How can I be effective with Krobelus the Death Prophet?

Question: There seems to be a lot of consensus that Korbelus is a really good (high tier) unit to pick in Dota 2, but what makes her so good?  All I know is she's rather tanky for an int hero, but other than that her skills seems to be so so, if she doesn't have her ult she can't solo any hero (and her only other contribution to a team fight at that point is a silence with a so-so radius), and if she does have her ult all they have to do is run away for a while.
Comment: I wouldn't go as far as saying Krobelus is high tier. In fact in the current dota2 metagame she is one of the weaker picks due to no hard disable and being super farm reliant. She does have places in a full push lineup.
Comment: @hfk She's second/third tier right now. Being too easily ganked is her biggest issue. She's still a stupidly strong pubstomper though.
Answer: Death Prophet is a very strong midgame carry with great pushing, which fits her nicely into the current metagame. Her ultimate does absurd amounts of damage, the problem is that she's naturally a rather squishy hero and thus can't effectively stay alive long enough for it to deal damage. She's also rather level dependent and has no escape mechanism, making her in a solo mid role extremely vulnerable to ganks, especially in high tier play. I almost exclusively take her solo mid despite this, however, as she needs the levels and gains a lot of effectiveness from rune control. She's also not great in 1v2 lanes, even the safe lane.
Starting items: 3 branches, +3 INT, +2 all, and Tangos. Rush yourself a bottle and then Arcane Boots as soon as possible, finishing the Talisman and Magic Wand when available. An alternative start is 3 iron branches, 2x +3 STR, and Tangos, which will let you get a quick Urn. Usually there's a better wielder on your team as she's not a great ganker, but this item is stupidly powerful and every team should have one, so pick one up if you don't expect anyone else to.
Use your Wave at x:50 or so to push the lane and control runes- this makes your opponent have to choose between experience from your now advancing creep wave or contesting the rune. If it's invisibility or haste consider ganking; if it's regeneration or illusion use it to gain an advantage in your lane, and if it's DD you can do either. In lane, try to use her Wave to pick up multiple last hits and harass at the same time- the range is enormous but it must be cast carefully. Be very wary of missing opponents and ask for wards if you don't have them, her early game needs to be strong or you'll have a weak midgame.
From there you'll be working towards a Bloodstone, typically picking up the Point Booster and Vitality Booster first and disassembling your Arcane Boots to complete the Soul Booster, which gives great regeneration in and of itself. (I just learned this last trick recently so you won't see it in the replays below.) If you're farming extremely well and don't feel that you need the extra HP, you can pick up the Perseverance pieces first to improve your farming even more. Turn your now plain boots into Phase Boots at some point during this time, or if your team really needs it get another set of Arcane Boots.
When you've finished Bloodstone, you want other stuff that's going to keep you alive. Against heavy physical damage opponents go Blademail, Shivas, or Assault Curiass. Against a singular hard carry go Sheepstick, Cyclone, or Ghost Scepter. Against heavy magic damage opposition go Hood, Pipe, or Heart. Extremely rarely you can consider a BKB, but since her ultimate isn't too affected by disables unless it remains uncast you usually shouldn't worry about it.
Typical skillbuild: QEQWQRQEEERWWW+R ... this rarely changes, the only possible difference might be swapping Silence and E at level 2/4.
In teamfights, her ultimate needs to be used aggressively, because as you pointed out, they can just run away from it. If they chose to run away, you should be getting a free tower, so only ultimate when you need to- if the threat of your ultimate is making the team wary of defending the tower, take the tower for free and keep going. You should be coordinating with your team during midgame to push as soon as possible, usually taking all Tier 1 towers before 15 minutes. The range on her ultimate is huge, you need to be focusing your spirits to deal damage to buildings from afar. If they want to initiate on you, they should have to go through your team to do it. Choose a key target and right click them: your spirits will attack whatever you do. Don't undervalue her silence, at 6 seconds and with an extremely large AoE she's formidable as hell in teamfights. The later the game goes, however, the weaker she becomes. Like most midgame carries, her effectiveness compared to other heroes peaks at level 16, and so if the game lasts more than 40-45 minutes you had best not be the only carry on your team.
I'm 10-2 with this hero, here are some example MatchID's of my play:

9235655: A 1v2 safe lane for a change: 5 minute Arcane Boots, 18 minute Bloodstone, 27 minute Heart.
8749900: a coordinated push team with friends after we saw our opponents take far too many carries.
8366759: rather typical game showing how strong she is in lane, even against the highly-valued Rhasta.
3391570: just a complete stomp.
3053432: a game against a lot of good counters of Krobelus that borders on going too long.
Comment: You'd usually think so, but it doesn't work out that way- I'm perpetually out of mana, mostly because I almost NEVER go back to the well. I spend a lot of time jungling with her when the lanes are pushed, which she can do because her nuke gets down to a 4 second cooldown for 165 mana. Spamming that eats into your pool very quickly, but you can earn a hell of a lot of money really fast.
Comment: such a good answer. My only question is if you have a bottle is Arcane boots require as well as your manna pull should be ok?
Answer: I wouldn't say that there is any consensus of her as high-tier, as very few professional games in the past month have included her as a pick or ban.
She is fairly tanky, and is often built even tankier due to the nature of her ult and the time you must survive to deal full damage and receive the heal.  Her playstyle is similar to a necrolyte's, as you often build a bloodstone and use the high mana regen and low ability cooldowns to stand in the middle of a fight and continually cast.  Usually she is not really built to solo kill or chase enemies, but to tank and cast a lot in a teamfight.  Her nuke does fairly good damage, especially combined with the low cooldown afforded by witchcraft and the amount of casts you can get with a bloodstone's regen.  The silence is also strong in fights, as a silence on an escaper(riki, QOP, storm) can allow kills when they cannot blink or ball lightning away.  The silence on teamfighters can win a fight for you, especially if you can silence and kill a tidehunter or other guy with a big ultimate before they can cast it.
Her ultimate is useable for solo kills, but is is more commonly used to provide damage in an AOE over an entire teamfight, or to push a tower.  Using your ultimate at a tower basically forces the other team to attack you or lose the tower, allowing you to force a teamfight.  With team coordination, this can allow your team to get ready for a fight by getting in optimal position.  Furthermore, keeping up with enemies should not be too difficult, as both the phase boots most death prophets get, as well as your witchcraft passive add to your movespeed.  If it is a problem, a forcestaff could be built, or even better, a scythe of vyse to disable the opponent.
Answer: DP is so incredibly versatile you can play her with almost any gear. I generally get a cyclone stick so I can cyclone ultimate myself in the middle of the team. Bracers are also good because she is squishy. They can be upgraded later. I don't get nulls because her last hit is just so bad it's not really worth improving. I either get phases or travels for moves peed, chasing and push. Then either linkens or bloodstone. If the team has lots of nukes and stuns, linkens is better. Now it gets really fun. Endgame you can get shadow blue (for invisible ulti), heart for tankness, yasha for move speed, desolator (it stacks with your ulti), sheep stick. Shivas I never get but it's OK for more armor etc. I just think Shivas is better on a hero like tide than DP.
So you can see I aim to maximize speed, survivability and tankness with DP.


Is it advantageous to buy into a NL cash game at the maximum amount?

Question: Is there an inherent advantage/disadvantage to having a larger stack than your opponent in a cash game? I know it can affect tournament play.
I would think if you expect to have a skill advantage over the table, you would want your stack to be as big as the biggest stack at the table so you can maximize your potential winnings.
However, going into a random cash game where you don't know any of the players, would it be wise to buy in at half the max buyin so your maximum potential loss is smaller?
Answer:
Is there an inherent advantage/disadvantage to having a larger stack than your opponent in a cash game?

No. There is no advantage nor disadvantage, because you play for his stack, not yours. If you have 75 BBs and he has 40 BBs, the maximum you can win is 40 BBs, the rest of 35 BBs being returned to you.

I would think if you expect to have a skill advantage over the table, you would want your stack to be as big as the biggest stack at the table so you can maximize your potential winnings. However, going into a random cash game where you don't know any of the players, would it be wise to buy in at half the max buyin so your maximum potential loss is smaller?

Here, there is a longer discussion and, by the way you ask the question, I suspect that you have a much stronger background in tournament play than in cash games.
As you might know, in cash games, the blinds never increase. As you might know as well, in cash games you can buy in for any amount which is between two fixed amounts, set by the casino. However, in cash games the pots grow almost geometrically, so it's not very hard to go all-in by the river, if you really want it to. As an example, if you raise preflop to 3 BBs, you get a caller and on each street you bet the pot, after the river betting occurs, you would have invested 107 BBs from your stack into the pot.
The implications of what I said earlier are these: if you have a short stack (40 BBs), then, because the pot grows geometrically, it will be very easy to go all in. In the worse case you'll go all-in on the turn, because you have little money to play. This means that you are forced to play big hands, because you need to win now. There is even a known, mechanical strategy, called short stack strategy, designed to play if you have little money behind. Although it's mechanical and you cannot make big mistakes, it's not a huge money maker. The difference between high and low cards, difference known as the gap principle is huge. If you play speculative hands, you will not win enough to compensate for the frequent losses due to the fact that you missed.
If you buy full stack (100 BBs), you'll have more money to play, it will be harder to go all-in, so you don't need all the time to have big cards. You can also play speculative hands that can form a monster hand and win the opponent's entire stack. Here, you can risk 3 BBs here, 3 BBs there because, in the most cases you'll miss, you would have risked 3% of your stack. The gap between high and low cards is lower than in the short stack scenario. If you hit and stack off your 100BBs opponents, it's more than enough to show a profit.
If you buy deep stack (100+ BBs), then the game is much more skewed towards speculative hand play. The gap here is so low, that you will almost never see AA or KK going all-in post flop, unimproved. Because you have so much money behind, on the long term it pays off waiting for a big hand (full house or quads) and shipping the money into the middle.
As the stacks increase, you need to me more skilled at play to be profitable in the long run. Anybody can shove KK being short stacked, but not anybody can maneuver his 250 BBs opponent into shoving his full house into the hero's quads.
The amount you buy-in going at a random cash game should reflect, IMHO, the skills and confidence that you have. If you want to test the waters, buy in short stacked and play mechanically. However, if you trust in your game, buy in the maximum allowed at that game. Don't think about the potential loss, think about the potential gain that you can have. If you are as good as Phil Ivey, you wouldn't think twice in going into a table full of unknown players and buying in for the max amount.
To answer your initial question, my opinion is that yes, it's more advantageous buying in for the max, because you can win as much as you can.
I hope it helped.
Good luck!
Comment: I read: "because the pot grows geometrically". What do you mean by "geometrically"? Exponential?
Comment: Yes, exponential.
Answer:
Is there an inherent advantage/disadvantage to having a larger stack than your opponent in a cash game?

