text:
Why does the Stack Exchange network of sites use Markdown instead of some other rich text editor like FCKEditor or TinyMCE?
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WYSIWYG RTE editors are generally bad at structuring the underlying data, making it very difficult to analyze/restructure the contents.
Consider this, how often have you seen a Word-user mark a line of text, make it bold, increase font size, and change the font. The experienced user would of course set the style (or what it's called in word) to Heading 1, and modify that style instead.
Why would you do this? Well, try to have word generate a ToC for a document where you changed all the 'headings' manually. Or if you'd like to submit your article for print, where there are other rules (fonts etc). Word actually does make this easier (you can select all instances of a certain combination of attributes), but you'll never be sure you got all of them, or if you managed to snag more than just your headers.
This might be irrelevant for small question/answer entries, but if you'd like to index the entire database, all the answers of all the questions, you'll have quite a substantial data set.
The bottom line is, markup usually conveys structure. WYSIWYG RTE editors usually conveys optical style. The first can pretty easily be turned into the latter, the other way around however, is very difficult. Use structural markup where you can, sooner or later you'll be happy that you did.
For the individual small entries / user experience, I'd go for the other answers (browser problems, source code, etc).
(the '6' stating, that I fully agree with steven's answer and just wanted to add another important point).
There are many reasons for this:
Because WYSIWYG doesn't really work. See my blog for an example.
To expand somewhat on the user-friendliness and speed:
In any rich-text editior I know, to for example italicise a word, I would have to first write it, then mark it and then either click a button or use some keyboard shortcut for italics. Either way, this takes longer than just writing
Another advantage of markdown is that I can easily write a post off-line.
Finally, given what formatting disasters are already caused by new users with markdown, I do not want to know what will happen if they are given a WYSIWYG editor.
Because I use lots of different websites, and I have no interest in learning different editors for different sites. If the editor gets in the way of my sitting down and typing, which includes code snippets and links, I won't contribute. The toolbar on top of the box I'm typing into is about the most I'm willing to learn to start with.
I am a programmer, and I know HTML and CSS inside-out, so I am not shy of such things. In the early web days, I even invented a way of automatically marking up text to make it break, wrap, and indent as people usually expect. But I absolutely despise markup languages and wiki notation and this "Markdown" notation as a proliferation of lazy programmer bias.
All the reasons given by others here for not supporting WYSIWYG editing are merely excuses and rationalizations, in my opinion, for not doing the work to make it work. Yes, it requires some work to support WYSIWYG, but it has pretty much been done for you already by others.
People who are happy with Markdown will tend to be happier with Stack Overflow as it is, and will stick around longer. People who are not so inclined will tend to leave. This is similar to the Lisp community who are just fine with lots of insanely silly parentheses, and can't understand why they should consider changing.
Why not add the option of switching the editor to WYSIWYG mode? Have its feature set be limited to doing nothing more or less than what Markdown can already do, and then there should be no conversion problems.
Because it would be a complete nightmare for keeping the site's content clean and readable, even with a magical "strip all formatting" button.
[curls up in fetal position]
Rich text editors might be suitable for average Joes, but it's annoying for programmers.
RTEs are wizards, you can't trust the code they generate.
Plain text makes it a lot easier to reorganize content, and move it somewhere else. RTEs are a big source of headaches when doing that; they just stand in the way.
Markdown is more semantic: you shouldn't care about what exactly some block looks like with regards to font, size, color, etc; markdown will take care of the representation for you.


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subset: commoncrawl


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5 People Who Failed Their Way to Fame And Fortune
#2. Florence Foster Jenkins
Florence Foster Jenkins was a very bad opera singer. Seriously, you guys. So bad.
How Bad Was She?
If you didn't watch the video, just imagine Ashlee Simpson jumping rope while singing opera through some sort of reverse auto-tune device that makes things even more out of tune than they already are.
Or you could listen to the sound of this puppy as you kick it repeatedly.
As a youth in the late 19th century, Jenkins endured countless words of discouragement from anyone unlucky enough to hear her sing, including her father. But while most young women rebel against dad by having a whole lot of sex with unsavory dudes, Jenkins opted to use a large inheritance left to her by her father to plow headlong into a musical career.
A regrettable decision for several reasons.
People Actually Paid For This Crap?
Despite her ineptitude-riddled pipes, Jenkins's performances were always enjoyable, just not in the way she hoped. Florence was there to entertain through song. Her audience, however, was all about the unintentional comedy. Wracking with laughter, audience members usually ended up cramming their handkerchiefs in their mouths to keep their giggles silent. Say what you will about the Gilded Age, but they certainly had manners (and a healthy disdain for Chinese immigrants) back then.
Over time, people turned out in droves to catch a glimpse of Jenkins's special brand of awful. Whenever the laughter got too loud or mean, she would dismiss it as spite from those less talented. In Jenkins's mind, she was a wonderful singer.
The highlight of her career was her first and only performance at Carnegie Hall in 1944. The show sold out and, in fact, 2,000 people were turned away and scalpers sold tickets for outrageous sums. Shitty music, sold out venues and scalpers charging exorbitant prices? Sounds like an Eagles concert! But we digress. Jenkins died a month after her Carnegie performance. Not too bad for a finale.
Oh, and in case you didn't already feel inadequate, her recordings are still available for purchase, she's had three plays written about her, and she even has a MySpace. Fine, maybe that last one isn't all that impressive, but still, not bad for a girl who once remarked to a friend, "Some may say that I couldn't sing, but no one can say that I didn't sing."
#1. Ed Wood
If anyone else on this list runs into filmmaker Ed Wood in the afterlife, they will immediately bow to him as their king.
How Bad Was He?
We're guessing you've already heard countless people refer to Plan 9 From Outer Space as the worst movie ever made. But if you haven't actually seen it, and instead have only seen clips of the film or just the Tim Burton movie about Wood, you really should take time to watch the whole thing.
It will make you want to go out and create something. It's impossible to know how many aspiring filmmakers or novelists or artists buckled down to finish a project purely on the basis of, "I know I can do better than that."
Sometimes referred to as "The Michael Bay Effect."
Really, everything you need to know about how bad Ed Wood movies were can be summed up in this quote from the man himself.
"Plan 9 is my pride and joy. We used Cadillac hubcaps for flying saucers in that."
Imagine the possibilities of spinners.
Though we should throw in the fact that the star (Bela Legosi) died after shooting just a couple of scenes, and they just had another dude stand in (strategically covering his face the while time).
People Actually Paid For This Crap?
Like many visionaries, Wood wouldn't get true recognition until after his death. Two years later, Wood was named "Worst Director of All Time" in a book called The Golden Turkey Awards. This brief moment of mockery resulted in a cult following for Ed Wood the likes of which would make L. Ron Hubbard jealous (and probably file a lawsuit of some sort). We're betting you can't find a video store that doesn't have a DVD of Plan 9 From Outer Space on the shelf right now (and Amazon has two pages of various re-issues of the film).
These days, tributes to Ed Wood abound. The University of Southern California holds an annual Ed Wood Film Festival in which students are given a theme and tasked with building an Ed Wood style movie around it. Unofficial (meaning made up) estimates put the cost of making all those films somewhere in the 11 dollar range. There is also a legally recognized Ed Wood religion, The Church of Ed Wood, replete with holidays (way to forget our Woodmas gift on October 10) and manifestos (Wood Kamph). In 2001, rocker and Halloween franchise resuscitator Rob Zombie named his sophomore solo album, The Sinister Urge, after an Ed Wood film of the same name.
That certainly is a homage.
But the biggest tribute to Wood came in 1994 with the aforementioned Tim Burton film Ed Wood. Johnny Depp played Ed Wood and Martin Landau won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi. Yes, 16 years after his death, they made a movie about his terrible movies, and that movie won awards.
It's safe to say that in the course of making some of the worst movies possible, Ed Wood has brought more joy to more people than 99 percent of the artists who've ever lived. If that doesn't inspire you, then you're dead inside. Someone get us a video camera and some hubcaps, pronto! We've got work to do!
Do you have something funny to say about a random topic? You could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow. Go here and find out how to create a Topic Page.
For celebrities that were just as lucky as these jerks, check out 7 Celebrity Careers That Launched by Accident. Or find out about how your favorite star is really a terrible person, in 7 Beloved Celebrities And The Awful Shit You Forgot They Did.
And stop by our Top Picks to see Swaim failing as a nude model.
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get dick jokes sent straight to your news feed.


