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3,522,555 | When MVC first came out, I was reading about it everyday and learning all I could about it. About the time MVC 2 RC2 came out, I stopped learning for various reasons (new house, new job, laziness).
I now want to get back into MVC ... I have a half written blog that I want to finish, but I feel rusty when it comes to anything MVC. Can anyone provide me some good links to refresher courses on MVC? I don't need to learn from scratch, but I want to refresh, then learn about changes from MVC 2 RC2 to MVC 3.
EDIT: Anyone know an ETA on when MVC 3 is going to release? Should I convert my current MVC 2 project to MVC 3 ... or wait for an RC ? | 2010/08/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3522555",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/144496/"
] | Pick up the book "[MVC2 in Action](http://www.manning.com/palermo2/)" from Manning and take a look at the latest [MVCConf videos](http://www.viddler.com/explore/mvcconf/videos/). I found the one done by Jimmy Bogard enlightening. | Read and try ["Nerd Dinner"](http://aspnetmvcbook.s3.amazonaws.com/aspnetmvc-nerdinner_v1.pdf). I used it when I first started doing ASP.NET MVC2 2 months ago, and it helped a lot. (Right click the link and Save Target As. It's a PDF by Wrox) |
3,522,555 | When MVC first came out, I was reading about it everyday and learning all I could about it. About the time MVC 2 RC2 came out, I stopped learning for various reasons (new house, new job, laziness).
I now want to get back into MVC ... I have a half written blog that I want to finish, but I feel rusty when it comes to anything MVC. Can anyone provide me some good links to refresher courses on MVC? I don't need to learn from scratch, but I want to refresh, then learn about changes from MVC 2 RC2 to MVC 3.
EDIT: Anyone know an ETA on when MVC 3 is going to release? Should I convert my current MVC 2 project to MVC 3 ... or wait for an RC ? | 2010/08/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3522555",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/144496/"
] | You can always hit the ASP.NET MVC site
<http://www.asp.net/mvc>
I dunno about you but I do better just looking at and writing code to figure things out. Jon Galloway has put up the MVC Music Store, I believe this has been updated for MVC 2
<http://mvcmusicstore.codeplex.com/>
Also the Nerd Dinner code has been updated for MVC 2 as well
<http://nerddinner.codeplex.com/releases/view/45647>
Finally Phil Haack has the updates to MVC 2 on his blog which has a number of links to tell you what has changed from 1 to 2. This post is probably the most valuable information if you just want to know what has changed from 1 to 2.
<http://haacked.com/archive/2010/03/11/aspnet-mvc2-released.aspx>
As the last couple of posters mentioned, Scott Gu has a good post on MVC 3 Preview 1 Features, and Phil Haack also has a post on his blog.
<http://haacked.com/archive/2010/07/27/aspnetmvc3-preview1-released.aspx> | Microsoft has a good page on [ASP.NET MVC 2](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd394709.aspx), which has tutorials covering most important aspects of the framework, as well as several references to blog posts going into things in more detail. That would seem a pretty natural place to start.
For MVC 3 the best resource currently seems to be [Scott Gu's introductory blog post](http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/07/27/introducing-asp-net-mvc-3-preview-1.aspx). |
3,522,555 | When MVC first came out, I was reading about it everyday and learning all I could about it. About the time MVC 2 RC2 came out, I stopped learning for various reasons (new house, new job, laziness).
I now want to get back into MVC ... I have a half written blog that I want to finish, but I feel rusty when it comes to anything MVC. Can anyone provide me some good links to refresher courses on MVC? I don't need to learn from scratch, but I want to refresh, then learn about changes from MVC 2 RC2 to MVC 3.
EDIT: Anyone know an ETA on when MVC 3 is going to release? Should I convert my current MVC 2 project to MVC 3 ... or wait for an RC ? | 2010/08/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3522555",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/144496/"
] | Pick up the book "[MVC2 in Action](http://www.manning.com/palermo2/)" from Manning and take a look at the latest [MVCConf videos](http://www.viddler.com/explore/mvcconf/videos/). I found the one done by Jimmy Bogard enlightening. | Microsoft has a good page on [ASP.NET MVC 2](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd394709.aspx), which has tutorials covering most important aspects of the framework, as well as several references to blog posts going into things in more detail. That would seem a pretty natural place to start.
For MVC 3 the best resource currently seems to be [Scott Gu's introductory blog post](http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/07/27/introducing-asp-net-mvc-3-preview-1.aspx). |
3,522,555 | When MVC first came out, I was reading about it everyday and learning all I could about it. About the time MVC 2 RC2 came out, I stopped learning for various reasons (new house, new job, laziness).
I now want to get back into MVC ... I have a half written blog that I want to finish, but I feel rusty when it comes to anything MVC. Can anyone provide me some good links to refresher courses on MVC? I don't need to learn from scratch, but I want to refresh, then learn about changes from MVC 2 RC2 to MVC 3.
EDIT: Anyone know an ETA on when MVC 3 is going to release? Should I convert my current MVC 2 project to MVC 3 ... or wait for an RC ? | 2010/08/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3522555",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/144496/"
] | You can always hit the ASP.NET MVC site
<http://www.asp.net/mvc>
I dunno about you but I do better just looking at and writing code to figure things out. Jon Galloway has put up the MVC Music Store, I believe this has been updated for MVC 2
<http://mvcmusicstore.codeplex.com/>
Also the Nerd Dinner code has been updated for MVC 2 as well
<http://nerddinner.codeplex.com/releases/view/45647>
Finally Phil Haack has the updates to MVC 2 on his blog which has a number of links to tell you what has changed from 1 to 2. This post is probably the most valuable information if you just want to know what has changed from 1 to 2.
<http://haacked.com/archive/2010/03/11/aspnet-mvc2-released.aspx>
As the last couple of posters mentioned, Scott Gu has a good post on MVC 3 Preview 1 Features, and Phil Haack also has a post on his blog.
<http://haacked.com/archive/2010/07/27/aspnetmvc3-preview1-released.aspx> | Pick up the book "[MVC2 in Action](http://www.manning.com/palermo2/)" from Manning and take a look at the latest [MVCConf videos](http://www.viddler.com/explore/mvcconf/videos/). I found the one done by Jimmy Bogard enlightening. |
80,231 | I know that depending on the era you can either start on the note or note above in some ornamentation such as a turn or mordent.
For Abrsm grade 8 theory do you start on the note or the note above so for example for a turn on a C would it be?
C D C B C
Or D C B C | 2019/02/18 | [
"https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/80231",
"https://music.stackexchange.com",
"https://music.stackexchange.com/users/56828/"
] | Baroque music was the only era were you would start on the upper-auxiliary note. All the other eras you should start on the principal note. The turn must fit in the note values that are given. A slow piece may have more notes in a trill for instance and a faster trill less.
As is the way with these things you have certain amount of artistic licence in the playing of ornaments, as long as it fits and it leads neatly to the next note, you should be ok. | Ornaments in general begin on the written note. A turn written above C would be played C-D-C-B-C; a reverse turn would be C-B-C-D-C.
Most ornaments have a shape that sort of describes how you play it - the turn curls up, then down to its lowest point, then back to a point horizontal with its start. It's going to sound like the shape: up, back, down, back. |
62,510 | If all an antagonist did was steal a pie, then they could probably be forgiven after a simple apology. But some antagonists kidnap, murder, conquer whole lands, and routinely hurt the protagonists both physically and mentally. An apology is not enough to cut it.
**So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and irredeemable?**
*Context*
For example, I have a character who is essentially behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, causing lots of harm to the main protagonists over the years, and his main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it, but I want him to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" and not "a villain".
One of the biggest difficulties in writing him is therefore figuring out how to keep him from becoming too evil while still driving the plot forward.
I *could* have him level an entire city, murder people left and right, and torture the protagonists with their worst fears, but that crosses a clear line. But he's also the main antagonist of the story, so he can't just sit around and do nothing either.
I need to somehow balance an antagonist who is both extremely threatening and not wholly a bad person deep down, but these two seem impossible to reconcile, and I can think of no examples of antagonists who mark both boxes. | 2022/06/25 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62510",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52632/"
] | You need to give such villains clear, non-selfish goals. They truly are trying to save something, in their own way, no matter what it costs them personally. And they are sacrificing people, even innocents, for the greater good.
They aren't really working for themselves.
Alternatively, they may be killing and torturing criminals.
Spoiler Alert: John Wick has a bit about that in his first movie, it is made very clear that he was minding his own business when criminals killed the dog he loved more than anything. So he was supposedly a bad guy, but he was killing brutal gangsters left and right, risking life and limb, to exact vengeance for this guy stomping to death the puppy given to John by his dead wife. The audience sees that as a valid and understandable emotional goal.
Later, Wick is mostly killing people in self-defense; the one intentional hit he does, the victim is again a crime boss, and he honorably lets her commit suicide rather than be killed by him. So he doesn't even actually do it.
Killing bad guys, even horrifically, is okay.
And villains can often be cast as killing innocents as a sacrifice to save others. A man with a starving child may kill a stranger that has food but won't share it.
A genius villain might level a city and kill a million, but the audience can know that he's truly trying to save nine billion people: that's 9000 million people. So how bad is it really to sacrifice 1 in 9000 to save the other 8999 in 9000? Might you do the same?
It is at least an *understandable* trade, to the audience, even if horrific.
You need to make your villain a plausibly misguided hero. Meaning he isn't acting out of selfish interest, or when he is, he is acting against others that themselves are only acting in their own selfish interests. | All these "hero" and "villain" and "morally gray character" are always framed in terms of character and story construction and I don't like this framing. I think it's a moral question. Whether you choose to write black and white characters or morally gray ones, perfect characters or flawed ones, I think the important thing is to remember that this always makes you *take a stand* on your morals and values. If you (deliberately) write a flawed character, this makes you take a position on which of their traits *are* flaws and why, and which are not. If you write a fully good character, you are taking the position that they traits they exhibit and actions they take are morally good, and vice versa for a fully bad one. And if you write a morally ambiguous character you are taking an *even more precise* position on which aspects of their character are bad, which are good, for what reasons, and whether this all sums up to a person who is redeemable or not, that people should root for or not, and why. This isn't to say you can't leave space for different readers to disagree and to come to their own conclusions, but even that space is one you choose to create and that choice itself is a moral one.
So in my view you shouldn't be seeing this as a question of "what's the magic sauce of actions and character traits I should give my villain for them to be evil but redeemable". That's a character and story structure question and I worry it's leading you to having a morally muddled story where characters have the traits they need for the plot but where the consequences aren't explored and you risk running into the exact moral dissonances you're worried about. **I think instead you should be asking yourself "what do I think is morally right"**. If you think razing a city is always morally irredeemable, then you shouldn't write a story where a villain does this and is redeemed; you should embrace that this isn't the story you're writing and instead have a lower-stakes story where the villain doesn't take such bad actions, or have a high-stakes story where the villain doesn't get redeemed.
If the "villain is seriously evil but also gets redeemed" is a story you *really* want to tell then I think you need to dig into the actual morality and human psychology of this story. Maybe take inspiration from real events - what kind of evil acts do the worst people do in this world? Have people done such evil acts and then had some kind of redemption, and if so what kind of redemption was that, in whose eyes and to what extent, and how did it happen? What are the different reasons people might do such evil acts and how does this impact their redeemability? For that matter what are different perspectives people have on those evil acts, what are the impacts or causes that make you feel the word "evil" is justified even if others might not?
I think if you explore those questions and come up with a scenario where you feel you can imagine a person committing acts that are evil enough to make your antagonist high-stakes (and seen as fully evil by your main characters), and also coming to some kind of redemption by your own moral standards, then I think you'll have your answer. Like, I think at that point the details don't matter - you just need to believe them. It's possible many readers will not agree that your character is redeemable enough or evil enough, but if *you* believe it then you can write your story in a way that makes your case; you could go into the consequences of the evil acts that show them to be evil, you could explore the psychology of your villain to show how they could commit them at some point in their life, how they came to be that kind of person, and how they could later come to be a person who is sufficiently improved, morally speaking, to quality as "redeemed". You could describe that process and how others reacted to them and the impacts of their new actions to make the case this redemption did happen in practice.
The point is, I don't think your readers need to *agree* with your moral stance under those conditions; within some limits many of those who disagree will still appreciate a well-executed story with a coherent, consistent viewpoint. And unless you're a total moral weirdo the odds are that plenty of readers *will* agree with your moral stance, and in that case you being confident in that stance and deliberately exploring it will mean you're providing them a satisfying, non-dissonant, maybe even enlightening experience.
And who knows, maybe exploring the moral question might make you realize that this "evil villain is redeemed" *isn't* the story you want to tell - that you find it compelling instead to explore the details of why the acts the villain commits are evil, how they impact people, how the villain and their henchfolk came to be that way, how different main characters feel about them depending on how they're impacted, and how the main characters can succeed or fail into making things right, without the villain ever needing to be redeemed (after all, IRL people often aren't are they. And that's also something that can be challenging to deal with). Conversely maybe you'll decide that exploring the depths of human depravity is too much of a bummer and that the adventure story you want to tell would be more authentically told with lighter stakes. |
62,510 | If all an antagonist did was steal a pie, then they could probably be forgiven after a simple apology. But some antagonists kidnap, murder, conquer whole lands, and routinely hurt the protagonists both physically and mentally. An apology is not enough to cut it.
**So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and irredeemable?**
*Context*
For example, I have a character who is essentially behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, causing lots of harm to the main protagonists over the years, and his main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it, but I want him to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" and not "a villain".
One of the biggest difficulties in writing him is therefore figuring out how to keep him from becoming too evil while still driving the plot forward.
I *could* have him level an entire city, murder people left and right, and torture the protagonists with their worst fears, but that crosses a clear line. But he's also the main antagonist of the story, so he can't just sit around and do nothing either.
I need to somehow balance an antagonist who is both extremely threatening and not wholly a bad person deep down, but these two seem impossible to reconcile, and I can think of no examples of antagonists who mark both boxes. | 2022/06/25 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62510",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52632/"
] | Give the antagonist a clear code of ethics
------------------------------------------
If your antagonist does a thing that the villain knows is evil then that character is unambiguously evil. That character has said they are evil, both in action and intent. But if you can make the character evil in action but not the intent, you can ride the thin line of moral grey areas.
In the trolley problem, you are asked if it is moral to push one person in front of a trolley to save more than one person. The act, pushing someone in front of a train, is clearly evil. But the outcome of saving 5 people is good. There are a few ways you can approach this and ways your villain could interpret the trolley problem that would lead to a moral grey area.
First,
Doing an evil act is bad. Your villain could believe that the action taken by the protagonists and civilians is evil, and that letting them do the evil act is not acceptable. This villain doesn't push the person. They may also not believe that the actions they take are evil. A might makes right attitude may say that the Villain believes that by attacking and harming people the Villain is applying a superior will to create the greatest good while suppressing the evil actions of those who oppose him. A society of cyborgs being attacked by someone who doesn't believe that humans should be augmented is an example of this.
Second,
The best outcome should be chosen. The total outcome of pushing the person is 4 total lives. Only outcome matters, so pushing the person is moral. This villain pushes the person. If you don't want a sympathetic Antagonist make it so that the good outcome the villain makes is only better if you share their bias. For example, the villain may kill thousands to steal data to ensure it is not lost in a calamity. However, the actual value of that information may be less than they believe since it may be backed up, and only the villain believes it is that important to save the extra copy.
Third,
The trolley problem is too hard for most people to handle, so it must be simplified to achieve the greatest outcome. The best outcome of the trolley problem is one death, but it doesn't matter how that person dies. Therefore, killing the person ensures who ever has to actually make the decision has an easy choice. The villain can't be there for the trolley problem, but they can effect the circumstances of the trolley problem. Do you take in 100 refugees with a virus who will infect 1000 people if they are taken in? Well, if the villain firebombs the refugees, you don't need to make that choice.
Furthermore, if the villain has a clear code of ethics, then the character is not evil, their code is evil and they are being twisted by it. If your villain follows the code you gave them even to their own detriment it will be clear that they are being bound by a code and not acting out of evil self interest. | Morality is relative
--------------------
Rather than imagine 'morality' as a consistent score on a character stat that needs to be obscured with trickery until it is dramatically revealed, work on this character's arc and their POV within the story world. Their actions need to make sense to them.