It really depends on the other stack sizes at the table. If you buy in for the minimum and everyone else at the table is lower then its fine. If there are people with max buyins then you need to buy in at that.
You want to be able to maximise your profits and you are not able to do that if you can only take half of an opponents stack.
Also by having the biggest stack at the table it puts a lot more pressure on people when you make big raises. Which can lead to them calling a lot wider and chasing draws more which gets you more profit when they miss.
So I would say you should always buy in at the max. Most pro's would tell you the same thing.
Comment: You cannot buy for minimum and have your opponents with even shorter stacks unless they lost and decided not to top off. But it's highly unlikely to have this scenario (a short stack and 8-9 ppl with lower stacks).
Comment: @Bogdan its possible, just highly unlikely. It could be that one guy had dominated the table and then left leaving everyone with depleted chipstacks. If you play microstakes you quite often see a table full of people with less than the min buyin
Answer: I agree with Gaz above in that having a big stack means you can get paid more for you big hands. Also, as Gaz points out, if you have a big stack people have to think about potentially facing more bets on later streets. This can be an extra encouragement for them to fold. So I do think that a big stack plays better.
I have however seen some players buy in for smaller amounts as way to reduce risk. Since they do not have a lot of chips at the table they do not have to worry about those bets on later streets. The number of chips they can bet (and therefore lose) is limited. If they lose all their chips they just buy in again for a small amount. Low risk. On the flip side they cannot get paid big for their big hands.
So I guess it is up to you. Do you want to win big or avoid losing big?
Answer:
Is there an inherent advantage/disadvantage to having a larger stack than your opponent in a cash game?

I agree with the two responses above, but just want to point out that your style of play also needs to be taken into consideration.  Some players are better at short stack play and prefer to play from behind, so to speak.  Other players like the ability to bully and push people all-in.
I think you're style of play should have some impact on your buy in amount.


Reputation for Badges

Question: Should some badges come with added reputation?
For example: Civic Duty gives you +100 reputation.
I'm not advocating reputation for every badge just a select few.
Answer: I don't think so. Badges tend to come via the same sort of actions which gain you reputation anyway... I don't think it makes sense to make the reputation system even more complicated in this way.
Comment: Whitespace before a full stop? Ick ;)
Comment: No                     .
Answer: It's not a bad idea, but it is just not needed.
People already find enough intrinsic rewards in getting badges.  The badges don't need any extra reinforcement.
And since it's not needed, I would rather the development team of stackoverflow (and related sites) spend their time implementing other things.
Comment: I don't entirely agree. The badges that would benefit most from this are ones that generally require significant amounts of unrequited work that benefits the community. As I mentioned in my answer, if it can increase voting and refinement editing (both in a good way) I'm all in favor of it.
Comment: Agreed.  I feel like I have low rep because I am a new programmer, but I am working on getting my editing badge (for grammar and readability) and I'd like to get _some_ sort of recognition.  A parade or something, maybe.
Answer: YES!!!!!!!!!
I've always disliked the fact that reputation follows technical knowledge rather than community building. I realize that asking/answering questions is a form of community building, but trying to improve the site by discussing it is at least as important. To use a metaphor from an SO question I posted last year, the person who carefully tends the Banana Slug article on wikipedia is important, but isn't nearly as critical to the site as the admins who try to create, influence, or enforce policies^. SO's system has always considered the banana slug guy to be the lynchpin, while the people who are editing grammar or trying to change the way people use the site get bubkis**.
If you get the Strunk & White badge (and some others: Taxonomist, Editor) you should certainly get a significant number of points. Would some people "game the system" by editing articles just for the points? Sure. But if they're out there editing they're doing good so it's OK. (You're really just paying them for working on the site...)
And not lots and lots of points, but 100 points is enough to be satisfying but not enough to screw up the balance of the game^H^H^H reputation system.
^ Most wikipedia admins are a bunch of power-crazed Nazis. I'm well aware.
** They actually have to have quite a bit of juice before they're even allowed to do those things, and the juice comes from technical knowledge.
Answer: I agree with the "some" part. Anything that has to do with popularity (lots of upvotes, views, etc.) should not come with any extra points, since that could just incite people to write more funny, subjective, and or controversial questions.
Tags that require actual consistent work would be good candidates (like Civic Duty, Strunk & White, Taxonomist, etc.) and could encourage more community participation. Some of my SO pet peeves include (1) the dismal votes/view ratio (realizing of course that some people aren't site members, or don't have enough rep to vote) and (2) poor tagging, poor question titles, and typos. Perhaps "two birds with one stone" is optimistic, but a fella can hope...

Reputation for Badges


2005 Honda civic VP 30,000 mile service

Question: This is my first car and i recently brought when the mileage was 25,000 on it. Now it is 30,000 and i need to get it serviced. I called Honda showroom and couple of other places and they are charging me around $300+, which seems ridiculously high. What are the things they usually do for a 30,000 mile service and how much is reasonable to pay?
Comment: Thanks All for the answers. I checked the manual and it was really helpful
Answer: The 30k service, as performed by a Honda Dealer, would consist of the following things: First and foremost a basic oil change service. This includes oil and filter, adjustment of tire pressures, and an inspection of the underside of the vehicle(suspension and steering, exhaust, etc), the topping off of any fluids, and a check of all front and rear lights. Normally, as part of an oil change service, the air filter would be inspected. This step is overlooked because the air filter is replaced at 30k miles(inm 15k mile intervals).
The next step would be to pull the wheels off and check the brake system. On the 2005 Civic that would be to visually inspect the front disc brakes and rear drum brakes. Some dealer service centers will clean and lube the front and rear brakes, but this is not generally required unless the brakes are squeaking. If you did want to clean and lube the brakes you would clean and lube where the pad and caliper surfaces meet, and where the shoes and backing plate meet in the rear. Also part of the rear clean and lube is an adjustment. Between the two brake shoes you will see an adjuster. Rotate the adjustment wheel until there is a slight drag on the drum. This may require some fiddling to get just right. Remember, too much drag will cause your rear brakes to wear out more quickly and too little will cause poor brake performance in the rear. If your car seems to brake well, I'd recommend omitting this step.
The last mechanical step is to rotate the tires. Typically on a front wheel drive vehicle the front tires will go to the opposite corner in the rear, and the rear tires will move directly forward to the front axle.
The last step you will want to take is to clear the "maint req'd" light. To do this you hold the odometer reset button and turn the key to the on position. The "maint req'd light will flash several times and then turn off. The light will not clear if your headlights are on. At this point the service is complete. You will want to make note that in 5k miles you will be due for another oil change.
Assuming the service center's labor rate is around 100-120 dollars an hour, 300 dollars does not seem terribly high.
Answer: Look in your owners manual and it should list the scheduled maintenance recommended for your vehicle
Comment: How is this answer helpful?  You can answer many questions with this boilerplate answer.
Comment: @Patrick not everyone knows that information is in the owners manual. Shops don't always follow the manufactures recommendations for services, they may pad the services to include things not recommended by the OEM or leave out things that are, it's always good to double check in the owner's manual
Answer: As stated before, look at your service manual for a list of what is usually done at the 30k interval.  That being said, 300 bucks doesn't feel that bad of a price.

2005 Honda civic VP 30,000 mile service


What Is The Best Level To Find Redstone At?

Question: I am currently trying to build a piston elevator in my single player world and I need about 200 blocks of redstone to complete it ("For the back wall").  I already have enough redstone for about 90 blocks but I think I could find more mining at a different level other that 11-12 (Which is the recommended level to find diamonds).  If that is true I need to know what the level with the most redstone is.  Thanks!
Comment: Another means of acquiring redstone, is to build a witch farm.
Answer: Redstone will randomly spawn below level 16 at a 1.025% chance per block. There is no "Best level" because the generation is random. So, to answer your question, anywhere from bedrock to 16 blocks above bedrock should have an equal chance of being redstone. You can find more about redstone at the Minecraft Wiki page Hope that answers your question!
Answer: Judging by this graph of average block quantities the levels with the most redstone are 5-17.
Because of the high amount of lava below level 11 you would consider mining higher than that.
Answer: I've been doing some research on this myself, because, I need redstone, too.
I've found that levels 12, 13, and 14 are the easiest to mine in. You get about 4-5 stacks of redstone for every 36 stacks of cobblestone. If you count cave, then it's 6-7.
It takes about 1/2-2 1/2 hours to get it. Hope this helps!
Answer: Redstone spawns at levels 0-15.
Comment: But what is the ideal/best?
Answer: I was strip-mining at 12 for about 100 blocks, and got 3 stacks of redstone. So go for level 12!


How to share the work, if writing fiction in a team?

