What can I do to help relieve joint pain in fingers after climbing?

Question: After I've been climbing for a while, my finger joints are very sore.
Is there anything I can do to relieve that pain?
Comment: Stop using those 1-finger holds!  :-)
Comment: I really like HorusKol's answer. But after a long climb you will probably always notice that your fingers and forearms ache. This is normal. The trick is to be aware enough to know when you're damaging your body. Good luck!
Answer: Oh friend, I have been down this miserable road just like you. I'll tell you what's at the end of it: swelling of the synovial fluid in the finger joints (which if not reduced leads to arthritis), bone spurs in the knuckles, and a year off the rock. Here's the good news, though: I'm happily climbing again and my fingers don't hurt!
The finger joint pain you're feeling is most likely due to your hand position on crimpers. Most of us tend to rely on finger bone position rather than strength when holds get small and walls get overhung. We mash the tips of our fingers into the crimp, hyper-extend the first finger knuckle, and hyper-flex the second, locking our finger bones together and creating a really sweet claw-hand that won't release until we decide to make it. Sometimes (guilty), we'll even wrap our thumb over the first finger nail to crank down even harder. So right, this is really bad for your hands.
If you can force yourself, get to the gym and climb, I kid you not, nothing but 5.6s. Look at your hands on every hold and climb with an open hand: every finger knuckle should be bent roughly the same amount and none of them should be bending backwards. This will help you train your muscles to bear the force instead of your joints. It'll also help you retrain your brain, since by now the bad technique is habit. Once you've got the 5.6s, move to 5.7s and so on. Pay particular attention to your hand position as your chest becomes even with your hands: this is when it's very easy to fall back into bad habits.
Lastly, just some sympathy. Training for good hand position really freakin sucks. It also sucks that there seem to be scores of climbers who can climb with claw-hand and never have a problem with it. At any rate, good luck. I'd do what the above poster suggests in the meantime and hit the vitamin I and ice. I had some luck also with glucosamine/chondroitin/MSM supplements while I was retraining.
Comment: `we'll even wrap our thumb over the first finger nail to crank down even harder. So right, this is really bad for your hands.` One study said that this increases the force of the grip, but *doesn't* increase the likelihood of injury: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/47813503_The_Thumb_During_the_Crimp_Grip "adding the thumb to the rock-climbing crimp-grip enabled an increase in the performance of the grip. ... forces exerted under the middle and ring fingers did not change, which led to the conclusion that the pathology risks are not enhanced by the crimp with thumb technique."
Comment: `help you train your muscles to bear the force instead of your joints` There are no muscles in your fingers, though; it's just different ways of putting force on the tendons?
Answer: This might sound a bit daft - but you could be holding on to the rock too tightly. Your other questions indicate you might be pretty new to climbing, and it is common for beginners to make this mistake.
Primarily, you should be climbing with your legs - pushing your weight up. Legs are used to your weight - arms, and fingertips, are not. If you are steady on your legs - especially if you are able to get your leg straight so you are standing through bone and not relying on a bent knee - then you should only need to use your hands for balancing yourself.
Obviously, there are times when you really do need to grip harder, and even pull yourself up rather than push, but climbing is as much a thinking game as it is physical, and planning your moves goes a long way to preventing fatigue and injury.
Treating joint pain - ice packs probably help. I'd also think about taking an anti-inflammatory, like ibuprofen or aspirin (not at the same time).
Comment: They're both the same family of drug, and taking full doses of both at the same time can lead to liver damage.
Comment: No reason not to take aspirin and Ibuprofen at the same time if you feel it helps (overkill for sore fingers unless you have done something very nasty to your tendons)
Comment: I agree!  Just a note: anxiety and fear will make you grip harder. This is something to watch out for, particularly if you're outdoors.
Answer: Rest?  Sometimes this kind of pain can be a sign of overtraining.
In the question, the poster doesn't say how frequently he climbs, or how long he's been climbing, so its hard to formulate an exact recommendation.
If you're just feeling a tremendous amount of lower-grade soreness, try reducing the numbers of days a week you climb.  I have friends that can climb hard 6 days a week, but I set myself up for an injury if I climb (hard) more than 3-4.  When I started climbing, I was only able to climb 2 or 3 days a week.
Like other people said, building more open hand strength will help you minimize how often you need to crimp, but that can be a long term change, and regardless of your climbing level, your body still needs a chance to recover from rough workouts.
Answer: Holding on to crimpers is what causes pain in my finger-joints. This is from the Metolius website where they give instructions for hang-board training:

"Avoid using crimp or cling grips. A very important aspect concerning any hold is how you hold on to it. It is extremely important that you do not use any kind of cling technique regularly."

I have often heard that using an open-handed technique also trains crimping strength, while the reverse is not true, crimping does not strengthen the open handed gripping strength (used for holding onto slopers.) I would say, avoid anything that resembles crimping when you are training, and safe that for when you are working on a project.
Answer: Find yourself a good deep tissue massage therapist who specializes in things like carpal tunnel, tennis elbow, and thoracic outlet syndrome; someone who knows the muscles well enough to address these concerns will know the muscles well enough to massage the muscles of a climber. Just be prepared for to hurt a bit; just like every other muscle, the tiny muscles of the fingers can have lactic acid built up inside them, and getting that out can hurt like mad!  But the relief you feel following a good stripping session on your hands and firearms is worth the temporary pain!
Comment: "Fingers do not contain muscles (other than [the ones in hair follicles]). The muscles that move the finger joints are in the palm and forearm. The long tendons that deliver motion from the forearm muscles may be observed to move under the skin at the wrist and on the back of the hand." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger#Muscles
Answer: Yes, stop climbing. Your connective tissues are not ready for it. Active rest (easy climbing/easy training) and rehab/prehab for your fingers, wrists, forearms, and upper body in general will help.
Look at it this way, however long you have had the injury/been feeling pain, you will need to rest and rehab your joints/connective tissue for the same amount of time until you are even back to normal. For example, if you've been injured for 8 weeks, then you will have to rest and rehab for 8 weeks to get back to neutral, if you will (before you were injured) before you can even start to increase your strength. Connective tissue takes a long time to heal (around 10x longer than muscle). It's not fun stuff, but you just have to be patient, consistent, and not rush it, otherwise, you'll just stay injured, be unable to train optimally, and possibly make it worse until it gets to the point where you do permanent damage.
Most people will just say climb less, or climb less intense routes, but that's not enough. It's gotta be comprehensive. We deal with the same stuff in gymnastics. It takes years to develop not just our skills, but the strength of ALL our tissue (muscles, bones, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, etc.). That's why rushing things like iron cross training can cause injuries. The muscles might be strong enough for it, but the connective tissues are not, which is where you run into problems. It shouldn't be painful after climbing. If it is, you're just not ready for it yet and need to back off and start over. That doesn't mean your training and climbing should be easy, but there's a huge line between pushing yourself and hurting yourself.
Keep that in mind.

Answer: I have found that doing 4 weeks at the climbing gym followed by 10 days at the normal gym has reduced my injuries and improved other aspects of my climbing, also posture, cardio and flexibility.
The 10 days I focus on are 3-4-3 3 days all leg plyometrics and cardio. 4 days focussing on heavier weights on larger muscles and using lapis balls as grips for the machines light and high reps. Then 3 days boxing, cardio or bodyweight stuff.
When I come back to climbing I feel refreshed mentally and physically. I'm not saying its the best way, but for me when I get to week 3 of my training block and my fingers hurt I can focus on a certain amount of days until my active rest.
Btw is it all your fingers or just one (normally ring finger for me) that hurt? Is it the joints or dried up flappers that give you hassle? Good luck finding what works for you.


Where can a list of Desktop web browsers be found at?

Question: I have another question posted in regards to the practicality of whitelisting.  In this question I'm simply looking for an frequently updated list of top known used Desktop web browsers to use as part of my whitelist.
I'm not trying to target any specific OS so please show one, show all.  The list of browsers for desktops isn't exploding, but it does grow.  I've only recently been made aware of other browsers that have multiple rendering engines.  I'm not always on top of the text based browsers found out there either.
I'm aware of the mobile browser platform and there is an active list used with regular expression for identification purposes that I will use as well as whatever I can find for the desktop platforms.
Answer: You can find a list of web browsers here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers


how to change the sequence used in planning poker

Question: Is it possible to change the used sequence in Planning Poker, for some stories, it is thought that when the stories gets larger it contains more uncertainty but stories have nearly exact time estimations and these estimations don't drop into two bounds defined by Fibonacci series.
Comment: Please can you clarify. It sounds like you're saying that, for some stories, you know exactly what the duration will be and therefore want to use a specific number of story points which aren't on any of your planning poker cards. Can you give some examples of stories you can estimate so accurately, as I would question whether these would really be accurate.
Comment: There is no story whose duration estimated exactly but I wonder that Is it impossible,can't there be such situations and these estimations can't drop into intervals such [20,40],i.e. 30.
Comment: If your estimations are always on the upper end of the scale (or beyond!) then it sounds like you need to split up your tasks to be more granular.
Answer: Prevent Anchoring
Fibonacci Sequence is chosen because there is does not represent a linear extrapolation between the increments in the sequence, and help stop psychological anchoring on numbers based on the values on either side.
Back to the Future
The estimation isn't solely about time.
It is a composite of Time/Complexity/Risk as understood by the team. Yes it might be 30 minutes worth of effort for one team member, but 3 hours for anyone else on the team. Majority of the time it is going to be one of the 3 hour people working on the task.
Its all Relative
Stories should be rated relative to each other. The numbers in the Fibonacci Sequence discourages saying things like "Story A is twice Story B" and encourages "Story A is more like Story X" or "Story A is more than Story B but less than Story X" since the numbers get bigger and smaller very quickly on a non-linear scale.
Human Nature
Certain team members will gravitate to everything they estimate being a 3, 5 or 20 and will never budge from those numbers because they get anchored to the 3 and the 20 as upper and lower bounds in their head. The 5 is their compromise number when they are forced to do so, because everyone is usually overly optimistic. Giving realistic or pessimistic estimates; they think makes them look bad in some undefinable way. What really makes them look bad is being wrong on the low side constantly and missing commitments and deadlines constantly because of it.
Refresh Understanding
Sounds like you need to get the team to read up on how Planning Poker is really supposed to work, what the numbers actually mean in context of estimation.
Answer: Fibonacci is only a guideline.  It is a graduated way to do rough estimates and to avoid arguing.  It would be a shame to spend any significant time discussing (or arguing) if a story is actually 15 or 16 points.  That is only a 6% difference.  Likewise, if my team spends more than a minute or two discussing whether a story is a 3 or a 5, I will mark down 4 in the software.
Also, it is unlikely that your ability to accurately estimate spans more than an order of magnitude.  If you are assigning a 1 to some stories, a 13 is really on the verge of being too large.  I used to have a rule with my team that any story larger than 13 had to be broken up, but they eventually started doing that to the 13s also.  We almost never have anything larger than an 8.
If your estimation meeting is long or contentious, you are getting too far into the details.  Story points are fast and rough estimates, don't try to make them exact.  My rule of thumb is that is should take 15 minutes per developer to estimate a two week sprint.  An hour for a team of four.  Don't spend more time on it than that.
Answer: There is at least one more reason why you do not want to change the sequence: because it'll put too much emphasis on trying to get accurate forecasts instead of rough estimates, which is what story pointing should get you.
I'm a people manager and an early mistake we made was to put a lot of emphasis on points, velocity, etc. Our engineers, realizing that points were important to management, were incentivized to maximize said points such that we quickly entered into debates over them. That energy is a complete waste to the product development process and should be reduced/eliminated.
I don't believe points are terribly useful in trying to derive schedules over the short run. After a half-dozen or more sprints with the same team(s)? Then yes, management can extrapolate assuming there is a well groomed backlog, which is itself easier said than done.
Do you want engineers arguing over points or getting stuff done? Your choice based on what you choose to emphasize.
Answer: No you should not change sequence for some user stories. Use the same sequence for the whole project. Fibonacci sequence is used because it describes growing uncertainty with complexity of stories.
The sequence doesn't have anything to do with time estimation! It is complexity / sizing estimation. We don't estimate time for stories. We only measure how many story points we completed in previous sprints and use that measurement for computation of our expected velocity.
If you feel that your user story is not a lower bound you should always choose the upper bound because you have already showed uncertainty with lower bound. If you feel that size estimation results in big user stories with a lot of uncertainty its time to talk with product owner (he should actually initiate this because he sees that his user stories are not specific enough from your estimations) and split those stories into smaller and better defined.


Can there exist two non-equivalent equivariant actions of a group on vector bundle?

Question: Can there exist two non-equivalent equivariant actions of a group $G$ on vector bundle over a $G$ space?
Answer: Maybe I am miss understanding the question, but it seems the answer is yes.
Take your favorite G-space, mine is $S^1$ with the $\mathbb{Z}/2$-action "flip". Then consider the trivial vector bundles $S^1 \times V$, where $V$ is a $G$-representation. In my favorite example $V = \mathbb{R}$ can be either the trivial representation or the sign representation. Taking the diagonal $G$-action gives an equivariant action of the group on the vector bundle. They are distinct for distinct representations (at least in the $S^1$-example) yet the underlying vector bundles are the same if the representations have the same dimension (they are trivial bundles after all).
Comment: Or more simply, replace $S^1$ with a point?
Comment: Of course! yes use a point. It's much easier then the circle. I should have used that from the beginning.
Answer: For an example from Algebraic Geometry, $\mathbb{P}^1_\mathbb{C}$ is a homogeneous space for both $GL(2)$ and $SL(2)$. The trivial line bundle and the determinant line bundle are isomorphic as $SL(2)$-equivariant bundles, and therefore as vector bundles, but are non-isomorphic as $GL(2)$-equivariant bundles.
Answer: More generally, one can ask whether a group action on a manifold $M$ (sorry, I work primarily in that category) can be lifted to a fibre bundle over $M$.  There are obstructions to the lifting and even if a lifting exists it may not be unique.  The earliest results of this nature I am aware of are in the paper Lifting compact group actions in fiber bundles by Hattori and Yoshida.  You may also want to look at this more recent article Lifts of smooth group actions to line bundles by Ignasi Mundet, which may contain more recent references.


regularity of solution of linear elliptic PDE

Question: I am interested in the boundary regularity of solutions of  $ L(u) = f(x) \ge 0$ in $ \Omega$ with zero Dirichlet boundary conditions,  here $L(u) = (-\Delta)^\frac{\alpha}{2}$ where $ 0 < \alpha <2$.
I have found results like:
- if $f$ bounded and $ \alpha<1$ then $ u \in C^{t}$ (to the boundary) for all $ t < \alpha$.

if $ \alpha=1$ and $f$ is smooth with $ f=0$ on the boundary then $ u$ is $C^{2,\gamma}$ (to the boundary) for some $ \gamma >0$.

My question is related to the following calculation which seems to contradict the above results.  We let $ G(x,y)$ denote the Greens function associated to $L$.  One can show that
$G(x,y)= \frac{  \delta(x)^\frac{\alpha}{2} \delta(y)^\frac{\alpha}{2}  }{   |x-y|^{N-\alpha}   \left(  \max\{ |x-y|^2, \delta(x)\delta(y) \} \right)^\frac{\alpha}{2} } $
or at least is bounded above and below by constant multiples of this and where $ \delta(x)$ is the distance from $ x $ to the boundary of $ \Omega$.   Here $N$ is the space dimension of $\Omega$.
So using the integral representation and taking $ f(x) \ge 0 $ smooth and zero in a neighborhood of the boundary of $ \Omega$ i seem to be able to show that $ u(x)$ cannot be Holder continuous of order $> \frac{\alpha}{2}$ at the boundary.    To do this let $ x_m$ be a sequence that converges to $x_0$ which lies on the boundary and assume that $ x_m$ approaches the boundary at right angles.  Use the above representation to write out
$u(x_m)$  and note that one can calculate the maximum for big enough $m$ since $ f$ is identially zero near the boundary.    Then one uses this to get a lower bound on the Holder quotient of $ u$ at $ x_m$ and $ x_0$ and arrives at a contradiction.   (I will add more details of the exact calculation if this would help).
In anycase I cannot spot the error in my logic.
Any comments would be apprecaited.
thanks
Answer: I don't quite have the points to make this a comment like it should be (moderators, feel free to move), but there are multiple definitions of the fractional Laplacian, which might (as in, I don't know, not they definitely can) have different regularity properties at the boundary.
Which definition are you using? Can you give a reference for the Green's function or expound your calculations in more detail?


Hamstrings and running intervals

Question: I've started doing some running intervals/speedwork and notice that my hamstrings get pretty sore afterwards.  I do some off-day stretching, although I probably could do more.  Should I push ahead and deal with soreness, focus more on stretching or should I so some hamstring strengthening exercises?  What would be a good regimen?
Answer: So they're just sore?
Intervals hurt - that's the point - you want to be a bit sore because that's your body getting stronger.
Stretching's probably not going to help much. The intervals are doing a small amount of damage to your body so that it can then repair itself and a bit more and become stronger.
You need to rest and eat sufficient protein to help the process along.
This advice does not apply if you get a sharp pain - which might be a hamstring tear.
Answer: I have the same issue. My PT prescribed "eccentric leg curls." Put 50 or 60 lb on the leg curl machine. Pull slowly with both legs, then slowly return to the rest position with only one leg on the pad. Somehow this really helps the hammies. Just do three sets of ten. Increase weight with caution as you improve. Beware of too much weight or too many reps or pulling too fast; any of these can cause re-injury.
Answer: Couple things to do that might help:
Ensure you are hydrated.  Proper hydration will reduce muscle soreness.
Take some type of recovery drink after the workout.  I've used Endurox quite a bit.  It speeds up recovery and assists with sore muscles quite well.  There are other drinks/items out there as well that might work just as well, but Endurox is my drink of choice.  If you cannot have something like this ensure to eat something fast after working out.  The first 30 minutes after a workout your body needs fuel to recover quickly.
A weight training routine to augment the running might help as well.  Muscle tend to atrophy if you do a lot of endurance running.  Simple high-rep, low-weight exercises (leg curls, extensions, etc. might help bolster your legs a touch.
Lastly, ensure you strecth as Sarge mentions above.  It's likely the soreness you feel is routine, but you need to ensure you don't tred too closely to injury.
Comment: Do you have any links to back your assertions that hydration and recovery drinks will alleviate muscle soreness?
Comment: Here is one:  http://www.mensfitness.com/training/pro-tips/expert-answers-recover-faster-and-stronger
Comment: From your linked article: "Surprisingly, there are no definitive ways to speed up recovery of sore muscles that are supported by research. There are, however, a handful of treatments, which may help alleviate the feeling of soreness:" - in other words, placebo. Do you have any study references, other than a guy interviewed by Rodale Press for a throwaway article?

