.
Why are things added to the Merkle tree by the miner? Again, as I describe above, the only reason we have Merkle trees is so SPV nodes can efficiently verify that miners verified the transactions in the block.
There is one scenario one might describe as "miners verify a transaction using the Merkle root" though I wouldn't use that phrasing: When a miner hears about a new block, it will want to verify its validity (recall that miners don't want to extend an invalid chain). As part of the verification, the miner needs to make sure that the Merkle tree was correctly computed over the TXIDs. However, this does not imply transactions were verified: the miner still has to verify transactions individually as described in your link. One consequence of this verification is SPV security for free: When an SPV node sees a Merkle membership proof for a transaction, they can assume it's valid (because SPV nodes assume miners verify blocks).
Comment: I've changed "incorrect" to "misleading" which I think better expresses the issue. If you mind, feel free to roll back. :)
Comment: Exactly, it is incorrect in the sense that the Merkle root is necessary for efficiency, not for integrity/authenticity, where a simple hash-chain or just a hash of all transactions (no chaining) would work just as well.
Comment: Actually, it is not incorrect. If the Merkle root were omitted without replacement, we would indeed have no information about the transactions or their authenticity. However, you're right to point out that it is not without alternatives and the above phrasing make it sound that way.
Comment: Yes, that's perfect!
Answer: Merkle Trees are useful for checking set membership in a distributed system. First, a brief algorithmic description:
Scenario: Alice, the verifier, is in possession of a digest of a set S (i.e. but not its elements), an element x. She wants to know if x belongs to S. If the answer is yes, she would like to see a proof. Since Alice does not have S, she asks Bob, the prover. Bob presumably has all the elements of S.
Simple Solution: Bob checks whether x is in S and if so returns the entire set S to Alice as a proof. Alice, can verify that x is truly in S by recomputing the digest of S and match it against the one she has.
Merkle Solution: Bob checks x is in S and if so returns log n hashes of the internal nodes that the are siblings of the nodes on the path from x to the root in the Merkle tree of S. Alice can, using the these hashes, can reconstruct the Merkle root and compare it against the hash that is in her possession.
Note that

In the bitcoin original paper, these trees are mentioned as a way to reclaim disk space: Continuing with the example above, Bob realizes that certain elements from S became inactive (e.g. fully spent transactions in a block), ones that Alice will never ask for membership. Bob can safely delete them, as long as he stores the relevant portion of the Merkle tree that concern the active/unspent transactions. In bitcoin, this does not affect the block descriptor as the Merkle Root would be part of every Merkle Path and hence it is intact. Thus, deleting obsolete transactions does not alter the integrity of the blockchain. On the other hand, naïvely, storing a hash of all the transactions from the block will "freeze" the block from any future deletions.
In both solutions, it is cryptographically intractable for Bob to make up a proof, if he is not in possession of the elements of S because digests are one-way functions.
Alice, could be a client, who might not want to store the entire set for space considerations.
In the first solution, the entire set S needs to be transmitted, though Alice needs to perform just one hash.
However, the Merkle solution is exponentially superior when it comes to communication as only log n hashes are transmitted from the prover to the verifier, but Alice needs to perform log n hash computations. Computing hash digests is fast, hence Merkle Trees have found applications here.
Answer: Merkle root is not used to verify the integrity of transactions in block, but not to verify the transaction itself.

If any Transaction is changed the merkle root changes its value. So to verify the integrity of a group of transactions we use Merkle root.
This might help What Is A Merkle Tree