Question: How should one split up the work between two people? Should one write the even-numbered chapters and the other the odd-numbered? Does each person tell the story from the point of view of a different character or write different story-subarcs? In general, how do one organise the work in a team?
Answer: I've written a few short stories with friends via email, with each person chipping in a section. It yields some interesting and fun results, but not what you'd call a particularly coherent story.
For an example of how one pair of pros did it, take a look at this interview with Sean Williams and Shane Dix. Basically, they worked on a story outline together, Sean did the first draft, Shane rewrote/edited, and Sean did one last pass.
Getting together for the outlining or vision at the start seems like a really important step. I could see something like odd/even chapters by different writers ending up with a conflict in styles...which might work really well in some cases.
Answer: Another option that doesn't seem to have been mentioned, which might work if you are writing multiple-POV-character fiction, is to switch viewpoint characters between chapters and let each writer "own" one or more of the viewpoint characters. As long as you have a reasonably firm outline, this allows each author to work relatively freely, and in such a case the differences in style may actually add to the flavor of the overall story.
This works best if the characters don't partake in each others' activities too much, but with a shared reasonably solid understanding of the characters among all authors and some editing it may very well work well enough even if the characters intermingle.
Viewpoint character switches can get confusing if done wrong, but of the books I've read, I believe the ones that switch viewpoint character at chapter boundaries have all worked well. Of course you may need a solid round of editing at the end to bring everything together and make sure the story is consistent, but that is probably a good idea anyway so all things considered is probably not a huge drawback.
Answer: They way my last few collaborations worked was a bit like this, though these were all for short stories. Together we would come up with the story and work out the plot points for the story, the main character beats and the over all plot and events.
After that was all settled one of us would sit down and write the draft (we would trade off of this each story). Then give to the other who would review and clean up the story a bit more. The back and fourth until we were both happy with that, after that it was posted for the online group.
Usually you can tell who did the heavy lifting on the writing as they got top billing.
Answer: I think it depends on the people, what they're good at, and who came up with what.
I've been co-writing as a hobby for the last six years, and in the last year started co-writing seriously. My writing partner isn't great with prose, and his characters can be a little flat, but he's got the most amazing ability to grab interesting ideas out of the air, and he has an instinctive ability to throw in really effective plot hooks. I tend to focus heavily on twisting existing elements into complications and intrigue, and I love character development and plot structure.
We'll write the first draft together on google docs, while chatting about the work on Skype. He'll do about two thirds of the brain-storming and solution-fetching. Some characters are 'mine' (he can't write them), some are his, some are shared. I tend to write a few paragraphs where my characters are acting or talking, then he'll do the same, with some liberties for simultaneous action. Sometimes one of us writes a few pages alone. The POV sometimes gets wonky, and there are style changes, and the prose isn't great. The point of this stage is to get a nicely proportioned skeleton in place.
Then I go in for the rewrite, rewrite everything alone, give his characters more depth, fill in scenes I feel need to be in the story, and occasionally cry to my cowriter to get me out of plot-holes. Once I finish, I'll polish excessively until I'm dragged away, and he'll go through the manuscript and pick out prose problems. (Along with a slew of other people making edits.)
This is a self-published venture, so once that's done with I'll use my multimedia degree to lay out the book in InDesign, then convert into HTML with regular expressions for the e-book version. I also paint the covers, though I may step down from that eventually. We split the proceeds unevenly in my favor, with a written contract saying that if our duties shift, we'll renegotiate.


Can one file a patent application (e.g. 20130293680) without public and prior works research?

Question: Reviewing patent application # 20130293680 , and it appears that no thorough investigation has been made for prior works as well as public domain knowledge and adoption of techniques.  Should companies that have been performing the function detailed in patent application # 20130293680  contact the patent office to provide proof of prior works before a final application decision is made, or is it more appropriate to wait for the patent office to make its judgment and then possibly consider the appeal process?  Who does the patent office contact to ensure no prior works or technology overlaps with the patent application?
Answer: There is no requirement that an applicant perform a search before submitting an application. However, an applicant must inform the USPTO of anything they do know that is relevant to judging the novelty or obviousness of the claimed subject matter.
The patent examiner does a search as a key part of the examination process. That search is a "paper" search and does not involve contacting anyone outside the patent office.
Under the new (2011) AIA patent law there is procedure for third party submission of documents to the examiner during a particular time window of the examination process. The Ask Patents site was created to help crowd source documents for that new process. The submissions are limited to published prior art and some comments on the applicability of the prior art documents.


How to imagine the following power and torque?

Question: I can roughly feel a force of 10 newton only by considering the weight of 1 kilogram object.
How to imagine the following measurements?

Maximum horsepower 16 hp @ 9,500 RPM
Maximum torque 12.76 N·m @ 8,500 RPM
Comment: @John Rennie, Dungarth, torque is measured with Prony's brake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Prony_brake Such a device in action gives a rather good feeling for the torque/power in action.
Answer: 16 horsepower is too high to be easily compared to everyday life. If you take one horsepower instead, then one horsepower is about 740 J/sec. For an average male of 75kg, this is the power required to lift you at 1 m/s. So suppose you were climbing a ladder, then 1 horsepower requires you to climb the ladder at 1 m/s. I suspect most of us could only manage a fraction of this!
The torque is more easy to imagine. A typical childs seesaw is about 2m long i.e. about 1m from the pivot to the end. If you placed a 1.276 kg weight on the end of the seesaw than 12.76Nm torque is what you'd feel at the other end when you press on the seesaw to keep it level.
The torque sounds tiny, but remember that's the torque at the motor not at the wheels. At the typical maximum speed of a small motorcycle the engine is turning about 15 times faster than the wheels, so the torque at the wheel is about 15 times as large i.e. 191Nm. That's like putting 19kg on the end of the seesaw.
Answer: It really depends on your personal experience how you can imagine power and torque. The numbers though are very similar to a Suzuki RM 80 motocross bike.
The RM 80 has 14.5 horsepower at 11.000 rpm and a maximum torque of approximately 10 Nm at that speed.

The 'feeling' might be approximated by this video of the machine in action.
Answer: Horsepower is a unit used to measure power, the rate at which work is executed. The SI unit of power is the watt (W) and 1 horsepower is equivalent to 746 watt. As such, you can convert 16 hp to 11 936W.
One watt is defined as 1 joule per second, joules being the SI unit of work. As work is defined by force x distance, you can get an idea of what 16hp mean by running some quick calculations.
An average car as about 1800kg of mass, and thus weighs about 18kN. This mean your 16HP motor has enough power to lift such a car 1 meters in the air in about 1.5 seconds (18kN x 1m / 1.5s = 12kW)
Torque, now, is a measure of turning force of an object. It is calculated by multiplying the force applied to the object by the distance at which it is applied to the center of rotation. Basically, if you attached a one meter stick to your motor and ran it at 8500 rpms, the force you'd feel at the end of the stick would be 12.76 Newtons, which you can easily compare to the weight of a 1.2~1.3kg  object ($F=mg$, where $g$ is about 10N/kg). I would highly suggest not trying to stop it even if the force is small, however, as the end of that one meter stick would be travelling at a speed of about 3204 km/h...
Given the specs of your motor, it would be able to drag a heavier object while running at 8500 rpms (more torque) but, not as much torque was needed, it would drag it faster at 9500 rpms (more power)


Grub2 failing to update

Question: I recently replaced a disk containing my /home partition only. Upon attempting to upgrade my kernal package (Debian Squeeze) I get the following error:
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: Couldn't find PV pv1. Check your device.map.

Google searching suggested this solution:
root@debian1:~# mv /boot/grub/device.map /boot/grub/device.map_orig
root@debian1:~# grub-mkdevicemap
root@debian1:~# update-grub

The first two commands succeed without error, yet the third command update-grub fails with the same error mentioned above.
I've checked my /boot/grub/device.map file, and it seems to match the ids listed when I run ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/.
Any idea how to resolve this?
Comment: What does `pvdisplay` show?  My guess is that you were using LVM on the old drive and yanked it out without telling LVM to remove it, so now it's still looking for that disk.
Answer: @psusi: You're an extremely good guesser. As you mentioned, I didn't update the LVM file when replacing the disk.
vgreduce volume_group_name --removemissing fixed the issue.

Grub2 failing to update


How to drive a car in snow

Question: I have never driven a car in a region where it snows. I am planning on a vacation to states where it snows and would want to be prepared to drive in snow. What necessary steps/precautions can I take. I will be travelling from southern USA to up North the East coast in a F 1/250
Please look at this question for even more information.
Comment: A 4x4 is a little different, you have to remember though having 4wd or awd makes accelerating much easier in low traction situations but stopping and turning it doesn't affect at all. Cars generally have better esp then trucks as well. Something small and awd like a subaru would be the best option.
Comment: An F150 or F250 are not great choices for winter driving at all, the lack of weight over the drive wheels makes handling sketchy at best. I would consider renting a small FWD car, the difference in fuel economy might even make up the cost and it would be safer and easier to drive.
Comment: 4x4 or rear wheel drive?
Comment: @BrianKnoblauch 4x4
Comment: Is this really a travel question?
Comment: @draksia you *really* sure that a small FWD car would have better handling than an F250 4x4 ?
Answer: Winter tyres are absolutely necessary when the temperatures fall below 4 degrees Celsius, even if there is no snow on the road itself. Cold roads are slippery as well, even with tiny amount of humidity. Summer tyres have significantly worse traction in cold weather, and the car steers like a curling stone -- that is, not at all. Sharp corners and moderate to hard braking are very difficult and outright dangerous. Investment in quality tyres is definitely recommended, but in your case hard to justify. Is there a way to buy second-hand tyres that are still road-legal?
As far as the car goes, 4x4 or AWD fare noticeably better on snow and icy roads, front-wheel drive is preferred otherwise. Cars with electronic stability control (often referred to as ESP) are highly recommended. These come as standard on Saab, Volvos often have them as well, which should tell you something why it's so useful. Suffice to say, snow drifting with it on is very difficult, even when trying to do it on purpose.
There may even be a government/state/municipal requirement for using winter tyres in particular months. In Sweden, they are mandatory between November and March. Check the rules in the jurisdictions you'll be travelling through.
Tyre chains may be recommended, required, or illegal. At any rate, they should be used only if the roads are completely covered with snow. Major roads should be cleared regularly, but small countryside roads may not. Again, check the local laws.
Source: I drive in Scandinavia in the winter.
Comment: Sort of...  If the tire is marked as "M+S" it means "Mud and Snow".  This means the tire met the government minimum requirements.  Often called "All season tires", Snow belt people like to call these "3 season tires" because they're generally pretty poor in the Winter.  There are Winter only tires that have various snowflake and/or mountain symbols on them that I've seen.  However, I do not know if they're standardized between manufacturers or not.
Comment: @happybuddha: Not that I know of. Different manufacturers have different brand names for winter and summer tyres, usually a quick search will tell you which is which. You can tell by tread pattern, profile and siping usually, but you need to have seen them before ;-)
Comment: Are there any demarcations on tires which say if its a winter/summer tire ?
Comment: @happybuddha the tire sidewall of a snow tire may be marked M/S (mud/snow) or may show a snowflake.
Answer: The recommendations given on the travel site hit most of the high points.
As someone who grew up in snowy Western New York and had the opportunity to drive all manner of vehicles in the snow, I can say without a doubt that the single best preparation to the vehicle is to fit good snow tires.
Secondly, decrease your speed in snowy/freezing/wet conditions, and increase the distance to the vehicle in front of you.
Keep the windshield washer bottle full of good washer fluid. You'll use a lot of it to keep the windshield clear of the salt spray from other vehicles.
Also, be sure to have plenty of warm clothes/blankets in the vehicle in case you get stuck or snowed in in a big storm.
Be aware that if the car gets stuck or buried in deep snow and you are waiting for assistance, you must either keep the area around the exhaust pipe clear, or turn the engine off, otherwise you risk carbon monoxide poisoning. This is a perpetual killer of people who get stuck in blizzards.
With regard to your vehicle choice, I actually prefer smaller lighter front-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive vehicles with good snow tires to big heavy pickups or SUVs. A lighter vehicle simply requires less force to accelerate, turn, or bring to a stop than does a heavy truck.
I don't generally find all-wheel or 4-wheel drive to be necessary, unless you will be in deep or un-plowed snow. The important corollary is that 4-wheel or all-wheel drive alone is not sufficient! Neither will help you stop in the snow. Proper tires, driving technique, and common sense are paramount.
If you must make the trip in a pickup truck, be aware that pickup trucks need extra weight over the rear axle to improve traction in the snow. We used to build a wooden frame out of 2x12s that enclosed the area between the wheel wells to hold sandbags (similar to what is shown below).