'Morally grey' only has meaning in a black/white world. If the story is set in a morally grey world *every character* is 'morally grey' (moral-purity in that context would be at odds to the world).
In a literary story with nuanced character development *no characters* are black/white. They all fall short of their best-intentions, or succumb to the flaw they refused to face.
Avoid turning a good guy to the dark side cliché, and please avoid the scene where the hero pulls off a mask and – SURPRISE – it was his best friend all along (and coincidentally the only other compelling character in the story)!
In the real world 'morality' is probably innate, based completely on our psychological revulsions and attractions, but this character will need something more concrete that motivates them than just secretly hating on the heroes, meanwhile openly aiding them as the plot requires.
He is an antagonist to the heroes, not the readers. The goal is to let the readers know, so they can enjoy the conflict and anticipate sparks. Surprising the reader with a last-act reveal, squanders any character depth and tension.
Antagonist Longevity
--------------------
>
> So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey
> but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and
> irredeemable?
>
>
>
Here is the real balance you need to make: get the readers to enjoy the antagonist while they are present, causing conflict for the protagonists – not the same as liking or agreeing with them.
Show us their plan. Show them improvising when things go wrong. Give them stakes, make mistakes. Show wins and losses.
We feel empathy when we're involved, whether we like the person or not. In contrast, it's hard to feel *anything* about a mystery antagonist.
a space war with 2 antagonists
------------------------------
I'll use 2 antagonists from **Star Trek: Deep Space Nine** specifically because they happen to be interesting contrasts to each other, probably created to be mirror archetypes: male/female, enemy/ally, hedonist/priest, chaotic/rigid.... Each seems designed to be THE specialized antagonist for a specific main character, but evolve to become personally antagonistic to the other MC as well.
---
**Gul Dukat** is a *charming Nazi*. We hear that he was an evil despot, but in-person he's a delight. Despite being evicted, he party-crashes debonair and flirtatious as ever – a clue to how he stomached being the horrible despot: dirt doesn't stick.
At the start of the story Dukat's career is in ruins, but he seems unflappable, and we enjoy characters that are droll under pressure. Over time we see complicated power games as he schemes to get back on top. We learn his flawed (creepy) affinity for the people he subjugated – story arcs make him complicated, then almost redeemable, but ultimately more horrid.
The show constantly resets his topsy-turvy political career. His goals are always selfish, he backstabs everyone, yet we feel sympathy each time success is snatched away. He starts as a simple counterpart to Cisco, but evolves to have an obsession for Kyra too. Mid-series the power flips and Dukat is back on top through a Faustian bargain….
He's a delicious character. **Everyone loves a Dukat episode.**
---
His idealogical mirror is **Vedek Winn**, a rising religious leader. She's a condescending scold to Kyra. We instantly hate her, yet paradoxically she can't openly be criticized. Her episodes are *frustrating* because the heroes can't touch her, she's not an enemy. Often they must acquiesce to some part of her agenda to accomplish their own goals.
Where Dukat is the life of every party, Winn sucks all joy from the room. Where Dukat hatches schemes that are thwarted, Winn seemingly does nothing – she waits for her rivals to misstep then swoops in. **Everyone hates a Kai Winn episode**. Her presence in the show indicates someone we like will fail while she undeservedly walks away with the prize.
Dukat is a scenery-chewing *villain* who is sometimes heroic and complicated. Winn is presented as an irritating schoolmarm that grows slowly into a major ideological threat – not just for the heroes but for their entire agenda. She rises to ruler of the planet, and threatens to erase all the gains they've made.
Unlike charming Dukat, Winn is un-appealing with a glacial rise to power. Her "flaw" appropriately is her pursuit of religious knowledge, which in the ST universe means gaining access to sci-fi artifacts kept locked away for the safety of the galaxy. Again there a contrast, Dukat knows he's an irredeemable scoundrel. Winn's arc is about believing your own bs. Her hubris is to be holier than everyone else, and ultimately that pursuit leads to mystical corruption. (Also she is regular-corrupt because there is zero nuance in ST religion/politics.)
My opinion is that Dukat is the more obvious trope, but done awfully well in a show that needed a campy villain. He brings life to episodes.
Winn is the less-successful rendition. Her arc is monotone and spread thin. The sympathetic flaws come late. We aren't really clued into how important she will become (other than casting a name actress), the politics are too vague to have any stakes, and the religion is Star Trek technobabble™ that never feels weighty. I've read the original idea was to have her sweet at first then do a twist-reveal, which I think is the melodrama cliché of a 'respected leader' trope. Instead they went with a slower, character-driven arc coupled with pseudo-religious shame-dogma. I think it aims a bit higher than ST could hit. |
62,510 | If all an antagonist did was steal a pie, then they could probably be forgiven after a simple apology. But some antagonists kidnap, murder, conquer whole lands, and routinely hurt the protagonists both physically and mentally. An apology is not enough to cut it.
**So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and irredeemable?**
*Context*
For example, I have a character who is essentially behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, causing lots of harm to the main protagonists over the years, and his main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it, but I want him to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" and not "a villain".
One of the biggest difficulties in writing him is therefore figuring out how to keep him from becoming too evil while still driving the plot forward.
I *could* have him level an entire city, murder people left and right, and torture the protagonists with their worst fears, but that crosses a clear line. But he's also the main antagonist of the story, so he can't just sit around and do nothing either.
I need to somehow balance an antagonist who is both extremely threatening and not wholly a bad person deep down, but these two seem impossible to reconcile, and I can think of no examples of antagonists who mark both boxes. | 2022/06/25 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62510",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52632/"
] | You need to give such villains clear, non-selfish goals. They truly are trying to save something, in their own way, no matter what it costs them personally. And they are sacrificing people, even innocents, for the greater good.
They aren't really working for themselves.
Alternatively, they may be killing and torturing criminals.
Spoiler Alert: John Wick has a bit about that in his first movie, it is made very clear that he was minding his own business when criminals killed the dog he loved more than anything. So he was supposedly a bad guy, but he was killing brutal gangsters left and right, risking life and limb, to exact vengeance for this guy stomping to death the puppy given to John by his dead wife. The audience sees that as a valid and understandable emotional goal.
Later, Wick is mostly killing people in self-defense; the one intentional hit he does, the victim is again a crime boss, and he honorably lets her commit suicide rather than be killed by him. So he doesn't even actually do it.
Killing bad guys, even horrifically, is okay.
And villains can often be cast as killing innocents as a sacrifice to save others. A man with a starving child may kill a stranger that has food but won't share it.
A genius villain might level a city and kill a million, but the audience can know that he's truly trying to save nine billion people: that's 9000 million people. So how bad is it really to sacrifice 1 in 9000 to save the other 8999 in 9000? Might you do the same?
It is at least an *understandable* trade, to the audience, even if horrific.
You need to make your villain a plausibly misguided hero. Meaning he isn't acting out of selfish interest, or when he is, he is acting against others that themselves are only acting in their own selfish interests. | **The antagonist is the hero of a fundamentally incompatible cause.**
You say that the antagonist's main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it. Why does he want to do this? One possibility is that he's trying to bring about a world that arguably would be such an ethical improvement that any cost to the heroes' world as they know it would be minor in comparison. If you can make that point to the readers—that is, show that his road to hell was paved with good intentions—then he can be an antagonist but have the shade of gray you're looking for.
For example, perhaps your antagonist has a plan that can bring about a utopian world... except that he needs to shatter the entire society of the current world to do it. His plan would bring about a decade of global chaos and untold misery, but after that would come a world that would ensure universal happiness for a thousand years! He has some reason to be SURE he can make this happen as long as the heroes don't stop him, and is absolutely convinced that any cost to present society (and the people in it) is outweighed by the benefits of a millennium of utopia. Anything he has done to the heroes has been to bring about his vision; what's a little torture if it's enough to break the heroes so they stop getting in the way of his utopian world?
As an additional twist (and one that will help readers to be able to sympathize with him), maybe he's not actually the Big Bad after all. He's carrying out this plan because he's acting as the agent for somebody else—possibly somebody who is using him for an ulterior motive. (In a fantasy setting, maybe there's a demon who is orchestrating all of this and knows that the decade of misery is required to bring about a world where the demon rules everything; it's just that the demon is powerless to affect the world as it is now, and has tricked the antagonist into believing he's bringing about a utopia rather than hell on Earth. Whatever the setting, the important part is that there's a reason the Real Big Bad was using the antagonist all this time rather than doing it himself and neither heroes nor readers had a clue about the Real Big Bad's existence.) Once the erstwhile antagonist discovers that he has been tricked all along, he starts helping the heroes instead, giving you the redemption element you're looking for. This would also give you the opportunity to introduce new elements to the story—suddenly, everything the heroes thought they knew about the battle they were fighting has changed. For example, it may be that the erstwhile antagonist was actually only one of several people doing the Real Big Bad's bidding, and now the heroes (with the former antagonist's help) have to track down all these new antagonists before they can actually stop the Real Big Bad's plan. (Possibly some of the things that have befallen the heroes were actually the work of one of these other antagonists, for that matter, and only got blamed on the erstwhile antagonist because he's the only one they knew about.)
That combination of factors—good intentions, the revelation that he is a pawn, and his willingness to shift his allegiance to the side of the heroes once the truth is revealed—should suffice to bring at least some measure of sympathy and redemption to your antagonist. |
62,510 | If all an antagonist did was steal a pie, then they could probably be forgiven after a simple apology. But some antagonists kidnap, murder, conquer whole lands, and routinely hurt the protagonists both physically and mentally. An apology is not enough to cut it.
**So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and irredeemable?**
*Context*
For example, I have a character who is essentially behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, causing lots of harm to the main protagonists over the years, and his main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it, but I want him to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" and not "a villain".
One of the biggest difficulties in writing him is therefore figuring out how to keep him from becoming too evil while still driving the plot forward.
I *could* have him level an entire city, murder people left and right, and torture the protagonists with their worst fears, but that crosses a clear line. But he's also the main antagonist of the story, so he can't just sit around and do nothing either.
I need to somehow balance an antagonist who is both extremely threatening and not wholly a bad person deep down, but these two seem impossible to reconcile, and I can think of no examples of antagonists who mark both boxes. | 2022/06/25 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62510",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52632/"
] | You need to give such villains clear, non-selfish goals. They truly are trying to save something, in their own way, no matter what it costs them personally. And they are sacrificing people, even innocents, for the greater good.
They aren't really working for themselves.
Alternatively, they may be killing and torturing criminals.
Spoiler Alert: John Wick has a bit about that in his first movie, it is made very clear that he was minding his own business when criminals killed the dog he loved more than anything. So he was supposedly a bad guy, but he was killing brutal gangsters left and right, risking life and limb, to exact vengeance for this guy stomping to death the puppy given to John by his dead wife. The audience sees that as a valid and understandable emotional goal.
Later, Wick is mostly killing people in self-defense; the one intentional hit he does, the victim is again a crime boss, and he honorably lets her commit suicide rather than be killed by him. So he doesn't even actually do it.
Killing bad guys, even horrifically, is okay.
And villains can often be cast as killing innocents as a sacrifice to save others. A man with a starving child may kill a stranger that has food but won't share it.
A genius villain might level a city and kill a million, but the audience can know that he's truly trying to save nine billion people: that's 9000 million people. So how bad is it really to sacrifice 1 in 9000 to save the other 8999 in 9000? Might you do the same?
It is at least an *understandable* trade, to the audience, even if horrific.
You need to make your villain a plausibly misguided hero. Meaning he isn't acting out of selfish interest, or when he is, he is acting against others that themselves are only acting in their own selfish interests. | Did you notice that in perhaps 1,000 years of conflict between England and France, which side you happened to be on defined who were pro- or antagonists, with no reference to bad or good characteristics on either side?
You keep antagonists redeemable and morally grey by portraying them realistically; not in black or white and certainly not in the terms of your examples.
How far did you get, and what made you think you'd gone wrong?
Which three or four authors, in your view, have most closely got this right? Which writers d'you think have tried and failed to portray characters like yours?
The biggest difficulty in writing your character seems to be that you see antagonists as necessarily bad, and protagonists as always good. Where is that written, please?
You seem to be confusing at least three quite separate things, first and foremost that "antagonist" equals "bad guy." Is that what you mean, or what?
If all anyone did was steal a pie, where would there be antagonism? If not to suggest that thieving and dishonesty are both necessarily and exclusively attributes of antagonists, what purpose did the example of stealing a pie serve?
Why must people who kidnap, murder, conquer or routinely hurt anyone else be "antagonists"? Look back at England v France, in which for centuries, both sides routinely did all those things.
Do you think no protagonist could be behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, by righteously attempting to rid the world of bad guys? If Dudley Doright gets the people to rise up against three-or-four hundred years of bad-guy rule, who's behind that conflict?
If you want "a villain" to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" then write him as at worst ambiguous.
Ask yourself what is meant by ambiguity or antagonism, by evil, by irredeemable… If not yourself, ask your dictionaries or search engines.
Ask yourself why driving the plot forward requires anyone being or becoming evil.
Try reading, for instance, George McDonald Fraser's *Flashman* novels, whose main character would stop at none of the crimes you mention.
Try reading, for instance Bella Mackie's more recent *How to Kill your Family* whose heroine is rather worse. |
62,510 | If all an antagonist did was steal a pie, then they could probably be forgiven after a simple apology. But some antagonists kidnap, murder, conquer whole lands, and routinely hurt the protagonists both physically and mentally. An apology is not enough to cut it.
**So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and irredeemable?**
*Context*
For example, I have a character who is essentially behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, causing lots of harm to the main protagonists over the years, and his main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it, but I want him to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" and not "a villain".
One of the biggest difficulties in writing him is therefore figuring out how to keep him from becoming too evil while still driving the plot forward.
I *could* have him level an entire city, murder people left and right, and torture the protagonists with their worst fears, but that crosses a clear line. But he's also the main antagonist of the story, so he can't just sit around and do nothing either.
I need to somehow balance an antagonist who is both extremely threatening and not wholly a bad person deep down, but these two seem impossible to reconcile, and I can think of no examples of antagonists who mark both boxes. | 2022/06/25 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62510",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52632/"
] | Your question was how an antagonist can be kept "morally grey even after they cause serious harm."
If by "morally grey" you mean that it has to be possible for the reader/watcher to still think that what the actions they have done aren't bad...
And if to *intentionally* (see footnote) "cause serious harm" = always bad in the moral worldview of your readers...
Then yes, you have a 2+2=5 goal you have set up for yourself. You're saying essentially how can I have something be true and false at the same time.
If, however, you define "morally grey" as, meaning that it's possible to see how, to the antagonist, their actions could actually make sense morally to them...now that's very doable. You just need to show how much your antagonist cares about what's right and wrong. You also will probably want to have their beliefs teased out of them through dialogue or their writings or hearing their thoughts or somehow show that it's properly explicated what their worldview is, *why* they believe that committing genocide (or whatever heinous act they did) was the morally right move.
This has many examples in stories:
* Thanos of the recent Avengers movies
* The Joker in The Dark Knight
* Satan in Paradise Lost
* Roy Batty from Bladerunner
Footnote: another direction you could go that may or may not feel helpful to your story...there is the case of unintentionally causing harm, which has its own rich tradition in literature (Oedipus, anyone?).
Is doing something with evil consequences still evil if it was done unintentionally? (To what degree is manslaughter morally different from murder for instance?)
A lot of people feel there is a moral difference, but there's also grey areas. If someone was negligent of their duties (not following safety codes, not watching your kid as often as you (maybe?) should, not building up a dyke around your coastal city that can withstand 100-year floods...) and because of that something bad happens, how much moral responsibility falls on that person's negligence? | Give the antagonist a clear code of ethics
------------------------------------------
If your antagonist does a thing that the villain knows is evil then that character is unambiguously evil. That character has said they are evil, both in action and intent. But if you can make the character evil in action but not the intent, you can ride the thin line of moral grey areas.