Hamstrings and running intervals


Examples and intuition for arithmetic schemes

Question: How should a beginner learn about arithmetic schemes (interpret this as you wish, or as a regular scheme, proper and flat over Spec(Z))? What are the most important examples of such schemes? Good references? What kind of intuition do people have for such schemes?
Comment: Since this is an opinion question, rather than a question with an answer, I'm converting it to wiki.
Answer: If you are looking for good first examples, Mumford's Red Book and Eisenbud and Harris's 'Geometry of Schemes' have some good pictures and examples.
Its worth playing around with Spec(O_c), where O_c is the ring of integers in the extension of Q by the square root of c, and thinking about it as a scheme over Spec(Z). In particular, several somewhat mysterious number theory terms like 'ramified' and 'split' make geometric sense in this context.
Its also worth thinking about what the p-adics should look like as a scheme - a formal neighborhood of p in Spec(Z) (though to make this precise you need to know what formal schemes are).
Its also not a terrible idea to pick up a book on algebraic number theory and try to translate everything that is said into a geometric statement (the trick is to realize every time talk about a field, they are really talking about the ring of integers in that field).
Answer: I think it's useful to think not only about Spec(Z) but also about Spec(R), where R is Fq[t];  or, better yet, an order in a finite extension of Fq(t).  Getting fluent at flipping back and forth between Dedekind rings like this and curves over Fq will be very helpful in understanding why the "geometric" features of Spec Z are so called.
Answer: One example I always found useful was that if you consider an elliptic curve like (the projective model of) y^2=x^3+1, then this equation gives an elliptic curve not only over the complex numbers but over any field of characteristic not 2 or 3. So in fact it's giving an elliptic curve over Spec(Z[1/6]), which will look like a scheme with a map to Spec(Z[1/6]) such that the fibre over the point corresponding to the prime ideal p>3 is just the curve over Z/pZ, and the point corresponding to the fibre over the generic point (0) is just the curve over Q. I think that checking these statements formally gave me some sort of intuition as to what was going on at the time. Note that Spec(Z[1/6]) is just the open subscheme of Spec(Z) that you get by throwing away the two closed points (2) and (3).
Answer: Perhaps this is too special but ramification of primes in number fields is a nice motivation, here you can also draw funny pictures of curves over Spec(Z). The step from here to Dedekind schemes is immediate. I think www.renyi.hu/~szamuely/gal6-7.pdf contains a nice treatment of Dedekind schemes, but perhaps there are better sources.
Answer: One example to think about: Spec O_K, for K a number field and O_K its ring of integers. Then the Picard group of all invertible sheaves is isomorphic to the class group.
The main point though is that for a scheme X over Spec Z, one should think of this as a family of schemes which package, for each prime p, a choice of reduction mod p of the scheme X \otimes_Z \Q. A good place to learn about this is Silverman's two books on elliptic curves, especially the chapter on Neron models in the second. It is very basic with examples and exercises.


Strength Training for Running Books - Strength without Mass

Question: I'm a middle-distance endurance runner (58kg BM) and I'm a fan of physiology books such as Lore Of Running by Tim Noakes and De Castella on Running. Can anybody suggest books related to building lean muscle and muscle endurance (ie. increased strength with minimal mass increase.)?
Comment: What is lean muscle?
Answer: 2 MUST HAVES as far as gaining strength with minimal muscle mass increase.
1)  Underground Secrets to Faster Running by Barry Ross focuses on his success with Allison Felix but is directly applicable to all distance runners.  Used in great programs including Bill Aris's Fayettville-Manlius 6 time NXN Champions.
2)  Coach Running DVDs which touch on EVERYTHING a distance runner needs to be successful.  Steve Magness talks in depth on how to structure weight sessions and aerobic training in order to gain strength without mass.  Jay Dicharry also provides TONS of strength training information.  These are the best DVDs I've watched on running and recommend them highly.  The cover it all and is applicable to all levels and all distances above 400m.
Best lessons I can share... monitor the rest and lift heavy with few sets .  Yes this is counterintuitive to the high reps, low weight programs often suggested. It works! The 2 resources above will provide you with tons more support and information as to why that is correct.  Best of luck.


Character details of male archetypes

Question: In this link about character development, the author describes basic male archetypes that are found in a romance novel.
http://www.likesbooks.com/eight.html
My question is: although this is very helpful, the qualities described are hard to flesh out. For example...the ceo boss archetype...what would be the details of this character(likes/dislikes/hobbies/way of conduct) that would really bring alive the qualities of this archetype. How would he conduct himself around people? Around women?
I know the long answer is to read books and more books and pay close attention to thedetails of the character. But is there a guide available on this to get started?
Answer: I think what many archetype systems use as a base point (consciously or unconsciously) is the Enneagram of Personality. Indeed a lot of writer's workshops and courses revolve around using the enneagram to make characters.
To cross reference the enneagram with the archetypes in your referenced article it breaks down like this:

Perfectionist (Bad Boy/Lost Soul/Professor)
Giver (Best Friend/Bad Boy)
Achiever (Chief/Charmer/Professor)
Romantic (Bad Boy/Lost Soul)
Observer (Professor/Lost Soul/Bad Boy)
Idealist (Bad Boy/Swashbuckler/Warrior)
Dreamer (Lost Soul/Charmer)
Boss (Chief/Warrior)
Peacemaker (Chief/Best Friend)

I think the reason why this cross referencing could be helpful is that the enneagram works on the basis of motivation whereas the archetypes work on the basis of outward behaviour.
Essentially the archetype gives you the outward appearance of the character whereas the enneagram gives you a clue as to the character's motivations for assuming their archetypal role.
It's a bit complicated to go into here but basically the breakdown shows that people could be motivated to assume the role of the Chief because they are a Boss, a Peacemaker or an Achiever.
The Boss fears weakness and acts in an aggressively protective manner towards their own perceived weakness and is also strongly motivated to protect those he cares about
The Peacemaker fears conflict and always acts to appease all parties and assume control.
The Achiever fears inadequacy and uses roles like masks over their own inner sense of inadequacy, it is as if their role is a persona masking (quite obviously) their inner personality which the achiever fears is somehow subpar or unworthy.
The relationships within the enneagram go a lot deeper but you can probably start to tease out how chiefs in these three different flavours will favour different outward appearances.
A boss chief will be very spartan and constantly proving that he is strong, he will be a man's man, properly macho. His leadership will be portrayed as some sort of duty and he will be keen to prove that he is the only one strong enough to do the job.
A peacemaker chief will make much of being patrician, urbane, calm and in quiet control. He will make sure he is perceived as generous and reasonable, he will enjoy the accoutrements of peace. He will often be keen to mark out a spiritual space and repeatedly use rhetoric that indicates people obey his station not his ego. He will be the most likely to treat leadership as a burden of reponsibility.
An Achiever chief will be, bluntly, obsessed with bling. His leadership will be a self-obsessive affair and he will want sports cars, blackberries and gold chains to show that he is the boss.
Obviously you could go into this very deeply but that's a jump off point for this kind of character analysis.
Answer: The CEO Boss archetype
He is anxiously building his image as:
A ruhtles utilitarian, ostensibly displaying his contempt of everything what cannot fit into account records.
He doesn't need to follow rules, he is stating them. All people - even his own family - have the only value for him: profit (financial, emotional, ... etc).
Cold power available to the highest bidder.
Some examples of CEO Bosses:

Reinhard Heydrich
Joseph Fouché
Michael Douglas in Wall Street
Jack Thompson in The Assassination of Richard Nixon
Robert De Niro in Angel Heart
Francisco Rabal in Torquemada

(I cannot imagine any CEO to be someone's "best friend" or a "prince on a white horse".)
Answer: I would suggest some of the pickup artist material that has been written over the past five years.  These guys have figured out the "rules" for trying to attract women.  From what I've seen, it generally breaks down men into these categories:

alpha: your CEO type, used to getting what he wants.
beta: the nice guy who finishes last.
omega: the creepy guy in the corner.

What I like about this material is that it breaks men (and women) down into a set of behaviors, and these are easy to replicate in writing.  While there are tons of books available, one of the most interesting free resources I've found is Roissy's blog [WARNING: misogyny].

Character details of male archetypes


Is the Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Surround 5.1 SB1090 USB sound card supported in Linux?

Question: And to what extent does this card have support in Linux?
Answer: It exists, though the newer the better as far as this is concerned. The methods of getting it working in Ubuntu 8 & 9 were kludgey, but worked. Strictly speaking, there is driver support. Whether or not the sound applications can use it may be another story.
Comment: Since there's driver support, shouldn't alsa provide the required abstraction for the sound applications so they can use it?
Comment: @Neil For Alsa-using applications that would be the case. The trick appears to be stereo vs 5.1 support, the support for that is unclear.
Answer: Mine worked (tested on ubuntu 10.04 & 10.10 ). But to get multichannel it needs to be connected when the computer is being powered on.
I have issues also - mine would shut off during 30-90 min. of playback.
During driver initialization it sends a spike to the amplifier. Looks like the firmware/hardware/software is not doing well to prevent it.
Don`t know yet why.