The extra weight improves traction, and the sand in the bags can be poured out on the snow or ice as a traction enhancer to help you get un-stuck if you really find yourself in a bind.
Answer: I posted a piece on Being Prepared in the snow on my personal blog a couple of years back. I didn't think of the Carbon Monoxide problem @mac mentioned, but there are some useful snippets there:
With this winter in Scotland already a repeat of the freezing conditions of last year we are still astonished at how many people leave themselves at risk by being entirely unprepared. Not only does this cause them problems, but it also causes some impact to those who are prepared. So here are a few notes on how to minimise the impact from adverse weather and foolhardy unprepared individuals on the roads.
Obviously the simplest solution is don't go outdoors - get stocks of food and drink in and batten down the hatches. Cosy, but not always a workable solution, so lets have a look at what you can do if you do need to go somewhere.
Practice:
Okay, so I'm is a petrolhead, and so I take any opportunity to go out on a racetrack, but knowing how to handle ice is within anyone's grasp. While the Andros Trophy could be a little excessive, having at least one skid pan session under your belt will get you through a lot of ice. You'll learn how to use the right amount of torque - unlike the many people we have seen over the last couple of weeks trying to drive under full power, wheels spinning and sliding - resulting in some interestingly stuck vehicles! The driving test in Finland requires a test on a slippery course - is it any wonder they do so well in the World Rally Championship?
Planning the route:
Look at an OS map to understand the hills. Last winter I had a very tense hour driving the last couple of miles to Drumoak in Aberdeenshire as I didn't prepare his route (but trusted a Tom Tom... mistake!) - I ended up descending a very steep slope using the ditch on the right hand side of the road as a runner to stop the car sliding off the left hand side of the road, which had no barrier other than some trees further down the slope. Learnt that lesson now, but wouldn't ever want to go through it again.
Avoid motorways - you would think they would be fine as the inclines are minimal, and they are wide, but unfortunately they are not sheltered, and when conditions deteriorate it is all too easy to be caught out, or get stuck behind someone else who does. When the inevitable crashes happen, you can't get off a motorway easily, and being stationary in heavy snow can lead to being stuck there for many hours.
Mechanical:
Defrost/de-ice your car every day. Not only will this help you avoid having to call out the AA/RAC/equivalent for your country, but you will avoid the doors freezing solid, ice buildup inside (which can easily damage wiring.) In addition you'll find it much easier to keep all your windows and lights clear of snow and ice - this doesn't seem to be understood by many road users. Personally we like to be able to see everything around us, and ensure they can see us - don't want to be anywhere near another car with the windows all frosted up and just a small patch on the windscreen for them to peer out! Minimising risk here is a good thing (tm)
At the start of winter you really want to ensure the car is properly serviced. Fresh tyres, new wiper blades, engine oil, antifreeze levels correct. Then take every opportunity to fill up the petrol tank - just in case you need to run the engine for warmth while stuck for days! In the more remote areas you should consider snow tyres, snow socks or even chains - they can make all the difference.
Supplies:
Everyone should have a blanket, sleeping bag or slanket in their car anyway. They are so cheap or even free at garages that you might as well. Not just an essential to keep you warm if you do have to overnight in the car, but they are really useful to give you grip if you are really stuck - tucking a blanket or rug under the tyres can give a lot of traction.
Gloves and Hat - yep, simple, but if you are trying to dig yourself out and the temperature is down below minus 15 you want to conserve heat! Possibly a Cthulhu Balaclava is the best solution.
YakTrax Ice Grips - get yourself a set of these essential accessories.
Snow shovel - if you can find one! The telescopic ones can easily be stored in the boot.
Drinks - would be really nice to have a flask of hot coffee or soup, but realistically you can keep juice or cans in the car really easily. You can dehydrate very quickly when stationary and running the engine to keep the car warm. Keep some bottled water as well, and ideally some coffee powder (see below)
Food - cereal bars or chocolate are easy to store in a car for long periods of time.
The important bit - Geek essentials:
An inverter - ideally reasonably high wattage, so you can charge your laptop.
Torch - ultrabright LED torch, or for extra bling, one of these 10 Million Candlepower torches.
High gain antenna (at least 9dB) and 802.11 card if necessary. How are you going to update your blog, check out your Stack Exchange posts and twitter feed, follow the Met Office updates detailing the cold and ice coming your way, or keep yourself entertained with iPlayer if you can't connect?
Immersion heater - either a 12v car version, or a 240v one to run off the inverter - so you can make coffee.
USB Handwarmers - keep your typing speed up. Or your strafe speed in Brink!
eBook Reader - whichever flavour floats your boat.
In car mp3 player - you don't want to run out of tunes before help arrives! Ideally at least a half a terabyte of music will avoid any risk of boredom.
Answer: Install snow tires. If it's 4-wheel drive or front wheel drive, install on all four wheels; if rear-wheel drive, just the driving wheels, although all four would be best.
You might get away with summer tires + chains, but they have to be propely fitted and legal for where you intend to use them (check local regulations). If temperatures are no more than a few degrees below freezing, and you don't have to deal with more than a couple of inches of snow, you can get away with "all season" tires (but should be on ALL wheels). Nevertheless, proper snow tires are really the best option.
Learn skid recovery. There are places you can go for instruction and practice, but it is possible to teach yourself. Read up on techniques. Only practice in safe (large, open, flat, empty of obstacles, people) places (e.g. vacant parking lots) at slow speeds (just a few MPH is enough to induce a skid on snow) to get the "feel". If you're in a safe place and want to experiment, any abrupt or excessive control input (accelerator, steering, brake, or combination at some level) will induce a skid or spin of some form; understanding what inputs will or will not produce what result can be very helpful in knowing what not to do when you need to keep the car under control.
See other answers for advice on what to keep in your car (supplies, clothing, etc.)
When driving in slippery conditions, slow down, leave plenty of extra space in front of you, make any driving inputs (accelerator, brakes, steering) gently. Avoid steering and braking simultaneously (unless your car has traction control); either steer (no brakes) or brake (straight line) as appropriate to the circumstance; don't try to do both at the same time; the combined inputs require more traction which you may not have. Best to avoid a skid situation altogether, but still be prepared (know how to recognize and recover). Always try to keep space all around your vehicle... in a low-traction situation, your car will want to keep going in the same direction,  so it's usually best to attempt to brake straight-line, but there may be situations where the easiest/safest action is a lane change (no brake). Again, read up on winter driving techniques.
Comment: +1 for skid recovery. I taught myself, on empty roads at night, sometimes in the back of large parking lots. Invaluable skill, especially when it comes to *not* freaking out, and like this answer says: either brake or steer. I'd also add to learn skid recovery for each vehicle you own: Each car handles differently and it's important to be *one with your car*.
Answer: My biggest concern would be the weight of the vehicle and the overconfidence that a 4x4 causes.  It's real easy to overestimate the available traction in a 4x4.  Starting out from a stop seems so easy that it's real easy to forget that normal braking is typically harder than normal acceleration.  You may well be right on the edge on acceleration, and then when you go to stop, you're over the limit of available traction...

How to drive a car in snow


Can cheese be sculpted?

Question: Could anyone offer some tips on how to sculpt or mold a large piece of cheddar into a knight of the realm. I have tried on a smaller piece but the cheese tends to crumple and doesn't seem sculpt in the way I expect.
Answer: Firm cheeses like cheddar can make excellent material for sculpting, which sounds like what you're after. If you really mean sharpening, well... you'll need a very hard cheese, like an aged Parmagianno Reggiano or Romano to get a good sharp edge, and even then it'll require frequent honing to keep the edge in good condition.
Answer: In my experience it's possible to carve cheddar, but you need a sharp knife and you need to keep the cheese cold. Depending on your room temperature, you may only be able to work on it for about 15 minutes at a time before you have to put it back in the fridge.
Answer: I once managed to sculpt a piece Wensleydale into a clog shape and as mentioned above the best approach is to keep putting the knife back in the fridge every 5 minutes to make it colder. The knife should always be colder than the cheese, that's the secret. Good luck musters.
Answer: Unfortunately, I've never had success with Knights of the Realm, have you tried starting off with Viscounts or something simple like that?  If you are struggling with room temperature it may be prudent to carve outside in the back garden on a workbench in Scotland.
Comment: Thanks for your responses folks. The project I'm working on is to sharpen (or sculp) a large piece of cheddar into a knight of the realm. Therefore the comments about Parmagianno Reggiano, Romano, Wensleydale, clogs and Viscounts are interesting but a bit off topic. I do like the idea, however, of putting the knife in the fridge (or even freezer) every five minutes and I will try that.