In the trolley problem, you are asked if it is moral to push one person in front of a trolley to save more than one person. The act, pushing someone in front of a train, is clearly evil. But the outcome of saving 5 people is good. There are a few ways you can approach this and ways your villain could interpret the trolley problem that would lead to a moral grey area.
First,
Doing an evil act is bad. Your villain could believe that the action taken by the protagonists and civilians is evil, and that letting them do the evil act is not acceptable. This villain doesn't push the person. They may also not believe that the actions they take are evil. A might makes right attitude may say that the Villain believes that by attacking and harming people the Villain is applying a superior will to create the greatest good while suppressing the evil actions of those who oppose him. A society of cyborgs being attacked by someone who doesn't believe that humans should be augmented is an example of this.
Second,
The best outcome should be chosen. The total outcome of pushing the person is 4 total lives. Only outcome matters, so pushing the person is moral. This villain pushes the person. If you don't want a sympathetic Antagonist make it so that the good outcome the villain makes is only better if you share their bias. For example, the villain may kill thousands to steal data to ensure it is not lost in a calamity. However, the actual value of that information may be less than they believe since it may be backed up, and only the villain believes it is that important to save the extra copy.
Third,
The trolley problem is too hard for most people to handle, so it must be simplified to achieve the greatest outcome. The best outcome of the trolley problem is one death, but it doesn't matter how that person dies. Therefore, killing the person ensures who ever has to actually make the decision has an easy choice. The villain can't be there for the trolley problem, but they can effect the circumstances of the trolley problem. Do you take in 100 refugees with a virus who will infect 1000 people if they are taken in? Well, if the villain firebombs the refugees, you don't need to make that choice.
Furthermore, if the villain has a clear code of ethics, then the character is not evil, their code is evil and they are being twisted by it. If your villain follows the code you gave them even to their own detriment it will be clear that they are being bound by a code and not acting out of evil self interest. |
62,510 | If all an antagonist did was steal a pie, then they could probably be forgiven after a simple apology. But some antagonists kidnap, murder, conquer whole lands, and routinely hurt the protagonists both physically and mentally. An apology is not enough to cut it.
**So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and irredeemable?**
*Context*
For example, I have a character who is essentially behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, causing lots of harm to the main protagonists over the years, and his main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it, but I want him to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" and not "a villain".
One of the biggest difficulties in writing him is therefore figuring out how to keep him from becoming too evil while still driving the plot forward.
I *could* have him level an entire city, murder people left and right, and torture the protagonists with their worst fears, but that crosses a clear line. But he's also the main antagonist of the story, so he can't just sit around and do nothing either.
I need to somehow balance an antagonist who is both extremely threatening and not wholly a bad person deep down, but these two seem impossible to reconcile, and I can think of no examples of antagonists who mark both boxes. | 2022/06/25 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62510",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52632/"
] | Give the antagonist a clear code of ethics
------------------------------------------
If your antagonist does a thing that the villain knows is evil then that character is unambiguously evil. That character has said they are evil, both in action and intent. But if you can make the character evil in action but not the intent, you can ride the thin line of moral grey areas.
In the trolley problem, you are asked if it is moral to push one person in front of a trolley to save more than one person. The act, pushing someone in front of a train, is clearly evil. But the outcome of saving 5 people is good. There are a few ways you can approach this and ways your villain could interpret the trolley problem that would lead to a moral grey area.
First,
Doing an evil act is bad. Your villain could believe that the action taken by the protagonists and civilians is evil, and that letting them do the evil act is not acceptable. This villain doesn't push the person. They may also not believe that the actions they take are evil. A might makes right attitude may say that the Villain believes that by attacking and harming people the Villain is applying a superior will to create the greatest good while suppressing the evil actions of those who oppose him. A society of cyborgs being attacked by someone who doesn't believe that humans should be augmented is an example of this.
Second,
The best outcome should be chosen. The total outcome of pushing the person is 4 total lives. Only outcome matters, so pushing the person is moral. This villain pushes the person. If you don't want a sympathetic Antagonist make it so that the good outcome the villain makes is only better if you share their bias. For example, the villain may kill thousands to steal data to ensure it is not lost in a calamity. However, the actual value of that information may be less than they believe since it may be backed up, and only the villain believes it is that important to save the extra copy.
Third,
The trolley problem is too hard for most people to handle, so it must be simplified to achieve the greatest outcome. The best outcome of the trolley problem is one death, but it doesn't matter how that person dies. Therefore, killing the person ensures who ever has to actually make the decision has an easy choice. The villain can't be there for the trolley problem, but they can effect the circumstances of the trolley problem. Do you take in 100 refugees with a virus who will infect 1000 people if they are taken in? Well, if the villain firebombs the refugees, you don't need to make that choice.
Furthermore, if the villain has a clear code of ethics, then the character is not evil, their code is evil and they are being twisted by it. If your villain follows the code you gave them even to their own detriment it will be clear that they are being bound by a code and not acting out of evil self interest. | Did you notice that in perhaps 1,000 years of conflict between England and France, which side you happened to be on defined who were pro- or antagonists, with no reference to bad or good characteristics on either side?
You keep antagonists redeemable and morally grey by portraying them realistically; not in black or white and certainly not in the terms of your examples.
How far did you get, and what made you think you'd gone wrong?
Which three or four authors, in your view, have most closely got this right? Which writers d'you think have tried and failed to portray characters like yours?
The biggest difficulty in writing your character seems to be that you see antagonists as necessarily bad, and protagonists as always good. Where is that written, please?
You seem to be confusing at least three quite separate things, first and foremost that "antagonist" equals "bad guy." Is that what you mean, or what?
If all anyone did was steal a pie, where would there be antagonism? If not to suggest that thieving and dishonesty are both necessarily and exclusively attributes of antagonists, what purpose did the example of stealing a pie serve?
Why must people who kidnap, murder, conquer or routinely hurt anyone else be "antagonists"? Look back at England v France, in which for centuries, both sides routinely did all those things.
Do you think no protagonist could be behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, by righteously attempting to rid the world of bad guys? If Dudley Doright gets the people to rise up against three-or-four hundred years of bad-guy rule, who's behind that conflict?
If you want "a villain" to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" then write him as at worst ambiguous.
Ask yourself what is meant by ambiguity or antagonism, by evil, by irredeemable… If not yourself, ask your dictionaries or search engines.
Ask yourself why driving the plot forward requires anyone being or becoming evil.
Try reading, for instance, George McDonald Fraser's *Flashman* novels, whose main character would stop at none of the crimes you mention.
Try reading, for instance Bella Mackie's more recent *How to Kill your Family* whose heroine is rather worse. |
62,510 | If all an antagonist did was steal a pie, then they could probably be forgiven after a simple apology. But some antagonists kidnap, murder, conquer whole lands, and routinely hurt the protagonists both physically and mentally. An apology is not enough to cut it.
**So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and irredeemable?**
*Context*
For example, I have a character who is essentially behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, causing lots of harm to the main protagonists over the years, and his main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it, but I want him to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" and not "a villain".
One of the biggest difficulties in writing him is therefore figuring out how to keep him from becoming too evil while still driving the plot forward.
I *could* have him level an entire city, murder people left and right, and torture the protagonists with their worst fears, but that crosses a clear line. But he's also the main antagonist of the story, so he can't just sit around and do nothing either.
I need to somehow balance an antagonist who is both extremely threatening and not wholly a bad person deep down, but these two seem impossible to reconcile, and I can think of no examples of antagonists who mark both boxes. | 2022/06/25 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62510",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52632/"
] | Your question was how an antagonist can be kept "morally grey even after they cause serious harm."
If by "morally grey" you mean that it has to be possible for the reader/watcher to still think that what the actions they have done aren't bad...
And if to *intentionally* (see footnote) "cause serious harm" = always bad in the moral worldview of your readers...
Then yes, you have a 2+2=5 goal you have set up for yourself. You're saying essentially how can I have something be true and false at the same time.
If, however, you define "morally grey" as, meaning that it's possible to see how, to the antagonist, their actions could actually make sense morally to them...now that's very doable. You just need to show how much your antagonist cares about what's right and wrong. You also will probably want to have their beliefs teased out of them through dialogue or their writings or hearing their thoughts or somehow show that it's properly explicated what their worldview is, *why* they believe that committing genocide (or whatever heinous act they did) was the morally right move.
This has many examples in stories:
* Thanos of the recent Avengers movies
* The Joker in The Dark Knight
* Satan in Paradise Lost
* Roy Batty from Bladerunner
Footnote: another direction you could go that may or may not feel helpful to your story...there is the case of unintentionally causing harm, which has its own rich tradition in literature (Oedipus, anyone?).
Is doing something with evil consequences still evil if it was done unintentionally? (To what degree is manslaughter morally different from murder for instance?)
A lot of people feel there is a moral difference, but there's also grey areas. If someone was negligent of their duties (not following safety codes, not watching your kid as often as you (maybe?) should, not building up a dyke around your coastal city that can withstand 100-year floods...) and because of that something bad happens, how much moral responsibility falls on that person's negligence? | All these "hero" and "villain" and "morally gray character" are always framed in terms of character and story construction and I don't like this framing. I think it's a moral question. Whether you choose to write black and white characters or morally gray ones, perfect characters or flawed ones, I think the important thing is to remember that this always makes you *take a stand* on your morals and values. If you (deliberately) write a flawed character, this makes you take a position on which of their traits *are* flaws and why, and which are not. If you write a fully good character, you are taking the position that they traits they exhibit and actions they take are morally good, and vice versa for a fully bad one. And if you write a morally ambiguous character you are taking an *even more precise* position on which aspects of their character are bad, which are good, for what reasons, and whether this all sums up to a person who is redeemable or not, that people should root for or not, and why. This isn't to say you can't leave space for different readers to disagree and to come to their own conclusions, but even that space is one you choose to create and that choice itself is a moral one.
So in my view you shouldn't be seeing this as a question of "what's the magic sauce of actions and character traits I should give my villain for them to be evil but redeemable". That's a character and story structure question and I worry it's leading you to having a morally muddled story where characters have the traits they need for the plot but where the consequences aren't explored and you risk running into the exact moral dissonances you're worried about. **I think instead you should be asking yourself "what do I think is morally right"**. If you think razing a city is always morally irredeemable, then you shouldn't write a story where a villain does this and is redeemed; you should embrace that this isn't the story you're writing and instead have a lower-stakes story where the villain doesn't take such bad actions, or have a high-stakes story where the villain doesn't get redeemed.
If the "villain is seriously evil but also gets redeemed" is a story you *really* want to tell then I think you need to dig into the actual morality and human psychology of this story. Maybe take inspiration from real events - what kind of evil acts do the worst people do in this world? Have people done such evil acts and then had some kind of redemption, and if so what kind of redemption was that, in whose eyes and to what extent, and how did it happen? What are the different reasons people might do such evil acts and how does this impact their redeemability? For that matter what are different perspectives people have on those evil acts, what are the impacts or causes that make you feel the word "evil" is justified even if others might not?
I think if you explore those questions and come up with a scenario where you feel you can imagine a person committing acts that are evil enough to make your antagonist high-stakes (and seen as fully evil by your main characters), and also coming to some kind of redemption by your own moral standards, then I think you'll have your answer. Like, I think at that point the details don't matter - you just need to believe them. It's possible many readers will not agree that your character is redeemable enough or evil enough, but if *you* believe it then you can write your story in a way that makes your case; you could go into the consequences of the evil acts that show them to be evil, you could explore the psychology of your villain to show how they could commit them at some point in their life, how they came to be that kind of person, and how they could later come to be a person who is sufficiently improved, morally speaking, to quality as "redeemed". You could describe that process and how others reacted to them and the impacts of their new actions to make the case this redemption did happen in practice.
The point is, I don't think your readers need to *agree* with your moral stance under those conditions; within some limits many of those who disagree will still appreciate a well-executed story with a coherent, consistent viewpoint. And unless you're a total moral weirdo the odds are that plenty of readers *will* agree with your moral stance, and in that case you being confident in that stance and deliberately exploring it will mean you're providing them a satisfying, non-dissonant, maybe even enlightening experience.
And who knows, maybe exploring the moral question might make you realize that this "evil villain is redeemed" *isn't* the story you want to tell - that you find it compelling instead to explore the details of why the acts the villain commits are evil, how they impact people, how the villain and their henchfolk came to be that way, how different main characters feel about them depending on how they're impacted, and how the main characters can succeed or fail into making things right, without the villain ever needing to be redeemed (after all, IRL people often aren't are they. And that's also something that can be challenging to deal with). Conversely maybe you'll decide that exploring the depths of human depravity is too much of a bummer and that the adventure story you want to tell would be more authentically told with lighter stakes. |
62,510 | If all an antagonist did was steal a pie, then they could probably be forgiven after a simple apology. But some antagonists kidnap, murder, conquer whole lands, and routinely hurt the protagonists both physically and mentally. An apology is not enough to cut it.
**So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and irredeemable?**
*Context*
For example, I have a character who is essentially behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, causing lots of harm to the main protagonists over the years, and his main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it, but I want him to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" and not "a villain".
One of the biggest difficulties in writing him is therefore figuring out how to keep him from becoming too evil while still driving the plot forward.
I *could* have him level an entire city, murder people left and right, and torture the protagonists with their worst fears, but that crosses a clear line. But he's also the main antagonist of the story, so he can't just sit around and do nothing either.
I need to somehow balance an antagonist who is both extremely threatening and not wholly a bad person deep down, but these two seem impossible to reconcile, and I can think of no examples of antagonists who mark both boxes. | 2022/06/25 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62510",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52632/"
] | **The antagonist is the hero of a fundamentally incompatible cause.**
You say that the antagonist's main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it. Why does he want to do this? One possibility is that he's trying to bring about a world that arguably would be such an ethical improvement that any cost to the heroes' world as they know it would be minor in comparison. If you can make that point to the readers—that is, show that his road to hell was paved with good intentions—then he can be an antagonist but have the shade of gray you're looking for.
For example, perhaps your antagonist has a plan that can bring about a utopian world... except that he needs to shatter the entire society of the current world to do it. His plan would bring about a decade of global chaos and untold misery, but after that would come a world that would ensure universal happiness for a thousand years! He has some reason to be SURE he can make this happen as long as the heroes don't stop him, and is absolutely convinced that any cost to present society (and the people in it) is outweighed by the benefits of a millennium of utopia. Anything he has done to the heroes has been to bring about his vision; what's a little torture if it's enough to break the heroes so they stop getting in the way of his utopian world?
As an additional twist (and one that will help readers to be able to sympathize with him), maybe he's not actually the Big Bad after all. He's carrying out this plan because he's acting as the agent for somebody else—possibly somebody who is using him for an ulterior motive. (In a fantasy setting, maybe there's a demon who is orchestrating all of this and knows that the decade of misery is required to bring about a world where the demon rules everything; it's just that the demon is powerless to affect the world as it is now, and has tricked the antagonist into believing he's bringing about a utopia rather than hell on Earth. Whatever the setting, the important part is that there's a reason the Real Big Bad was using the antagonist all this time rather than doing it himself and neither heroes nor readers had a clue about the Real Big Bad's existence.) Once the erstwhile antagonist discovers that he has been tricked all along, he starts helping the heroes instead, giving you the redemption element you're looking for. This would also give you the opportunity to introduce new elements to the story—suddenly, everything the heroes thought they knew about the battle they were fighting has changed. For example, it may be that the erstwhile antagonist was actually only one of several people doing the Real Big Bad's bidding, and now the heroes (with the former antagonist's help) have to track down all these new antagonists before they can actually stop the Real Big Bad's plan. (Possibly some of the things that have befallen the heroes were actually the work of one of these other antagonists, for that matter, and only got blamed on the erstwhile antagonist because he's the only one they knew about.)