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Study: Commuting More Than 15 Miles Linked to Obesity, Belly Fat, High Blood Pressure, and Less Exercise
May 8, 2012 -- A long commute may pave the way to poor health, a new study shows.
The study found that people who commuted more than 15 miles to work each day were more likely to be obese and to carry a lot of fat around the belly -- where it's especially bad for the heart -- and less likely to get enough exercise compared to those who drove less than 5 miles to work each day. Workers who drove more than 10 miles each day also tended to have high blood pressure.
"You are on your way to heart disease. You have an elevated blood pressure, an elevated BMI, an elevated waist circumference; you're on your way to diabetes and high cholesterol," says Suzanne Steinbaum, DO, a preventive cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
"This is a person that I say, 'Change your life now so you don't get sick later,'" Steinbaum says.
The study, which is published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, included more than 4,200 adults who commuted to work in two Texas cities.
Researchers used satellite tracking to map the shortest road routes between workers' homes and offices.
Everyone in the study took a treadmill test to measure how long and vigorously they could exercise. And researchers checked a slew of indicators for heart disease and diabetes. Those included blood sugar levels, cholesterol, total fat, belly fat, and body mass index (BMI) -- a measure of weight in relation to height. People in the study were also asked how much and how intensely they exercised each week.
"The study is the first to show that long commutes can take away from exercise and are associated with higher weight, lower fitness levels, and higher blood pressure. And all of these are strong predictors of [heart] disease, diabetes, and some cancers," says researcher Christine M. Hoehner, PhD, MSPH, an assistant professor of public health sciences at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Commutes Lead to Bad Habits?
The study can't prove that commutes cause those problems directly. It could be that people who have long commutes are simply also more likely to engage in other behaviors that put them at risk for weight gain and inactivity.


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Lego Star Wars Key Chain Light for $5
$5 for one Lego Star Wars key-ring light ($11.99 list price)
Stormtrooper (LGLKE12), Yoda (LGLKE11), Darth Maul (LGLKE13), or Darth Vader (LGLKE7)
$2 shipping or buy 3 for free shipping
7 Comments add a comment
Cool! I'd thought about getting Yoda when I saw it at Target, but didn't want it for $12. Turns out I had $5 in Groupon credit, so I got him for $2.61 shipped.
Boycotting Groupon due to their knee-jerk anti-gun policies.
It's kind of a scam. They're $5 plus $2 shipping unless you buy $15 worth, then shipping is free. BUT, you can't buy one of each. You could buy three Darth Vaders and get free shipping. But you can't buy Darth, a Storm Trooper and Yoda. To do that, you need three different orders, and three different $2 shipping charges. What BS.
Here's how you scam them back:
1. Generate your own referral link to this deal.
2. Create new email to use the referral, pay the $7, get $10 referral credit.
3. Profit.
4. Repeat.
Groupon is pro gun control.
All the more reason to buy from Groupon.
In for three.
In for yoda. I've bought hubby one every year for the past 3 years. Started with the plain Lego man, then fader, then a storm trooper. Now hopefully this little one is here in time for valentines day. 2 1/2 week shipping :( worth it for the price though. They take a beating from his keys.


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This is the curvy road where an Amish buggy and a car collided this morning, leaving one woman dead.
Roarke road is known for being dangerous. One man who lives on the road did not want to be identified, but says this isn't the first accident.
"The curve is really dangerous. No good visibility. You can't tell if something's coming around the curve until it's too late," said the nearby resident.
You can see from a driver's perspective this road is narrow, has no yellow lines, and no shoulder. It also has hills that hide a blind curve.
Law enforcement say speeding was not a factor in the accident, but caution drivers to slow down and take extra precautions in rain.
"When it rains after it has rained in a few days, all that oil that's on the ground begins to float, and then you're in a car and hit your breaks... your going to slide," said Simpson County Sheriff Chris Cline.
It's much darker now than earlier today when the accident happened here, but you can see if you look at the ground, the puddling of oil the Sheriff was talking about that can create those slick roads. Most of it has been washed away by the rain during the day, but if you look closely, when you shine the light you can see the reflection. These might not be something you can see while you're driving, but nonetheless something to keep in mind, and maybe a good reason to slow down.
There are recommended 25 mile-per-hours signs in the area, and Cline strongly advises taking that recommendation.
Police say the Amish couple, 71 year-old Eric Kraley and 68 year-old Leah Kraley, both of Allen county... Were southbound in their buggy when 20 year-old Matthew Holman's car hit them broadside.
They were both ejected and taken to the Medical Center in Franklin.
Leah later died. Eric is reported to be in stable condition.
Sheriff Chris Cline says Holman was not speeding.


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As we know that primes other than 2 and 3 can be expressible as: $p \equiv 1\pmod{6}$ or $p \equiv -1\pmod{6}$. In other words, 6|(p-1) or 6|(p+1). Or, p = 6h+1 or 6h-1.
Now, for any integer h, 6h-1 or 6h+1 may be decomposable. Say 6h -1 = $p_1$$p_2$ with $p_1$ = $p_2$ or $p_1$ < $p_2$. In the same way, 6h +1 = $p_3$$p_4$ with $p_3$ = $p_4$ or $p_3$ < $p_4$.
By observation, one can realize that, 5 is the only smallest factor.
So, $p_2$= [(6h -1)/$p_1$] $\le $ [(6h -1)/5] Or $p_4$= [(6h +1)/$p_3$] $\le $ [(6h +1)/5].
If we consider m = h+6-($p_1$+$p_2$) and n = h+6-($p_3$+$p_4$) the following are true. I am not sure how far I am true first of all.
(1) $p_1$ = ½ (h-m+6) - square root of {$(n-m+6)^2$-4(6h-1)}
(2) $p_2$ = ½ (h-m+6) + square root of {$(n-m+6)^2$-4(6h-1)}
If (1) and (2) are correct, please explain with proof. If any one or both are wrong, please let me know, where, I am wrong.
Thanking you one and all.


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Mainly, what are the settings for my Canon 30D and Sigma 12-24mm?
How about on the EOS500N film SLR?
I just got all my stuff and used to do my stuff hand held and normal tripod, so am new to all this.
edit: All my other lenses I plan on using with this is an Adapted Olympus G.Zuiko 50mm f/1.4, E.Zuiko 135mm f/3.5, and Tamron Adaptall-1 M42 200mm f/3.5