Good resources for collocations

Question: Can you please point me to a good online resource for verb collocations, for American English? Preferably, something with a lot of examples.
Comment: http://www.freecollocation.com/ is a free collocation dictionary
Comment: What kind of verb colocations are you talking about? Phrasal verbs (verbs that go with prepositions after them but those prepositions are not heads of prepositional phrases)?
Comment: OED is pretty good about listing collocations of verbs. I can't claim it is complete, but often enough it has them, moreso than other dictionaries.
Comment: @Mitch Sus2020 is asking for an online resource, which heavily suggests that they are looking for free resources. The OED online is ridiculously expensive.
Comment: @Mitch 'phrasal verbs' are colligations (grammatically specified) rather than collocations.
Comment: @EdwinAshworth Oh. Mari-Lou's suggested website corroborates that (no phrasal verbs given on search, but many collocated true prepositions). As to 'colligation', it is a new word to me, and cursory web searching seems to support that ['collocation' includes 'colligation'](https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-colligation-1689763). It is not clear to me if 'phrasal verb' is a kind of colligation or not, but is certainly a collocation even if the parts are separated by other terms.
Comment: @EdwinAshworth It seems to go like this [collocation > colligation > phrasal verbs](https://books.google.com/books?id=3_1snsgmqU8C&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=colligation+phrasal+verbs&source=bl&ots=jBQ4pfG7pg&sig=cc1PIL2v3FneCLX9cVn2b_yusio&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT7YTm5NnWAhXhxVQKHa8YCwEQ6AEIPzAC#v=onepage&q=colligation%20phrasal%20verbs&f=false)
Comment: No; collocation and colligation are disjoint features. 'Morning coffee' is a strong collocation whereas 'Morning cocoa' isn't (though it's not ungrammatical). 'The lightning set the woods on fire' uses a colligation whereas 'The rain put the woods off fire' is grammatically unacceptable.
Answer: Does this link help at all? I just downloaded it and it's working well.
Free download Oxford collocations Dictionary
Answer: Some more references:

OED online At the end of an entry are usually pairs of words starting with the target word.

You get free access to the OED online if you have a public library card number in the US or UK). You may have to access through your public library's website rather than directly through OED's sign-on.

Google Book NGrams search If you search for road *_NOUN you'll get a list (and graph of historic frequencies) of all pairs of words that are 'road' followed by a noun (and you can change the obvious pattern to look for others). Note that this only gives you the highest frequency ones.

Good resources for collocations


Carrying 10kg while doing cardio

Question: I lost about 10kg.
At the beginning, i was able to burn more calories because of the extra 10kg.
If I carry a backpack of 10kg with me now while using elliptical cycle, will the burn rate be same as before?
Assuming my HR is the same.
Answer: No, it won't.
The 10kg that you lost was living tissue, whether fat or not. It had a metabolic cost to carry around and sustain, whether during cardio or sitting at home. You can carry 10 kg in a vest or something, but it's not going to be the same as having 10kg of body weight.
If you are exchanging fat for building muscle, you are ahead of the game anyway, as muscle consumes more calories than fat on a daily basis anyway.
Answer: I would say don't worry about it as your cardio machine is probably innacurate anyway.
Yes as you lose weight your metabolic needs go down, but all you have to do is readjust your calorie intake and keep going.
FYI For more accurate calorie tracker is this from Journal of Sports Science http://www.braydenwm.com/cal_vs_hr_ref_paper.pdf
Calories Burned = [(Age x 0.074) - (Weight x 0.05741) + (Heart Rate during exercise x 0.4472) - 20.4022] x Time / 4.184
Comment: I actually use that formula to calculate my burn rate.
Answer: No, Your Calorie Burn Rate Will Be Different
Why The Heck Not?
First, the human body's ability to adapt: Calorie burned at the beginning of an exercise program is usually higher than those burned after performing the program for a while (assuming the same exercises and intensity are used). This is because the body was not accustomed to the process and had to work harder to perform the exercises; thus, you struggle with the exercises at the beginning.
As you progress in the program, your body becomes acquainted with the process and becomes better at handling the same tasks (and load).  As a result, you no longer struggle (or not as much) with the exercises as previously. The number of calories you burn at the same intensity reduces (even if your body weight remains the same).
Second, backpack is an external load acting on the body. The body handles external and internal loads differently. Because the increase in internal load (weight gain) is gradual, the body adapts to the increment. On the other hand, an external load is drastic in changes. The body will initially struggle with this new load and will progressively adapt. Without external signs (such as breaking a chair after sitting on it, fat deposits popping up everywhere, loose skin, etc), people wouldn't realize they're packing on weight; on the other hand, you'll easily notice if a 20-lb item was dropped on you. Similar process when the weights are dropped.

 With the same intensity, I think you should burn more calories initially with a backpack because the body hasn't adjusted to the new load. You should also feel the soreness in your upper body as well. The burn will decrease as the body adapts to the new load.

This is why most weight-loss programs use progressive loads or variations in exercise complexity in order to prevent the body from fully adapting to the process.
Summary
Progressively increase the backpack weight or progressively increase your intensity. Your burn rate won't be the same; however, it won't stall as long as your body is being challenged.
Disclaimer: This answer is based on observations, common sense, and my perception on how the human body works. If any of these is directly contradict any scientific-based paper, comment or update the answer.