That combination of factors—good intentions, the revelation that he is a pawn, and his willingness to shift his allegiance to the side of the heroes once the truth is revealed—should suffice to bring at least some measure of sympathy and redemption to your antagonist. | All these "hero" and "villain" and "morally gray character" are always framed in terms of character and story construction and I don't like this framing. I think it's a moral question. Whether you choose to write black and white characters or morally gray ones, perfect characters or flawed ones, I think the important thing is to remember that this always makes you *take a stand* on your morals and values. If you (deliberately) write a flawed character, this makes you take a position on which of their traits *are* flaws and why, and which are not. If you write a fully good character, you are taking the position that they traits they exhibit and actions they take are morally good, and vice versa for a fully bad one. And if you write a morally ambiguous character you are taking an *even more precise* position on which aspects of their character are bad, which are good, for what reasons, and whether this all sums up to a person who is redeemable or not, that people should root for or not, and why. This isn't to say you can't leave space for different readers to disagree and to come to their own conclusions, but even that space is one you choose to create and that choice itself is a moral one.
So in my view you shouldn't be seeing this as a question of "what's the magic sauce of actions and character traits I should give my villain for them to be evil but redeemable". That's a character and story structure question and I worry it's leading you to having a morally muddled story where characters have the traits they need for the plot but where the consequences aren't explored and you risk running into the exact moral dissonances you're worried about. **I think instead you should be asking yourself "what do I think is morally right"**. If you think razing a city is always morally irredeemable, then you shouldn't write a story where a villain does this and is redeemed; you should embrace that this isn't the story you're writing and instead have a lower-stakes story where the villain doesn't take such bad actions, or have a high-stakes story where the villain doesn't get redeemed.
If the "villain is seriously evil but also gets redeemed" is a story you *really* want to tell then I think you need to dig into the actual morality and human psychology of this story. Maybe take inspiration from real events - what kind of evil acts do the worst people do in this world? Have people done such evil acts and then had some kind of redemption, and if so what kind of redemption was that, in whose eyes and to what extent, and how did it happen? What are the different reasons people might do such evil acts and how does this impact their redeemability? For that matter what are different perspectives people have on those evil acts, what are the impacts or causes that make you feel the word "evil" is justified even if others might not?
I think if you explore those questions and come up with a scenario where you feel you can imagine a person committing acts that are evil enough to make your antagonist high-stakes (and seen as fully evil by your main characters), and also coming to some kind of redemption by your own moral standards, then I think you'll have your answer. Like, I think at that point the details don't matter - you just need to believe them. It's possible many readers will not agree that your character is redeemable enough or evil enough, but if *you* believe it then you can write your story in a way that makes your case; you could go into the consequences of the evil acts that show them to be evil, you could explore the psychology of your villain to show how they could commit them at some point in their life, how they came to be that kind of person, and how they could later come to be a person who is sufficiently improved, morally speaking, to quality as "redeemed". You could describe that process and how others reacted to them and the impacts of their new actions to make the case this redemption did happen in practice.
The point is, I don't think your readers need to *agree* with your moral stance under those conditions; within some limits many of those who disagree will still appreciate a well-executed story with a coherent, consistent viewpoint. And unless you're a total moral weirdo the odds are that plenty of readers *will* agree with your moral stance, and in that case you being confident in that stance and deliberately exploring it will mean you're providing them a satisfying, non-dissonant, maybe even enlightening experience.
And who knows, maybe exploring the moral question might make you realize that this "evil villain is redeemed" *isn't* the story you want to tell - that you find it compelling instead to explore the details of why the acts the villain commits are evil, how they impact people, how the villain and their henchfolk came to be that way, how different main characters feel about them depending on how they're impacted, and how the main characters can succeed or fail into making things right, without the villain ever needing to be redeemed (after all, IRL people often aren't are they. And that's also something that can be challenging to deal with). Conversely maybe you'll decide that exploring the depths of human depravity is too much of a bummer and that the adventure story you want to tell would be more authentically told with lighter stakes. |
62,510 | If all an antagonist did was steal a pie, then they could probably be forgiven after a simple apology. But some antagonists kidnap, murder, conquer whole lands, and routinely hurt the protagonists both physically and mentally. An apology is not enough to cut it.
**So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and irredeemable?**
*Context*
For example, I have a character who is essentially behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, causing lots of harm to the main protagonists over the years, and his main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it, but I want him to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" and not "a villain".
One of the biggest difficulties in writing him is therefore figuring out how to keep him from becoming too evil while still driving the plot forward.
I *could* have him level an entire city, murder people left and right, and torture the protagonists with their worst fears, but that crosses a clear line. But he's also the main antagonist of the story, so he can't just sit around and do nothing either.
I need to somehow balance an antagonist who is both extremely threatening and not wholly a bad person deep down, but these two seem impossible to reconcile, and I can think of no examples of antagonists who mark both boxes. | 2022/06/25 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62510",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52632/"
] | **The antagonist is the hero of a fundamentally incompatible cause.**
You say that the antagonist's main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it. Why does he want to do this? One possibility is that he's trying to bring about a world that arguably would be such an ethical improvement that any cost to the heroes' world as they know it would be minor in comparison. If you can make that point to the readers—that is, show that his road to hell was paved with good intentions—then he can be an antagonist but have the shade of gray you're looking for.
For example, perhaps your antagonist has a plan that can bring about a utopian world... except that he needs to shatter the entire society of the current world to do it. His plan would bring about a decade of global chaos and untold misery, but after that would come a world that would ensure universal happiness for a thousand years! He has some reason to be SURE he can make this happen as long as the heroes don't stop him, and is absolutely convinced that any cost to present society (and the people in it) is outweighed by the benefits of a millennium of utopia. Anything he has done to the heroes has been to bring about his vision; what's a little torture if it's enough to break the heroes so they stop getting in the way of his utopian world?
As an additional twist (and one that will help readers to be able to sympathize with him), maybe he's not actually the Big Bad after all. He's carrying out this plan because he's acting as the agent for somebody else—possibly somebody who is using him for an ulterior motive. (In a fantasy setting, maybe there's a demon who is orchestrating all of this and knows that the decade of misery is required to bring about a world where the demon rules everything; it's just that the demon is powerless to affect the world as it is now, and has tricked the antagonist into believing he's bringing about a utopia rather than hell on Earth. Whatever the setting, the important part is that there's a reason the Real Big Bad was using the antagonist all this time rather than doing it himself and neither heroes nor readers had a clue about the Real Big Bad's existence.) Once the erstwhile antagonist discovers that he has been tricked all along, he starts helping the heroes instead, giving you the redemption element you're looking for. This would also give you the opportunity to introduce new elements to the story—suddenly, everything the heroes thought they knew about the battle they were fighting has changed. For example, it may be that the erstwhile antagonist was actually only one of several people doing the Real Big Bad's bidding, and now the heroes (with the former antagonist's help) have to track down all these new antagonists before they can actually stop the Real Big Bad's plan. (Possibly some of the things that have befallen the heroes were actually the work of one of these other antagonists, for that matter, and only got blamed on the erstwhile antagonist because he's the only one they knew about.)
That combination of factors—good intentions, the revelation that he is a pawn, and his willingness to shift his allegiance to the side of the heroes once the truth is revealed—should suffice to bring at least some measure of sympathy and redemption to your antagonist. | Did you notice that in perhaps 1,000 years of conflict between England and France, which side you happened to be on defined who were pro- or antagonists, with no reference to bad or good characteristics on either side?
You keep antagonists redeemable and morally grey by portraying them realistically; not in black or white and certainly not in the terms of your examples.
How far did you get, and what made you think you'd gone wrong?
Which three or four authors, in your view, have most closely got this right? Which writers d'you think have tried and failed to portray characters like yours?
The biggest difficulty in writing your character seems to be that you see antagonists as necessarily bad, and protagonists as always good. Where is that written, please?
You seem to be confusing at least three quite separate things, first and foremost that "antagonist" equals "bad guy." Is that what you mean, or what?
If all anyone did was steal a pie, where would there be antagonism? If not to suggest that thieving and dishonesty are both necessarily and exclusively attributes of antagonists, what purpose did the example of stealing a pie serve?
Why must people who kidnap, murder, conquer or routinely hurt anyone else be "antagonists"? Look back at England v France, in which for centuries, both sides routinely did all those things.
Do you think no protagonist could be behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, by righteously attempting to rid the world of bad guys? If Dudley Doright gets the people to rise up against three-or-four hundred years of bad-guy rule, who's behind that conflict?
If you want "a villain" to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" then write him as at worst ambiguous.
Ask yourself what is meant by ambiguity or antagonism, by evil, by irredeemable… If not yourself, ask your dictionaries or search engines.
Ask yourself why driving the plot forward requires anyone being or becoming evil.
Try reading, for instance, George McDonald Fraser's *Flashman* novels, whose main character would stop at none of the crimes you mention.
Try reading, for instance Bella Mackie's more recent *How to Kill your Family* whose heroine is rather worse. |
62,510 | If all an antagonist did was steal a pie, then they could probably be forgiven after a simple apology. But some antagonists kidnap, murder, conquer whole lands, and routinely hurt the protagonists both physically and mentally. An apology is not enough to cut it.
**So how do you keep the main antagonist as redeemable and morally grey but keep them from becoming thoroughly evil, horrible, and irredeemable?**
*Context*
For example, I have a character who is essentially behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, causing lots of harm to the main protagonists over the years, and his main goal would essentially destroy the world as the heroes know it, but I want him to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" and not "a villain".
One of the biggest difficulties in writing him is therefore figuring out how to keep him from becoming too evil while still driving the plot forward.
I *could* have him level an entire city, murder people left and right, and torture the protagonists with their worst fears, but that crosses a clear line. But he's also the main antagonist of the story, so he can't just sit around and do nothing either.
I need to somehow balance an antagonist who is both extremely threatening and not wholly a bad person deep down, but these two seem impossible to reconcile, and I can think of no examples of antagonists who mark both boxes. | 2022/06/25 | [
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/62510",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com",
"https://writers.stackexchange.com/users/52632/"
] | If, at the core, your question is how to make the antagonist into a compelling protagonist, despite his past evil, I propose a broken-redemption arc.
**Lean into the evil.**
Existing answers take the route of making the main antagonist understandable or likeable, so that he can transition into being a good fellow after all. For a compelling story, I propose exactly the opposite.
Make him evil, really evil. Lean into it. Even if he has a moral code, have him break it. If he has a goal, make the pursuit of it consume him until his actions are even counterproductive to that goal. (He wants to capture a city and rule, peaceably? Fine - but then make him get so consumed by it that he executes the resistance, in the name of peace.) Show that his evil only multiples as he pursues it, and don't be bashful about it. *That's what evil does.*
**But then, break him.**
You can do this a number of ways. Have a particularly brutal, evil act sting his dulled conscience with a vengeance that doesn't go away. Have him come within an inch of his life, and realize his own depravity. Have a protagonist give his own life to protect the antagonist, despite his evil. Whatever the case, let the antagonist realize that he is exactly, precisely wrong. If there's anything "good" in this man, let it be this alone - that he is broken over his sins. Let it break him into a shell of a man, and make him sit in that state for a long, solemn time.
**Don't leave him there.**
Next comes the redemption arc. A protagonist finds him in the broken state. The antagonist is ready to accept any punishment, broken for his wrongdoing. But then, instead of punishing him, have the protagonist choose grace. *That* is powerful. Maybe the protagonist was in a similar state previously, or maybe just has an incredibly strong moral character. Regardless, instead of reaching out to strike, he offers a hand up and a second chance.
The antagonist, shocked, initially balks, but then accepts the forgiveness offered. He purposes, not to atone for his wrongs, but to live consistently with the new man he wants to be. That lays the groundwork for his redemptive arc, undoing the evil that he had accomplished, and applying that same zeal in a positive direction. He completely acknowledges and owns his past, but he doesn't let it fully define him. The hard 180 turn sets him on the right path, and he proves to the other protagonists, by his imperfect but steadfast commitment, that he is indeed changed. Not gradually, not through strength, but through being totally broken and then forgiven.
Why is this compelling? Because life often goes exactly like this. We run until we hit a breaking point, and then we realize that we were running in the wrong direction all along. At that point, excuses and nuances don't redeem us. Slight changes in direction are insufficient. It requires a brokenness of heart, followed by real forgiveness and a changed life, to be redeemed. | Did you notice that in perhaps 1,000 years of conflict between England and France, which side you happened to be on defined who were pro- or antagonists, with no reference to bad or good characteristics on either side?
You keep antagonists redeemable and morally grey by portraying them realistically; not in black or white and certainly not in the terms of your examples.
How far did you get, and what made you think you'd gone wrong?
Which three or four authors, in your view, have most closely got this right? Which writers d'you think have tried and failed to portray characters like yours?
The biggest difficulty in writing your character seems to be that you see antagonists as necessarily bad, and protagonists as always good. Where is that written, please?
You seem to be confusing at least three quite separate things, first and foremost that "antagonist" equals "bad guy." Is that what you mean, or what?
If all anyone did was steal a pie, where would there be antagonism? If not to suggest that thieving and dishonesty are both necessarily and exclusively attributes of antagonists, what purpose did the example of stealing a pie serve?
Why must people who kidnap, murder, conquer or routinely hurt anyone else be "antagonists"? Look back at England v France, in which for centuries, both sides routinely did all those things.
Do you think no protagonist could be behind every conflict since the beginning of the series, by righteously attempting to rid the world of bad guys? If Dudley Doright gets the people to rise up against three-or-four hundred years of bad-guy rule, who's behind that conflict?
If you want "a villain" to be redeemable enough that he remains "grey" then write him as at worst ambiguous.
Ask yourself what is meant by ambiguity or antagonism, by evil, by irredeemable… If not yourself, ask your dictionaries or search engines.
Ask yourself why driving the plot forward requires anyone being or becoming evil.
Try reading, for instance, George McDonald Fraser's *Flashman* novels, whose main character would stop at none of the crimes you mention.
Try reading, for instance Bella Mackie's more recent *How to Kill your Family* whose heroine is rather worse. |
23,119 | Is there any university in the United States (or Europe) fully committed to graduate programs (master and PhD)?
Why this is not a common scheme? Why research universities are not interested in this model? Without huge number of undergraduate students, a university can save money on campus expenses, and heavily uses its resources for research. | 2014/06/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23119",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
] | There *are* some universities that offer primarily postgraduate degrees; [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postgraduate-only_institutions) has a list. Some notable examples on this list are Rockefeller University (US) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel).
However, this doesn't necessarily save money; undergraduates in the United States typically pay tuition, after all. Other sources of income for universities in the United States (such as federal Pell grants) also apply only to undergraduate students. Furthermore, having a local population of undergraduate students allows budding academics (PhD students) to get teaching experience. | I don't think it's a common scheme, but such places do exist (e.g., the [Austrian Institute of Technology](http://www.ait.ac.at)).
In Europe, the main reason why there are not more of these places is that it is damn hard to get public funding for them (and most universities around here are funded almost exclusively by the state). Simply put, the main incentive for the government to fund universities is **undergraduate teaching**, hence getting them to pay for a university without any of those is a tough sell. We tended to half-jokingly mention that teaching undergraduates is our day job, which we do to support our breadless research.
The above-mentioned AIT is a special case, in the sense that it is pretty young and mostly the result of a political process. That is, it was not a "scientific decision" to get the AIT started, but a political reaction to divert public attention away from the ever-sinking buget for the regular universities. |
23,119 | Is there any university in the United States (or Europe) fully committed to graduate programs (master and PhD)?
Why this is not a common scheme? Why research universities are not interested in this model? Without huge number of undergraduate students, a university can save money on campus expenses, and heavily uses its resources for research. | 2014/06/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23119",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
] | There *are* some universities that offer primarily postgraduate degrees; [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postgraduate-only_institutions) has a list. Some notable examples on this list are Rockefeller University (US) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel).
However, this doesn't necessarily save money; undergraduates in the United States typically pay tuition, after all. Other sources of income for universities in the United States (such as federal Pell grants) also apply only to undergraduate students. Furthermore, having a local population of undergraduate students allows budding academics (PhD students) to get teaching experience. | Behold the [Claremont Graduate University](http://www.cgu.edu) and the [Keck Graduate Institute](http://www.kgi.edu).
It's a little of a cheat, though; both are part of the [Claremont Colleges consortium](http://www.Claremont.edu) whose other five members are undergraduate-only institutions. |
23,119 | Is there any university in the United States (or Europe) fully committed to graduate programs (master and PhD)?