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My girlfriend was leaving the Czech republic on July 19th 2007, the same day that the terrible Sao Paulo commercial airliner accident happened that killed 200 people. I thought it was a pretty crazy coincidence since commercial airplane crashes are so rare.
Though this probably would not pertain to that particular accident, I've always had an idea for a commercial airline fuselage ejector.
It seems that the majority of passengers seem to parish due to the flammable jet fuel that runs through the aircraft upon impact and current research seems to focus on making the fuel less flammable.
My idea focuses on ejecting the passengers and cargo/baggage away from the dangerous part of the aircraft based on the single engine plane on parachute concept, pictured below.
The above picture also shows a diagram of how/where fuel is stored in a commercial airliner.
Below is my concept "animated" in Flash.
1. A routine flight
2. An engine fire erupts! (This could be any malfunction or perhaps even an act of terrorism).
3. The passenger/cargo part of the airplane ejects...
4. Separating itself from the compromised part of the aircraft.
5. Parachutes open and the fuselage lands safely on the ground or in water. There could maybe be inflatables lining the bottom of the ejected portion of the fuselage to act as an impact cushion and/or a flotation device.
Has anyone ever seen this idea or concept before? Please leave a link to any related articles in the comments section. Thanks!
Keywords: fuselage ejection concept for commercial airliners travel safety boeing airbus frontier american southwest united airlines
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[FIN]The Christmas of Ewan Katarn
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[FIN]The Christmas of Ewan Katarn
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The Christmas o
f Ewan Katarn
The deep black space surrounded a lone ship,
The Sky Eagle
, where its inhabitants: Jedi Knight Ewan Katarn, his girlfriend and sort of Padawan Amber Skye and their faithful and furry companion, Geyyshhyyk, and Christmas was on the air
Now Ewan, were on our way to Coruscant to celebrate Christmas! The young Amber shouted out on the main hull where she and Ewan where.
So? What exactly is Christmas? Ewan inquired.
What, you dont know? Well, now this is terrible, you never had a Christmas?
Why the fuss about Boss never having celebrated Christmas,
asked Geyyshhyyk who had been working on the engine,
My kind doesnt celebrate it either!
I know Geyyshh, but youre Wookiees, hes Human, Amber told Geyyshhyyk, then turning back to Ewan, Listen, every year, on 25th of December, people celebrate Christmas, it is a time of joy, peace and love, its to be with your families. Thats what Christmas is all about!
Yeah, well, do I need to remind you I spent about 3 quarters of my life on the Jedi Order?
I know Ewan, its just, well, youre my boyfriend, and Id like to spend it with you
Alright, alright, Ill go with you, He smiled.
Oh, you rock! Amber yelled, immediately hugging him.
Well, we on Coruscant yet?
We are now,
Geyyshhyyk announced.
Well, my first Christmas. This is exciting, Ewan said.
Upon reaching Coruscant, Ewan docked the ship on a public landing pad and paid the fee for landing.
Oh and, heres a little extra for you since its Christmas, Ewan said, handing out more 50 credits, Merry Christmas.
Thank you sir. Merry Christmas as well! The man said as they walked off the building. Upon reaching the exterior, they had a big surprise. It didnt seem like Christmas at all. It seemed more like everyone was afraid or something.
Well, this sure shouts out the spirit of Christmas, Ewan joked. Geyyshhyyk roared in laughter.
Dont say that Ewan, Amber said, a bit angry, but shook it off. She went to see someone, Excuse me, lady, what happened here?
The old lady was frightened and you could see that when she nearly jumped.
Oh, well, its because of Santa Claus. He basically tears Christmas apart this days
Santa Claus? Ewan asked, I once heard of a Jedi with that name.
A Jedi.
Named Santa Claus.
Yeah. Wait, now that you think of it, he was Jedi Nicolas, but people called him Santa Claus.
Amber looked at him with a serious face as Ewan turned to Geyyshhyyk.
I dunno Boss,
He told him on Shyriiwook.
Eh, dont look at him like that. The boy is right. Last we heard of, he was on Rhen Var.
Rhen Var? That is only a one day trip and were still on the 23rd! We maybe still can save Christmas! Amber shouted excitedly.
Well then, I guess we wasted a trip to here, lets go, Ewan said as the crew re-entered their ship and plot a course to Rhen Var as the
Sky Eagle
entered Hyperspace
Meanwhile, on the planet of Rhen Var in the Ice Fortress of the Sith, on chair laid Santa Claus, but, he looked nothing Jedi-like, but more like a Sith. He could sense
The Sky Eagles
presence from anywhere near space and in so left out a maniacal laugh.
At the main hull on the ship, Ewan was sitting reading a book. He seemed very focused on it until Amber came.
Hey Ewan, what are you reading? She asked, curious of what her boyfriend was reading.
Uh, what? Oh, this? Oh, its nothing Ewan said, closing the book.
Listen, Ewan, I need to talk to you, Amber told him, sitting on the chair besides his, Id like you to try and be more felicitous Ewan, not this whole thing.
You mean more Christmasy? Well, I was robbed of my whole infancy, but then again, I guess that doesnt count much.
Hey, you guys! Dont fight! Besides, were reaching Rhen Var,
Roared Geyyshhyyk.
The Sky Eagle
finally reached Rhen Var and the crew of three came out, and, while Geyyshhyyk was a Wookiee and needed nothing to cover himself, Ewan and Amber put on appropriate clothes for the environment. It seemed very vast, with only a few small houses. The planet was covered with ice and even on the lowest point of the snow planet, you could see the Ice Fortress of the Sith, where they could sense Santa Claus
Well, Im assuming we just go there and convince him to be good? Ewan asked.
No, the path is probably blocked with traps. Amber replied.
The girl is right, you know, Said an unknown voice. Amber and Ewan quickly held onto their Lightsabers but didnt ignite them. Then a short purple humanoid creature on green and red clothing appeared.
What, youre one of Santas dwarfs? Ewan joked.
Ewan! Besides, its elves, not dwarfs. But who might you be? Amber asked.
Im kinda like one of those elves, but Im a Rhenvarian.
Geyyshhyyk asked,
I thought you guys where extinct?
Contrary to popular belief my Wookiee friend, we are very much alive. Except now with Darth Christmas there on the Fortress, its practically impossible to do anything. The Rhenvarian said.
Well, we are here to put a sock on it. Heh, sock on it, those socks you put on the fireplace, ha-ha, Ewan laughed.
As much as rude that joke sounded, at least you still know things about Christmas.
Yup, and thats what counts. Lets just get to Darth Christmas, Ewan said, laughing on the inside.
You know I dont have knowledge of the Force but you know I can sense you think his Sith name is amusing, Amber said, letting out a small grin.
The crew walked towards the ice fortress when they saw it had to be climbable and it seemed very hard when Ewan had an idea. He brought his speeder and the three hopped on it. He started the engines and with an enormous shout, the speeder burst off right to the entrance of the Fortress. They left the speeder where it was and entered the gigantic fortress
Although it had large dimensions, it was a one-way up by a very accidentally slidable spiral surface.
Aagh! Amber shouted, almost falling out had it not been for Ewan who picked her up by her kneecaps and back before letting her go.
Thanks, She thanked.
No problem.
Eventually, they reached a large ice door, which seemed impossible to open.
Heh. Nothing a little heat cant melt, Ewan said as he ignited his Silver Lightsaber and Amber her Green Staffsaber. Geyyshhyyk prepared his Bowcaster as he repeatedly shot the door with roars as Ewan and Amber plunged their Sabers onto the door. Finally, it gave up and opened as they entered a very security-like room as they saw a beaten up and tied up Santa Claus on the center of it.
Santa! Amber shouted out as she ran at him but suddenly the room burst and while nobody got hurt, a figure appeared. It had brown short hair, and had a blue suit.
Greetings. As many of you believe, he hasnt fallen to the Dark Side and isnt Darth Christmas. I am. So, prepare to have a red Christmas Darth Christmas said as an armour attached to him and made him look like a black HK unit.
The duel went on for a little while. Geyyshhyyk had been previously kicked to the wall by Christmas and he was now shooting at Amber while Ewan was being taken care of by the auto-turrets. Just suddenly, a stray shot hit Amber in the hand, not severing it but knocking her to her back. Darth Christmas stepped up to her and stomped her Staffsaber, crushing it. Then as he was brandishing his Lightsaber, Ewan came jumping in and cut off his weapon hand with a 450º spin on his front. Christmas roared in pain and Ewan then Force Pushed him to a console, which prompted the whole fortress to self-destruct. Geyyshhyyk grabbed Nicolas and Ewan helped Amber up as they made a leap of faith by jumping directly onto the ground below, Ewan breaking their fall by casting a shield of Force. The crew got out of the fortress and entered the speeder and the fortress blew up right as they flew up, prompting the speeder to go directly to the ships front.
Thank you, but, I have a proposition, Said Santa Claus who had been woken for a few minutes now and had just listened to their story, Will you help me delivering these presents?
Sorry Santa, but we still have got to celebrate Christmas, Ewan smiled.
Very well, Santa said, Have a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
The crew entered The Sky Eagle and flew to Coruscant, where Christmas was hot
On a building on Coruscant, everybody was partying while Ewan and Amber where both looking at the planet on a window.
Hey, Amber, Ewan said, turning to her and taking out a box, opening it, I want you to have this. This is the first Lightsaber I made, and since yours was destroyed, Id like you to have this. As your Christmas present.
Amber took the box and looked at it.
Why thank you Ewan, youre so.. She said as she then looked at Ewan and was received with a kiss.
Mistletoe, Amber. Mistletoe.
Well, youve certainly learned a lot about Christmas.
I sure have.
The two then kissed again.
The End
Have a
And a
Happy New Year!
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The Circumcision Debate: To Snip or Not to Snip?
In This Article:
Opinions on whether a child should be circumcised vary greatly. Proponents for the procedure believe the warm, moist area under the foreskin is a breeding ground for bacteria and infections; opponents argue that it's an individual's lifestyle, behavior, and cleaning habits, not the foreskin, that have the biggest impact on health. And although proponents point out that circumcised babies have fewer UTIs, opponents argue that these are easily treatable with antibiotics, and a circumcision is a drastic measure to take for such a curable illness. As for penile cancer, proponents believe it is a sensible step to help reduce a boy's chances of contracting the disease, but opponents argue this type of cancer is extremely rare, and compare it to giving a young girl a mastectomy to avoid someday getting breast cancer. In addition, some don't agree with the idea of "disfiguring" a child's penis by removing a part he was born with.
In the end, it's a personal decision that should be discussed and agreed upon by both parents. Some have the procedure done as soon as their baby is born, others opt not to, and still others leave the decision up to their child to make when he is older. (Although there is additional debate as to whether waiting can increase the pain and trauma to the child.) There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to circumcision. What's important is to know the all the facts, and make a decision based on what you think is best for your child.