Help turning a 3rd lvl fighter into a warblade

Question: Ok so I have a 3rd lvl fighter with the stats str-18,dex-16,con-16,int-15,wis-15,cha-15. I got the ok to start making him a warblade but im not sure what feats and such i should take or how to progress the pc. The feats I already have are power attack, cleave, great cleave, improved crit, and toughness. Please help.
Comment: Are you talking about retraining your Fighter levels as Warblade levels, or multiclassing? If nothing else, I would *beg* your DM to be able to ditch Fighter 3, as it's a purely-dead level. Fighter 1 and 2, at least, have bonus feats (though I'd try to ditch those too, if you can).
Comment: Are you talking about a [warblade from the Tome of Battle](http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2)? If so, you can just take level 4 as a warblade.
Answer: Multiclassing Fighter and Warblade
Fighter and Warblade multiclass pretty well. Warblade levels count as Fighter levels (excepting the first two), and Fighter levels count half as Initiator Levels.
That said, Fighter 3 is pretty useless, unless you're taking the Zhentarim Soldier substitution levels. You probably want to avoid that if you can. Ask your DM to retrain them as Warblade levels, starting early, or perhaps as something else.
Something 4/Warblade 1 is a good break-down because that way you start your Warblade career with Initiator Level 3 – you can take 2nd-level maneuvers right off the bat.
As such, you might take Fighter 4 before switching to Warblade. Another feat is not really a great option, but it're there (don't take Weapon Specialization; it's awful). You could even take Martial Study, to get a maneuver that's "always readied" (but that you cannot recover) – even something from a school Warblades don't get.
Better options include Barbarian (Lion Spirit Totem from Complete Champion can get you Pounce, and Rage is good), or Cleric (the BAB loss is a shame, but not a huge deal: Domains can get you a wide range of things, you could get some utility spells, and Travel Devotion from Complete Champion is an excellent option), or even Ranger (great BAB/skills, some feats). If your Charisma is good, Knight might be OK (d12 HD, mostly, though, since you won't get Bulwark of Defense at Knight 4), and if you can retrain one of those Fighter levels, Paladin's Divine Grace is pretty awesome.
Replacing Fighter with Warblade
This is mostly about taking maneuvers that replicate your feats. I'll just go down the list:
Skills
You have 2 more skill points per level now. I recommend Concentration for one because Diamond Mind is an excellent discipline and relies on it heavily. The other can be whatever you like.
Power Attack
This is probably a feat you should still take as a Warblade.
Cleave and Great Cleave
There are maneuvers that have similar effects as these, from White Raven or Iron Heart.
Improved Critical
How do you have this? It requires BAB +8. Anyway, it's not a very good feat, and is unlikely to change much about your character if he doesn't have it (which is why it's not a very good feat).
To replicate the idea that your warrior is good at that perfect strike that does extra damage, take a look at the Diamond Mind discipline. It's all about having that perfect strike.
If you really want to focus on critical hits, take blood in the water (Tiger Claw stance), and probably just take Improved Critical as a feat, or make a keen weapon, or buy a scabbard of keen edges.
Toughness
A Warblade's HD is a d12 to the Fighter's d10; that's an average of 1 HP more per level, and 2 at 1st level. Thus, a Warblade 2 without Toughness has exactly the same average HP as a Fighter 2 with Toughness. After 2nd level, this continues to favor the Warblade unless the Fighter continues to burn feats on Toughness (which is a terrible idea; Toughness is an awful feat).
If you really want to spend a feat on your HP, take Stone Power; it's very, very good. Temporary HP that you can refresh every round can take a lot of HP off that which is actually hitting you over the course of a day.
Recommended Low-level Warblade Maneuvers
Take moment of perfect mind (Diamond Mind counter); between maxed Concentration ranks and a good Con score, it's almost a free pass on one Will save per combat (more if you recover it). The Reflex and Fortitude save versions aren't nearly as important because Fortitude's your good save, and Reflex saves tend to 1. just be damage, rather than death or worse; you have a lot of HP for a reason, and 2. tends to deal half that damage even when you do save.
Take mountain hammer (Stone Dragon strike) when you can: in addition to being a great attack, it's the Initiator Swiss Army Knife. It ignores Hardness, which means you can mountain hammer your way through almost anything given enough time. Better than an adamantine pickaxe.
Punishing stance (Iron Heart stance) is probably the best stance available to you among the 1st-level stances. The aforementioned blood in the water (Tiger Claw stance) is not bad, either, though you really have to build for it. Hunter's stance (Tiger Claw stance) is a good second stance, since it gives you some utility. Taking a Tiger Claw stance also allows you to take sudden leap (Tiger Claw boost), which is a great choice (that requires that you know another Tiger Claw maneuver).
Otherwise, pick two or three disciplines to focus on, and take the maneuvers that sound cool. Iron Heart and Diamond Mind come highly recommended, and White Raven does as well if you've got other melee types in the party. Tiger Claw is very good as well; Stone Dragon has some powerful effects but it does tend to lag behind the others, particularly if you enforce the requirement that they be initiated while standing on the ground.
Troublesome Maneuvers
You should consider iron heart surge and white raven tactics. These are both 3rd-level maneuvers (a bit out of your reach at this point), but they have to be mentioned. They're the two most problematic maneuvers in the book, but they're also very good, even ignoring the stupid abuses that their poor wording can cause.
Iron heart surge is extremely vague in how it works, and due to some poor wording in the book and some really poor interpretation in a Customer Service answer, it can do a lot of things it probably shouldn't (like arguably shutting off the sun...) and can't do a lot of things it probably should (like throwing off mind control). It's a great maneuver as long as you and your DM agree on what it does or doesn't work on. Mostly, if you can imagine Conan shouting "By Crom!" and getting out of it, iron heart surge should work on it. That's basically what the maneuver is.
White raven tactics is very powerful. It's broken, however, if you allow it to be used on yourself (which, by strict RAW, it can be since you count as your own ally). Just clear it with your DM before you take it; if he's aware of the shenanigans it can get up to, he may not appreciate seeing it on your sheet without a talk first. I do not recommend using it on yourself in most campaigns.
Comment: well I asked my dm if i could retrain him and he said no that the pc was a fighter and is now being trained as a warblade and there wasnt a way to go back in rp so just go from here
Comment: @CZane: Well, that makes little to no sense to me since it's not as if *characters* are aware of *classes* (which are purely a game construct), but it's your DM. I suggest a level of something else, probably Barbarian, and then going into Warblade, to at least take advantage of the way Initiator Level works.


pulseaudio and alsa on ubuntu 12.04 server

Question: I am running ubuntu 12.04server, and trying to get pulseaudio working. I followed the instructions at How do I run PulseAudio in a headless server installation?
At the moment, pacmd list-cards is reporting 0 cards, aplay will only playing sound when I run it as sudo, and running alsamixer as sudo also works, but running it as my user produces "cannot open mixer: No such file or directory"
As far as I can tell, this means the the kernel module for my sound card is in fact loaded. I have already tried adding my user to the "audio" group, but this does not help. The permissions on the devices in /dev/snd are all
crw-rw---T 1 root audio 116

I noticed on an ubuntu 12.04 desktop, that the file permissions are slightly different. On the desktop, they are
    crw-rw---T+ 1 root audio 116
My questions are
1) How do I get aplay to work without running it as sudo on the server
2) Is there anything special I need to do to make pulseaudio work at this point.
Comment: Can you run `alsamixer` as non-root? It looks like a permission issue.
Answer: To get aplay to work, check the permissions on the device nodes in /dev/snd/.
As for PA, it should then work just fine.


Will a 12-18 month old understand a baby is on the way?

Question: My first son is 12 months old and I'm expecting another child who will be born when my son is 18 months old.  My son is fairly verbal for his age.  He understands phrases like, "Put the ball in the box," or "Bring Mommy the book."  He also says about 8 words.
I'm sure that once we bring the baby home, he will understand that there is a new person around, but is it likely that he will understand before?  Does it do any good to talk about having a new baby or mommy having a baby in her tummy?  Would bringing him to an ultrasound make any sense at this point?
Comment: I think the ultrasound is way too abstract for a 12-month-old. But talking to him about the family expansion is certainly a good idea.
Comment: He would not understand that a baby is on the way, but he will understand that _something_ is going on, and even though he doesn't understand exactly what you tell him right away, he will understand and eventually accept more than if you don't tell him anything.
Answer: My daughter was 15 months old when my second child was born. We didn't have any talks, but we would point at my belly and tell her that there is a baby in there. We'd show her that we are only suppose to rub Mummy's belly, and would gesture so. Eventually, she would rub my belly and say "baby." We'd play games with her like "Where is the baby?" and she'd come rub my belly to say "baby."
Since most of my pregnancy she was a baby herself, I don't think she understood what a baby exactly was, or what it was doing in my belly - but she knew that she had to be gentle. When the baby was finally out, she would still rub my belly for a few days after and say "baby" but she stopped soon after we showed her the newborn and started calling the newborn a baby. (After my belly started disappearing, I think she figured out that there was nothing in there...)
I am not sure if taking the toddler to an ultrasound would be useful - fetus is pretty hard to see in an ultrasound even for adults! Unless she is familiar with what an heartbeat actually is (do you ever have her listen to your heartbeat anymore?!), she might be wondering what that strange noise is.
Comment: Yes! Although she would perhaps not understand exactly what was going on, I think it's important to prepare them for something is going to happen. It is not easy to know how much they understand, but my experience is that the more they're told, the more they actually understand eventually.
Answer: My two oldest kids are 18 months apart.
When the second was on its way we kept telling our oldest about it.
I don't remember when we started to do so, but certainly when it was clearly visible.
At least shortly before delivery she was aware of the fact.
I think it is definitely good to prepare older siblings to minimize jealousy.
Answer: Don't start too early, children that age have no concept of time.  Soon before the baby is born explain what is going to happen, but don't expect she will understand.  If she asks about your belly tell her a baby is inside, but stop there.  Again, if you tell her too early she doesn't understand time and may obsess about when when when.


Knuckle vs. palm pushups

Question: What are the differences between open-palm and knuckle push-up forms in terms of benefits, risks, and muscle development?
Open-palm:

Knuckle:
Comment: I'm basically trying to ask which of the two form is empirically better but am having a hard time with it. I've modified my question, though - hopefully it's more clear and in-line with the SE format.
Comment: Better for what goal?
Comment: Kevin love does not like them ... http://deadspin.com/5952947/kevin-love-broke-his-hand-while-doing-knuckle-pushups
Comment: I had a thumb injury and was unable to continue my routine but knuckle push ups allowed me to do my 100 a day again!
Answer: There's an aspect not covered yet.  Knuckle pushups place more stress on the bones of the hand compared to the open palm pushup.  Martial artists take advantage of that fact as a way to toughen the bones in the hand so that when they punch something hard, the hand doesn't break.  Essentially, the body responds by increasing calcium deposits at the knuckle and along the phalanges.
As to the muscles involved, there isn't much of a difference between them.  The forearms will be more engaged with the knuckles because it is needed for balance.  A similar effect can be had by fingertip pushups.  This variation strengthens the muscles in the fingers as well, which is useful to prevent them from getting jammed when playing basketball.
There are two risks with improper use of the knuckle pushup over the open hand:

If your wrists are weak, you run the risk of losing your balance and spraining your wrist as you fall.  It is best not to attempt knuckle pushups if you cannot do open hand pushups.
If you use knuckle pushups excessively for many years, the calcium deposits will accumulate to a point where the knuckles are quite pronounced.  In extreme cases you won't be able to open your hand all the way, or develop arthritis due to the added stress at the knuckle joint.