Why this is not a common scheme? Why research universities are not interested in this model? Without huge number of undergraduate students, a university can save money on campus expenses, and heavily uses its resources for research. | 2014/06/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23119",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
] | There *are* some universities that offer primarily postgraduate degrees; [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postgraduate-only_institutions) has a list. Some notable examples on this list are Rockefeller University (US) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel).
However, this doesn't necessarily save money; undergraduates in the United States typically pay tuition, after all. Other sources of income for universities in the United States (such as federal Pell grants) also apply only to undergraduate students. Furthermore, having a local population of undergraduate students allows budding academics (PhD students) to get teaching experience. | What you call is a research institute, not a university.
For example, my institute [ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences](http://www.icfo.eu/) does not have undergraduate students (except for some visitors/interns). Some Master's and mostly - PhD students.
And at least in Europe such institutes are common (or at least - not uncommon).
>
> a university can save money on campus expenses
>
>
>
Undergrads are the ones bringing money, if anything. ;) |
23,119 | Is there any university in the United States (or Europe) fully committed to graduate programs (master and PhD)?
Why this is not a common scheme? Why research universities are not interested in this model? Without huge number of undergraduate students, a university can save money on campus expenses, and heavily uses its resources for research. | 2014/06/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23119",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
] | There *are* some universities that offer primarily postgraduate degrees; [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postgraduate-only_institutions) has a list. Some notable examples on this list are Rockefeller University (US) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel).
However, this doesn't necessarily save money; undergraduates in the United States typically pay tuition, after all. Other sources of income for universities in the United States (such as federal Pell grants) also apply only to undergraduate students. Furthermore, having a local population of undergraduate students allows budding academics (PhD students) to get teaching experience. | [University of California at San Francisco](http://insideguide.ucsf.edu/admissions) offers only graduate degrees. From the aforelinked web page:
>
> UCSF is unique in that it only offers graduate degrees (meaning it does not have an undergraduate student population).
>
>
> |
23,119 | Is there any university in the United States (or Europe) fully committed to graduate programs (master and PhD)?
Why this is not a common scheme? Why research universities are not interested in this model? Without huge number of undergraduate students, a university can save money on campus expenses, and heavily uses its resources for research. | 2014/06/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23119",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
] | I don't think it's a common scheme, but such places do exist (e.g., the [Austrian Institute of Technology](http://www.ait.ac.at)).
In Europe, the main reason why there are not more of these places is that it is damn hard to get public funding for them (and most universities around here are funded almost exclusively by the state). Simply put, the main incentive for the government to fund universities is **undergraduate teaching**, hence getting them to pay for a university without any of those is a tough sell. We tended to half-jokingly mention that teaching undergraduates is our day job, which we do to support our breadless research.
The above-mentioned AIT is a special case, in the sense that it is pretty young and mostly the result of a political process. That is, it was not a "scientific decision" to get the AIT started, but a political reaction to divert public attention away from the ever-sinking buget for the regular universities. | What you call is a research institute, not a university.
For example, my institute [ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences](http://www.icfo.eu/) does not have undergraduate students (except for some visitors/interns). Some Master's and mostly - PhD students.
And at least in Europe such institutes are common (or at least - not uncommon).
>
> a university can save money on campus expenses
>
>
>
Undergrads are the ones bringing money, if anything. ;) |
23,119 | Is there any university in the United States (or Europe) fully committed to graduate programs (master and PhD)?
Why this is not a common scheme? Why research universities are not interested in this model? Without huge number of undergraduate students, a university can save money on campus expenses, and heavily uses its resources for research. | 2014/06/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23119",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
] | I don't think it's a common scheme, but such places do exist (e.g., the [Austrian Institute of Technology](http://www.ait.ac.at)).
In Europe, the main reason why there are not more of these places is that it is damn hard to get public funding for them (and most universities around here are funded almost exclusively by the state). Simply put, the main incentive for the government to fund universities is **undergraduate teaching**, hence getting them to pay for a university without any of those is a tough sell. We tended to half-jokingly mention that teaching undergraduates is our day job, which we do to support our breadless research.
The above-mentioned AIT is a special case, in the sense that it is pretty young and mostly the result of a political process. That is, it was not a "scientific decision" to get the AIT started, but a political reaction to divert public attention away from the ever-sinking buget for the regular universities. | [University of California at San Francisco](http://insideguide.ucsf.edu/admissions) offers only graduate degrees. From the aforelinked web page:
>
> UCSF is unique in that it only offers graduate degrees (meaning it does not have an undergraduate student population).
>
>
> |
23,119 | Is there any university in the United States (or Europe) fully committed to graduate programs (master and PhD)?
Why this is not a common scheme? Why research universities are not interested in this model? Without huge number of undergraduate students, a university can save money on campus expenses, and heavily uses its resources for research. | 2014/06/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23119",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
] | Behold the [Claremont Graduate University](http://www.cgu.edu) and the [Keck Graduate Institute](http://www.kgi.edu).
It's a little of a cheat, though; both are part of the [Claremont Colleges consortium](http://www.Claremont.edu) whose other five members are undergraduate-only institutions. | What you call is a research institute, not a university.
For example, my institute [ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences](http://www.icfo.eu/) does not have undergraduate students (except for some visitors/interns). Some Master's and mostly - PhD students.
And at least in Europe such institutes are common (or at least - not uncommon).
>
> a university can save money on campus expenses
>
>
>
Undergrads are the ones bringing money, if anything. ;) |
23,119 | Is there any university in the United States (or Europe) fully committed to graduate programs (master and PhD)?
Why this is not a common scheme? Why research universities are not interested in this model? Without huge number of undergraduate students, a university can save money on campus expenses, and heavily uses its resources for research. | 2014/06/09 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23119",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13854/"
] | Behold the [Claremont Graduate University](http://www.cgu.edu) and the [Keck Graduate Institute](http://www.kgi.edu).
It's a little of a cheat, though; both are part of the [Claremont Colleges consortium](http://www.Claremont.edu) whose other five members are undergraduate-only institutions. | [University of California at San Francisco](http://insideguide.ucsf.edu/admissions) offers only graduate degrees. From the aforelinked web page:
>
> UCSF is unique in that it only offers graduate degrees (meaning it does not have an undergraduate student population).
>
>
> |
40,497 | I am making a game universe involving spaceships. While chewing through the implementation issues, I also keep making story and environment plans.
Big battleships have big guns. However such guns have a recoil and there's nothing a battleship can brace against. Shooting a big conventional cannon or railgun has both the same effect as the engine thrust especially if the battle drags on.
My question therefore is what could spaceships use to mitigate their gun recoil? I aim to give this as a researchable upgrade to the players, but I would like to use something plausible, not just magical no-recoil gun. | 2016/04/22 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40497",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/17556/"
] | Waste not, want not.
War is not always about having the perfect weapons or the perfect armor. War is about using what you have as efficiently as possible.
If, for your ships, the guns impart a non-trivial delta-V, the captain that uses that delta-V in his strategy to propel him where he wants to go will be ever so more nimble than the captain who spends precious mass/energy to counteract it. I would expect space combat philosophy to evolve towards engagements that assume the gun recoil as part of their trajectory shaping. There might even be a subtle art of positioning yourself so that, if they fire they must fall into a weak position and get slaughtered, | Spinning disks (\*) at high speed, stooped at exact time of shot but that depends of amount of energy we talking about, mass of disks (size/diameter) and ability to stop them instantaneously. Also add some impulse engine on the other side of your dreadnought.
(\*) (them disks probably should spin in different directions so in odd numbers per cannon) |
40,497 | I am making a game universe involving spaceships. While chewing through the implementation issues, I also keep making story and environment plans.
Big battleships have big guns. However such guns have a recoil and there's nothing a battleship can brace against. Shooting a big conventional cannon or railgun has both the same effect as the engine thrust especially if the battle drags on.
My question therefore is what could spaceships use to mitigate their gun recoil? I aim to give this as a researchable upgrade to the players, but I would like to use something plausible, not just magical no-recoil gun. | 2016/04/22 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40497",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/17556/"
] | Assuming your guns do actually *have* recoil, and you're not just using a big recoilless cannon:
Inertial Dampening
------------------
A number of space games use a technology they call "inertial dampeners". Essentially, these are sensors linked up to the engine controls. If the throttle isn't being held, they act to slow the ship down much as friction would on a road on Earth.
You can calculate how much force you need to do this, if you know the mass of the projectile you're firing and how fast it's going - the forward momentum of the projectile is equal to the backward momentum of the ship. With the backward momentum of the ship, you can calculate the force you need to stop it moving.
Upgrades
--------
You say you're planning to offer this as an upgrade to your players. Great idea. How about taking that one step further with an upgrade path that looks something like:
1. Guns
2. Bigger guns
3. Bigger guns + inertial dampeners
4. Recoilless guns
Now you get to use both the dampening tech, and recoilless tech! | A rail Gun provides some very attractive attributes in this environment.
In space we do not need to deal with atmospheric friction so the energy necessary to sling a projectile long distances without loss of velocity is relatively small. In a railgun where the projectile floats within the rail guides, there will be no friction between the projectile and the rail gun (barrel). Since the projectile is accelerated using alternating attractive and repulsive forces generated through magnetic fields along the guns barrel length, if these cyclical forces were precisely balanced, they would tend to cancel each other out, thereby negating the pushing force of just an attractive force or a repulsive force. This would result in virtually no perceived recoil. The projectile would need a form of guidance and stabilization control to correct for any contact with small space debris or other anomalies in its path. |
40,497 | I am making a game universe involving spaceships. While chewing through the implementation issues, I also keep making story and environment plans.
Big battleships have big guns. However such guns have a recoil and there's nothing a battleship can brace against. Shooting a big conventional cannon or railgun has both the same effect as the engine thrust especially if the battle drags on.
My question therefore is what could spaceships use to mitigate their gun recoil? I aim to give this as a researchable upgrade to the players, but I would like to use something plausible, not just magical no-recoil gun. | 2016/04/22 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40497",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/17556/"
] | How are you planning on dealing with gravity in aboard ship?
I've previously written a short story where the gravitational systems aboard ship were vital in how the craft operated both by providing a source of gravity for the crew, and in providing a "sink" for the inertia of the craft and crew when under power, and also for the firing of weapons etc.
Long story short, damage to the generator meant lots of issues for the crew.
If you want to go a more "hard" SF route, have a compensation system - firing weapons from one side of the ship creates an equal and opposite "firing" of compensation thrusters from the other side, arresting the initial momentum and creating a lack of movement.
Alternatively, space is BIG. If the weapons are mounted so as not to cause rotation, simply thrust, a slight drift with each shot is something that even the most basic of spacefaring civilizations should be able to compensate for with computer assisted targeting. | tl;dr the other answers
The simplest way is to follow what all the modern (dreadnought) battleships use - a [hydraulic recoil mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_recoil_mechanism). This would enable the recoil action to go in the opposite direction that the gun goes in and also dissipate most if any force pushing the spaceship in the opposite direction.
Another way would be using something like an old-fashioned cannon which has to be run back everytime, but this would be basically stupid to do in space. |
40,497 | I am making a game universe involving spaceships. While chewing through the implementation issues, I also keep making story and environment plans.
Big battleships have big guns. However such guns have a recoil and there's nothing a battleship can brace against. Shooting a big conventional cannon or railgun has both the same effect as the engine thrust especially if the battle drags on.
My question therefore is what could spaceships use to mitigate their gun recoil? I aim to give this as a researchable upgrade to the players, but I would like to use something plausible, not just magical no-recoil gun. | 2016/04/22 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40497",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/17556/"
] | The simplest solution would be a control system that links the guns to the engines and fires the engines to counteract the effects of the guns, or just use the thrust from the guns to provide extra manouvering for skilled piloting.
Alternatively make each projectile actually a self-propelled missile that requires very little inertia from the firing ship, this would also give them the ability to home in on their targets to some degree. | tl;dr the other answers
The simplest way is to follow what all the modern (dreadnought) battleships use - a [hydraulic recoil mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_recoil_mechanism). This would enable the recoil action to go in the opposite direction that the gun goes in and also dissipate most if any force pushing the spaceship in the opposite direction.
Another way would be using something like an old-fashioned cannon which has to be run back everytime, but this would be basically stupid to do in space. |
40,497 | I am making a game universe involving spaceships. While chewing through the implementation issues, I also keep making story and environment plans.
Big battleships have big guns. However such guns have a recoil and there's nothing a battleship can brace against. Shooting a big conventional cannon or railgun has both the same effect as the engine thrust especially if the battle drags on.
My question therefore is what could spaceships use to mitigate their gun recoil? I aim to give this as a researchable upgrade to the players, but I would like to use something plausible, not just magical no-recoil gun. | 2016/04/22 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40497",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/17556/"
] | The simplest solution would be a control system that links the guns to the engines and fires the engines to counteract the effects of the guns, or just use the thrust from the guns to provide extra manouvering for skilled piloting.
Alternatively make each projectile actually a self-propelled missile that requires very little inertia from the firing ship, this would also give them the ability to home in on their targets to some degree. | A rail Gun provides some very attractive attributes in this environment.
In space we do not need to deal with atmospheric friction so the energy necessary to sling a projectile long distances without loss of velocity is relatively small. In a railgun where the projectile floats within the rail guides, there will be no friction between the projectile and the rail gun (barrel). Since the projectile is accelerated using alternating attractive and repulsive forces generated through magnetic fields along the guns barrel length, if these cyclical forces were precisely balanced, they would tend to cancel each other out, thereby negating the pushing force of just an attractive force or a repulsive force. This would result in virtually no perceived recoil. The projectile would need a form of guidance and stabilization control to correct for any contact with small space debris or other anomalies in its path. |
40,497 | I am making a game universe involving spaceships. While chewing through the implementation issues, I also keep making story and environment plans.
Big battleships have big guns. However such guns have a recoil and there's nothing a battleship can brace against. Shooting a big conventional cannon or railgun has both the same effect as the engine thrust especially if the battle drags on.
My question therefore is what could spaceships use to mitigate their gun recoil? I aim to give this as a researchable upgrade to the players, but I would like to use something plausible, not just magical no-recoil gun. | 2016/04/22 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40497",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/17556/"
] | >
> A fusion drive is a weapon, powerful in direct ratio to its efficiency as a drive. - Larry Niven
>
>
>
Perhaps the engines and the guns are a single device. Both are designed to propel a small amount of material away from the ship as fast as possible. The only difference is that in one case you point it at the enemy, and in the other, you point it behind you.
This would have an interesting effect on tactics and formations. You would need to plan your approach route such that no other ships pass through your exhaust. A ship can easily retreat while firing, and has difficulty advancing while firing. In order to do so, ships could build up momentum, whip around, then fire at opponents while coasting forward. | Set shavers to stun indeed!
The most physical weapon humans can have in space is an object like a satellite or a ship purposely crash into each other. The reaction would be like glass breaking very slowly as it splatters away into a million fragments.
This is why nations deter from shooting missiles into space the fear of alien invasions might catch up one day if the missile actually happens to reach its target a few billion years from now, though the estimate of that happening is one in a trillion. Suffice to say it is possible. Though if humanity survives to meet such an invasion or is already dead by that time remains a mystery. |
40,497 | I am making a game universe involving spaceships. While chewing through the implementation issues, I also keep making story and environment plans.
Big battleships have big guns. However such guns have a recoil and there's nothing a battleship can brace against. Shooting a big conventional cannon or railgun has both the same effect as the engine thrust especially if the battle drags on.
My question therefore is what could spaceships use to mitigate their gun recoil? I aim to give this as a researchable upgrade to the players, but I would like to use something plausible, not just magical no-recoil gun. | 2016/04/22 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40497",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/17556/"
] | The simplest solution would be a control system that links the guns to the engines and fires the engines to counteract the effects of the guns, or just use the thrust from the guns to provide extra manouvering for skilled piloting.