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I have studied about exchange operators and rotation operators and I know that an exchange between 2 particles in a combined state is the same as rotating each particle 180 degrees (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange_symmetry). Could someone explain the mathematical equation behind this? I have tried to search but to no avail.
"The nonrelativistic theory has no necessary relation between spin and statistics, as you can understand from the example of a nonrelativistic 2d spinless fermion (imagine 2d confined electrons with a huge magnetic field in the z-direction which forces the spin to always be along the z-axis). The electrons behave as spinless particles with respect to the 2d rotations, and yet they are still fermions."
Ron I'm not sure this is correct. In a paper (That i tried to link but the site wont let me) called something like "Anomalous Quantum Hall effect, Fractionally charge excitations in incompressible quantum hall fluid" Laughlin uses the variational approach to model exactly the 2D electron system in the presence of a magnetic field which you are talking about. He derives that the excitations in this system have fractional charges. In this follow up-paper Arovas, Wilzcek and Schieffer show that these fractionally charged 2-dimensional excitations exhibit fractional exchange statistics, contrary to what you are saying about their fermionic behavior. That is, under the rotation, these charged particles accumulate a phase due to the aharnov-bohm effect. The phase is $e^{i\theta}$ where $\theta \ne \pi$ (as it would with fermions) or $2\pi$ (as it would with bosons) This is what gives rise to the entire study of anyons and some explanations of the fractional quantum hall effect.
As mentioned in the first comment, you can imagine that the phase accumulated due to an aharonov-bohm interaction by each particle undergoing a rotation of $\pi$ radians about the other (the intuitive way to envision an exchange in 2D) is the same as the phase accumulated as one particle makes a $2\pi$ rotation about the other. Preskill explains this very well in parts 9.3 and 9.4 of this set of lecture notes
The reason that you don't see fractional exchanges in 3 dimensions has to do with the ability to contract a circle to a trivial path around any 2D object. This is not possible if you draw a loop in 2D around say, an electron in the plane. (The actual explanation for this is some simple algebraic topology which I don't know currently.)
Perhaps this is not the 2D spinless fermion model you had in mind though. Anyway, this is my first stack exchange post, so I hope it was helpful.
An exchange between two particles is not the same as rotating anything, Feynman is wrong in the 1986 lectures, but he makes the statement anyway, probably because it clarified to him what Schwinger was doing way back when in the 1950s to do spin-statistics from time-reversals. Wikipedia is just copying Feynman's wrong statement. There is no relation between rotation and exchange outside of relativity, and the rotation argument is not conclusive without rotations involving time, i.e. relativistic Lorentz transformations analytically continued to Euclidean space.
The intuition here is as Lubos says: if you have two particles at x and at y, you can exchange their positions by rotating around the point half-way between by 180 degrees, and this has the effect of rotating each particle by 180 and switching the two particles. But the idea doesn't lead to a spin-statistics relation, nor does it express any exchange operator (in formalisms where this operator makes sense) in terms of a rotation operator (which always makes sense in any formalism). An exchange operator exchanges the positions of two identical particles, so that acting on $\psi(x,y)$ it produces $\psi(y,x)$ (the same function of two variables, but now with the dependence of the two variables interchanged). the rotation operator rotates everything, including the two particles. You can't express a general exchange in terms of rotation.
What you can do is relate the symmetry of the particles under exchange and under rotation. If you have a two-particle state $\alpha(x,y)\psi^\dagger(x)\psi^\dagger(y)$, you can express it in center of mass and relative coordinates, and in the relative coordinates, you have a rotational and exchange symmetry. So the relative wavefunction $\alpha(x-y)$ can be rotated by 180 degrees, and the sign you get from this wavefunction rotation must be correct for the statistics of the particles.
That's all you can say in a nonrelativistic theory, barring additional assumptions. The nonrelativistic theory has no necessary relation between spin and statistics, as you can understand from the example of a nonrelativistic spinless fermion. The spinless fermionic Schrodinger field is completely consistent. This system can be realized as the low-energy limit of a physical system--- namely neutrons in a very strong magnetic field. In the low energy limit, the spin is decoupled from the dynamics, and the neutron magnetic moment aligns the spin with B, but the B doesn't affect the translational motion. The low energy limit is a 3d fermi gas with full rotational invariance and no spin.
What happens with relativity is that the theory has to have a Euclidean continuation, or if you like the energies are always positive, or if you like, the particles can travel faster than light (these are closely related statements). So that in the relativistic theory (unlike the nonrelativistic theory), there is nonzero vacuum expectation value for fields:
$$ \langle \phi(x) \phi(y) \rangle \ne 0 $$
Where $\phi$ is a real field, or a real component of a complex field. Then the Euclidean argument for spin-statistics is simply that you can rotate this correlation function by 180 degrees and it stays the same. This requires that the interchange of $\phi$ is the same as the rotation properties of $\phi$.
The new thing here is that the field $\phi(x)\phi(y)$ are time ordered, and rotating them in relativity connects the different orders by the different ordering in time. This is essential--- in nonrelativistic physics, you don't have a nonzero expected value except into the future, and any rotation never switches the order of the operators in a path-integral.
In short, don't listen to this Wikipedia page. Look at the spin-statistics page, which is the accurate one


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- Which is the most extensible?
- Which is the most efficient in terms of a minimal learning curve while providing a meaningful degree of flexibility and performance?
- Any of these tools really limited in terms of customization and worth avoiding?
What are your opinions on WEKA KnowledgeFlow, Rapidminer, and other rapid development environments for machine learning?
Firstly, it may depend vastly on your choice of platforms (e.g. R, Python, or Java). Some of the most common ones:
Secondly, it vastly depends on your purpose while choosing whether to use out of the box platform or not.
The main pro of the 'rapid' platforms is that they are really easy to learn and quick to generate some results. The major con is that not everything is implemented in these platforms. Due to the effort in making a tool very easy to use, customization is left behind. Sometime your may want to build your own system which only use machine learning as a component, you will probably find tools like scikits-learn are easier to adopt.
However, I find it is very handy to use both. Using 'rapid' ones to generate the whole idea and do some experiments and tweaks, e.g. tuning the parameters, and adjusting the categories. And then, use a more customized tool to implement the whole system. E.g. I use both RapidMiner and Scikits-learn together.
Speaking of learning curve, RapidMiner as a tool and Python as a language may highly probable be the best.
Speaking of extensibility, though not very familiar with R, I think R and Python are quite good.
Accordingly to this comparison (look for post written by Martin) Rapidminer is more powerful in terms of implemented mining algorithms and scales better for large datasets.
Being originally a WEKA user my impression is that Rapidminer is also easier to use than WEKA.
I spent some time (a month or so) using RapidMiner at the start of the year; then I added the R plugin, thinking R was just a library of stats functions. Then I learned more R, discovered it also comes with loads of machine learning functions, and realized R is a superset of everything RapidMiner was giving me.
Playing with RapidMiner drag and drop was fun, but when you stop "trying it out" and try to write some real code to beat the market, with real (i.e. huge amounts) of financial data, suddenly all those icons are getting in the way, and it is very slow (to code in, and to run what I'd made).
Learning R is hard work, even for an experienced programmer like myself. I've put a serious amount of effort in studying it over the past 6+ months, but regard the time as a good investment. The C++ integration (Rcpp) is also very important for me: your R script can be embedded in a larger C++ program, or alternatively you can optimize just one bottleneck R function in C++, or link in your C++ legacy code to your R script.
However if your machine learning needs are only a small part of your job, and the data involved is not huge, and you are not really a programmer, then RapidMiner is a good choice.
RapidMiner and R. Besides, RapidMiner offers extensions for seamlessly integrating R and Weka, hence can combine the power and extensibility of all three platforms within RapidMiner. And you can download RapidMiner and its extension for R and Weka for free.
RapidMiner. RapidMiner provides an easy to use graphical user interface, a built-in online tutorial, built-in wizzards, and many free videos to get you started quickly: http://www.RapidMiner.com/
All mentioned tools can be customized.
The real contenders for a desktop based tool are RapidMiner and R. If you like Windows or Mac, you will like RapidMiner. If you like command line or Linux, you will like R.
I would say RapidMiner has a flatter learning curve. The previous lecturer in the course I teach used R and the students (MBAs) complained about the learning curve. They did not in my class with RapidMiner.
On the server side, you can add Python as a general purpose machine learning language.
RapidMiner also has the RapidAnalytics server, as well as the Radoop extension that uses Hadoop for big data.
In terms of extensibility, you can extend RapidMiner easily using Groovy (Java scripting language) as an operator, or Java itself (as an extension).


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Fresh Peach Recipes (Slide 19)
(Slide 19 of 23) Start at the beginning | View recipes as list
Recipe: Lavender-Poached Peaches & Blackberries
View as: Thumbnails List
Peach Custard Pie
We use low-fat milk along with nonfat Greek yogurt in the creamy custard for this peach pie. The yog…View slide
Peach Frozen Yogurt
We like to use chopped frozen peaches, but you can use frozen berries or whatever frozen fruit you h…View slide
Peach & Blueberry Cobbler
This is a healthier version of a traditional cobbler, with canola oil in place of some of the butter…View slide
Peach, Rhubarb & Ginger Crisp
In this fruit crisp, the crunchy oatmeal topping and the peach-rhubarb filling get a lively kick fro…View slide
Grilled Peach Sundaes
Fruit on the grill? Most definitely! Try grilling other stone fruit or pineapple too!…View slide
Pork Chops with Peach Barbe…
The tangy peach barbecue sauce that glazes these pork chops is incredible on grilled chicken or salm…View slide
Peach Freezer Jam
This fruit spread-style peach jam can be made with no sugar at all, but we use 1 cup sugar for just …View slide
Peach-Raspberry Pie
This healthy peach-raspberry pie recipe combines a lightened pie crust plus the tart-sweet combinati…View slide
Grilled Peach Salsa
Mint, cilantro and jalapeno flavor this grilled peach salsa.…View slide
Stone-Fruit Bars
Try your favorite combination of stone fruit, such as peaches and cherries, in these easy fruit bars…View slide
Peach-Lime Sorbet
This tart, refreshing sorbet makes an elegant end to a summer meal. Always smell peaches before you …View slide
Chunky Peach Popsicles
Make sure to reserve a portion of the peaches as you puree the mixture so the pops will be packed wi…View slide
Peach Cooler
This festive peach cooler uses sparkling grape juice instead of wine. Serve it in a wineglass for a …View slide
Peach-Blackberry Compote wi…
Fresh basil, which has a special affinity with peaches, is the secret ingredient in this sophisticat…View slide
Grilled Peaches & Angel Foo…
Grilling luscious seasonal fruit is the perfect way to end an outdoor celebration. Here, peaches sof…View slide
Roasted Peach Sundaes
This easy dessert satisfies a sweet tooth while adding another serving of fruit, contributing vitami…View slide
Basil-Cinnamon Peaches
Poaching the peach halves in their skins gives the syrup a rosy blush. It's perfect for dunking crun…View slide
Brown Sugar Peach Shortcakes
Brown sugar-sweetened shortcakes with fresh, ripe peaches and a lightly sweetened cream topping that…View slide
Lavender-Poached Peaches & …
Serve this colorful lavender-spiked blackberry-peach compote at a brunch or with small scoops of van…View slide
Champagne & Peach Sorbet
This spritzy peach sorbet recipe is a quick way to use up ripe fruit to make a delectable dessert. F…View slide
Peach Sorbet
This simple peach sorbet recipe is a quick way to use up ripe fruit to make a delectable dessert. Fo…View slide
Summer Peach Salsa
Serve this sweet-and-tangy peach and basil salsa recipe as a dip with crunchy tortilla chips or as a…View slide