Carrying 10kg while doing cardio


Documented Web Site Design Process

Question: Is there any well documented process to be used in web site design projects?
Answer: As the web design industry is fairly young the process hasn't crystallised into anything that you'd call "well documented". This article has a very useful process and links to other processes though.
Answer: Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler's Web ReDesign(2004) will be showing some age by now if you pay too much attention to technical specifics, but its primary subjects are really workflow and process rather than code, so it might be worth a look. You can probably get a used copy pretty cheap with a little digging.
Comment: Thank you very much. This book provides very concrete and detailed process documentation for web site development projects.
Answer: Absolutely everyone does it different (or they should).
My workflow will be different than yours, and yours will be different than "That Guy".
With that said, I highly agree with paulmorriss above.
Most articles posted at SmashingMagazine are very informative and full of other resources.
One of my favorite new sites is: http://freelanceswitch.com/

Documented Web Site Design Process


Help identifying black slope piece with printed knobs, dials, and gauges

Question: Can anyone please help with identifying the Design ID as well as the Element ID for this piece. It is a legitimate LEGO piece as can be seen by the name on the studs. However there is no information stamped inside like other pieces. Please help, Google search's sometimes find the piece but no ID numbers that match with LEGO.
Answer: Just got off the phone with LEGO. The official answer to this missing piece is as follows:
Design ID#: 80405
Element ID#: 4251812
The official name, according to LEGO, is:
Roof Tile 2x2/45deg, Control Panel
This information was confirmed by set number 10151 and a photo of the piece(same photo posted here).
While I cannot say you will find this piece with the above information, I can say with certainty that it comes directly from LEGO themselves.
Hope this helps others and thank you for the assistance.
Comment: That's great! Thanks for sharing!
Comment: No problem, hope it helps.
Comment: Keeping in mind 10151 was re-release of 5541, 4251812 Element ID perhaps applies to 10151 set alone. And for earlier sets Element ID for this part could be different. Why? Because re-release of some parts (even if they weren't discontinued) usually gets them different ID.
Comment: LEGO mentioned that. The ID's are for the 2004 set 10151, the most recent set it was used in...as far as LEGO says. But you are correct regarding earlier sets and ID's. Based on that though, all anyone can do is decide which to use and go with it. Personally, I go with the most recent so that if I order more, it's available. Obviously not in this case but in general.
Answer: This is Slope 45° 2 x 2 with 3 Gauges and 3 Knobs

Note that this part was last used in a set in 2004, so it may not have a known element ID. The instructions for that set do not include a part list with element IDs, and the replacement parts listing on LEGO.com for that set does not include this element.
Comment: I don't personally use LEGO element IDs for cataloging pieces, as they aren't available for every element. I use Rebrickable part_num + color_id. Rebrickable does provide a table that maps those values to element IDs in their downloads, so you I can still search by element ID. https://rebrickable.com/downloads/
Comment: Haha, we both went down the same paths. Very aggravating when trying to organize though. Thank you for the help, it at least confirms all that I have been able to uncover with this piece. Hopefully someone else has discovered new clues.
Comment: Thank you, however none of the sites listing it provide and Element ID. The design ID is 3039 but the print makes it unique. Some printed pieces do not share the same design ID with similar non-printed bricks. That is why I need both ID numbers, to nom properly catalogue it.
Comment: That makes sense. I wasn't able to find an element ID for this part, and I've updated my answer accordingly. Perhaps someone else knows how to access this information.
Comment: This is the first piece that has not had any ID that I have come across. But I did not know about the Rebrickable mapping table, thank you, might come in handy. Will try it with this particular part if nothing else.


Is the wind's force on a stationary object proportional to $v^2$?