All that said, there is no way to declare one of them as superior.  Knuckle pushups have their use, as do open hand pushups.  There is no reason not to do them both.  Just don't do knuckle pushups every day of your life for the next decade or so.  Also explore fingertip pushups as well.
Comment: An additional reason that Martial Artists practice knuckle pushups is to train the *wrist*, not the knuckles - done correctly (i.e. *not* like the picture OP has used) you keep the knuckles, wrist and forearm locked in a straight line - this directs the force straight back, without it twisting the wrist, and is how you should deliver a punch for both maximum impact on the target, and minimum risk of injury to yourself.  A kinked wrist is a short, sharp knock away from a broken wrist.
Answer: I like to add a summary of my personal experience with open-palm and knuckle push-ups. I have done at least 100 push-ups a day since 1983, even when travelling (in airports and hotels). In 1999 I developed wrist pain and changed to knuckle push-ups, first on hard surfaces (until 2003) and subsequently on a towel or on carpet as a preventive measure for possible knuckle or wrist injuries. Switching from open-palm to knuckle push-ups completely eliminated the wrist pain within about two weeks. Between 2001 and 2006 I did, on average, 155 push-ups a day (alternating daily between 130 and 180, in two sets). I resumed the 100 push-up routine when I developed pain in the both shoulders in 2006. The reduction to 100 a day and keeping my left shoulder (where I had broken the rotator cuff ten year earlier) close to my torso liminated that pain. The knuckle push-ups have not significantly impaired the flexibility of my hands or wrists (as indicated by my work on the computer) and built up significant amounts of callus on the central knuckle of each hand and smaller amounts on the index finger knuckles. Doing push-ups on soft surfaces has reduced the amount of callus during the last few years.
In conclusion, I am glad I switched from open-palm to knuckle push-ups because this permitted me to continue this exercise without pain. I recommend that knuckle push-ups be done on carpets or other soft surfaces rather than on hard surfaces. I would like to hear the experiences of other long-term 'push-uppers'. I am now 72 years old and started doing daily push-ups at 44 but had done them periodically (a few times a month or less) since about agout 16.
Comment: I also have wrist pain in my right hand when I do open-palm push ups. I do knuckle push-ups with this hand to prevent the pain.
Answer: Two benefits of doing push ups off your knuckles:

You can extend your range of motion, which in turn puts even more focus on the chest.
You avoid unnecessary strain on the wrists.

For these reasons I prefer doing push ups this way.  Although extending your range of motion is not always a good thing.  If you have shoulder problems, for example, then you could be doing more harm than good.  So I'd do what feels right for you.
Another thing to keep in mind is the distance between your hands.  Keeping your hands far apart will put more demand on your chest and shoulders while keeping your hands close together will be harder on the triceps.
Comment: I'm not sure the range of motion is extended all that much, but yeah, knuckle push-ups do help with the wrist. Knuckle pushups are also usually done by MA trainees, to harden the knuckles (useful for punching things). :)
Answer: I tried google'ing which muscles are used with the two pushup variations mentioned, but, besides the obvious focus on the knuckle and wrist for the knuckle pushup, I think there's more focus on the forearms and lats, where the palm seems more focus on the chest and shoulders. This is based on the hand position (similar to pull ups - from a full palm out pull up to a neutral hand position).  Even doing pushups with your hands in the two positions you can easily feel the difference.  There's about 12 pushup variations, including how wide you have your hands, so, for the best results try them all.
Here's a link to some of the variations: http://www.muscle-workouts.com/pushups.html
Answer: I did knuckle pushups as my only pushup for many years, close to thirty. Not every day, but at least 50 pushups three maybe four days out of the week. I've also done them virtually every time on soft surfaces. I've experienced no ill effects. But then I'm an IT professional and maybe that daily keyboarding has balanced things out.
Recently just for the variation I've started including deficit open-palm pushups in my routine.
Comment: Did you experience any difference?
Answer: In my experience, it is good to do pushups on the palms in the beginning. Palms provide a larger base of support (especially with the fingers spreaded). For some reason I also find it a little bit easier to focus on keeping the trunk active (which I think is very important), when doing it on the palms. Also, one thing that is useful for me in protecting the wrist is to spread the fingers and push them into the ground - which is just like trying to make a fist.
Then, as others have already said, it is beneficial to switch gradually to knuckles, if you'd like to do large numbers of pushups, not to overuse the wrists.
But I would also suggest to switch back sometimes to the palms, it can provide larger variety (eg you can move your hands further back, which makes the pushup much harder - on your knuckles you would fall on your face).
To summarize, I think it is "better" to do them on your palms, unless you plan to do large numbers on a regular basis - but remember more is not always better.
Answer: No worries with your hands. If you want to make your wrists stronger then knuckle push-ups are the way to do it. My training is karate/taekwondo/kali-escrima/kick-boxing and lately bujinkan. But take your time to do it right - you don't have to do 100 at once, take care that you have your wrist in the wright angle. You know - as you would push your hand throug stone.
Sorry - i realized i'm late with this comment - sorry.
Comment: It's never too late, till you add some more value then other existing answers.
Answer: I used to do many open palm push ups.  Due to an injury unrelated to push ups, I had to have wrist surgery to repair a TFCC (forgot what that acronym means).  I was unable to do open palm pushups for about 1 year after surgery, so substituted knuckle pushups instead.  They are great, especially if you are predisposed to wrist problems.  I wear MMA gloves when I do them to protect my knuckles.  Been doing them for almost 3 years now.  No callouses or other issues.
Answer: As a very recent convert to knuckle push ups so I can't really comment on them yet. One thing about push ups in general is too keep a good form- body perfectly straight and rigid, head slightly raised and upper arms kept in close to the body for less stress on shoulders and elbows.
Did push ups for years and at my peak I would bust out over 500 daily but didn't realise my technique was for sh#t, which led to shoulder problems.
Also got long term hand injuries from turning my hands too far inwards (fingers pointing toward each other - a BIG no no) when doing push ups so knuckles really appeal to me.
As has been said already, do them on carpet or an exercise mat.

Knuckle vs. palm pushups


Running Visual Studio 2010 in Linux

Question: Is there any possible way to run Visual Studio 2010 in Linux (Red Hat)?
Comment: [This question about editors may help you](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/352392/what-is-a-decent-mono-editor) since what you want is a IDE running on Linux to code .Net applications.
Comment: You could try installing with with wine but what are you really looking for?  VS is tightly bound to windows and would be of little help in a Linux environment.
Comment: Thanks for the Comment.Yes. I understand that. Is their any possible way for programming .net application in linux.
Comment: Why are you looking to run VS2010 in Linux in the first place? Maybe we can help point you in a different direction that might help you more in the long run?
Answer: VirtualBox running Windows 7 x86 in Seamless mode works wonderfully for VS2010 dev. You can even save the state of the machine and reclaim the resources, starting it back up in an identical state, leaving you on the same line you were editing last time.
You haven't mentioned which Window manager you're using - when using Gnome 2, I got best results keeping my Gnome 2 bar to the top of the screen allowing the Windows taskbar to take the bottom.
As an aside, you haven't mentioned in your question whether you're developing Windows software, or whether the target environment will be Mono under Linux. If it's the latter, you might find MonoDevelop less resource intensive.
Answer: Yes, the performance of VS2010 in VirtualBox is great, provided your CPU supports VT, enable 2D acceleration and enough memory for debugging.
Answer: You will never be able to do it 100% perfect.. i think an hackintosh would be reception here.
Have you thought about VM'ing windows 7 and running it seamlessly? Looks good and will consume  less for the job
Comment: Thanks.
What about the resources. Will this consume more resources of the system?
Comment: I think doing it that way will consume more resources, but may be your only option, unless you are willing to try a different version of Linux. I will try this MS Linux, but not sure.

Running Visual Studio 2010 in Linux


Setting modes on a Cyborg R.A.T. 7

Question: I bought a Cyborg R.A.T. 7 mouse and it's a awesome mouse, but I've been having trouble trying to setting the 3 modes.  I was trying to set the profiles for a default, Call of Duty, and Counter Strike.  The whole software isn't really user friendly, so I very confused on what I'm doing.
Comment: This doesn't answer your question, but you may want to [look at this](http://superuser.com/q/329652/17529) as well.
Answer: There are actually two sets of settings that can be configured in the Cyborg Profile Editor, the 'Sensitivity Settings' and 'Programming'.
Sensitivity settings allows you to switch DPI settings on the fly, and is operated by the rocker switch just below the middle mouse button while the current setting is shown on the mouse with the array of four lights to the left of mouse button 1 (left click);

As you can see from the above screenshot, the sensitivity settings allows configuration of both the main mouse sensitivity and the sensitivity when the 'precision aiming' button is held.
Button programming allows you to rebind every mouse button to a particular series of keystrokes, or other commands. The current set of binds selected is shown with the multicoloured 'mode' button, directly to the left of mouse button 1. Depending on the currently selected mode, this button will be;

Mode 1: Red
Mode 2: Blue
Mode 3: Purple

The programming settings screen looks like this:

If for example, I wanted to make the second scroll wheel (thumb wheel) zoom in or out in a game like, for example,  World of Warcraft, I would simply rebind what this scroll wheel does.
In World of Warcraft I use HOME to zoom in and END to zoom out, so I would rebind the thumb wheel settings as follows;