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BOYD, Wis. (WEAU) -- A fire broke out just outside of Boyd this evening.
Fire department officials say a wood shed, located between two family homes has started on fire. Luckily, the fire was tamed before it reached the homes nearby.
No one has been hurt. The cause of fire remains under the investigation.


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Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu) (9787119032603)
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Although parts of the famous text Ben Cao Gang Mu (Compendium of Materia Medica) concerning pharmacological therapeutics have been available in abridged English versions, those sections dealing with history, culture, and science have never been translated. This 6-volume set is a complete rendering of the entire Ben Cao that makes accessible to Western readers the full knowledge contained in this Ming Dynasty work, first published in 1593. It contains a wealth of information on medicine, minerology, botany, zoology, and natural science, compiled since remote Chinese antiquity, and will be useful to any dedicated student of Chinese medicine, culture, science and history. The translator and other experts have given many years of dedicated work to this project, trying to be true to the original text while providing notes to explain some of the contents in light of modern scientific research. Although this edition contains neither Chinese (except in the index and appendices in the final volume) nor glossary, and the PinYin is untoned throughout, it provides much previously unavailable information to the English-speaking reader.
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I cannot sit in one place reading for more than a hour, no matter what book it is (except maybe Harry Potter).
Can anybody please advise me how I can learn to sit and read for long hours. My main focus is to be able to study technical books for competitive exams.
My side goal for reading long hours is to be able to read story books like "The Black Swan".


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I am tired of using canned broth/stock and would like to make my own - any suggestions as to the proper technique and parts to use?
Note that for maximum benefit I am answering the question regarding chicken stock first and at the end have included information on other stocks such as fish and brown chicken and veal stock.
Properly made stock is made from bones only. If you cut up your own chickens then save the backs and wing tips in the freezer and use for stock. You might ask at your grocery store or butcher and be able to purchase backs from them if you want to make stock but don't have enough. Chicken feet are rich in gelatin and can be added to the pot to help add body to the stock.
Additional Notes: The same process would be followed for white veal stock (not frequently used)
If preparing a brown stock (roasted chicken, veal, beef, lamb, duck):** These stocks are made by first rinsing the bones and then roasting in the oven at about 400 F degrees until medium brown (think iced tea color).
Once bones are browned, smear them with a tablespoon or two of tomato paste and roast for another 5 minutes or so. Be careful as the concentrated sugars in the tomato paste can cause it to burn and create a bitter tasting stock.
After bones and tomato paste have roasted, place them in the stock pot and add the mirepoix to the roasting pan, tossing to coat with the fat that has rendered out and roast the mirepoix until lightly browned. Add the mirepoix about 2 hours before finishing the stock. Be sure carrots are cut rather large to avoid having them disintegrate and adding a strange excessively sweet taste to the stock.
Recommended cooking times for stocks:
-Fish: 30-45 minutes. Use lean white fish bones and heads. Lobster/shrimp stock is made from the shells and will usually yield more flavor if first roasted. Remove gills and eyes from fish heads to prevent clouding the stock. Do not use carrots in mirepoix or it will color the stock an orange hue. Use onions, celery, leeks, mushrooms, and sliced lemon.
-Chicken/Duck: 4-6 hours
-Veal/Beef/Lamb: 8-12 hours (knuckle bones of veal will have the greatest amount of gelatin since the bones haven't hardened as much as those of beef)
Stocks should not be seasoned with salt as one of the primary purposes is for them to be a "stock" item that can be used for a variety of needs: soups, sauces, rice, etc. The salt is added to the final preparation not the stock. If stock is salted and then used for a reduction sauce the resulting sauce will be too salty.
I find whole chickens to be cheaper than the parts (wings, backs, whatever), so I regularly buy a couple whole birds, chop the breasts out (saving for later use), and then make stock with the remaining meat/bones/skin.
Place the chicken in a stock pot. Add a couple onions, carrots, celery stalks and some peppercorns. Cover with cold water. Bring to a bare simmer and cook for 2-3 hours. For ease, I usually bring the pot to a boil on the stove top, and then transfer to the oven at 250.
Strain the stock, chill, and then freeze for later use.
I serve rotisserie chicken once in a while - I save the bones in the freezer until I have enough to make a big batch of stock. I also save the tops and bottoms of celery stalks and other trimmings when I make veggie trays. The veg may get mushy from freezing but it still has great flavor to add to your stock. I find that for home use freezing the stock in 1-cup increments works great.
Darens' recipe sounds lovely, if you are after a proper stock.
Here is a quick cheap alternative.
Freeze the bones and skin of a roast chicken once you have finished with them.
When you need some quick stock, put the bits into a pan and cover with boiling water.
Simmer for half an hour or so and then use a sieve to keep the bits behind..
In general, the parts of the animal to be used in making stock depends on the animal:
For chickens, different people will recommend different parts of the animal, but simply chopping up an entire chicken works fairly well.
For beef, pretty much any tough piece of meat will work; try looking at shoulder or butt.
As for other suggestions, be creative! Almost anybody can make a basic broth by boiling a chicken, but making one that is truly fantastic takes time and work. Try adding different ingredients. For starters, try things that you are familiar with. For example, vegetables and herbs like garlic and basil can improve any broth. From there, try things that are more creative, like sesame oil, miso paste, or perhaps ginger.
I'd also add that if you have access to a pressure cooker, you can make stock more quickly and have the added benefit of it staying more clear instead of getting cloudy. I also personally think it tastes better.
One suggestion I would add is to freeze your stock in ice-cube trays, or in other small portions, so that you can parcel out the amount you need when you need it.


text:
NFL, MLB, NHL and College Scoreboard Desk Clocks 50% Off for $32.95 + free shipping
coupon code: WOOTCLOCK
The trouble is that after the first twelve minutes the visiting team always pulls ahead.
13 Comments add a comment
No size information? Desk clock so it's small but how small? How does it know the temperature? Inside temp or outside temp? This company need to get its basic act together first.
Edit: found on the Toronto Blue Jays this = 6.5"x9" (nine inches is a wide desk clock if they are all the same).
Now I want to know AC or DC?
So if hours is Home and minutes is Visitors, most of the time the home team is losing....
The licensed scoreboard desk clocks have up to date logos (yea might want to strike that from any teams that recently won a championship after 2010)
If they looked like the actual scoreboard in the team's home stadium it might be interesting. Instead it is a scoreboard template with the team's logo slapped on it.
The baseball ones look especially dumb.
This is Jamie from Fans With Pride. I'm going to answer your questions today.
First off, these are 6.5"x9" and act as a great alarm clock or desk decoration. They simply plug into the standard wall outlet.
Second, these are the most up to date models that have been made. All current championships should be reflected in all models. These are popular officially licensed clocks at the best price anywhere on the web.
Let me know what else needs to be answered. Thanks!
This item is 32.95 on this site, but when you add the coupon, the site displays 40.95 pre-taxed. Though a nice item that's a big"NO" for me. Either coupon doesn't work or site doesn't recognize it. Bad woot!
Cool, so Alabama and Texas both won the National Championship in 2009.
@markriddle: The coupon works, I just tested it.
Order over $40 and you get an $8 discount:
Subtotal $43.90
Shipping & Handling $0.00
Discount (Free Shipping on $40 or More, WOOTCLOCK) -$8.00
Grand Total (Excl.Tax) $35.90
Tax $0.00
Grand Total (Incl.Tax) $35.90
This was $32.95 for the clock & $10.95 for a Mailbox Cover Flair Gift Set
@markriddle: I Wootie Poo, how could I have been so wrong. My copy paste must have been corrupted. Tried the coupon code on the site again using 'c & p' and got nowhere, simply transposed it and now I have a great gift for my favorite Alabama fan for xmas and at the price advertise. Can we forget it all and make up???
this add on deals.woot says use code get 50% off, but if you use code you do not get 50% off, i'd be in for one at $20.00 or under delivered, but nothing higher than that. they look nice, but not worth the extra money, at least to me.... no offense to anyone else, maybe i'm just cheap :-/
Is the Alabama clock on sale because there is a possibility of it being outdated if Alabama wins a 14th championship in upcoming game?
I didn't see the 50% off. I'd be willing to chance being out of date for $20 (gift for son.)
Ah, I see. They mean 50% off their retail price. It is also interesting that the photo showed an Alabama clock, but the coupon indicates any team clock. Guess it had nothing to do with the upcoming championship after all.