Question: I am on a boat docked at Cape Charles, VA, about 30 or 40 miles from the center of Hurricane Irene. This understandably got me thinking about the force of wind on the boat. Since air friction is proportional to the speed squared (except for some friction types I'm sure someone will be kind enough to remind me of), is the wind's force on the boat also proportional to the wind's speed squared? In other words, will a 70 knot wind produce almost twice the force on the stationary boat as a 50 knot wind, all other factors being equal?
Comment: It's funny that only now, re-reading the question does the thought occur to me: "holy Batman that sounds dangerous!  Get off the internet and take shelter now!"
Comment: It shows we have our priorities straight.
Comment: Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/59921/explanation-that-air-drag-is-proportional-to-speed-or-square-speed
Answer: On the most basic level I would say that both your suspicion and your reasoning are correct, although some caveats should follow.
First I should address this on the basis of simple kinematics.  Yes, the energy of an air molecule is $m v^2$ but we need to formalize when and if this will translate into pressure.  Imagine a pipe that spews a fluid onto a surface, and the fluid comes to a complete rest after impacting the surface.  As speed changes the impulse from a molecule in the fluid increases (and impulse is the more true analog to force/pressure than energy), but so does the flow rate, $\dot{m}$.  We say that area and density stays the same.
$$\dot{m} = \rho V A$$
$$P=\frac{F}{A}$$
$$F=\dot{m} \Delta V = \rho A V^2$$
$$P = \rho V^2$$
If you study thermal hydraulics, this will not be the last time you see that final expression.  Not by a long shot.  I should point out that it's not exactly energy per se that leads to the $V^2$ nature, I would say that it's the above math that leads to it.
The example I provide (much like a garden hose spraying someone holding a shield) is a similar system to that which you describe, which is wind in a hurricane hitting the wall of a house.  There are several ways that these two systems are not identical, and science has done a lot of work to develop empirical correlations and representative models for fluid pressure losses.
We can look at the system as either a forms loss (on a human-sized scale) or as a boundary layer friction force (on the larger climate level).  Equations for the change in pressure of a fluid due to friction or due to a obstacle ("forms" loss) are as follows.
$$\Delta P_{friction} = f \frac{L}{D} \frac{\rho V^2}{2}$$
$$\Delta P_{forms} = K \frac{\rho V^2}{2}$$
In the above equations, both $f$ and $K$ represent constants that we multiply the $V^2$ term by to account for all of the real-life complexity of fluid flow.  Yes, these constants will change with the wind speed, so the answer is that the pressure is not perfectly proportional to $V^2$, but we wouldn't be using the above format if this wasn't the closest form that it does follow.
Answer: Well, I think of it this way. Imagine that your boat and the wind are the only things present in a giant empty space, and let the wind blow head on onto the bow of your boat at a constant speed. Since in this space there are only the wind and your boat (and yourself on it), you can't conclude if it is the wind blowing onto your boat or that it is your boat moving through a gas of air particles. But more importantly, you can conclude that the two situations are actually equivalent. It is just a matter in which frame of reference you are viewing your situation: a frame stuck to your boat or a frame stuck to the center of mass of the wind.
You already know that if it was your boat that was moving, the frictional force that would be applied to your boat would go like F ~ v^2. And since this must be the same as a gas blowing onto your boat by the above mentioned arguments, you can conclude that the force applied to your boat by a blowing wind is proportional to it's airspeed squared. I think.
Good luck with the storm!


How does one project well when singing in the low range of their voice?

Question: When I sing low in my range (notes around G2-A1), I often get a really resonant, airy sound that is quiet enough that it cannot be heard when singing in a group setting.  How can I make these notes louder?  Should I try to produce a sharper tone?
Answer: It's difficult to get as much projection and power in the low end of your range because to sing low notes - you must relax your vocal chords - which entails relaxing all the muscles that control the vocal chords.
If I'm singing Johnny Cash or Josh Turner I will usually use a microphone and take advantage of the proximity effect.  As I get to the lower and quieter end of my range, I hold the microphone closer to my mouth.
To get more volume on the lowest notes when singing without a microphone, you will need to push a more powerful blast of air across your relaxed vocal folds.  One way to do this is to tense your abdominal muscles as if you were bracing for a punch in the stomach.  This will effectively produce a more forceful contraction of your " diaphragm" and your pelvic floor muscles.
Some people are able to get a slight boost in volume on the lowest end of their range by turning their head sideways.  I am not sure why it works but it works for me as well.
You may find that when singing your lowest notes, a slight smile as you sing them will brighten them up a bit.
Whenever you sing, you should spend some time warming up your voice with some easy vocal exercises to get all the muscles that contribute to vocalization moving around with minimal stress. Then they will be more relaxed and resilient when you start testing the limits of your range.
You may find some useful information in this Music Stack Exchange Question as well:  How to Extend your Lower Range on Stack Exchange Music
Finally a vocal coach or teacher may be able to help you develop some techniques and give you some exercises to help you expand your range.
Good luck and mostly have fun singing.
Comment: Thanks for the tips!  I'll definitely try holding the microphone closer next time I use one, as well as the other things you mentioned.  Thanks for giving me the link to the other question.
Answer: The fact that you are projecting in your high range but not in your low range makes me suspect you are singing too much with your throat and not enough with your diaphragm. It should be easier to project in the low range because you can more easily relax your whole instrument, but if you let your diaphragm relax also, then you won't push the air that you need to project. No matter what note you are singing, you want everything to be open and relaxed except your diaphragm, which should be pushing air. That is where all of your power comes from.
A great exercise is to lay flat on your back on the floor, which tends to put your whole instrument in a relaxed state that is ideal for singing. Then place a hand flat over your diaphragm and focus totally on it, let your belly expand as you pull in a full breath, and push air through some big fat long low ahhhhhh notes. Psychologically, it can help to imagine your hand is sort of pushing the air out, but you really let your diaphragm do the pushing. Over time you should be able to project any note in this way, with the entire instrument relaxed except the diaphragm pushing air. High note, low note — doesn't matter.
Comment: Thanks so much!  I just did the diaphragm exercise today, and I could already hear the difference!