Can cheese be sculpted?


Why T'naim just before the chuppah?

Question: What is the function of T'naim when performed just before the chuppah?
Answer: As heard on some yutorah lectures:
A more traditional Tnaim was a very strong contract, with stiff penalties, that the couple go forward with their marriage. Originally it was done around the time of engagement. Over time, people were concerned that the engagement might not work out, so they delayed the tnaim a bit. Then a bit more. Then a bit more. Eventually they were doing it right before the wedding, which made no sense.
The late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein reformulated the document, for use right before the wedding. It states:

All claims and reservations have been settled between all parties; all that remains is that the couple wed and share together.

It could be used in case the day after the wedding, the father-in-law says "hey wait, I was supposed to be paid $1000 if this shidduch went through!" or something like that; it says black on white that all claims have been settled. And it's an important emotional statement; and a nice reminder about the couple sharing (and their parents pulling back so the couple can be a couple!) and not sheltering assets. But a lot of it was because people were used to having some sort of Tnaim document; once they were going to have one, this formulation made the most sense for the way it was being used.
Comment: My T'naim were done right before the chupah, and did not have the changed text.
Answer: T'naim directly before the chuppah serves the exact same function as T'naim a year/month/day/century before the chupah.
The reason why a T'naim is done so close to the chuppah (in some circles) is so that there is little to no chance of the T'naim being broken.  Unlike a wedding or Ketubah, a T'naim can not be resolved with a get or similar document, but must be fulfilled or a Beit Din must be found to annul it (Which I hear) is almost impossible to do.

Why T’naim just before the chuppah?


Is there a standard place for the Owner Information on an Android phone?

Question: I found an lost Android phone - is there a standard place on Android phones for owner information so I can contact the person who lost it?
Answer: If you go to Settings > Accounts & sync settings, you should be able to see their gmail address and possibly Facebook. You can probably contact them through one of those.
Answer: Settings / About Phone / Status shows the device's phone number. Call it and leave a message. Maybe the owner will check their voicemail from home.
Or call people in the contact list, especially ones that show recent history. "Your buddy lost a phone..."
Or call the carrier and tell them you found the phone. They will be able to contact the phone's owner and relay your contact information.
Answer: There is now a standard place for Android phone users to set their owner information:
Menu -> Settings -> Security - > Owner Information
There is also a checkbox that makes this information show up on the lock screen.
There is an article about it at CNET with this useful screenshot:

(source: cbsistatic.com)


Ninjas! Which games systems, or campaign settings focus, exclusively on subterfuge classes?

Question: I'm looking for a game systems and/or campaign setting that focuses almost extensively on subterfuge classes/ninjas.
I don't have any setting restrictions - this could be in any time period, or flavor.
Answer: How important is the Japanese/ninja specific part to you, and how important is "all subterfuge" in terms of class options? And do you want modern day or 1800s or "made up fantasy" as your setting?
Depending on whether you demand the Oriental flavor and whether you're looking for a modern setting or not, there are a number of espionage RPGs that are all about the subterfuge classes.  Top Secret from back in the day and to a lesser extent its successor Top Secret: S.I., the James Bond 007 RPG, and more recently Spycraft and its second edition.  None of these are really specific to "ninjas" though many people made ninja characters simply by skinning (no pun intended) their spy characters.
If when you say "ninjas" you mean more the Warrior's Way/Ninja Assassin type of ninjas, then Feng Shui or Hong Kong Action Theater! are better bets. They don't "focus on subterfuge" but then again neither do those depictions (besides "we hide before leaping out to the killfest").
I can probably be more helpful with more clarification, there's other stuff that may qualify but if this is just a "I thought it would be cool for people to take their time to make a big ol' semirandom list" request I have other stuff to do...
Answer: Right away I think of Palladium's Ninjas & Superspies, which I'll admit I've never played -- but which, I understand, does exactly what it says on the tin.
Comment: Actually, it's their generic Martial Arts (Eastern And Western) game. Very light on the ninja, very heavy on the butt-kicking.
Answer: While it's particularly silly, the "SAKE" engine NinjaBurger by 9th Level games was all about the Ninjas-as-deliverymen "Get it in without being seen"...
The PDQ second edition is more open ended...
Answer: The old Thieves' Guild RPG dealt almost exclusively with living a life of subterfuge.  Later supplements to it detailed fighters and magic-users, but as back-of-the-bus secondary characters to the main characters of the game: thieves.  In this nearly exclusive focus on one type of character with other characters shoved in the background Thieves' Guild kinda/sorta heralded the approach Ars Magica later took for magic using characters.
Answer: Hero Games has a Ninja Hero module that may be what you are looking for. I've used the Hero system for a long time, starting with their most popular Champions superhero genre. I've used it for many different settings including fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and more. I'm a HUGE fan of the flexibility and freedom that it allows.
Answer: Spycraft is, as the name implies, all about the spy game. Though in its "modern-world superspy action movie" context it may mean more action-focused than you might want, it has its share of subterfuge classes, even with a straight-from-the-book-if-not-in-name Ninja class called Intruder. The Counter-Terrorist and Raptor Expert Classes also seems to fit the "Action-Ninja" role.
Comment: There is a Ninja prestige class in the Fixer/Pointman Class Guide book.
Answer: The old Bushido RPG had a good set of Ninja rules, the game itself is mean for Samurai etal but I have run some Ninja style stuff with it.
Answer: I tend to find that my countryside campaigns focus more on martial skills, and my urban campaigns tend to focus more on subterfuge.  In a crowded bar, having the dwarf start a barfight over the Artifact of Foo can be fatal, whereas if the small and lightweight Artifact can be quietly lifted from the Hooded Stranger, the party get the swag with less risk and less exertion.
Answer: I might regret this but there is Naruto D20, a D20 Modern based adaptation of the Naruto anime.
This means that you have base classes defined by your strongest attribute, you have your Strength based ninja who could be a great swordsman, a Dexterity based ninja i.e. your stereotypical ninja and Intelligence based ninja's which concentrate on the magic powers japanese folklore attributed to some ninjas.
There are also a lot of prestige classes which have most of the favour in contrast to the generic base classes, their fluff is very tied to the Naruto universe but since every tipe of ninja from demonic shadow mages to plain sneaky guys exist in the manga this is not that much of a problem.
The RPG does a great job of capturing the manga's flavour basically the premise is everyone's a ninja, whether you're more of a mage type or a fighter or your classic sneak-sneak everybody should have basic stealth training and secrets and discovering them is the key to any battle.
If you're a fan of the manga you should definitely check this out, one problem is that the anime is DnD 3.5 in animated form a lot of flavour a lot of options but there are just some powers, those of the main character big surprise, which are just overpowered and it shows.


How do I create a book cover for my self-published book for under $500?

Question: I'm a self-published author, I write non-fiction. I would like my book to have a reasonably good cover and stand out among others, but I'm not ready to spend more than $500 on it. What are my options?
Comment: Here's an interesting dissection of the process behind a particular cover design, with a total materials budget (stock images) of around $100: http://davidbarnett.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/genesis-of-a-cover-gideon-smith-and-the-mechanical-girl-uk/
Answer: $500 is more than enough to get a pro to do your cover for you.  It wouldn't be enough for an individual photo shoot, I don't think, but there's lots of people make stock-photograph covers for a couple hundred bucks.
Find a self-pubbed book with a cover you like, and see if you can find the cover credits.  Or, hell, find an industry-pubbed book with a cover you like; a lot of their cover artists are probably working freelance.
Answer: I think there a few different paths you may go here.
One way would be to try to find an illustrator who'd sell you the work of his own to be used as book cover. You can do this on sites like IllustrationMundo, DirectoryOfIllustration (beware, lots of agents instead of actual designers on this website) and HireAnIllustrator. It may be pretty difficult to find relevant works there, because those sites allow to search by illustrators, but not keywords that might be relevant to your book.
Another way is to try to craft one yourself with numerous software available. Just type in "make book cover" in Google and you'll be enlightened with tons of cheap-looking software packages promising you super skills in designing a book cover.
Finally, there are stock images websites where you can purchase an image to be used as a book cover. The most notable and closest to the book industry is Get Book Cover, which sells fine-quality illustration and photography works as book covers, allows keywords search and claims to have an in-browser editor to put title and author credits on the cover, as well as convert it to various formats for digital and print use.
Comment: getbookcover.com is a parked domain now.
Answer: $500 is enough to find a good illustrator / designer. Look for someone who is starting out and wants to build a resume (not someone who's already established). With some work, you can definitely find a good young illustrator at that price range, and you'll help them in the process.
Answer: You might want to look at some of the artists listed here in the KindleBoards Yellow Pages. You should be able to find a very talented artist who can help you develop an e-book cover for under $500 easily. Some of the folks listed here are mediocre, but there are many who are amazing! I personally have used Glendon Haddix for two of my book covers and have been most pleased with his work. He does excellent work and is very responsive. (He is also well within your price range.)
Some of these artists provide premade covers at very low prices, and most of them will provide examples of their work. Take the time to look at a few and see if you find someone who has done something that catches your eye. I'm sure you won't be disappointed!
Answer: Find a good artist and offer them a reasonable contract, but whatever you do, don't promote spec work!  As a writer you should know better. Contests produce some good results, but that kind of thing devalues all of our work as artists.
Answer: You could try holding a design contest on 99Designs. I just ran a logo design contest for $500 and received 50 different designs I could choose from and was very satisfied with the results.
Comment: I was considering 99Designs. Why was this answer downvoted? Anyone had bad experiences with them?


What stroller features are essential for regular use on the subway?