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Adding Designers (Course Builders)
You may now add your own Designers (Course Builders) to your Bb Learn courses! These conditions must be met:
- You must be a Primary Instructor in your Bb Learn course in order to add Designers
- You may only add a person who is not (and will not be) enrolled in the same course in a different role (i.e., as a Teaching Assistant or Secondary Instructor)
- If you do need a Teaching Assistant or Secondary Instructor to have Designer access added, please contact the e-Learning Center (email@example.com) to request that they add Designer access for that person
Adding a Designer
- Log in to Bb Learn and log in to a course in which you are Primary Instructor
- In the Course Management Control Panel, expand Course Tools and select Manage Users
- In the Manage Users window, select Add Users by Role
- Enter the person's NAU UserID (e.g., xyz23) in the Username field, and select the Course Builder role, then click Submit. NOTE: Remember to add ONLY people who do not already have another role in the course (e.g., TA or Secondary Instructor), and who will not have another role in the course.
Removing a Designer
- To remove a Designer that you have added, go to the Manage Users tool and select Remove Other Users by Role
- Select the Course Role checkbox for the Course Builder role and click Submit
- Select (check) the names of any Course Builders you would like to remove, then click Submit.
If you have any questions, or to add a Designer who is (or will be) a Teaching Assistant or Secondary Instructor in your course, please email the e-Learning Center with details: email@example.com


text:
I was recently wondering - would RSA be useful if we brought it to, say, medieval times? Could you choose the keys so that you could encrypt/decrypt messages quite easily, but factoring the private key would, say, take over 1000 days for 1000 people, provided that they used paper and pencil only and wouldn't make any mistakes?
I thought about this and done a bit of research and the answer is no.
The problem is the gap between the difficulty of factorisation versus prime generation isn't really large enough at the scale of primes/moduli we can work with.
By 1588 the largest prime discovered was 524287 and that was due to Pietro Cataldi. This was a prime generated by a single person's work. I don't know how much effort this took but given that it was a world record at the time, I think we can assume it was a fair amount of effort.
In order to have a secure instance or RSA, we'd probably want to generate a modulus using two six digit primes. That's already quite a bit of work.
However, a nation state can draw on more resources. They could hire a team of people to try and break the message. One observation is that there aren't actually that many primes below 1,000,000: there are only 78,498! If we consider only the primes between 100,000 and 1,000,000 this number comes down to 68,906.
A nation state could use the sieve of Eratosthenes to find all the primes below 1,000,000. This is a one off effort they need to attack any modulus which is the product of two six digit primes.
Finally, to factor a particular spy's modulus they simply give it to a pool of people who work down through the list.
Let's say one person can try one division every five minutes. That seems like quite a long time given the size of the numbers. Nonetheless, in one eight hour working day they could try 96 divisions per day. Across a pool of 20 people it'd take 35 days to run through the entire list.
In practice, most moduli would be solved much sooner than this because both primes will appear somewhere in the list.
This attack is entirely practical and thus makes RSA pretty useless for encryption in that historical period.
I'm answering to this a bit with "tongue in cheek" attitude because I like the question. Thanks d33tah. I try to make a few useful points. Maybe somebody contributes more via comments.
The term RSA in itself is ambiguous. I've assumed that entire RSA as defined in PKCS#1 + key generation stuff from FIPS 186-4 was known back then (maybe they also knew DSA and ECDSA and made wise decision to only use RSA as it is the most convenient).
Thus, I'm assuming that RSA means RSA sign/verify, padding, RSA encrypt, verify, key generation mechanisms, ... The other answer about primes is indeed completely true. There is no reason to expect that very large prime numbers were known back then. But if these things have been known...
There is are three laws from Clarke regarding technology. One of them is: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
The medieval methodology to rubber-hose cryptoanalysis XKCD: Security was harsher that it is now (nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition). Back then somebody having skills indistinguishability from magic would have been most probably reasonable basis for witch trial.
Early forms of steganography and cryptography (think e.g. Caesar cipher) date much further back than medieval times. Therefore, it can be easily thought that some more asymmetric cryptography back then would have been possibly beneficial for faster progress in mathematics and natural sciences. Maybe renaissance would have been earlier. And, quite probably, modern computers would be something totally different.
Cryptography made certainly sense before computers, and problems related to confidentiality, integrity and authenticity existed back then.
BTW, alone RSA had been next to useless. It is too slow. For fast execution hybrid encryption is needed. Authenticity/integrity on the other hand likely needs strong hash functions.


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text:
By trying to find a marginal distribution I came accross integration of the product series. For the sake of generality, lets assume the integral is of following form: $$\int \prod_{k=1}^{n}\left ( x+a_{k} \right )^{b_{k}}dx.$$ $a_{k}$ is a real coefficient and $b_{k}$ is positive integers. Is there any method, that could be used to integrate this analyticaly? It is of no problem to calculate it by some numerical method. But the first thing I would like to try is to find its analytical expression.
Since the derivative of such a product has a similar form $$\left(\sum_{k=1}^n\frac{b_k}{x+a_k} \right)\prod_{k=1}^{n}\left ( x+a_{k} \right )^{b_{k}},$$ One might hope that something similar is true of some antiderivative. (I am implicitly assuming that the $b_k$ are positive integers, although the formula is valid more generally. However there are cases that will involve some $\ln |x+a_k|$ . I will continue to neglect these.)
If we imagine that we have some one antiderivative $$F(x)=\int \prod_{k=1}^{n}\left ( x+a_{k} \right )^{b_{k}}dx$$ and let $F_k=F(x)-F(-a_k),$ then $F_k(x)$ is also an antiderivative and is divisible by $(x+a_k)^{b_k+1}$
That is not particularly deep.
We can use integration by parts to obtain an answer without any explicit multiplying although marching through to the end will not be very pretty. It is more satisfying to know that we can do it than to actually do so.
It would be only slightly more complicated (but also only slightly more satisfying) to have products of factors $(m_kx+a_k)^{b_k}$.
A large table of integrals might have formulas such as this one.
The magic words are "Lauricella Hypergeometric Function".