Discolored blackberries, any solutions to fix this?

Question: There is a blackberry bush in my garden, UK, its fruit is ripening at the moment, but many of them are discolored. I read that sunscald could be one cause, it does get direct sun for a lot of the day, and unfortunately I cannot move it as its too large. I have also wondered if it could be insects, but so far the only insects I have seen on the blackberries are one or two spiders, and what seems to be ants, who apparently only feed on already damaged blackberries. I have seen that the ants bulbous part on their body looks see through or partially see through on some them, but they do look just like ants. I have taken photos of the discoloration as well as the ants/insects. Is there any way to save the blackberries that haven't ripened yet? Some of the bunches of blackberries look almost 100% black like they should be, but many are like in the photo. thank you
Answer: You may have a problem with raspberry beetle, which does affect blackberries too - it causes parts of the berries to dry up, as yours have done, although I've never seen whole berries so badly affected. Sunscald in the UK doesn't seem likely, but actually, the recent heatwave may have had some effect, though as its so recent, I suspect not. Its worth cutting open a few of the affected fruits, both those which are completely dry and those which are partially dry to see if there's a grub inside, which would confirm the presence of this pest. Information below
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=522
There is some possible evidence of red berry mite too, which causes uneven ripening of fruits, but that's difficult to identify for sure because its still relatively early and the fruits may not yet have fully ripened anyway. Information regarding this pest here
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=882
As for the presence of ants, they might be after damaged fruits for the their juice, or they may be present because of aphid infestation on the plant, so a close inspection to determine whether there are aphids anywhere is a good idea.
Comment: thank you very much for the information. just to say, those in the picture that are completely 100% tan/green are just those which haven't ripened yet. I have just cut open three from different areas which were badly affected, and I see no signs of worms/grubs or anything, aside from the discoloring I see nothing inside to indicate insects or an infestation. Though the mites specifically are microscopic so that would be very hard to see signs of. but the damage pictured on that link does not resemble the damage on my blackberries. pictures I've no seen of sunscald does look very close though.
Comment: Which part of the UK are you in? In London, we've had temps of 37degC during the last week, so if you're somewhere like that, sunscald is possible... blackberry fruits may also 'wither on the vine' so to speak if there's water shortage...
Comment: Im in Hampshire - we've had had some very sunny and humid/hot days here recently yeah. I heard that "white drupelets are caused by strong sun after periods of overcast weather", so this could be a possibility. ok, thank you for the info about withering.
Comment: Well that's about right 'periods of overcast weather', probably an understatement, then followed by sudden, very hot sun... shocked me, never mind your fruit! Shame though, hopefully you'll get some useable fruits.
Comment: haha yes, it has been a surprise. thank you. at least I could use those unsightly ones for jam or wine or something.
Comment: I'm so annoyed right now. I just found a little white worm inside one of the blackberries. I saw some damage on top of this particular blackberry but thought it was just slightly misformed or something like that. Damn! http://i.imgur.com/DQvPSgE.gif more or less has put me off trying to eat any of the others.
Comment: Ah, there you go then. You can, though, assume the ones that ripen normally without dry bits to be worm free - that or cook them all first in a   crumble or something!
Comment: thank you, I hope there are some then that do ripen normally without worms. I will be sure to inspect them as I'm definitely not keen on eating worms.
Comment: Not raw, no, but you wouldn't notice them once cooked! Sometimes dropping the berries into a bowl of water for a while encourages any worms inside to exit... but you'd better carry out treatment recommended in the link to prevent the same trouble next year. I've eaten those worms before, not intentionally,but when blackberry picking in the wild....
Comment: thank you, I will read that link again thoroughly yes. haha, the worms are very offputting for me, I'm not fussy with food but things like dirty food or worms puts me off totally. I will inspect the healthier ones, what surprised me is this one looked almost totally healthy except some very small healed damage on top which I expect is where the insect entered the fruit. I saw this one today when I'd taken a bite of the berry! luckily it was still whole! lol.
Answer: You've got a heat problem, this is UV damage or excessive heat during the ripening phase and referred to as White Drupelet syndrome (white spot). It's quite common on Raspberries during the final crops of the year as summer heat increases. Also occurs in blackberries. Last year, we had issues in the US Pacific Northwest with it, only a handful at end of season this year as we've had a cold, damp summer.
Comment: ok thank you very much for the info! Its a big relief that it is purely weather related and not disease or insects!
Comment: I just found a little white worm inside one of the blackberries. I saw some damage on top of this particular blackberry but thought it was just slightly misformed or something like that. Damn! http://i.imgur.com/DQvPSgE.gif
Comment: Yeah, damaged berries become hosts to worms. Ick!