Question: With subways being crowded spaces, with gaps to get over, escalators and steps etc., what types of stroller, and what functionality in a stroller should I be looking at for my newborn/infant?
Comment: edited the question to what I think you may be asking - and to an answerable form. Please let me know if I changed the meaning.
Answer: When navigating subways and escalators with a toddler or older infant with good head, neck, and back control, you want a lightweight, compact umbrella stroller that you can quickly and easily fold closed and open, and a hinge, hook, or clasp that you can engage to keep it shut when carrying it closed.  You can even carry your child and the folded up stroller at the same time up flights of stairs that way.
When navigating subways and escalators with a newborn or infant under 12 months, I've found it easiest to just wear them in a front carrier (most convenient and comforting for the kid, plus less germ exposure and more protection from accidental bumps and jostling).
When in Manhattan (NYC), San Francisco, Munich, and Disneyland, the above 2 options have served me well when traveling with the baby or toddler and while solo navigating subways, escalators, and stairs.  You can also bring both for long days out and about.
My favorite wearable carrier for an older infant or young toddler is the ERGO baby carrier which distributes the baby's weight really well if you're going to be doing a lot of walking or on your feet all day.  Your back will thank you at the end of the day for spending a little extra to get that additional distributed weight support.  I've done entire 8 - 12 hour days that way.  However, for a newborn or younger infant, I'd recommend a wearable cloth wrap such as the Moby.
A nicer than basic umbrella stroller is also worth spending a little more for.  Those are usually a bit taller and hence more comfortable for people over 5' to push, have a small basket under the seat for simple storage, offer a slight reclining option for the seat (for napping without head-slumping), and a basic sun shade canopy top.
My own umbrella stroller, chosen after much deliberation and floor trials, takes up almost no trunk space as it folds nearly flat very compactly, has as small a footprint and maximum maneuverability as any you can find above the most basic umbrella strollers, is a lightweight dream for travel (about as light as you can go beyond the basic ones that only offer a fold-up seat & wheels), has easy to engage/disengage brakes, includes a removable parent console with a zippered compartment and ability to hold up to 2 drinks, has tons of mileage on it including any number of air flights using just a cheap thin nylon cloth bag with a drawstring for gate check protection, has the essential extras and nothing you don't (such as kids' snack trays that just add weight and bulk), is STILL holding up well after 2 1/2 years of frequent usage, AND only cost me about $40.
http://www.amazon.com/First-Years-Stroller-City-Chic/dp/B002WB2G9I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360695740&sr=8-1&keywords=my+first+years+jet
It opens and closes like the basic models (very quickly, simply, and easily) and has a clasp hook you can engage to keep it closed.  As long as I hang it near the back, I can even hang my backpack diaper bag over the handles and it won't tip if the kid wants out.  If you are clever and motivated, you could even rig up a shoulder strap for it for easier carrying of it closed if you need to do that a lot.  At that price point, I would also be OK if it got stroller-jacked or damaged in transit, but it hasn't.
(Tomy's The First Years also has a handsome Ignite model that's ~3 lbs heavier, heavier-duty, 1 inch wider, and has a somewhat taller seat for about $60 - $80.  Also more forward tippy, but not an issue unless you have a heavy diaper bag and a kid who likes to hop in and out.) http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Years-Ignite-Stroller/dp/B002WB2GB6/ref=sr_1_1?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1360700934&sr=1-1&keywords=the+first+years+ignite+stroller That model looks more expensive, more solid, and can fit a big kid for longer, but is still fairly portable if you don't mind maybe 20-25% more size and weight.
Maclaren also makes travel-fabulous, equally maneuverable, lightweight, and featured umbrella strollers, but they are pricier and not quite as simple or intuitively easy to open and close.
Hope that helps!
Answer: user3896 already gave some very good hints - we also like the Ergo Baby Carrier very much and it has often been incredibly useful, especially when being alone with the baby and having to pass stairs, steps, etc.
(Advantages of the Ergo: it distributes the weight of the child on hips and shoulders, it supports the baby well and on a large, soft sitting "surface"  and it adapts quite well to the body shape of the baby)
To your question:
I do not have explicit subway experience with strollers, but we're using a lot of public transportation (bus, tram), so the most important features for your use case are IMHO:

pivotable front wheels (better maneuverable without lifting the front wheels)
small width (for passing narrow gaps)
small weight
breaks that are easy to operate and strong enough to prevent the stroller from rolling around when parked in a train etc.

What we always find very important is a horizontal one-piece hand-grip, which also lets you steer the stroller quite comfortably with one hand (having the other hand free for whatever-you-need-it-for).
Very often the light-weight strollers have 2 handles (one left, one right) with not connection between them. Those are nearly impossible to steer with one hand only.
Useful "standard" features:

sun shade top
reclining option for seat
a storage below the seat for transporting other "things"
Answer: We traveled extensively throughout Asia, going to Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Beijing, for several years. We used public transport exclusively. Mostly subways. Early on we ended up getting a Silver Cross Pop stroller for our baby for four main reasons:
A) we could hang a baby/travel bag off the handles and the stroller wouldn't tip. We tried Maclarens, for example, and these always tipped over backwards, even with baby in it;
B) the Pop also had a large net under the seat within which we could place some more items. Not every stroller has a large net under the seat. You might think it adds to the weight, but in fact it was handy because it got bags off of our backs and shoulders. It is actually the baby gear bags we carry which end up being more in the way than a stroller. And the subways almost always had elevators too so we rarely had to carry the baby and stroller up or down stairs;
C) the sun shade could be pulled way over the front to act as a noise shield for when baby was napping. Very handy also to keep admiring faces away and not up close to disturb the dear sleeping child;
D) the wheels were some kind of durable rubber, sort of like an actual car wheel. Many other brands have rigid plastic wheels (they break easily), or overly soft rubbery wheels (wear out quickly). These wheels had excellent grip, the ride was smooth, and the brakes held even when wet.
The other mentioned features are useful, such as pivoting front wheel, reclinable seat, sun shade (not necessarily the umbrella, that was one extra item hanging around which was too much hassle to worry about)


In what kinds of dishes is asafoetida traditionally used?

Question: A friend recently gave me a small jar of asafoetida without telling me how to use it (or that it smelled horrible). In my googling, all I've been able to find out so far is that it's the dried sap of a Middle Eastern herb, used as a natural remedy, should be stored in a tightly sealed container due to its strong scent, and should be used "sparingly." I'm interested in knowing more specifically how I might use it in cooking (and if its flavor is better than its scent).
Answer: asafoetida is a digestion aid and helps to prevent 'gas'.  It is typically used in lentil/bean/pulse dishes in indian cuisine, with a pinch being added to the boiling pulses.
Answer: the Serious Eats blog had an article about asafoetida recently -- it also goes by the name "hing" (not sure if you ran across that in your googling).
the article is interesting (so are the comments), and offers some ways to use it:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/06/spice-hunting-asafoetida-hing.html
Answer: It is used extensively in Indian cooking. I have one book, Lord Krishna's Cuisine that calls for it in virtually every recipe, and each time reminds you to cut the amount down by 3/4's if you can't find Yellow Cobra brand. It does indeed have a flavor someone reminiscent of aged garlic. It is thought to have medicinal value as well (see the wikipedia article for details).
Comment: Thank you for the link; this book looks incredibly detailed and helpful.
Answer: Here's a whole website with recipes involving hing: http://www.manjulaskitchen.com/
It's very common in Ayurvedic cookery, which discourages/disallows onions and garlic and other alliums.
Answer: I am from the southern state of India, Kerala.
In our area (majorly in Southern India), asafoetida is generally used for making Sambar which is nothing but a curry with gravy and mix of different completely cooked vegetables. This is something which we have with Rice during Lunch\Dinner or with Idly\Dosa during Breakfast hours.
In addition to that it is being used in making Rasam, which is basically a soup like curry which is generally used with Rice during the last course during Lunch\Dinner or even drank as such. It helps in better digestion and keeps away different gastric problems.
Answer: I've never used it. I tried googling "asafoetida recipe" and found this page. http://health.learninginfo.org/herbs/asafoetida.htm
It suggests sauteing a pinch in oil for an aroma similar to garlic or onion.
Answer: Asafoetida is used in Rasam which is indian recipe made from tamarind juice with cumin pepper and garlic slices along with pinch of asafoetida. This is good for digestion when taking it after a heavy meals or during dinner.There are many ways to prepare rasam


Applications of the particle in a box and the finite square well

Question: What are some "real" world applications of the particle in a box (PIB) and the finite square well (FSW) which are discussed in an intro quantum mechanics class? For instance, I know that the PIB can applied to quantum dots and the FSW to the Ramsauer-Townsend effect. How about other applications?
Answer: A very important real-world application of quantum mechanics is the laser, in a multitude of ways. For start, the whole operating principle is of quantum mechanic origin, and there is a host of other quantum mechanical phenomena involved.
Specifically, in this case a good example is the quantum-well semiconductor laser, in which the different materials are sandwiched during manufacturing in such a way that they serve both as an optical waveguide and providing confinement for charge carriers. This electron confinement, which is a potential well, results in discrete energy levels. The discretisation  permits the quantum well laser to emit a lot narrower spectrum of light than what the energy gap of the host material allows.
Another interesting application of quantum mechanics in real life is the quantum cascade laser (QCL). QCL is composed of a sandwich structure, where there are periodic layers of varying composition. These layers result in a series of quantum wells, through which the carriers can tunnel. This tunnelling effect enables tailoring the output wavelength of the QCL, almost independent of the host material.
For more information, see text books on lasers (my personal favorite is Orazio Svelto: Principles of Lasers, but there are of course others) or Wikipedia (and references therein).