What I did here, was click in the area from the previous screenshot that linked to the thumbwheel ("Thumb Anticlockwise", "Thumb Clockwise") and then entered the keystrokes that I wanted using that scroll wheel to perform. This means literally just clicking "Thumb Anticlockwise" and pressing the Home key, and then clicking the green tick and giving the action a name - in this case "Zoom In".
Finally I need to save these changes, by clicking on 'Save As'. In this case I called my profile "WoW".
You can test that the keystrokes you have bound work, by clicking on the test button. If you have made changes to a mode which is not currently active (ie: You're editing mode 2 - blue - and the mouse has mode 1 - red selected, you will need to change the mode on the mouse by pressing the mode button before the correct profile is selected);

If you are happy with your changes, click the 'Activate Profile' button to activate the changes.
One final step that you need to take to ensure that your new settings are applied at system startup, is to select your profile and mark it as the "Startup profile". To do this, find the system tray icon for your Cyborg RAT control panel, right click on it, and then right click on the profile you've just saved and mark it as the startup profile;

If you don't do this final step - any setting changes you've made will not be re-applied when you reboot your computer.
All said, I agree the Cyborg profile software is a bit poor, confusing, and generally unintuitive, but once you know how quirky it can be you can get the results that you want out of it.
Comment: Call me stupid, but how do you switching between modes on the mouse??
Comment: Same question. I can change modes in system tray icon, but when I click Mode button on the mouse the LED color changes, but the profile stays...
Answer: I know this is an older post, but I wanted to add some further advice for customizing your Cyborg Mouse (as an addendum to the detailed answer above)
Note:  I'm using a Cyborg R.A.T. 7 - so I'm unfamiliar with software supporting later models.
Each of the programmable buttons on the mouse support much deeper than many are aware, though it will require some trail and error, and probably a good deal of ingenuity to fully realize its potential.  For example, I haven't had much reason to really tweak a lot of the keys to use the "latching" option or, to really get too deep into macro customization.  But I did do a lot of legwork to get a few tweaks working that improved my experience a lot.
The first thing, I just want to mention, if you haven't updated your mouse drivers in a while, do that first!  The more recent updates to the Saitek profiler unlocked programmable customization support for the Precision Aim button.  This was huge for me, since I never had much use for the button outside of FPS games, and even then never had enough need to use it enough that I got used to it.  So now it can mock any keystroke, though I prefer most often to use it as a modifier key like LShift.  Your thumb is tied up on the aim button, so the second wheel and side keys won't be usable for the most part, but since a lot of games allow alternate keybinding for LShift + any of the three major mouse clicks and primary wheel, it opens a lot of possible combinations.
note: it would be awesome if Saitek would unlock programing for all mouse keys- but the reason they probably haven't is because those are primitive commands reserved for the computers mouse by the OS, and so far as I know, they need to be present.  Ive written Saitek about this question but never got a response.  I would love to know the answer to this.
Secondly, people commonly program the thumb wheel to support functions like Zoom, and this is because when a key is bound to the wheels clockwise or counterclockwise swipes using the default assignment method in the profiler, it functions as a "held key".  i.e. assigning the Space key to either direction works cause the held key effect on the space key for a duration equivalent to the duration of the swipe.  To the OS this is exactly like pressing the key multiple times in fast succession, and that causes a problem for anyone who wants more control than that-- like me.
   If you want a left or right thumb-wheel swipe on this wheel to serve as a single keystroke, then you have to assign the swipe as a "New Advanced Command".  Inside the "Key Press" box just press they key you want.  You'll see the key show up twice in the box, once representing the key press, and secondly the key release.  Then you want to check the "Macro" check-box in the upper right corner of the field, save the command, and you're done!  just make sure you test it before saving the profile.  Now left and right swipes will act as single keystrokes.  This is great if you want the wheel to cycle weapons one at a time for example, without just slinging the selection around uncontrollably, or for toggling a command such as crouch with the desired effect.
Those who don't know where to find those options need to select the button they wish to program and hover the mouse cursor over the "name" field of the command.  The field will show an arrow box on the right, and clicking there will open the list of options -- This was not obvious:

(note: advance macro settings allow for detailed manipulation of each of four factors of a single key press, meaning that the individual components of a single keystroke: button press down/ button hold/ button release/ and latency settings throughout-- giving control over pauses and other timing tweaks-- can all do a whatever twisted things you can think of, and a wide range of macro effects for experienced macro users.)
The Latching option, I believe can also accomplish this in same contexts- I think, though I haven't tried much, because any key event that passes as "latched" should act as a toggle, so a single keystroke "latched" will act as a held key until pressed again-- I have no experienced advice on latching.
I hope this helps some of you!
  The tool is powerful but poorly implemented. There is no real help documentation other than the most basic obligatory diagram, and online help sadly also hard to fine and decent materials are never on found in one place.  I hope this changes.  There is a forum on Overclock.net which has the closest thing Ive been able to find in terms of any official user community dedicated to programming the mouse.  here: The Official Cyborg R.A.T. and M.M.O. Owners Club
 Good Luck!

Setting modes on a Cyborg R.A.T. 7


How do I build a magma-safe floodgate in Dwarf Fortress?

Question: I'm having difficulty doing this. I have access to things that are supposedly magma-safe, such as Alunite but when I try to build a floodgate using my Metalsmith's Forge, Alunite is not on the list of materials I can use to make it. I can't see any way to smelt it either. I think I have another few stone types that are magma safe as well, but they are not on the list either. What am I doing wrong?
Answer: The problem is that you don't make rock things at the Metalsmith's Forge. To build it out of rock, go to your Mason's Workshop and add a floodgate(l). This will only construct a general rock floodgate though. To make sure that it's made out of Alunite, you should see this question.
Answer: First see the list of magma-safe materials.
Some are metal, some are rock, so you can build magma-safe metal floodgates at a Metalsmith's Forge given the right metal. If all you have access to at the moment is magma-safe stone, then you will have to construct those at the Mason's Workshop. Unfortunately, as Ullallulloo says, controlling which stone your masons use can be tricky. Sometimes it can be easier to order many more items constructed than you need, in the hopes that some of the construction uses the material you want.
Also remember that you will need to use magma-safe mechanisms to control your floodgate.


How difficult is it to implement 3D models in a 2D game?

Question: Creating a full blown 3D game requires a lot more math for physics, but what if I just want to mix 3D models in a 2D game, such as in the New Super Mario Brothers? Would I be able to get the looks of 3D models with the ease of making a 2D game?
Answer: Given that most "2D" games are still in 3D engines, just using camera-aligned quads and an orthographic camera, not hard at all.
Simply replace your standard quad with animated materials with an actual model that animates and keep your logic the same.
Answer: Here's a tool that does just that - takes 3d models and turns them into sprite sheets, including rendering all the sprites for the animations:
http://www.envygames.com/content/?page_id=65
reasonably priced too!
(caveat: I haven't personally used this tool, just read the review at: http://www.torquepowered.com/community/blog/view/16207/2 )
Answer: It's not uncommon to have tools that will take your 3D models and render them out for your game.  Many studios and indie devs write up their own tools to do it and makes generating the graphics super easy. It's also nice to be able to go in make a change to your model and then just hit a button in your tool to quickly re-render all the raster graphics.


How well does Unity 3d work for both Android and iPhone?

Question: First off this question might be a bit broad so I apologize if it is. I am really just looking for peoples experiences and personal knowledge on the subject. I am looking to create a game for both Android and iPhone platform. I know Unity is a great game engine and my question is how well does it work for creating one code base to build for both Android and iPhone platforms? Time is a constraint on this project so I am very interested in how smoothly the process usually is when trying to build both applications and how much custom code must be written for each specific application. Any insite that people have on this topic would be much appreciated thanks.
Answer: Depends on the scope of your project. As long as you don't need anything fancy, Unity3D works pretty much the same on Android and iOS. However, there are times when you need to access OS services, and when this happens, you have to write plugins. These plugins, of course, have nothing in common between Android and iOS.
Also, Unity3D imports all art assets, converting them to a format used on target device. This means that when you switch targets from iOS to Android and back, everything needs to be reimported. This process takes anywhere from several minutes to hours, depending on project size.
Comment: Sounds a lot like Adobe AIR, this has convinced me to look deeper into Unity. Thanks.
Comment: Sounds a lot like Adobe AIR, this has convinced me to stay far away from Unity. Thanks.
Answer: Unity3d is based off of mono. Mono is an open source API that runs on tons of OSs which includes android and IOS. Check out : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)
For development, unity3d has created libraries ontop of the Mono platform that make it easy to get inputs from the device in a standard way. Example for the accelerometer leaning the mobile device forward will be detected by the same code regardless of the device/OS. See : http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/ScriptReference/Input.html
Hope this helped.


Tools required for trailbuilding?

Question:
Shovel,
Saw,
Roulette (very long, perhaps even geodetic roulette),
Ax.