What is the first Pokemon to exist?

Question: Which is the first pokemon to have been born or formed or created. Some say it is Archeus. Is it the right answer?
Answer: Based on the information on History of the Pokémon world, legends go to say that Arceus is the first Pokémon to exist

In a vortex of complete chaos and nothingness, a single Egg comes into being, which then hatches into Arceus, the first Pokémon in existence

Also, based on the Pokédex entires from Platinum and Heart Gold & Soul Silver

Platinum: It is said to have emerged from an egg in a place where there was nothing, then shaped the world.
Heart Gold/Soul Silver: According to the legends of Sinnoh, this Pokémon emerged from an egg and shaped all there is in this world.

This information is derived from Sinnoh Myths, which is learned from a Hiker at Oreburgh Mine, and then at Canalave's library in Pokémon Platinum after catching Arceus

But it all starts with Arceus, the first. It is known as the Original One.
...
"The Original One breathed alone before the universe came."
Answer: If your looking for the first pokemon to exist in the pokemon world, it would be Arceus. The first pokemon in the national dex is Bulbasaur, and the first Pokemon design ever was Rhydon back when Pokemon was still called capsulemon. I think that's how it's spelled. I hope this helped :)))

What is the first Pokemon to exist?


How do you open a bottle like this?

Question:

I bought this bottle of fish sauce and cannot seem to find a proper way to open it. Tried some methods but so far all failed 1: using my fingernails to pull the translucent plastic cork upward; 2: unscrewing the whole yellow cap with absolutely brutal force (apparently the translucent cork itself blocks the unscrewing); 3: use scissors to cut off the translucent cork (this one probably could eventually make an opening if you are persistent enough to trim off everything. However, I suspect there is a proper and cleaner method to open this bottle). Can someone suggest a method to open it?
Answer: Googling around, I found these tips, which all basically say to slice off the inside cover.

Take a sharp knife and carefully slice off the plastic top. I used a steak knife and slowly cut it. I was tempted to hack it up into pieces, but I had to control my rage so I don't accidentally stab myself.
- Diana Chan, foodology.ca
I am not alone in being somewhat puzzled by how to open the Golden Boy fish sauce bottles.  The punchline is to take a knife and to cut off the raised "nipple" so that you have an opening.
- comradechufood
Do you mean after flipping the cap back? Many have that little nipple thing that needs to be cut off
- Candy, Chowhound
Comment: Thx, I just cut out the"nipple" to make a hole lol
Answer: They wouldn't make all that just so you would cut it off.  I'd suggest poking a hole with a needle.
Comment: Some hole, you'd need to use a knitting needle! Just cut the nippl off (not the whole clear plastic part, just the little sticking-up part on top of the clear plastic part)

How do you open a bottle like this?


Why can't I boot Ubuntu?

Question: I have to two operating systems in my computer. Ubuntu in D drive and windows 7 in C drive.
Now I replaced window 7 with window 8 but I can't load both the windows simultaneously..
how I can resolve this problem??
Comment: As it stands, your question is ambiguous. Is the problem that you cannot load both *Windows* systems, or that you cannot load both Windows 8 and Ubuntu? Either way, what happens when you try?
Answer: As I understand after the windows 8 installation, now you cant boot ubuntu because the grub menu disappeared. All you need to do is re-install the grub.  you can do it by creating a bootable USB  using wubi. There are lots of tutorials in the web, If you want more assistance please ask below.

Why can't I boot Ubuntu?