Alternatively make each projectile actually a self-propelled missile that requires very little inertia from the firing ship, this would also give them the ability to home in on their targets to some degree. | Assuming your guns do actually *have* recoil, and you're not just using a big recoilless cannon:
Inertial Dampening
------------------
A number of space games use a technology they call "inertial dampeners". Essentially, these are sensors linked up to the engine controls. If the throttle isn't being held, they act to slow the ship down much as friction would on a road on Earth.
You can calculate how much force you need to do this, if you know the mass of the projectile you're firing and how fast it's going - the forward momentum of the projectile is equal to the backward momentum of the ship. With the backward momentum of the ship, you can calculate the force you need to stop it moving.
Upgrades
--------
You say you're planning to offer this as an upgrade to your players. Great idea. How about taking that one step further with an upgrade path that looks something like:
1. Guns
2. Bigger guns
3. Bigger guns + inertial dampeners
4. Recoilless guns
Now you get to use both the dampening tech, and recoilless tech! |
40,497 | I am making a game universe involving spaceships. While chewing through the implementation issues, I also keep making story and environment plans.
Big battleships have big guns. However such guns have a recoil and there's nothing a battleship can brace against. Shooting a big conventional cannon or railgun has both the same effect as the engine thrust especially if the battle drags on.
My question therefore is what could spaceships use to mitigate their gun recoil? I aim to give this as a researchable upgrade to the players, but I would like to use something plausible, not just magical no-recoil gun. | 2016/04/22 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/40497",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/17556/"
] | Waste not, want not.
War is not always about having the perfect weapons or the perfect armor. War is about using what you have as efficiently as possible.
If, for your ships, the guns impart a non-trivial delta-V, the captain that uses that delta-V in his strategy to propel him where he wants to go will be ever so more nimble than the captain who spends precious mass/energy to counteract it. I would expect space combat philosophy to evolve towards engagements that assume the gun recoil as part of their trajectory shaping. There might even be a subtle art of positioning yourself so that, if they fire they must fall into a weak position and get slaughtered, | tl;dr the other answers
The simplest way is to follow what all the modern (dreadnought) battleships use - a [hydraulic recoil mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_recoil_mechanism). This would enable the recoil action to go in the opposite direction that the gun goes in and also dissipate most if any force pushing the spaceship in the opposite direction.
Another way would be using something like an old-fashioned cannon which has to be run back everytime, but this would be basically stupid to do in space. |
747,697 | Say that I require a querystring; for example "itemid". If that querystring is for some reason missing, should I give the user a 200 error page or a "404 Not Found"?
I would favour 404 but I'm not really sure. | 2009/04/14 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/747697",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/40609/"
] | You should give a user 200, only when the HTTP Request you got was responded with an appropriate Response, even when it is only a simple HTML that says they are missing a parameter.
The 404 code is when the User Agent is requesting a resource that is missing.
Check this list for further info
<http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html> | Give a 500 error, probably a 501. This will allow a browser or code to handle it through existing onError mechanisms, instead of having to listen for it in some custom way. |
747,697 | Say that I require a querystring; for example "itemid". If that querystring is for some reason missing, should I give the user a 200 error page or a "404 Not Found"?
I would favour 404 but I'm not really sure. | 2009/04/14 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/747697",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/40609/"
] | Maybe you should give a "400 Bad Request".
>
> The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax. The client SHOULD NOT repeat the request without modifications.
>
>
>
See <http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html> for more possibilities.
And like Chris Simpson said give a "404 Not Found" when no item for the corresponding item id is found.
You could also check popular RESTful apis to see how others have handled the problem. For example [Twitter](http://apiwiki.twitter.com/REST+API+Documentation#HTTPStatusCodes). | Give a 500 error, probably a 501. This will allow a browser or code to handle it through existing onError mechanisms, instead of having to listen for it in some custom way. |
747,697 | Say that I require a querystring; for example "itemid". If that querystring is for some reason missing, should I give the user a 200 error page or a "404 Not Found"?
I would favour 404 but I'm not really sure. | 2009/04/14 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/747697",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/40609/"
] | Good question. Personally I would use a 200 and provide a user friendly error explaining the problem but it really depends on the circumstances.
Would you also show the 404 if they did provide the itemid but the particular item did not exist? | Give a 500 error, probably a 501. This will allow a browser or code to handle it through existing onError mechanisms, instead of having to listen for it in some custom way. |
747,697 | Say that I require a querystring; for example "itemid". If that querystring is for some reason missing, should I give the user a 200 error page or a "404 Not Found"?
I would favour 404 but I'm not really sure. | 2009/04/14 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/747697",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/40609/"
] | Maybe you should give a "400 Bad Request".
>
> The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax. The client SHOULD NOT repeat the request without modifications.
>
>
>
See <http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html> for more possibilities.
And like Chris Simpson said give a "404 Not Found" when no item for the corresponding item id is found.
You could also check popular RESTful apis to see how others have handled the problem. For example [Twitter](http://apiwiki.twitter.com/REST+API+Documentation#HTTPStatusCodes). | From a usability standpoint, I'd say neither.
You should display a page that tells the user what's wrong and gives them an opportunity to fix it.
If the link is coming from another page on your site (or another site), then a page that tells them that the requested item wasn't found and redirects them to an appropriate page, maybe one that lets them browse items?
If the user's typing the querystring themselves, then I'd have to ask why? Since the URI isn't typically user-friendly. |
747,697 | Say that I require a querystring; for example "itemid". If that querystring is for some reason missing, should I give the user a 200 error page or a "404 Not Found"?
I would favour 404 but I'm not really sure. | 2009/04/14 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/747697",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/40609/"
] | From a usability standpoint, I'd say neither.
You should display a page that tells the user what's wrong and gives them an opportunity to fix it.
If the link is coming from another page on your site (or another site), then a page that tells them that the requested item wasn't found and redirects them to an appropriate page, maybe one that lets them browse items?
If the user's typing the querystring themselves, then I'd have to ask why? Since the URI isn't typically user-friendly. | Give a 500 error, probably a 501. This will allow a browser or code to handle it through existing onError mechanisms, instead of having to listen for it in some custom way. |
747,697 | Say that I require a querystring; for example "itemid". If that querystring is for some reason missing, should I give the user a 200 error page or a "404 Not Found"?
I would favour 404 but I'm not really sure. | 2009/04/14 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/747697",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/40609/"
] | Maybe you should give a "400 Bad Request".
>
> The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax. The client SHOULD NOT repeat the request without modifications.
>
>
>
See <http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html> for more possibilities.
And like Chris Simpson said give a "404 Not Found" when no item for the corresponding item id is found.
You could also check popular RESTful apis to see how others have handled the problem. For example [Twitter](http://apiwiki.twitter.com/REST+API+Documentation#HTTPStatusCodes). | You should give a user 200, only when the HTTP Request you got was responded with an appropriate Response, even when it is only a simple HTML that says they are missing a parameter.
The 404 code is when the User Agent is requesting a resource that is missing.
Check this list for further info
<http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html> |
747,697 | Say that I require a querystring; for example "itemid". If that querystring is for some reason missing, should I give the user a 200 error page or a "404 Not Found"?
I would favour 404 but I'm not really sure. | 2009/04/14 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/747697",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/40609/"
] | Maybe you should give a "400 Bad Request".
>
> The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax. The client SHOULD NOT repeat the request without modifications.
>
>
>
See <http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html> for more possibilities.
And like Chris Simpson said give a "404 Not Found" when no item for the corresponding item id is found.
You could also check popular RESTful apis to see how others have handled the problem. For example [Twitter](http://apiwiki.twitter.com/REST+API+Documentation#HTTPStatusCodes). | Good question. Personally I would use a 200 and provide a user friendly error explaining the problem but it really depends on the circumstances.
Would you also show the 404 if they did provide the itemid but the particular item did not exist? |
38,810 | I am editing a video(by adobe premiere) which is a friends' chatting in a restaurant.
I would like to add a background music which sounds like playing in the restaurant.
I tried lower the db of the music but it didn't sound like "voice in picture".
Can anyone help? | 2016/04/21 | [
"https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/38810",
"https://sound.stackexchange.com",
"https://sound.stackexchange.com/users/18091/"
] | In addition to a little reverb (convolution reverbs are critical tools for sound for picture, IMHO), it will still sound like soundtrack music with extra reverb unless it is filtered.
You could run it through a speaker emulator or guitar or bass amp plug-in, or you could do high and low pass filters along with a little high shelf. Instead of low pass + high shelf, you could do a 3 dB/octave or otherwise more shallow sloped-low pass.
For a loud dance club, the high pass could be left off to keep the sense of thumping bass, but the low pass/high shelf is still important. A sidechain compressor to *gently* duck the music under the dialog wouldn't hurt either and would help make the music sound louder without stomping too much on the dialog.
Make sure you filter/EQ *before* the reverb.
Keep in mind that high frequencies are attenuated more quickly than low frequencies as one moves farther away from the sound source. See [this Physics.SE question](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/87751/do-low-frequency-sounds-really-carry-longer-distances) on that topic. That means we can make things sound farther away by reducing the high frequencies. Also, many speaker systems usually top out around 16 kHz at best, and high frequencies do not travel through intervening walls or diffract around corners as well as lows. Going back to the shallow-sloped low pass, you can move a sound farther away just by slowing dialing down the corner frequency.
Finally, remember that sound design *serves the picture*, it doesn't rule it. Do whatever you have to do to make the sound get the point of the scene across. If there's heartfelt dialog going on, the music better not stomp all over it, so no matter how unrealistic or crazy the final sound is (ducking doesn't happen in real life), it's better to do whatever needs to be done to make the sound work. | You need to add reverb and reflection similar to that room. Think convolution reverb with an impact that fits the restaurant space and eq with low pass if there are obstruction in the way of the sound. It might help to tweak panning and stereo spread to fit the location of the camera |
151,043 | My question is that do most people keep in touch with their doctoral advisors after they graduate? Do doctoral advisors forget their PhD students after the students get their degree?
I am mainly asking about math/physics if that makes a difference. | 2020/06/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/151043",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/125728/"
] | I very much doubt any of them "forget" in the sense of "Who are you, and how did you get this number?"
The relationship one has with their former advisor will depend on both the advisor, the graduate, and their relationship - and it will evolve over time. Some are happy to go their separate ways, some continue to be long time collaborators or friends, and the amount of political capital they will spend on their former graduates varies wildly.
Some advisors (wisely IMO) step back a little bit to make sure that their former PhD students develop an independent research agenda and voice, and clearly have a separate career from their advisor.
But it all depends. Personally? I keep in touch with my advisor, see him at conferences (back before COVID-19), and when the opportunity is right, we collaborate, but we don't actively seek out those opportunities. | It depends on your current relationship and on who you & your advisor are as a person in general.
If your current relationship runs smoothly and your research interests continue to coincide you may continue to publish joint papers. I have seen that happening long after a former PhD student graduates - even after they get faculty positions.
However I have also seen former advisors turning competitive and trying to exclude former lab members from the continuation of a project. I would guess in that case one would not want to try to continue to have any kind of friendly relationship with the advisor... |
29,084 | The rules modules has default actions setup to unpublish nodes but not comments.
Do I need to use PHP to unpublish a comment? | 2012/04/22 | [
"https://drupal.stackexchange.com/questions/29084",
"https://drupal.stackexchange.com",
"https://drupal.stackexchange.com/users/764/"
] | I had this same issue using Flag module and this solution worked out great for
the data source was *flagged-comment:status* in case anyone comes across this | Make sure you have nodecomment module downloaded and enabled. If node comment module is there, then you will get comments as the first option in rules trigger. |
42,354 | What did Shouko sign to Shouya in Koe No Katachi volume 7, chapter 54?
Note: the below images are the signs that she used, in the order that they appear (right to left).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SXtVA.jpg) | 2017/09/16 | [
"https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/42354",
"https://anime.stackexchange.com",
"https://anime.stackexchange.com/users/35019/"
] | So I watched the limited theatrical release today. While I can't say that I recall anything *verbatim*, I'll be updating my answer from here.
Shouko *says*, not *signs*, in the movie, that
>
> She believed that if she weren't around anymore, everything would be better, which is what led her to attempt suicide in the first place.
>
>
>
This tears into the heart of the matter: the immense guilt and discomfort that Shouko feels about the entire situation, which is what led her to make that decision.
Also, this highlights a point in which the film diverges from the manga, so take this with a grain of salt.
---
While I can't interpret JSL very well, we can infer what happened through the use of context clues a few chapters earlier.
>
> This happened after Shoya effectively saved Shouko's life, when she attempted to jump off her balcony into the river below. Recall in an earlier chapter, Shouko and Shoya swapped positions, effectively keeping her on the balcony, and him plummeting to the water below.
>
>
>
From that, what we can infer is...
>
> Shouko thought that Shoya was dead, and was feeling incredibly remorseful for attempting suicide, and that Shoya had been badly injured due to her actions. She's frantically apologizing and is grateful that he's alive.
>
>
> | I found a good sources to answer this question
These are from the chapter 54, page 9,10,and 11.
Page 9, third panel.
>
> You - Fall Down
>
>
> "You Fell down"
>
>
>
Page 9, fourth panel.
>
> Me - Bad
>
>
> "My Fault"
>
>
>
Page 10, first panel.
>
> Same
>
>
> "(At that time) same"
>
>
>
Page 10, second panel. ( Not sure about this one )
>
> Minimum
>
>
> "I think that it is the lowest"
>
>
>
Page 10, fourth panel ( Not sure about this one too )
>
> Relationship
>
>
> "I messed up my relationship with everyone"
>
>
>
Page 10, fifth panel ( and this one too )
>
> Past - Same
>
>
> "At that time (when I was in elementary school) and I have not changed"
>
>
>
Page 10, seventh and eight panel ( and this one too )
>
> Important
>
>
> "Everyone is Important ... "Based on(?)"
>
>
>
References(Japanese's site) : [los-endos.hatenablog.com(Japanese)](http://los-endos.hatenablog.com/entry/20160915/1473950095) |
169,726 | I'm looking to tile a relatively small area floor (about 4 sq m) with ceramic tiles 300x100 mm, 10mm thick. There are two main types of tile levelling systems that I've seen: clip and wedge
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xuxpA.jpg)
and the screw-cap type ones
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nIJlL.jpg)
What are the practical differences between the two? How to choose one or the the other? Or is this purely down to what I prefer to work with?
Please note that these images are purely for display purposes, I don't have any preferences at present on specific brands. | 2019/07/23 | [
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/169726",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/users/68183/"
] | I agree that these leveling systems are both more effective for larger format tiles. However, I think the question is good and one I had trouble finding an answer to when I was tiling my kitchen.
Re-use
------
* Wedge: The wedge is re-usable, the plastic tab is broken off.
* Screw/Spin: The spin top is re-usable, the plastic tab is broken off.
Tools
-----
* Wedge: To get the right pressure, a special tool is needed
* Screw/Spin: The spin top is re-usable, the plastic tab is broken off. No special tools are needed.
Corners
-------
* Wedge: The wedges are really intended to go across two tiles, so for a corner, you need 4 wedges.
* Screw/Spin: The spin top can sit directly on a corner or a T and provide leveling across each tile.
Shifting
--------
* Wedge: The wedge pushes both tiles in the same direction, which is not a problem if you have spacers between the tiles.
* Screw/Spin: The spinning action of the top can cause the tiles to shift in different directions as you tighten them. This can cause the tile to twist slightly, even with spacers.
Availability
------------
Both systems were available through a certain orange big box store (I found the wedge-type in-stock, and the Screw type needed to be ordered online).
My Experience
-------------
I ended up trying the wedge type first, then switched to the screw type. I found that the upward pressure of the wedge on the plastic could cause the tab to break prematurely (and you have to pull the tile up to put a new tab in). With the screw type, I could tighten, loosen, re-tighten as needed. I could also put one screw type at the corner intersection of 4 tiles. In the end, I was very happy with the result using the screw-type. | Some of the wedge clips that I have seen require (or strongly recommend) a special tool for tightening the wedge because hand force is unlikely to get it properly tight. On one hand, the screw type doesn't need a tool and on the other hand, the screw type doesn't have a tool so it could be tiring for your hands.