move ubuntu 10 from xp dual boot to another drive

Question: I have a system with 2 sata drives and I chooose which drive to boot from in the bios setup. One sata drive has win7 and the other has dual boot ubuntu 10 with XP. Having a dual boot with XP is a pain so I want to add another sata hard drive and move ubuntu 10 to the new drive and delete the ubuntu dual boot from xp so I can choose which drive I want to boot up into. How do I move the ubuntu from the current dual boot drive to the new drive so when I boot up into the xp drive, it only comes up in xp?
Answer: This is actually more complicated than you might think. The problem is that XP knows nothing at all about other operating systems, and is totally unaware of Linux, and is unable to dual boot it.  So, when Linux is installed with XP, it replaces the Windows boot loader with GRUB, which can dual boot just about anything.  There is an inherent danger here for a novice, which is that the Windows boot loader is no longer present in the Master Boot Record (MBR).  This is the little bit of code that is read on startup, and has only enough intelligence to branch to a more detailed startup program, part of GRUB which is on the Linux partition.
If you take away the Linux partition, then Windows will no longer boot.  It's not hard to fix if you know how, but most people do not.  So, the first thing not to do is to delete your Linux partition until you have something to replace it with.  This isn't necessarily a problem, but it's definitely something you want to understand.
If you are careful whenever you install Linux on a 2nd drive, you can instruct it to install the boot loader on the 2nd hard drive's MBR, so you can then remove either drive and the other will still boot.  But, that's too late for now, until you replace the Windows boot loader on the 1st drive.  This can be done in a few ways, but some people are simply not capable of doing it for some reason.
I used to do it using a DOS bootable CD with fdisk on it.  You can usually find and download this.  Then, you can simply boot the CD, and run "fdisk /mbr", and this will replace GRUB and make only Windows Bootable.  Another way is to use the Windows XP repair disk and run FIXMBR, or something similar.  I've never done it this way.  You can also find boot disks online that will automatically fix it for you.  I've done this, but I don't remember the site - I'm assuming you can search as easily as me, or maybe someone will fill in some details.
In the future, you can possibly disable the Windows drive when you install Linux, to make sure it doesn't get changed again, then when done, enable it.  It's possible the windows drive will get added to the menu in the future, but it will only show up if you boot from the Linux drive, and never will be the default, so it's no big deal.
Moving Linux is actually much easier than windows, in that it's actuall possible.  :)
Do you really need to move it to a new drive?  You can copy the disk by booting from the Live CD, then installing GRUB on the MBR of that drive.  The easiest way to do that is to make a "System Rescue CD", which is a free product from http://www.sysresccd.org that can do this sort of thing automatically.  Or, you can install Ubuntu from the CD onto this drive, then copy all the directories to it from the old drive, when booting from a live CD.  Just make sure you copy all files, including hidden files.  It's a little risky, but it's doable.
There are several ways to copy a disk; you can do it from gparted using copy and paste, which I've done many times successfully.  You can also just copy your home directories to a new installation, then reinstall any programs, and probably get most all of your settings.  I usually selectively copy a lot of things from an old to a new installation (usually from my home directory, and /etc).
If you need more help or details, you'll have to ask.  I don't really know how much you need right now, and I'm not really patient enough for a step by step guide.
Answer: You need to do two things. Copy your ubuntu installation to the new disk and repair the MBR of the Windows XP disk.
To copy your Ubuntu install to the new disk, see How to replace my disk without having to rebuild my Ubuntu install?
To restore your Windows XP to boot correctly, you'll have to boot into the Recovery Console. Insert and boot from your Windows XP install CD. Wait until you get to a menu that ask if you want to enter Recovery Console and then press R to do so. It will search and ask which windows installation, choose the Windows XP installation.It will then ask for your administrator password (the same password you use when logging into XP), enter it or just press enter if you don't use a password for XP. Next it should finish booting to a prompt in the recovery console. Once you are at the prompt, type fixmbr and press enter. Once finished remove your XP CD, type exit and press enter.
Set your bios to boot from that drive and verify it will indeed boot straight to XP. If it does and you have already copied and verified your Ubuntu install on the new drive too, then you can proceed to use gparted (explained in the link to copy your ubuntu install) to edit your partitions on the new drive and XP drive to your liking.


Question on trace-weighted sums for irrep of finite group

Question: For a finite group $G$, is the following true, where $\rho$ is a finite-dimensional complex unitary irreducible representation?
$$\sum _{g \in G} \mathrm{Tr} (\rho(g)) \rho(g) = \frac{|G|}{n} \mathrm{id}_{\mathbb{C} ^n}$$
I would like a proof or a counterexample.
Answer: A counterexample is given by $G=\mathbb Z_3$ and $\rho(n)=\mathrm e^{2\pi\mathrm in/3}$, in which case the left-hand side vanishes. Perhaps you intended to include a complex conjugation somewhere?
Answer: I think the correct version would be
$$\sum _{g \in G} {\chi(g)}^\ast \rho(g) = \frac{|G|}{n} \mathrm{id}_{\mathbb{C} ^n}$$
where $\chi(g) = \mathrm{Tr}(\rho(g))$ is the character of $\rho$ and $z^\ast$ denotes the complex conjugate of $z$.
Then the map $\phi = \sum_{g\in G} {\chi(g)}^\ast\, \rho(g)$ is $G$-invariant, so by Schur's lemma you get $\phi = \lambda\, \mathrm{id}_{\mathbb C^n}$, where $\lambda = \mathrm{Tr}(\phi)/n$. But now
$$\mathrm{Tr}(\phi) = \sum_{g\in G} \chi(g)^\ast \chi(g) = |G|\cdot \underbrace{ (\chi|\chi)}_{=1} = |G|$$
hence $\phi = \frac{|G|}{n}\mathrm{id}_{\mathbb C^n}$.


recapping my bottles? Will it ruin the outcome of my beer?

Question: I bottled my first batch of homebrew and didnt fill the bottles all the way. So the next day I opened the bottles and poured some more beer into them and recapped them.. I this going to mess up the whole entire batch or am I ok? Now there is about a 1-2 in of air space in the bottles. Just didnt have enough beer in the bottles and didnt want them to explode all over.. Just wanting to know if it will still carbonate after doing that?
Answer: Assuming that you were careful about sanitization, the batch should be fine, 1-2 inches of head space is about right.  For future reference (if you didn't already know) when you are using a bottle filler, just fill the bottle to the top and when you remove the filler you should have the right amount of head space.


What is the best way to give medicine to baby?

Question: My 3 and half monthChild is having cold and refuse to take medicine. We force her to take medicine with dropper after holding her head and hand. Even if she take her medicine she simply do not swallow it and spit it after sometime. Now, the problem is that she is very frighten even if we kiss her. She blink her eyes very much and try to move herself away. Please someone suggest me in this matter.
Comment: Did you try different flavor of same medicine?
Comment: @Shadow Wizard No, I didn't, the current one is pineapple flavour.
Answer: In my experience, interrupting a nursing session near the beginning to administer the medicine and then resuming the nursing session is what worked best for bad tasting medications like antibiotics.
Starting to nurse may help put her a relaxed state to start, that's why I say, start there, rather than medicine then nursing. But if you wait till later in the nursing session it may be more agitating than helpful, so as soon as she's nursed long enough to be somewhat calm, time to unlatch to give the medicine. Of course, she won't be too happy to be interrupted, and there may be tears involved (so just get it over with quickly!), but if you're ready with your medicine dropper, you can quickly insert the dropper into the side of her mouth near her cheek (toward the back as well), give a squirt of medicine and then re-latch before she's fully realized what's going on. Re-latching will encourage her to both swallow the medicine and also wash down the bad flavor of the medicine with a flavor she likes, and as bonus then distracts her from the unpleasant activity of medicine with an activity she enjoys. Depending on the dose needed, and how much she can swallow comfortably in a single swallow you may need to unlatch a couple times to get the full dose in. Feel free to also distracting her with a toy or funny faces or whatever while giving the medicine if it helps.
Holding the dropper to the side of their mouth near the back is important to keep them from thrusting their tongue to spit out the medicine, essentially you want the medicine behind the tongue where it's harder to spit out and where the swallow reflex kicks in.
Answer: Can you mix it with her formula or breastmilk?  I don't know if that's possible--clearly if you're nursing and not using bottles then you can't do this, but it's a suggestion.
If it's just a cold, then maybe you can  back off the oral meds and switch to other medication.  Use a saline solution and nasal sucker to suction out her nose, keep the humidifier going and elevate one end of her mattress.  You can even use a mentholated ointment like Vick's Vap-O-Rub or something like that--I'm pretty sure they make a baby version which doesn't use camphor.  Or if you don't want to actually rub it on her, they make the same thing in little outlet diffusers that you can just plug into an outlet in the room.  Warm, humid rooms--like steamy bathrooms--are helpful for calming coughing.
I'm only saying all this because if it's just a cold, then probably any medication you're giving her is only relieving symptoms anyway--most of which can be accomplished via other methods as well.  Unless she NEEDS the medication, like it's an antibiotic you're using to eliminate an infection or you're giving her Tylenol/Motrin for a fever, then maybe not using oral medication would just make everyone happier.
Comment: Mixing medicine with breastmilk is a really bad idea, if the child does not like the taste of the medicine he or she can develop a distaste for mother's milk as well, which can lead to nursing strikes and other problems with the breastfeeding. I won't down vote, though, as your other suggestions are good ones.
Comment: Alas! Yes, she is on antibiotic and host of other medicine all oral and there is only injection in lieu of those and also scared of seeing her in cannula. She was admitted in hospital just 20 days back with cannula in her hand and had very very bad experience with those. And also she is on breast feed only.
Answer: We normally do by using a 5 ml syringe (without the needle of course!!!, you can take the medicine into the syringe from a spoon or something) pushing gently (normally after two or three iterations our 7-months takes most of it) and avoiding as much as possible to force her head still.
Another option is to put a few drops on the dummy, and take it quickly to the mouth, repeating the process if the volume to be taken is too high.
We sometimes intercalate with some milk or baby apple juice, which our 7-months love.
Answer: Definitely try different flavors and even different brands of the same flavor (if possible).
My daughter hated the cherry flavor of brand X, but brand Y's is pretty much her favorite thing.
Answer: If my son, wouldn't like to take his medicines, I usually mix it with his milk or food, so he would'nt notice that it has a medicine.  Sometimes, I also try to make up stories so I can divert his attention,so he will take the medicine.  Like I'm giving him lots of praises if he will take his medicines.


Should I worry about painful fingertips?