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9 Houses You Won't Believe People Actually Live In
#4. Bubble House
Via Google Maps
This settlement on Tatooine -- sorry, this "totally a home on Earth, for real" called the Bubble Palace was conceived in the 1970s by architect Antti Lovag. He was commissioned to design the home near Tourrettes-sur-Loup in France by an eccentric wealthy industrialist, but when the deal fell through, designer Pierre Cardin, the fashion guru who created the bubble dress, took on the house in 1989. That's right: Not one, but two separate people not only immediately loved the idea of living in a bubble bath but also were actually in the position to finance said sprawling bubble compound.
Via Izismile.com
Via Izismile.com
All the rooms in the villa are round, with no straight edges anywhere in the house -- not even the beds. Cardin says it's because, "The circle is my symbol; the sphere represents the creation of the world and the mother's womb. Holes, cones, breasts -- I've always used them in my designs." The architect who built the house says it's because straight lines are "an aggression against nature ... human beings have confined themselves to cubes full of dead ends and angles that impede our movement and break our harmony."
Via Izismile.com
So there you go, totally legit reasoning: They had to build this house so they could live inside a boob and put an end to the race war against Gaia.
Via Izismile.com
Hehehe. Boobs.
#3. Extreme Treehouse
This is just one example of the typical dwelling used by the Korowai tribe of New Guinea, who had no idea the outside world even existed until 1970. Instead of building treehouses 10 feet off the ground for their kids, stalling out halfway through and just living with a plank in their trees for the next few decades, the Korowai build their treehouses like real men: To the finish, and up to 165 feet in the air. They do this to avoid predators, floods and ant swarms, and also because it just looks ... so awesome.
Via Travelpod.com
Seriously, we would abandon our civilized lives in a heartbeat to live in that thing. We would take zip lines everywhere, we would befriend an Ewok and name him Jarvis, and we would spend the rest of our days fighting lions together.
#2. Sidewalk Egg House
Dai Haifei is a Chinese architect. He works for a company whose slogan is "Our Buildings Are Eggs Laid by City," and apparently nothing was lost in translation there -- seeing as how Dai now lives in an egg-shaped house small enough to fit on the sidewalk.
He built this pod on a bamboo frame insulated with wood chips, with bags of sprouting grass on the outside. Total Cost: $964. Though quite small, the pod is big enough to house a bed, a water tank, a night table and a crushing sense of claustrophobia. Dai says he typically works at his architectural firm until midnight and only uses his home for sleep anyway, allowing him to save a ton of money that he can hopefully use one day to escape that incredibly sad-sounding existence.
Via Repubblica.it
#1. Broken Column House
The aristocracy in pre-revolutionary France had way too much time, way too much money and by the looks of things, way too much laudanum. The hot new thing to do as a drug-addled European hedonist back in the day was build yourself a themed garden, like the Desert de Retz, constructed by aristocrat Francois Nicolas Henri Racine de Monville. The centerpiece was the Broken Column mansion, designed to look like it was all that remained of a column from a gargantuan, destroyed, ancient temple.
Via Pruned.blogspot.com
The building as it stands now, fully restored.
It wasn't just decoration, either: Monville lived in the building himself and hosted esteemed individuals like Thomas Jefferson there. Jefferson visited the Desert while serving as a minister to France and borrowed some design elements of the Broken Column for the rotunda of the University of Virginia.
Via Narratingwaste
"Yes! This is just the kind of crazy bullshit America needs to thrive as a foundling nation!" -- Thomas Jefferson
Mike Cooney is a freelancer, an award-winning award winner and Time's 2006 Person of the Year (Google it). He can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.com for screenplay writing, sketch comedy, songwriting, editing and any other freelance opportunity.
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text:
1202: Girls and Boys
|Girls and Boys
Title text: To get more knowledge
[edit] Explanation
This comic is a play on the popular school-yard taunt, "Girls go to college, to get more knowledge; boys go to Jupiter, to get more stupider," also commonly heard as "Boys go to Mars, to get more candy bars; girls go to Jupiter, to get more stupider." The words "boys" and "girls" may be interchanged depending on the gender of the person chanting. The schoolyard taunt embodies the competitiveness and separation commonly seen between young boys and girls, and ideas about the superiority of one's gender. The comic subverts the original rhyme by having both girls and boys go to college to gain knowledge, and then using that knowledge to go to Jupiter as part of a space program.
Going "to Jupiter, to get more stupider" is ironic considering that human beings have not yet even gone to Mars, so the ability to go to Jupiter would take a huge amount of knowledge that we don't currently have. Likewise, people in space programs going to Jupiter would definitely have advanced degrees, a great deal of knowledge, and a motivation to seek out more knowledge. Space programs and going to Jupiter would require the cooperation of many different people, men and women included, rather than the divisive atmosphere of the schoolyard.
The title text points out that the purpose of space programs is to advance science and wouldn't actually be dumb at all. So the task of going to Jupiter is absolutely dependent on going to college, cooperation, and getting more knowledge, completely opposite of what the schoolyard taunt suggests.
[edit] Transcript
- Girls go to college
- To get more knowledge
- [Megan studying at a table.]
- Boys go to college
- To get more knowledge
- [Cueball studying at a table.]
- Girls and boys
- [Space launch control room with Megan and Cueball working together amongst other people.]
- Go to Jupiter
- [Rocket launch.]
add a comment! ⋅ add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ refresh comments!
I figured it was a poem. Turns out it is, of a sort. https://encrypted.google.com/webhp#safe=off&q=%22girls+go+to%22+%22to+get+more%22 188.8.131.52 04:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- The original poem is "Boys go to Jupiter, to get more stupider, girls go to college, to get more knowledge. 126.96.36.199 03:23, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
I thought of Men are from Mars Women are from Venus by John Gray and the response Men Are from Earth. Women Are from Earth: Deal with It by Gorge Carlin. If only the sexes could work together we could go to Jupiter. --18.104.22.168 08:12, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- This is wonderful and I think in the same spirit as the comic. Stop the 'sex war' jokes and admit that both boys and girls want knowledge. And to arrive to Jupiter. 126.96.36.199 14:02, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- Both of you need to read some feminist literature (real feminist, not pop-feminist). 184.108.40.206 18:03, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- For example?--126.96.36.199 01:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
- Anything by "bell hooks" (it's a pen name, and it is all lowercase) 188.8.131.52 19:16, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
- https://excoradfeminisms.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bell_hooks-feminism_is_for_everybody.pdf 126.96.36.199 16:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
- Why would anyone need or even want to read anything like this‽ 18.104.22.168 20:04, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- For example?--184.108.40.206 01:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
- Both of you need to read some feminist literature (real feminist, not pop-feminist). 188.8.131.52 18:03, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
I would interpret differently the two last pictures: as girls and boys SEPARATLY go to college to get knowledge, Girls and boys TOGETHER go to Jupiter, meaning when a boy and girl interact, they generally act stupid... 220.127.116.11 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- I cannot imagine the author of XKCD using going to Jupiter as an example of doing something stupid. Absolutely improbable IMHO.184.108.40.206 14:02, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- isnt thw rocket quite phallic? girlsnand boysngo to colledge to getmore....ehm... knowledge? 184.108.40.206 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- No, is only a rocket. But, thinking about your comment like it was a response from a rorschach test, well, it tell us something about yourself Chris-l (talk) 15:22, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- It tells us that he's drunk. 220.127.116.11 18:03, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- After reading the discussion here, I actually support the sexual innuendo explanation. Consider what you learn with american college movies, xkcd's tendency to subvert ideas (remember it's a child's chanting) and the rocket analogy. Also, the title text may have the purpose of correcting the reader's dirty mind. 126.96.36.199 02:09, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
- 126.96.36.199 11:26, 22 April 2013 (UTC)Sometimes a rocket is just a rocket.
- Looks to me like a typical Titan rocket. Zelmo (talk) 14:15, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- I wish today's comic made me laugh. 184.108.40.206 14:30, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- "Go to Jupiter to get knowledge" is a reference to the movie 2001. Also, I remember hearing the poem as "GIRLS, go to COLL,ege so THEY can get, KNOW,ledge, BOYS, go to JUpiter so THEY, can get STUpider" which avoids the "more stupider" construction. 126.96.36.199 17:57, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
- knowledge or no knowledge, I don't want to go TO Jupiter. Near Jupiter, maybe. Ganymede? 184.108.40.206 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- Frankly, I am thanfull Mr. Munroe made this. This taunt, while never directly aimed at myself, was an irritant to me, a knowledge-lover. This comic reconciles the genders and deconstructs the taunt. (Of course, from what I had seen in my life, most school-age boys, even the adolescent ones, WOULD prefer getting stupider, what with their real-life trolling and immature behaviour.) Greyson (talk) 12:03, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
By the way, I first head of the taunt (but with the clauses reversed) in Hey Arnold! Greyson (talk) 12:05, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Girls think going to Jupiter is stupid? Typical. XY FTW :P 184.108.40.206 12:25, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Hmmm, I saw the rocket blasting off as sexual inuendo. And the alt text/pop up reference about going to Jupiter to get more knowledge I took as gaining carnal knowledge. 18.104.22.168 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Currently the explanation says that '.. human beings arn't yet even capable of going to Mars.' This is patently false - it confuses ability with desire. I'm going to change the wording on that. 220.127.116.11 18:08, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
A manned mission to Jupiter would actually be pretty stupid since it's made of gas. They're better off going to one of the moons. Europa, maybe, or Ganymede. Jake (talk) 15:51, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
Oy. There is some serious overthink going on here. Orazor (talk) 12:42, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Why would you visit a gas giant with crippling gravity? The only thing stupider than going to Jupiter, is going to the sun, which is no fun. -- 00:02, 26 September 2014 (UTC)


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Yeah, you should probably know what the record is before you try to break it.
The Odd Fellows of Davis, whose Oct. 3 bike parade was planned to achieve Guinness Book of Records status for its number of participants, recently learned that the town of Udine, Italy, had amassed 48,615 for a parade. Davis Bicycle Parade Committee chairman Frank Giustino had been under the impression that the record was 3,515 bikes during a parade in Bangkok, Thailand.