Another issue is re-use. For the wedge systems, the wedges can be used over and over again, and once you snap them off, the wedge is reusable immediately with no extra work. For the screw type, you have to unscrew that little broken off shaft before you can reuse the red cap. That seems annoying to me.
That said, these are a few tiny differences that I can see. They both do the same job. Cost will be an important factor as well, but I can't speak to that.
I just got finished using some [of these](https://www.rubi.com/us/tile-level-quick-kit-r614) and they were pretty... ok. Not great, not bad. Pros and cons were a cross between your wedges and the screw caps. |
150,930 | I am trying to make an algorithm that counts the days between two dates, e.g. between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012.
What is the correct answer, or the most popular choice? Should be the one I use?
In this case, if I don't include both dates I am comparing, the days are 0; if I include one of them, the days are 1; if I include both, the days are 2. | 2012/05/31 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/150930",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/43277/"
] | I think the crux of the dilemma is that you've named the operation "calculating how many days between two dates". Clearly there are zero days between 3/1/12 and 3/2/12, but that more likely means that you've named the calculation wrong rather than done the wrong calculation.
Date arithmetic is notoriously tricky because of all the exceptions, so you really have to be rigorous in defining your requirements. For example, what does "now minus one day" translate into? You might say it means whatever time it was 24 hours ago, but I think that would be wrong in most applications. True, most days have 24 hours, but with daylight saving time one day has 23 hours and one day has 25 hours. I thank if it is noon on Sunday then now minus one day means noon on Saturday regardless of how many hours ago that was. I could go on with leap seconds and all the trouble they bring, as well as ensuring all the arithmetic identities and properties hold, but all of this is probably more work than you want to do.
Generally, when doing calendar date arithmetic people are interested in the "difference between dates". You can visualize this by imagining a paper calendar with the dates printed on it and putting a coin or stone or other marker on the starting date. If you are only allowed to move the marker to the immediately following date, how many moves would it take you to get to the ending date? That is the difference between the two dates in days.
One other practical consideration, though, is whether your application really includes the end date. It is typical for insurance contracts, for example, to not include the end date. Policies expire at 12:01 am on the end date. If you buy a policy that expires tomorrow, it's good for less than a day. On the other hand, in California, a "3 day notice to pay rent or quit" eviction notice gives you more than 3 days to get out. You have until the end of the third business day after the notice is served to pay the rent. So Wednesday + 3 days is actually Monday unless Monday is a holiday, in which case it is Tuesday and either way you get the whole final day, so a landlord cannot proceed until today > Wednesday + 3 days, i.e Tuesday or Wednesday. So it's not a straightforward calculation.
The good news is that because it comes up so often, there are libraries you can use to do the calculations and real life situations have reasonably well defined how they want date calculations done in order to clear up just these sorts of confusions.
So you really need to do your homework and correctly specify what interval you are talking about. | You have to consider the context, if my working schedule is from monday to friday my boss will be a bit displeased if I only show up for 4 days.
That's because in this context, monday doesn't only stand for monday but for monday 8:30 and friday stands for friday 17:00. |
150,930 | I am trying to make an algorithm that counts the days between two dates, e.g. between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012.
What is the correct answer, or the most popular choice? Should be the one I use?
In this case, if I don't include both dates I am comparing, the days are 0; if I include one of them, the days are 1; if I include both, the days are 2. | 2012/05/31 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/150930",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/43277/"
] | I think it is a question of terminology and context.
If days between excludes the bounds, then the days between the two dates would be 0. Whereever this may be needed.
Date difference, i.e. how many days do I need to add to the start date to reach the end date: 1.
Or a date interval, including the bounds, e.g. how many leave days do I have from a start to an end date? Here the answer is 2. | It depends a lot on context, but in my opinion the obvious answer is to include 1 of the dates in the count.
Let's assume you count neither. And also let's assume there's an application that uses your algorithm to determine the difference of 2 dates typed by the user. In this case, the difference between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012 is 0. Is it then ok for the user to assume that the 2 dates are equal ? Because that's what 0 suggests: no difference between them -->> they're equal. It's probably wrong...
Let's then assume you count both. In this case, the difference will never be less than 2. Are there 2 days between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012 ? Certainly not. What about between 3/1/2012 and 3/1/2012 ? Again: no.
Given the fact that you only have dates as input and no time, I would do the algorithm like this:
* if date 1 is equal to date 2, then the answer is 0
* if date 1 is different than date 2, then the answer is the number of days between them + 1 (the "+ 1" means than one of the date is included in the count).
As I said in the beginning: this ultimately depends on your business requirements. |
150,930 | I am trying to make an algorithm that counts the days between two dates, e.g. between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012.
What is the correct answer, or the most popular choice? Should be the one I use?
In this case, if I don't include both dates I am comparing, the days are 0; if I include one of them, the days are 1; if I include both, the days are 2. | 2012/05/31 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/150930",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/43277/"
] | **Both Dates, because that is what the users expect** (in most cases)
I have worked on a few projects that had to work with logic surrounding dates, and expiration of entities. And there are some pitfalls.
The nature of those pitfalls is that what makes sense to a programmer isn't necessarily what makes sense to the people using the application.
People in the business would normally say stuff like, this thing is active from the 1. to the 31. of July. Now what they mean is that both dates are are included, i.e. it should be active for 31 days, not 30. But that defies normal arithmetic rules.
So if you take the question from the end users point of view, then in my experience the answer should be that you need to include both dates when calculating the number of days.
**A few examples from my work experience:**
I worked at creating an online job board, and we had plenty of problems with end dates for some entity types (expiration for a job, a subscription, etc). These would be specified as the last day this entity was still valid, which is what got stored in the database. But what made sense in the code would be to have the exact time when the entity would change state, i.e. at 00:00 the following date. That lead to very complex domain logic.
At some point, I refactored the entire system, adding one day to every *EndDate* in the database, and then moved the logic to the presentation layer, specifying that the actual date presented to the user should be the day preceding the one in the database. This lead to much, much cleaner domain logic regarding item expiration.
When I did the next project I worked with where date/entity expiration logic was important, I created a specific *Date* data type to encompass these rules, including overloading comparison operators with the build in *DateTime* class, arithmetic operators, etc. This lead to even simpler code, as it much better reflected the domain model, and the requirements for the presentation layer to subtract one day from all end days was removed, also removing the risk that someone would forget to implement this. | You have to consider the context, if my working schedule is from monday to friday my boss will be a bit displeased if I only show up for 4 days.
That's because in this context, monday doesn't only stand for monday but for monday 8:30 and friday stands for friday 17:00. |
150,930 | I am trying to make an algorithm that counts the days between two dates, e.g. between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012.
What is the correct answer, or the most popular choice? Should be the one I use?
In this case, if I don't include both dates I am comparing, the days are 0; if I include one of them, the days are 1; if I include both, the days are 2. | 2012/05/31 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/150930",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/43277/"
] | I think it is a question of terminology and context.
If days between excludes the bounds, then the days between the two dates would be 0. Whereever this may be needed.
Date difference, i.e. how many days do I need to add to the start date to reach the end date: 1.
Or a date interval, including the bounds, e.g. how many leave days do I have from a start to an end date? Here the answer is 2. | **Both Dates, because that is what the users expect** (in most cases)
I have worked on a few projects that had to work with logic surrounding dates, and expiration of entities. And there are some pitfalls.
The nature of those pitfalls is that what makes sense to a programmer isn't necessarily what makes sense to the people using the application.
People in the business would normally say stuff like, this thing is active from the 1. to the 31. of July. Now what they mean is that both dates are are included, i.e. it should be active for 31 days, not 30. But that defies normal arithmetic rules.
So if you take the question from the end users point of view, then in my experience the answer should be that you need to include both dates when calculating the number of days.
**A few examples from my work experience:**
I worked at creating an online job board, and we had plenty of problems with end dates for some entity types (expiration for a job, a subscription, etc). These would be specified as the last day this entity was still valid, which is what got stored in the database. But what made sense in the code would be to have the exact time when the entity would change state, i.e. at 00:00 the following date. That lead to very complex domain logic.
At some point, I refactored the entire system, adding one day to every *EndDate* in the database, and then moved the logic to the presentation layer, specifying that the actual date presented to the user should be the day preceding the one in the database. This lead to much, much cleaner domain logic regarding item expiration.
When I did the next project I worked with where date/entity expiration logic was important, I created a specific *Date* data type to encompass these rules, including overloading comparison operators with the build in *DateTime* class, arithmetic operators, etc. This lead to even simpler code, as it much better reflected the domain model, and the requirements for the presentation layer to subtract one day from all end days was removed, also removing the risk that someone would forget to implement this. |
150,930 | I am trying to make an algorithm that counts the days between two dates, e.g. between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012.
What is the correct answer, or the most popular choice? Should be the one I use?
In this case, if I don't include both dates I am comparing, the days are 0; if I include one of them, the days are 1; if I include both, the days are 2. | 2012/05/31 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/150930",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/43277/"
] | I would answer 1 because they are one day apart. There isn't a right answer to this though. It depends on the requirements for what you want to accomplish. | You have to consider the context, if my working schedule is from monday to friday my boss will be a bit displeased if I only show up for 4 days.
That's because in this context, monday doesn't only stand for monday but for monday 8:30 and friday stands for friday 17:00. |
150,930 | I am trying to make an algorithm that counts the days between two dates, e.g. between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012.
What is the correct answer, or the most popular choice? Should be the one I use?
In this case, if I don't include both dates I am comparing, the days are 0; if I include one of them, the days are 1; if I include both, the days are 2. | 2012/05/31 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/150930",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/43277/"
] | First what would make sense in your application if both dates were the same day? In my opinion the obvious answer is 0 and if that's your answer as well then the logical conclusion is to map dates that differ by one day to 1 and not 2. If you map dates that differ by a day to 2 then you have a gap and there is no way to map dates that don't coincide to 1. From a mathematical perspective things feel more consistent if there are no gaps. | I would answer 1 because they are one day apart. There isn't a right answer to this though. It depends on the requirements for what you want to accomplish. |
150,930 | I am trying to make an algorithm that counts the days between two dates, e.g. between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012.
What is the correct answer, or the most popular choice? Should be the one I use?
In this case, if I don't include both dates I am comparing, the days are 0; if I include one of them, the days are 1; if I include both, the days are 2. | 2012/05/31 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/150930",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/43277/"
] | I would answer 1 because they are one day apart. There isn't a right answer to this though. It depends on the requirements for what you want to accomplish. | It depends a lot on context, but in my opinion the obvious answer is to include 1 of the dates in the count.
Let's assume you count neither. And also let's assume there's an application that uses your algorithm to determine the difference of 2 dates typed by the user. In this case, the difference between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012 is 0. Is it then ok for the user to assume that the 2 dates are equal ? Because that's what 0 suggests: no difference between them -->> they're equal. It's probably wrong...
Let's then assume you count both. In this case, the difference will never be less than 2. Are there 2 days between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012 ? Certainly not. What about between 3/1/2012 and 3/1/2012 ? Again: no.
Given the fact that you only have dates as input and no time, I would do the algorithm like this:
* if date 1 is equal to date 2, then the answer is 0
* if date 1 is different than date 2, then the answer is the number of days between them + 1 (the "+ 1" means than one of the date is included in the count).
As I said in the beginning: this ultimately depends on your business requirements. |
150,930 | I am trying to make an algorithm that counts the days between two dates, e.g. between 3/1/2012 and 3/2/2012.
What is the correct answer, or the most popular choice? Should be the one I use?
In this case, if I don't include both dates I am comparing, the days are 0; if I include one of them, the days are 1; if I include both, the days are 2. | 2012/05/31 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/150930",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/43277/"
] | I would answer 1 because they are one day apart. There isn't a right answer to this though. It depends on the requirements for what you want to accomplish. | **Both Dates, because that is what the users expect** (in most cases)
I have worked on a few projects that had to work with logic surrounding dates, and expiration of entities. And there are some pitfalls.
The nature of those pitfalls is that what makes sense to a programmer isn't necessarily what makes sense to the people using the application.
People in the business would normally say stuff like, this thing is active from the 1. to the 31. of July. Now what they mean is that both dates are are included, i.e. it should be active for 31 days, not 30. But that defies normal arithmetic rules.
So if you take the question from the end users point of view, then in my experience the answer should be that you need to include both dates when calculating the number of days.
**A few examples from my work experience:**
I worked at creating an online job board, and we had plenty of problems with end dates for some entity types (expiration for a job, a subscription, etc). These would be specified as the last day this entity was still valid, which is what got stored in the database. But what made sense in the code would be to have the exact time when the entity would change state, i.e. at 00:00 the following date. That lead to very complex domain logic.
At some point, I refactored the entire system, adding one day to every *EndDate* in the database, and then moved the logic to the presentation layer, specifying that the actual date presented to the user should be the day preceding the one in the database. This lead to much, much cleaner domain logic regarding item expiration.
When I did the next project I worked with where date/entity expiration logic was important, I created a specific *Date* data type to encompass these rules, including overloading comparison operators with the build in *DateTime* class, arithmetic operators, etc. This lead to even simpler code, as it much better reflected the domain model, and the requirements for the presentation layer to subtract one day from all end days was removed, also removing the risk that someone would forget to implement this. |
6,163 | When making cider, can you carbonate it using tablets? and should this be in the demijohn or in the bottles? | 2012/01/30 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/6163",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/2103/"
] | Sure, you can use them and they'll work just fine. I've heard the carb levels can be low with 1 tab per bottle, so you'll have to experiment.
(As an aside, a little cheaper method that a lot of cider makers do is to thaw out a can of frozen apple juice concentrate and dump it into a 5 gal batch before bottling - or about 8-10oz of Apple Juice per gallon can be used as well.) | You can carbonate cider by bottle conditioning exactly the same way you would with beer. Either use tabs or boil some form of sugar in a small amount of water, cool and add it to the bucket prior to bottling. Make sure it is mixed well or the carbonation will be inconsistent between bottles. Also, don't bottle until fermentation is complete, or they will end up overcarbonated.
My last cider was carbonated with 4.5oz of corn sugar (the standard amount for carbonating beer). The level of carbonation seemed appropriate to me. |
24,317 | I'm interested in being a video game designer but I know next to nothing about how to do what ever it is I will be doing as a game designer. Could you offer any advice of a good online area where I could learn about the basics of game designing and later on the more complicated information. | 2012/02/22 | [
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/24317",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/users/13638/"
] | I happen to have a list of such links on my website: <http://www.newarteest.com/game_dev.html>
The most helpful resource for someone in your position (ie. interested in but has no idea what video game designers do) is the first one on the list: <http://www.sloperama.com/advice.html> | <http://www.gamedev.net/forum/31-for-beginners/> |
58,743 | If you'd like to request a climb to a higher flight level while cruising, which do you think is a more proper way to request it:
1. Request to climb FL350
2. Request climb FL350
I know they have zero difference in meaning between them, but I'm curious which one might sound more natural or professional in the EPTA test. | 2019/01/05 | [
"https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/58743",
"https://aviation.stackexchange.com",
"https://aviation.stackexchange.com/users/20179/"
] | I would say that “Request climb FL350” is better.
I never use the word “to” in altitude requests as it can be confused with “”two” as in “request climb to seven thousand” (request climb two seven thousand)
If you get in the habit of using “to” with flight levels, you will probably use it in a baro altitude request as well.
I also leave out “climb” and just say “request FL350”. But, when ATC says “climb FL350”, I will read back “climb FL350”. | You can't go wrong with "XXX requests (or requesting) climb FL350". In practice you'll hear a number of ways of saying it, some more conversational than others, depending on how busy the comm freq is.
Also, if you are calling in from out of the blue looking for a significant change in your clearance like that, it's good etiquette to give Center a heads up by saying "Soandso Center, XXXX with a request", then follow up when the controller answers. |
251,669 | As explained in [this answer](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/250423/70323), the TVA exists in a "Supreme Timeline" which is "above" the timelines which they overrule. They are "outside of time", in the sense that they live in a time of their own, and can look at the timeline(s) of the regular world.
But if this is the case, then why was it changed by the end of episode 6 of *Loki*?