Question: I just started to learn playing the (electric only for now) guitar, and I love it! I've read on a few pages that it was normal for my fingertips (those that I use on the fret board) to hurt in the beginning, but I was wondering whether or not I should be concerned about that. The pain is far from being unbearable, but should I take that as a warning that I may need to skip a day of practice every now and then? Or should I just keep going until my fingertips become less sensitive?
Comment: Its a good thing you're not starting out with acoustic! (the strings tend to be a let stiffer)
Comment: Yes, that's also one of the reasons I chose to start with an electric one ;-)
Comment: It's up to you what strings you put on your acoustic. I use 0.010 to 0.046 electric guitar strings on acoustic guitars.
Answer: Generally no. As long as they aren't bleeding it's just part of the process of building up callouses for playing. You may experience some swollen finger tips and the skin will get a bit harder. If pain persists for a long time after you stop playing, or if you're bleeding, you might have cause for concern.
There's some honour to be had among fellow players in playing through the pain, for sure. :)
You can minimize the pain time by avoiding things that would soften your finger tips while they're building up the callouses that help keep the pain down. Don't soak your hands or moisturize them. Wear gloves if you're working with water for any period of time (doing dishes, cleaning the house or car, etc.). Try to keep them dry. Don't pick at the callouses.
Comment: A guitar student was complaining about learning some Gilmour solos one summer. She was saying, "I could do these bends like a month ago, but now my fingers hurt! I feel like a wuss." I asked her if she'd been spending a lot of time at the pool and she said, "Yes. With my acoustic too. We just swim and jam. Why?" Ha!
Answer: It should not be an issue, as long as you don't start bleeding. THAT's a sign to stop. :p
As long as your fingers feel playable, you should practice. If your fingertips are hurting, do not try and force them to play more - you'll damage your fingers. Callouses build up naturally after a while of playing.
IMHO, callouses and the F chord are the pain for the gain of becoming a good guitarist. ;)
Answer: Several of the answers mention calluses.
I remember bleeding fingers and calluses cracking and splitting.
You'll find that eventually they'll go away and the fingertips won't be hard, won't crack or hurt either. I think it was about five or seven years after playing regularly when I realized mine had changed.
I don't know if it was because my guitars were all set up nicely, or that I'd learned to NOT over-press when I fretted, but my finger tips have always looked normal since then.
Answer: No pain, no gain!!  No gain, no pain!! ARRRGGGG  You should worry more about pain in your hands and wrists.  These could be signs of bad posture and form.  When just practicing, it is recommended to sit with your guitar classical style.
classical style video
Answer: I'm no doctor, but as long as the pain isn't unbearable, you shouldn't have much to worry about. When calluses develop on your finger tips from lots of playing, then pain should subside.
Answer: I don't know how you're hurting your fingers, whether it's just callous-building, but it is entirely likely that you're squeezing too hard.
Your discomfort is the first problem, but not the only problem. Remember string-bending. You press more and go sharp. By squeezing too hard, you're bending the string and messing up your intonation.
Also, all the energy you use to squeeze your neck, you have to reverse that action to go to the next. This makes you slower.
So, figure out exactly how hard you need to squeeze and you'll play in tune, you'll play faster and you'll won't hurt.
Answer: You are basically pressing your finger tips down on cheese wire. This is something that you aren't really designed to cope with. It's something we all go through: when we're starting out and when we haven't played for a while. Your finger tips grow accustomed to it and firm up. Keep them out the bath and other situations that may soften them, take a break if you feel you need to and don't worry, your fingers will adapt quite quickly.
Answer: Wear the pain as a badge of honour! :)  It is all part of building up your hands to be a good player.
Just be careful WHEN you pick up your guitar.  For example, don't begin a practice session straight after you have washed the dishes or the car, or come out of the shower, as your fingertips will be soft from the water.
Also make sure that you wipe down your strings thoroughly after playing.  Any corrosion or dirt particles left on the string will essentially turn them into rasps that will chew up your fingers.
I would also hold off from practising too many slides or bends until you have built up some basic callouses as they can put a lot of strain on the skin on your fingers.
Good luck, and keep up the practice.  One day you won't even notice the pain any more, and your fingertips will be perfect fretting machines! :)
Answer: If the pain at the tips of your fingers isn't unbearable then it is perfectly normal! It will get less as you go on... You also get used to it!
If your hand begins hurting however, then it is time to rest a bit...


What can I do with Hazelnuts and Walnuts?

Question: Recently I got some hazelnuts and walnuts to snack on, but I got too many. What interesting things can I do with them before they go bad?
Comment: Nuts do tend to freeze pretty well, and if you're anything like me, you'll eventually bake something that needs a ton of them. (Mine don't usually even make it to the freezer.)
Answer: A great idea is to make nut butter. Mix it with chocolate--and you've got Nutella!
Answer: Put some hazelnuts, blue cheese (or gorgonzola), and sliced pears on top of a plain salad.  Yummy!
Answer: As already suggested, the best thing to do is to freeze the nuts until you find a use for them. That said, my absolute favorite use for hazelnuts is the following family recipe.
Selmeczy Hazelnut-Torte
Cake: 8 egg whites, 28 dkg powdered sugar, 28 dkg hazelnut-flour[1].
Preheat oven to 325°F. Thoroughly grease a rectangular cake pan with at least 1 tablespoon unsalted butter. Do not dust with flour!
Whip the egg whites until stiff. Continue whipping while adding the sugar, scraping down the bowl occasionally. Gently fold in the nut meal. Spread into prepared pan. Get rid of any air bubbles with your preferred method (whacking against the counter a few times, for instance). Bake until the top springs back and the sides pull away from the pan, about 30 minutes. Cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool thoroughly.
Frosting: 8 egg yolks, 2 or 3 heaping tablespoons dutch-processed cocoa, 5 tablespoons powdered sugar, 5 tablespoons water, 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter. Combine everything except the butter in the top of a double boiler and cook over barely-simmering water, stirring pretty much constantly, until thick and sticky. This will take a while; enlist slave labor help if available. Let the chocolate cool completely, then whip the butter and combine it with the chocolate.
Trim off the edges of the cake, then cut it in half lengthwise to make your two layers. Fill, ice, and decorate with the frosting. Chill before serving; cut into relatively thin slices with a warmed knife. (Oh, and the rule is, if anyone so much as mentions a diet, they don't get any.)
[1] Hazelnut flour or meal: choose your favorite method to roast & blanch or blanch & roast the hazelnuts, then grind (or rather, grate) with a nut grinder. Don't attempt to use a food processor or any other high-speed mechanical device for the grinding, because you'll end up with nut butter instead.
Roast & blanch: the traditional method, whereby you roast the nuts (in the oven or on the stovetop) until the paper skins start popping off, then use a kitchen towel to rub them clean. Well, relatively so.
Blanch & roast: boil water with a couple spoonfuls of baking soda in a large pot, dump in the nuts, bring back to a boil while watching like a hawk because it will foam over, cook for no more than a minute, drain and rinse, and continue rinsing while you rub off the softened skins - kind of like blanching almonds. (Don't bother saving the blanching liquid - despite its amazing color, it doesn't really work as a dye.) When clean, let dry, then roast until golden brown and fragrant.
Answer: Besides freezing them, you can also either sugar them (or make spiced nuts), just to add some variety to snack on.
Depending on how you spice them, they can also be used as a topping for ice cream, or mixed into other snack mixes.
Answer: With hazelnuts, I usually end up making cookies. I've been doing double-chocolate chip with hazelnuts and cherries, but they're good with almost anything that includes chocolate.
I make a tomato salad with blue cheese and candied pecans, and it would probably work well with walnuts as well.
2 pints of cherry tomatoes, cut in half, and mixed with some salt and sugar and left to drain for half an hour or so. The dressing is half a cup of the juice drained from the tomatoes, dijon mustard, honey, cider vinegar, and shallot, all cooked down until it's thick. Let the dressing cool once it's done, then toss it with the tomatoes, blue cheese, the pecans, and some fresh tarragon.
Answer: if you grind them really fine, and let them dry for a few hours, you can use it as a flour substitute


Upload photos to specified photo album, on iPad

Question: Are there any ways to move photos from the default album to a specified album?
Maybe there exist some iPad apps for that?
I know how to do that using iTunes, but you know, it's very uncomfortable :(
Answer: Unfortunately, no.  The iPad (as of 3.2.1) does not support the manipulation of photo albums by code running on an iPad through any approved mechanism.


How does the carbonation method affect shelf life?

Question: I've been reading some forums on probrewer.com, and there seems to be a consensus that bottle conditioned beer lasts longer than force carbonated beer. Why would that be?
Comment: I'd like to hear more about why this would be.  Can you provide a link to a thread that discusses it?  I can't imagine why this would be.  Most pro force carbed beer has been filtered too...which is also known to improve shelf stability.  There seems to be a conflict in logic here.
Comment: There were a few, but this is the one I can find rightn ow: http://www.probrewer.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=8756&highlight=shelf+life
Answer: It likely has to do with the fact that there is more yeast in bottle conditioned beer than in force carbed beer.  The extra yeast scavenges oxygen and extends the shelf life of the beer.
Answer: Seems like a bit of a tempest in a teapot to me. Here are my thoughts, assuming an environment that is a cool constant temperature, dark, and dry.
The majority of beers, especially those brewed with spices and typical alcohol content, actually begin to lose flavor over time.  These beers will have well passed their peak and declined considerably in flavor before it will go bad in the bottle.
Beers that benefit from long aging generally are highly hopped or have high alcohol content or both.  The chance that those will go bad is low as well because of the preservative properties of the hops and alcohol.
I think there is a tendency to equate beer with wine when it comes to aging in a cellar. Some aging is necessary with beer, especially at higher ABV.  But its not wine, its not scotch.  Its not meant to last for a decade in the bottle.  I think that's where discussions like this come from.
I don't know if having naturally carbonated (and the associated lees) will make a beer last less time or not.  It's academic anyway, you shouldn't be keeping the beer that long.
I contend that with the properties of alcohol and hops plus good sanitization that the beer's flavor will fade long before it goes bad.