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11 Images of Nature You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped
#5. Rainbow Trees
Either a particularly flamboyant Predator brought a bunch of highlighters with him to make the jungle more compatible with his new Technicolor cloaking device, or mutant alien leprechauns have invaded our humble Earth, bringing with them rainbow trees to hide their many pots of space gold in.
In reality, not only do these trees actually exist, but they're completely natural. Officially known as the Eucalyptus deglupta, the trees have multiple layers of bark. As the bark peels, the inner layers are initially green, but then darken into different shades of yellow, brown, purple, red and orange, making the tree look like the centerpiece of a Target back-to-school ad.
#4. Lake Natron
Awww ... baby sarlaccs are adorable.
What we are viewing here is obviously the pockmarked surface of a massive alien brain, mutated by radiation from a solar flare and sent screaming to Earth on the back of a meteor. It is slowly lurching its way toward those mountains in the distance to use its immeasurable psychic energy to construct a mind-rape antenna to enslave every living creature on the planet.
Luckily, that crimson field of fury is just an alkali salt crust lying on the top of Lake Natron, in Tanzania. Countless microorganisms are attracted to the heavy salt concentration, which gives the lake its odd color and texture.
"Mmmmm, that lake has some great marbling."
Despite alkalinity levels that can reach a pH level of 10 (almost as high as pure ammonia) and temperatures that reach over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the lake is one of the only breeding sites for the lesser flamingo, an animal that, ironically, also kind of looks like it's from space.
#3. The White Blob Tide
So you're living in Australia. Tired of constantly avoiding all of the horrible, horrible fauna that populate the mainland, you decide to set aside some time to sit back and relax at the beach. When you arrive, however, you find that the ocean has turned itself into a monster, seemingly devouring women and children in a mass of foam not entirely unlike the Blob's albino cousin. It sounds like a SyFy original movie starring Michael Madsen, and now that we think about it, we are certain it is a SyFy original movie starring Michael Madsen.
Sunshine Coast Daily
"Upon further inspection, this is not a root beer float tide."
What you're actually seeing is a completely natural occurrence that happens every so often in the wake of big storms. The storm effectively stirs up sediment and organic deposits from the ocean floor, creating a foamy substance that washes up onto various beaches for several days. The foam itself is primarily made up of broken down dead sea life and seaweed, bathing inexplicably excited beachgoers in foul-smelling dead fish suds. You don't want to eat it, is what we're trying to say.
#2. The Spotted Lake
OK, that looks less like an alien landscape and more like something out of Dr. Seuss.
That ridiculous white-with-polka-dots landscape is Spotted Lake in Osoyoos, Canada. It's caused by a large concentration of various minerals found within the lake. During the summer, when most of the water evaporates, the minerals are left to harden around the remaining "spots" of water. Each spot's color is determined by its own unique combination of minerals.
"The guide says the yellowish-green ones are safe for swimming and the greenish-yellow ones will dissolve your skin."
#1. Foxfire / Glow-in-the-Dark Fungi
Pictured above is the last thing you'll see before your brain is infected by interstellar radiation, turning you into a slobbering fungal demon intent on destroying every living thing within biting distance. Or, it's a clutch of glow-in-the-dark mushrooms.
So clutch.
Glow-in-the-dark fungi is actually very real and very not-from-space, and is also known as foxfire. The bioluminescence is caused by a simple chemical reaction within the fungus. The reason for this trait, however, is as yet unknown, and greatly debated. One common theory is that it is meant to attract insects, which in turn spread the seeds of the fungus. Please note that this still leaves room for our "insanity-farting mind bore from beyond the stars" theory until the source of the luminescence is officially determined.
For more images that just can't be real (but really are), check out 8 Real Photographs That Prove Hell Exists on Earth and 21 Images You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped .
If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out Why Peyton Manning Is the Steve Jobs of the NFL.
And stop by LinkSTORM where you can scream "FAKE" at your computer screen for as long as you want to.
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text:
Many LaTeX "hacks" begin with
\makeatletter and end with
\makeatother. What do these commands do?
All characters in TeX are assigned a "category code" or catcode. There are 16 catcodes in all, some containing just a single character, e.g.
In LaTeX class and package files, however,
However, it is sometimes necessary in user documents to have access to such package-internal macros, and so the commands
In practical terms, if you need to modify a package internal macro that contains the
The commands should not be used within


text:
In images and other media I have seen of Jewish weddings, there seems to be a trend to get married in the evening or night time. Is this a Jewish custom a halachic requirement and what is the origin or reasoning behind this custom? Thanks as always!
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There is definitely no Halachic requirement to get married at night. I personally got married on Labor Day and the wedding was in the daytime. It is mostly done since it is convenient. Bli Ayin Hara with many weddings and Simchas on a daily basis, it would be dificult for many to attend if they were all held in the daytime.
Nitei Gavriel Hilchos Nesuin 16:5 says that it is done in the evening for the following reasons.
A: Convenient
B: Ais Ratzon - When Eliezer went to get Rivka - it was the time of Mincha - which is a time of Ais Ratzon.
As stated, it's usually a convenience thing.
There is actually an opinion that it's preferable in the daytime, to treat it as a function of a ritual court (which would only convene in daytime) -- if this opinion is followed, it's then preferable that the officiating rabbi not be related to the bride or groom (if we're really treating it like a court function ...). Rabbi Hershel Schachter recalls planning the wedding of one of his sons, where the bride's parents asked if he'd officiate. Rabbi Schachter replied:
The trickiest time to do a wedding is if the ceremony straddles sunset. As the new Jewish day starts then, you get a whole mess about exactly what date the ketubah document has (let's say that's signed just before sunset), vs. when the ceremony actually happens (let's say just after sunset). You'll thus see wedding invitations specifying chuppah at 6:30pm promptly, before sunset.
The reason I have heard behind this is because the descents of Yisroel are compared to the stars in the skies and so weddings should be held at night so that there will be many children as a result of these weddings. this of course is just one minhag and I don't think there is any halachic requirement for a specific time of day other than those times of year which don't allow for weddings anyway.


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I've been working on a step for F4SP 2010, where I had to get the HTML content from the Site crawled of Sharepoint, and get a div into it.
My question is not how to do that.
I have the main problem that I do not know what crawled property uses the crawler to save theHTML content.
Could anyone help me identifying this property?


text:
When I went to check out the co-op play option but it says that I haven't purchased the Online Pass and therefore cannot use it. I know that online passes have become more popular in the past year and often require a separate purchase if you buy the game used/secondhand, but so far the precedent I have seen is that you get an online pass if you purchase new.
I have purchased Saints Row: The Third brand new (the Platinum Pack even). It didn't seem to come with any separate Online Pass code that I can find in my box. All I had was the code for the Professor Genki DLC.
Do I have to purchase the Online Code separately even though I have a new version of the game? Is it possible my box was just missing the code?


text:
Plain Toe
Item # K58359
Special Offer:
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Whether you want to look more rugged in the city or just more stylish off-road, the Plain Toe boot by Rockport delivers both, adding tremendous versatility to your wardrobe.
- Padded collar and tongue for comfort
- Full grain leather and suede is durable and easy to clean
- Rubber sole provides a durable grip
- EVA provides lightweight shock absorption to reduce foot and leg fatigue
- adiPRENE by adidas technology
Highly shock-absorbent cushioning protects the heel at impact
Plain Toe is rated out of 5 by 2.
Rated 2 out of 5 by MonteCristo from They look good, but they sure don't *feel* good. I like Rockport. I already had four pairs of Rockport shoes by the time I purchased these...Which is why I figured I could buy Rockport, untested, since I'd never failed to get quality from them. These boots changed that presumption. The insole may as well be nonexistent. It provided no support and my feet hurt within minutes of standing (as opposed to my other Rockports which allow me to stand, literally, for hours straight)...And I'm not overweight, nor do I have any other physical problems which would explain my pain away. The insoles are flat and they slide forward if you walk on a surface that has any decline at all... So, puchase these, but beware...You're going to need replacement insoles. Otherwise, these aren't even good for walking around in, let alone doing anything at all strenuous.
Date published: 2013-07-06
Rated 4 out of 5 by Linewalker from Nice boots but they run large nice boots but they are a little narrow and I dont have wide feet. they are also very long 1/2 to a full size to large. they seems very nice good quality but the sizing is rough to handle.
Date published: 2013-04-16


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Doc McStuffins is the name of the newest animated TV star featured on Disney Junior. The "Doc" is the first black female lead character of an animated series on the channel. Created by Emmy Award winning Writer and Producer Chris Nee, (Blues Clues, Backyardigans, Little Bill), Doc McStuffins is an animal vet for fictional toys who happens to be a young black girl.
Chris Nee thought of the character while pondering her own child's struggle with asthma. She realized there were no animated shows that dealt with a child's visit to the doctor. Doc McStuffins was a great introduction to the message she wanted to send as a mother and a writer and Disney Junior's need for a strong black lead character.
The toys that see Doc McStuffins for 'medical care' are often diagnosed with problems that can be associated with a child's common illness. A toy's broken wing or airplane blade can be an example of a child's broken bone. Healthy ideals like how colds are spread, illustrated by using finger painting, are a couple of ways that Doc McStuffins teaches kids to stay and be healthy.
Chris Nee has reached out to medical professionals for her newest Disney Junior production.
Doc McStuffins airs weekdays on Disney Junior (Disney Channel).


text:
Travis J. Munsterman, 18, of Leavenworth, son of Michael J. Munsterman and Tara L. Giddens passed away August 17, 2014 as a result of a single car accident.
A Celebration of Life Service will be held 11 a.m., Friday, August 22, 2014 at Belden Larkin Funeral Home.
Travis was born November 17, 1995 in Olathe, Kansas, he attended school in Leavenworth.
Travis was currently employed with his father at Munsterman Heating and Cooling.
Travis was into cars, motorcycles, go carts, and anything with a motor. He loved skateboarding and had a great sense of humor. He was always happy, hard working, and had a big smile.
He is survived by his mother and father, two sisters; Erin Giddens and Caitlyn Rodgers, one brother; Justin Munsterman, his maternal grandparents; Paul Giddens and Reita Dorssom, paternal grandparents; Rodger and Brenda Munsterman, many aunts, uncles, and other relatives.
Memorials may be directed to the family: Travis Munsterman, c/o Exchange National Bank, P.O. Box 109, Leavenworth, Kansas 66048.
Arrangements have been entrusted to Belden-Larkin Funeral Home and Cremation Services. Condolences may be sent to www.beldenlarkin.com.
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