The trail will be built in a forest. So there's no rocks, just dirt, small stones and a lot of roots. What else will I need to build a good forest trail?
Comment: For those confused, a roulette is a surveyors measure. Search space obviously polluted by the gamblers but here's an example: http://7kilometr.com/eng/market/product/prodam-Roulette-Geodetic-optom-ukraina-51
Comment: @zetdotpi: please edit your question to reflect that.
Comment: forgot to mention that the trail will be built in forest. So there's no rocks, just dirt, small stones and a lot of roots.
Comment: Well, you may need permission from the landowner. :)
Comment: Neil, I decided that that wasn't really a tool. It's a precondition. So I edited it out of my answer :)
Comment: Though it is true, @Neil, that "permission" is not necessarily a tool, good information is certainly an important tool.  Land ownership is very pertinent information and--lest cyclists get a bad name--if we're building trails, we should be respectful of landowner rights.  In rural areas of the U.S. in particular, it is often fairly inexpensive to get a PLATT BOOK from a County Recorder's office.  This valuable TOOL can keep us honest when building trail
Answer: It depends a lot on the ambition of the trail and the local conditions. Are you trimming branches in a forest or creating a safe path down a rock face?
Other dirt-working tools will probably be helpful, a pick and wheelbarrow are the obvious ones I can think of. Knowlege of how to safely prune trees and plants, plus some knowlege of trail construction, and some skill at dealing with people might be handy (I'm not sure whether skills count as tools in the same way knowlege does).
Consumables like tree repair paint and gravel will be useful and possibly necessary.
If you have significant embankments you can definitely move concrete embankment bracing segments by hand, but a motor vehicle would make that easier. If you're using concrete a trowel would be good. If you're driving stakes a sledgehammer is essential (and if you're not, what holds your anti-erosion material in place?)
The limited MTB trail making I have done has all just required a spade, hammer and supply of pegs (I have used a small axe for the latter two but it's not a good idea). Stuff that I could carry on my bike, in other words.
Answer: So far most of what have been suggested are handtools... some planning and design tools are important as well.
Get a copy of the International Mountain Biking Association's book, "Trail Solutions: IMBA's Guide to Building Sweet Singletrack."  Find it here: http://www.imba.com/catalog/book-trail-solutions
I spent the last three winters designing and building an 8-mile-long mountain bike trail with a specialist from IMBA--and this book is a really great resource.
The tools that I used the most while doing trail layout were a CLINOMETER and ROLLS AND ROLLS OF FLAGGING.  Ideally, to minimize erosion, you will want to keep your trail grades under 12% with short, steep pitches minimized.  Even after spending months in the woods with a clino, I still sometimes look at a grade and guess it wrong--usually too steep.  Always double-check with the clino.
When we were laying out the Paradise Royale trail, at King Range National Conservation Area, we used several colors of flagging--one to denote the downhill side of the trail-to-be, one to denote access points or GPS waypoints, and another to denote specific trees that needed to be removed, etc.  I think we went through at least five cases of flagging while laying out that trail.
In the King Range, one could not utilize flagging without creating sight-lines... so we often used small saws and lopping shears for that.  Get the sight-lines open so that you can actually use the clino.
Get some good-quality topo maps of the area where you are building as well as a GPS with topo map background display.  These made finding our way between cliff faces, water features and old logging roads possible despite dense foliage.
During our sessions crashing through the forest, we found two-way-radios to be quite valuable.  These were especially important during the scouting phase.  "What's it look like where you are right now?" "It's a tangle of brush and rocks." "Looks like that here, too--what's your side-slope?" "Like 80%" "Okay, lets meet back at the creek crossing and rethink this..."
It all depends on how intense the terrain and foliage are where you will be working... but you get the picture.
Comment: Best clinometer for the money is by Suunto:  http://bit.ly/jOCZd9
Answer: I am posting this as a separate answer because it is so different from my commentary on planning and design...
We don't like to think of people as tools.  Usually only law enforcement types think of regulations as tools... but think of both of these as well.
I have worked for four different land management agencies in the U.S. and have built or maintained hundreds of miles of trails.  User-defined trails on public lands are often a headache--and although we often do not catch the trail-builder, the trails are often quickly dismantled.
Know who the important players are.  Is it a U.S. Forest Service forestry technician at the local office?  Is it the director of parks and recreation for a county park?  Know who these people are and start talking with them early.  Even if they have no plans to build a mountain bike trail where you want one... if it is on their land, you will need to work with them.
In my experience, I have had groups approach me with interest in a trail where we had no interest in building one.  Sometimes it works out.  If there are no other issues--endangered species, riparian habitat, watershed issues, ownership patterns, etc--sometimes these trails get built.  It can take some time to get buy-in... but if there is community support it usually only takes a little tenacity and negotiation to get into trail-building mode.  Often on public lands, the trail will get built as an "agency project" with you providing all of the "volunteer" labor... but it does happen.
Also, be prepared to at some point realize that sometimes "no" is the answer.  If you have a great spot that you want to build a trail across public land but you come to learn that it is the only hillside in the world where the limestone salamander lives... is the extirpation of a species something we should risk for a recreation trail?  True, sometimes minor environmental concerns are used by agencies as stalling techniques... but get to know the players and soon you will learn which issues are important and which can be "mitigated."
Know the players and know the rules.  Understand that if you are planning to build a mountain bike trail through a designated wilderness area in the U.S. that the answer will always be "no" and that it is out of the hands of local officials.  "Wilderness" with a capital "W" is enacted by the U.S. Congress and cannot be changed through negotiaion with anyone save congressional aides.  Bicycle travel is not permitted in wilderness areas by congressional decree (1963).
There are, of course, a lot of players and a lot of rules.  I have just given a few examples here... but knowledge of your LOCAL issues, players, and regulations, may be the most important TOOLS IN YOUR TOOLCHEST.
Comment: same in New Zealand, especially the "in National Parks the answer is no" bit. But we've also had success just grinding away at the local council for a while. Often that is a matter of reminding them that you want it, making contacts, and bringing it up at elections. Might take a year or two but once you get it approved, it's generally there for good - it's just as hard for someone else to get it removed.
Comment: That said, the Heaphy track is now open to bikes even though it's in a national park (I think because the track is technically gazetted as a road) http://www.doc.govt.nz/publications/parks-and-recreation/activities/mountain-biking/heaphy-track-mountain-bike-trial/ That was a 10 year plus campaign.
Answer: You have the basic tools. I would add a pickaxe, and a standard garden hoe. The pickaxe can be used to carve out the side of inclines that need to have single track cut in. The hoe is useful for pulling loose dirt and rocks out of the way.
It addition to hand tools I would add a string trimmer, or brush cutter. Sometimes grass and undergrowth has to be cleared before you can lay the path. A trimmer makes this much easier. If this is going to be a remote area or you do not want to use motorized tools, bring pruning sheers and a scythe.
You also need work gloves, water, a first aid kit and other things to take care of the workers making the trail.
Answer: I have never done any trail building but If I was building trails I would defiantly by a Bob trailer.  It should fit through single track.  It is weighted for 70 lbs.  Costs about $410 Canadian.

Link
Answer: Lots of great answers already. Every area is different, but if I were building a trail in my locale I would want rudimentary rope kit. That said ropes can be dangerous and the internet isn't the place to learn to use them. That said I would bring a harness, belay/repel devices, rope, anchors and a mechanical advantage system. This stuff will let you safely move around, delimb and build heaviers bridges than you can lift by hand.

Tools required for trailbuilding?


Cohomological dimension of $\mathcal{B}_n$

Question: What is the cohomological dimension of the braid group $\mathcal{B}_n$ on n-strands ?
A reference would be appreciated.
Comment: An obvious upper bound would be $2n$ for $B_n$, by looking at the classifying space.  I think you could even take an upper bound of $n-1$.
Comment: There is a tag already for cohomological-dimension, so I figured we may as well use it
Answer: The other answers are correct, but I wanted to point out a quick way to see that $B_n$ has cohomological dimension $n-1$.
One obtains a lower bound of $n-1$ since $\mathbb{Z}^{n-1}$ is a subgroup of $B_n$. Take $n-1$ disjoint non-isotopic loops forming a pants decomposition of the $n$ punctured plane, then Dehn twists about these give a subgroup isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}^{n-1}$.
For an upper bound, one may use the fact that the moduli space of $n$ points in $\mathbb{C}$ (normalized to have sum $=0$) is a Stein manifold of complex dimension $n-1$, and therefore has a spine of dimension $n-1$. The fundamental group of this space is $B_n$. This space is equivalent to the space of monic polynomials of degree $n$ with zero trace (coefficient of degree $n-1=0$) and non-zero discriminant, which is how one may see that it is Stein (actually, an affine variety). The fact that the moduli space is a $K(B_n,1)$ follows from Teichmuller theory, or one may pass to the finite-sheeted cover of $n$ marked points, and see that this is an iterated surface bundle, and therefore its universal cover is contractible.
Answer: It's $n-1$.
See Harer, The virtual cohomological dimension of the mapping class group of an orientable surface, Inventiones Mathematicae, Volume 84, Number 1, 157-176.
Answer: There is a more geometric(?) method to obtain an upper bound of the cohomological dimension. Recall that the braid group $B_n$ is the fundamental group of the complement of the complexification of an essential hyperplane arrangement $\mathcal{A}_{n-1}$ in an $(n-1)$-dimensional vector space $\mathfrak{h}_{n-1}$ divided out by the action of the symmetric group $\Sigma_n$ of $n$ letters. Namely
$$
B_n = \pi_1((\mathfrak{h}_{n-1}\otimes\mathbb{C} - \cup_{H\in \mathcal{A}_{n-1}} H\otimes\mathbb{C})/\Sigma_n).
$$
Since the complement is known to be $K(\pi,1)$, it serves as the classifying space of $B_n$.
In general, for any real hyperplane arrangement $\mathcal{A}$, Salvetti constructed a cell complex $\mathrm{Sal}(\mathcal{A})$ which is homotopy equivalent to the complement of the complexification. Furthermore if $\mathcal{A}$ is essential in an $n$ dimensional vector space, then $\dim\mathrm{Sal}(\mathcal{A}) = n$.
Thus the cohomological dimension of $B_n$ is bounded by $n-1$.
Answer: I also recommend M. Korkmaz' survey on low-dimensional homology of Mapping Class Groups:
Korkmaz, Mustafa(TR-MET)
Low-dimensional homology groups of mapping class groups: a survey. (English summary)
Turkish J. Math. 26 (2002), no. 1, 101–114.
57M05 (20J05 57M07 57N05)
Turkish JM is available for free...
Answer: The homology of braid groups with rational and finite field coefficients (all with constant action) was computed by Cohen in the appendix to chapter III of "The homology of iterated loop spaces" LNM 533.
Answer: I will sadly have to answer to this old post to elaborate on the lower bound part of Agol's answer. I would be grateful if someone could turn this into a comment.
It is in fact quite easy to find a subgroup of $P_n$ isomorphic to $\mathbb Z^{n-1}$. It is generated by the full twist of the first $k$ strands, where $k= 2,3,\dots, n$.


lower bound for torsion of abelian varieties

Question: Let $A$ be an abelian variety defined over a field $K$ of characteristic $p>0$.  Let $A[\ell]$ be the group of $\ell$-torsion points, $\ell\neq p$ a prime.  Are there positive constants $C, \eta$ depending on $A$ and $K$ only such that $[K(A[\ell]):K]> C \ell^{\eta}$?  What about $[K(P):K]> C' \ell^{\eta'}$, $P$ an $\ell$-torsion point?  In some cases I know the Lie algebra to be $sp(4,Q_{\ell}) \oplus Q_{\ell} Id$ and $sp(6,Q_{\ell}) \oplus Q_{\ell} Id$.  Is this enough?
Comment: You want C,eta to be independent of ell? Then No for trivial reasons because K could be algebraically closed.
Comment: Right.  Here $K$ is finitely genereated.
Answer: Now let me address your last question. For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that $K$ is a global field of characteristic $p>2$ and the ring $End(A)$ of all endomorphisms of $A$ (over an algebraic closure of $K$) is the ring $Z$ of integers. Then my old results (Math. Notes: 21 (1978), 415--419 and 22 (1978), 493--498) imply that for all but finitely many primes $\ell$ the Galois module $A[\ell]$ is absolutely simple and the Galois group $Gal(K(A[\ell])/K)$ is noncommutative.
I claim that for all but finitely many primes $\ell$ the order of
$Gal(K(A[\ell])/K)$ is divisible by $\ell$ and therefore $[K(A[\ell]):K] > \ell$.
Indeed, suppose that for a given $\ell$ the order of
$Gal(K(A[\ell])/K)$ is not divisible by $\ell$. Let us call such $\ell$ exceptional. Then the natural representation of $Gal(K(A[\ell])/K)$ in $A[\ell]$ can be lifted to characteristic zero, i.e.,
$Gal(K(A[\ell])/K)$ is isomorphic to a (finite) subgroup of $GL(2\dim(A),C)$ where $C$ is the field of complex numbers. Now, by a theorem of Jordan, there exists a positive integer $N$ that depends only on $\dim(A)$ anf such that $Gal(K(A[\ell])/K)$ contains a normal commutative subgroup, whose index does not exceed $N$. This means that $K(A[\ell])/K$ contains a Galois subextension $K_{0,\ell}/K$ such that $[K_{0,\ell}:K] \le N$ and the field extension $K(A[\ell])/K_{0,\ell}$ is abelian.
Let $S$ be the (finite) set of places of bad reduction for $A$. The field extension  $K(A[\ell])/K$ is unramified outside $S$; the same is true for the subextension $K_{0,\ell}/K$. (In the number field case one should add the divisors of $\ell$ but we live in characteristic $p$!). Recall that the Galois extensions of global $K$ with  degree $\le N$  and ramification only at $S$ constitute a finite set. Let $L/K$ be the compositum of all such extensions. Clearly, $L$ is also a global field while $L/K$ is a finite Galois extension that contains  $K_{0,\ell}$. In addition, the Galois group $Gal(L(A[\ell])/L)$ is commutative. Now considering $A$ as an abelian variety over $L$ and applying previously mentioned results, we obtain that the set of exceptional primes $\ell$ is finite.
Answer: Let $E$ be a supersingular elliptic curve over a finite field $K$ of characteristic $p$. If $K$ is sufficiently large then the generator (Frobenius automorphism) of the absolute Galois group of $K$ acts on all $E[\ell]$ as multiplication by the square root $q'$ of $q$ where $q$ is the cardinality of $K$. Let $d=d(\ell)$ be the smallest positive integer such that $(q')^d-1$ is divisible by $\ell$.  Then $[K(E[\ell]):K]=d$.
Now suppose that $p=2$, $q$ is, at least, $4$ and let $r$ be a prime such that $\ell=2^r-1$ is a (Mersenne) prime. Then $[K(E[\ell]):K]=d(\ell)<\log(\ell+1)$. So, if the set of Mersenne primes is infinite then we get a negative answer to your first question. Similarly, if the set of Fermat primes is infinite then we also get a negative answer to your first question. Of course, it would be good enough to know that infinitely many Mersenne (or Fermat) numbers have ``sufficiently large" prime factors.


matter wave and wave function

Question: Is there any mathematical relationship between matter wave (or de Broglie wave) and wave function?
Also, does each type of particle (e.g. photon, electron, positron etc.) have its own unique wave function?
Answer: A de Broglie or matter wave pretty much is the same as the wave function. Recognizing that particles had wavelengths (based on momentum) was his de Broglie's great insight.
As to each particle having its own wave function, I'd suggest thinking of it this way:
If you can characterize the momentum of particles, you will find that particles with identical momentum have the same wavelengths as they move through open space. Similarly, if unmoving particles have identical rest masses, they will have the same quantum frequencies (detectable through interference effects) as they move through time. In that sense, the wave functions of all particles share certain common features that are related directly to their momenta and rest masses.
However, it is other conserved quantities such as spin (especially spin!) and charge that give each type of particle wave function its real uniqueness in how it interacts with other particles over time. For more mathematical depth, quantum field theory provides a way to model particles as "excitations" or vibrations in fields that are associated with each unique particle type.
Answer: A "matter wave" is usually what people call the wavefunction of a single particle, but it can have other meanings.
A "matter wave" can also be a lot of bosonic particles which together act as a classical wave. Such a colletion of atoms is called a Bose-Einstein condensate, if of photons, it's an electromagnetic wave. These are a lot of particles which are coherent with each other, and travel together described by the same wave.
There is no separate wavefunction for each particle, the wavefunction is a function of all possible worlds, of all possible configurations, so there's only one wavefunction for the entire system under consideration, not one for each particle in the system. This is very important, it is a recurring confusion.
But this doesn't mean you can't have separate waves for different collections of particles which are coherent. You can have electromagnetic wave here and a Bose Einstein condensate there and a gravitational wave somewhere else. So this type of classical wave comes in many kinds and can be waving in different places.
There is another sense in which every particle has a wave-- every particle is associated with a classical field whose quantum motion describes all particles of that type.

matter wave and wave function


Intuition behind existence of moduli space of stable curves

Question: I'm not entirely sure that the title is what I'm looking for. What I'm really asking is for intuition as to why $\bar{\mathcal{M}_g}$ is the compactification of $\mathcal{M}_g$. I'm sure this is covered in the more classic papers (like Deligne and Mumford), but I still find those hard to penetrate.
Comment: Can I answer with the anthropic principle? If it were not, then it would not be called `$\bar{\mathcal{M}}_g$`.
Comment: Actually, Deligne is highly readable and "easy to penetrate".
Answer: You can test "compactness" of $\bar M_g$ by the valuative criterion of properness,
and this in turn comes down to the stable reduction theorem. In more down to earth terms,
given a map of a punctured disk D* into the above space, one wants it to extend uniquely to a map from the whole disk. The essential case is given by as a family of smooth projective curves over D*. The stable reduction theorem says that it extends to family of stable
curves over D provided one passes to a ramified cover.  Thus one gets the desired extension.
Comment: This part is really the miracle of the construction for me, that the condition that makes a pointed nodal curve have finitely many automorphisms is also exactly the condition that makes the valuative criterion work. (e.g. if we allow rational componenents with two markings we can get more than one extension to D by blowing up, etc.)
Answer: I think a good first step to understanding how the Deligne-Mumford compactification works is to understand the moduli space of genus $0$ curves with marked points.  This can be worked out very concretely.  I recommend reading the first couple of chapters of "An Invitation to Quantum Cohomology" by Kock and Vainsencher, which has an inspired discussion of this.
Answer: One perspective is geometric. Non-singular closed Riemann surfaces have a unique complete hyperbolic metric by uniformization, with a decomposition into thin and thick regions, where the thin regions are  collar neighborhoods of short geodesics, and the thick regions are compact, with each component having uniformly bounded diameter (depending only on the genus). In the case of a non-compact Riemann surface of finite hyperbolic areaa, one also has cusp components of the thin part.  One also sees that the geometry of a Riemann surface is uniquely determined by the geometry of the thick part, together with which pairs of boundary components bound collar neighborhoods. One may take a limit of a sequence of surfaces with geodesics whose length approaches zero, and the thick parts converge geometrically to a finite area hyperbolic surface, with a pair of cusps for each geodesic whose length has gone to zero. These cusp pairs are naturally identified with noded Riemann surfaces, giving the Deligne-Mumford compactification. The fact that it is compact follows from the compactness of the thick regions in the Gromov-Hausdorff topology.
It is an interesting result of Masur that the compactification is also given by the metric completion of the Weil-Petersson metric on moduli space.
Answer: As Donu already pointed out, the key result in this sense is the stable reduction theorem. It says that any punctured curve in $\mathscr M_g$ has a unique limit in $\overline{\mathscr M}_g$, so the latter is compact by the valuative criterion of properness. Let me add that this includes also that it is separated!
As far as understanding what stable reduction means and why it should even hold it might be helpful to think about the more general case of compactifying moduli spaces of canonically polarized varieties in arbitrary dimension. This still works for curves, but in higher dimension you need to say different words and it is more clear what's happening on account of our lesser knowledge in general. (By this last sentence I mean that since we know less we ought to talk about it the "right" way whereas in the case of curves there are in general several ways to get the same result.)
From the higher dimensional perspective a stable reduction is a relative canonical model. We need the base change to get rid of multiple fibers and then we need to find a well-defined relative model. The canonical model is the model to use if we want unique limits (which means separatedness of the moduli space). It turns out that if the total space is a canonical model then the fibers are stable.