I realize that this might be explained in season 2, but I have a feeling I just missed something. | 2021/07/19 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/251669",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/70323/"
] | I believe you're going to have to wait until something else in Phase 4 or season 2 of *Loki* itself for a definitive answer. At the moment though we have two conflicting pieces of information from Marvel themselves so it seems it isn't finalised yet.
Farahani, the production designer, has stated that Loki was actually sent to a different timeline. This would mean then that the TVA exists in a higher level outside of time but only outside of time to their own timeline, sort of like Sakaar or the quantum realm. In this case it isn't that the TVA is affected, it's that we're actually in a different TVA.
>
> Farahani reveals that the look and design of the Kang statue was a game day decision designed by the in-house VisDev team. He assures Marvel.com that the entire set dressing of the TVA architecture was identical to the TVA we started the series with, in order “to delay the audience and Loki’s understanding that they were in a different place, that they were in a different timeline.”
>
>
> [Marvel, Loki: Deconstructing He Who Remains’ Life’s Work at the Citadel at the End of Time](https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/loki-he-who-remains-citadel-end-of-time-kang-statue)
>
>
>
Hiddleston gives a slightly different explanation in that the TVA we're in is the same as we've seen previously but it has been changed. He doesn't explain how this happens though. I will note though that outside of time doesn't mean it can't change at all. Kang, or another He Who Remains variant, could have changed things at the TVA without re-writing it all. Note that they have all the technology to do this including TemPads, Reset Charges, variants etc. We also don't really know how long Loki was sat down in the Time Theatre.
>
> It’s a good plan that quickly goes sideways. No sooner does he reach Mobius and Hunter B-15, “He realizes that in the time he's been sitting on that step, something has changed.”
>
>
> “Something has changed reality, including the reality of the TVA,” Hiddleston says. “The three statues of the Time Keepers are no more. In their place is a statue of Kang. And that his friend Mobius doesn't recognize him and doesn't know who he is. His destabilization in that moment is profound.”
>
>
> [Marvel, ‘Loki’: How the Cliffhanger Ending Sets the Stage for What’s Next](https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/loki-cliffhanger-tva-he-who-remains-kang)
>
>
>
Kate Herron has since gone on record to say something similar to both Farahani and Hiddleston in that it's a different TVA but the same. The reality of it has changed because of what has happened.
>
> **Since the TVA resides outside of time, what can you say about the mechanics of the final scene?**
>
>
> So the way I see it in my head is that the TVA exists outside of space and time, but reality and everything as we understood it has completely changed in the last few minutes. With the multiverse branching, how do we know the TVA *still* exists in that way? We don’t know, and I suppose that’s a big question that will be answered as the show goes on. But in my head, the intention is that Sylvie thinks she’s sending him back to the TVA, but because of the way time and branches are crossing each other outside the window, Loki has unfortunately been sent back somewhere very different. So reality has shifted just by the nature of what He Who Remains said, and the idea is that he’s in this alternate TVA now.
>
>
> [The Hollywood Reporter, ‘Loki’ Director Kate Herron on Casting Jonathan Majors with Peyton Reed and Sylvie’s “Horrible Goodbye”](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/loki-episode-6-ending-kate-herron-alternate-scenes-1234984129/)
>
>
> | While the TVA exists in a region separate from the Sacred Timeline, that region itself came into existence as a result of the actions of He Who Remains, within the timeline-bound multiverse. After Sylvie kills Nathaniel Richards (He Who Remains) the entire timeline is freed from stabilizing control and history returns to its previously chaotic form, reinstantiating the entire multiverse including the multiverse war, allowing an entirely different variant of Nathaniel Richards (possibly Kang the Conqueror) to emerge as the winner. Whichever variant wins will go on to create the TVA... which will then be separate from the new Sacred Timeline enforced by the new boss.
As is often the case when messing with time, this makes little sense to time-bound minds like ours. If it made any kind of sense at all then I'd be asking why Loki manages to remember things as they were instead of retaining his memory of the TVA as it was before the new instance. I guess we can hand-wave it away as an effect of having been in the Citadel at the End of Time at a critical moment.
Presumably at some point Kang will reach the same point as He Who Remains and set up the conditions for a Loki variant - or some other Hero - to come and finish him off, letting the entire cycle start over... until we eventually end up with a Nathaniel Richards variant who either abdicates to a machine or feeds the entire timeline to Alioth. It'll probably be replaced with something even more incomprehensible. |
251,669 | As explained in [this answer](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/250423/70323), the TVA exists in a "Supreme Timeline" which is "above" the timelines which they overrule. They are "outside of time", in the sense that they live in a time of their own, and can look at the timeline(s) of the regular world.
But if this is the case, then why was it changed by the end of episode 6 of *Loki*?
I realize that this might be explained in season 2, but I have a feeling I just missed something. | 2021/07/19 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/251669",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/70323/"
] | I believe you're going to have to wait until something else in Phase 4 or season 2 of *Loki* itself for a definitive answer. At the moment though we have two conflicting pieces of information from Marvel themselves so it seems it isn't finalised yet.
Farahani, the production designer, has stated that Loki was actually sent to a different timeline. This would mean then that the TVA exists in a higher level outside of time but only outside of time to their own timeline, sort of like Sakaar or the quantum realm. In this case it isn't that the TVA is affected, it's that we're actually in a different TVA.
>
> Farahani reveals that the look and design of the Kang statue was a game day decision designed by the in-house VisDev team. He assures Marvel.com that the entire set dressing of the TVA architecture was identical to the TVA we started the series with, in order “to delay the audience and Loki’s understanding that they were in a different place, that they were in a different timeline.”
>
>
> [Marvel, Loki: Deconstructing He Who Remains’ Life’s Work at the Citadel at the End of Time](https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/loki-he-who-remains-citadel-end-of-time-kang-statue)
>
>
>
Hiddleston gives a slightly different explanation in that the TVA we're in is the same as we've seen previously but it has been changed. He doesn't explain how this happens though. I will note though that outside of time doesn't mean it can't change at all. Kang, or another He Who Remains variant, could have changed things at the TVA without re-writing it all. Note that they have all the technology to do this including TemPads, Reset Charges, variants etc. We also don't really know how long Loki was sat down in the Time Theatre.
>
> It’s a good plan that quickly goes sideways. No sooner does he reach Mobius and Hunter B-15, “He realizes that in the time he's been sitting on that step, something has changed.”
>
>
> “Something has changed reality, including the reality of the TVA,” Hiddleston says. “The three statues of the Time Keepers are no more. In their place is a statue of Kang. And that his friend Mobius doesn't recognize him and doesn't know who he is. His destabilization in that moment is profound.”
>
>
> [Marvel, ‘Loki’: How the Cliffhanger Ending Sets the Stage for What’s Next](https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/loki-cliffhanger-tva-he-who-remains-kang)
>
>
>
Kate Herron has since gone on record to say something similar to both Farahani and Hiddleston in that it's a different TVA but the same. The reality of it has changed because of what has happened.
>
> **Since the TVA resides outside of time, what can you say about the mechanics of the final scene?**
>
>
> So the way I see it in my head is that the TVA exists outside of space and time, but reality and everything as we understood it has completely changed in the last few minutes. With the multiverse branching, how do we know the TVA *still* exists in that way? We don’t know, and I suppose that’s a big question that will be answered as the show goes on. But in my head, the intention is that Sylvie thinks she’s sending him back to the TVA, but because of the way time and branches are crossing each other outside the window, Loki has unfortunately been sent back somewhere very different. So reality has shifted just by the nature of what He Who Remains said, and the idea is that he’s in this alternate TVA now.
>
>
> [The Hollywood Reporter, ‘Loki’ Director Kate Herron on Casting Jonathan Majors with Peyton Reed and Sylvie’s “Horrible Goodbye”](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/loki-episode-6-ending-kate-herron-alternate-scenes-1234984129/)
>
>
> | One thing of note to consider with regards to the "time of their own" - as I understand, we never see it being represented in the timeline viewer showing the TVA itself get close to Red Lining, like how the Nexus Events do in the regular timeline before they get reset.
I don't have immediate quotes on-hand at the moment, but in Episode 2, Loki and Miss Minutes discuss the whole reason they have to worry about Red Lining a branch, because it means that they can no longer reset it safely, as part of his training before the first Nexus Event he is brought to - where Loki himself attempts to stall until it red lines.
It's my understanding that the "Supreme Timeline" that He Who Remains and the TVA were in were subject to similar logic, as He Who Remains was speaking with the Lokis at his point in time on the Supreme Timeline. This meant that, as He Who Remains had not removed the Lokis who were able to start a Nexus Event where he lived, and nobody else was interfering with them to stop them from continuing on that branch, the TVA timeline began to Red Line at the moment that He Who Remains noticed he could no longer tell how the rest of the conversation was going to go.
While one could say that the moment he didn't know how the conversation was going to go was similar to how in Doctor Strange 1, The Ancient One could not see beyond their own death, that He Who Remains was not yet dead at that moment strikes me as him only knowing what happens until a timeline itself Red Lines, as the Nexus Evented Timeline Split has gone beyond what he wanted the timeline to be. |
251,669 | As explained in [this answer](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/250423/70323), the TVA exists in a "Supreme Timeline" which is "above" the timelines which they overrule. They are "outside of time", in the sense that they live in a time of their own, and can look at the timeline(s) of the regular world.
But if this is the case, then why was it changed by the end of episode 6 of *Loki*?
I realize that this might be explained in season 2, but I have a feeling I just missed something. | 2021/07/19 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/251669",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/70323/"
] | While the TVA exists in a region separate from the Sacred Timeline, that region itself came into existence as a result of the actions of He Who Remains, within the timeline-bound multiverse. After Sylvie kills Nathaniel Richards (He Who Remains) the entire timeline is freed from stabilizing control and history returns to its previously chaotic form, reinstantiating the entire multiverse including the multiverse war, allowing an entirely different variant of Nathaniel Richards (possibly Kang the Conqueror) to emerge as the winner. Whichever variant wins will go on to create the TVA... which will then be separate from the new Sacred Timeline enforced by the new boss.
As is often the case when messing with time, this makes little sense to time-bound minds like ours. If it made any kind of sense at all then I'd be asking why Loki manages to remember things as they were instead of retaining his memory of the TVA as it was before the new instance. I guess we can hand-wave it away as an effect of having been in the Citadel at the End of Time at a critical moment.
Presumably at some point Kang will reach the same point as He Who Remains and set up the conditions for a Loki variant - or some other Hero - to come and finish him off, letting the entire cycle start over... until we eventually end up with a Nathaniel Richards variant who either abdicates to a machine or feeds the entire timeline to Alioth. It'll probably be replaced with something even more incomprehensible. | One thing of note to consider with regards to the "time of their own" - as I understand, we never see it being represented in the timeline viewer showing the TVA itself get close to Red Lining, like how the Nexus Events do in the regular timeline before they get reset.
I don't have immediate quotes on-hand at the moment, but in Episode 2, Loki and Miss Minutes discuss the whole reason they have to worry about Red Lining a branch, because it means that they can no longer reset it safely, as part of his training before the first Nexus Event he is brought to - where Loki himself attempts to stall until it red lines.
It's my understanding that the "Supreme Timeline" that He Who Remains and the TVA were in were subject to similar logic, as He Who Remains was speaking with the Lokis at his point in time on the Supreme Timeline. This meant that, as He Who Remains had not removed the Lokis who were able to start a Nexus Event where he lived, and nobody else was interfering with them to stop them from continuing on that branch, the TVA timeline began to Red Line at the moment that He Who Remains noticed he could no longer tell how the rest of the conversation was going to go.
While one could say that the moment he didn't know how the conversation was going to go was similar to how in Doctor Strange 1, The Ancient One could not see beyond their own death, that He Who Remains was not yet dead at that moment strikes me as him only knowing what happens until a timeline itself Red Lines, as the Nexus Evented Timeline Split has gone beyond what he wanted the timeline to be. |
80,268 | So in the story I'm trying to write, I'm having trouble getting the gravity on my fictional to seem realistic, and I would like to know if it seems technically possible?
A group of astronauts travel through a portal in spacetime and land on a small moon with earthmoon-like gravity, but an oxygen rich atmosphere. A group of technically advanced aliens, thinking that the humans are native to the planet but aren't properly evolved to suit it, gather the astronauts and genetically mutate them so that their bodies are better adapted to the atmosphere. Over thousands of years, after the adapted humans see the aliens as a threatening force and destroy them, they are left with dense bones largely constructed from a superdense metal that is rich in the soils and minerals of the moon. (as well as stronger muscles and lungs and other minor physiological changes)
My question is this, with an environment supporting moon like (0.16 g) gravity but also a breathable atmosphere, would these newly dense humans be able to walk on the surface like every-day humans do in earth, their density simulating earth gravity, or would they simply move the same way humans already do on the moon, because weight doesn't matter in low gravity, even while in an environment with oxygen? Yes or no and why or why not?
Thanks folks! | 2017/05/08 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/80268",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/37919/"
] | **NO**
The funny thing with gravity is that big and tinny masses fall with the same acceleration. (when ignoring air resistance) The equality between gravitational and inertial mass is suprising, but true. So is your humans are twice as dense, they experience two times higher force, but since their inertia is two times bigger too, they still fall with the same acceleration as normal humans.
Oxygen atmosphere is irrelevant in this matter, except that the air resistance limits a bit their jumping height. | Humans in this environment would move like humans on the moon. Their bones are heavier, but their muscles are also stronger. Given what seems to be an equivalent strength to weight ratio, these stronger, heavier humans would still move with the characteristic bounding gait of men on the moon, though atmospheric drag would lead to their leaps being less of a perfect parabola, resulting in a steeper descent than ascent.
Gravity operates as a field of constant acceleration irrespective of mass, the effective force between two objects being proportional to the combined mass. Lower gravity means slower falls. (It also usually means less atmosphere, since fast molecules can escape more easily.) |
80,268 | So in the story I'm trying to write, I'm having trouble getting the gravity on my fictional to seem realistic, and I would like to know if it seems technically possible?
A group of astronauts travel through a portal in spacetime and land on a small moon with earthmoon-like gravity, but an oxygen rich atmosphere. A group of technically advanced aliens, thinking that the humans are native to the planet but aren't properly evolved to suit it, gather the astronauts and genetically mutate them so that their bodies are better adapted to the atmosphere. Over thousands of years, after the adapted humans see the aliens as a threatening force and destroy them, they are left with dense bones largely constructed from a superdense metal that is rich in the soils and minerals of the moon. (as well as stronger muscles and lungs and other minor physiological changes)
My question is this, with an environment supporting moon like (0.16 g) gravity but also a breathable atmosphere, would these newly dense humans be able to walk on the surface like every-day humans do in earth, their density simulating earth gravity, or would they simply move the same way humans already do on the moon, because weight doesn't matter in low gravity, even while in an environment with oxygen? Yes or no and why or why not?
Thanks folks! | 2017/05/08 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/80268",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/37919/"
] | Acceleration remains 0.16 g
===========================
No, your humans will not walk about as they would on Earth. Your aliens have actually made it **harder** for them to move about.
The reason is that you have normalized their **weight**, that is to say the **force** on the ground and thereby restored friction to what it is on Earth. But you have done so by increasing their **mass**, and not done a thing about the **acceleration**.
So the astronauts will still need to resort to [that bunny-hop mode of moving that the astronauts on the Moon used](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKdwcLytloU) used, but now they will have to put much more effort into moving their extremities and body around. | **NO**
The funny thing with gravity is that big and tinny masses fall with the same acceleration. (when ignoring air resistance) The equality between gravitational and inertial mass is suprising, but true. So is your humans are twice as dense, they experience two times higher force, but since their inertia is two times bigger too, they still fall with the same acceleration as normal humans.
Oxygen atmosphere is irrelevant in this matter, except that the air resistance limits a bit their jumping height. |
80,268 | So in the story I'm trying to write, I'm having trouble getting the gravity on my fictional to seem realistic, and I would like to know if it seems technically possible?
A group of astronauts travel through a portal in spacetime and land on a small moon with earthmoon-like gravity, but an oxygen rich atmosphere. A group of technically advanced aliens, thinking that the humans are native to the planet but aren't properly evolved to suit it, gather the astronauts and genetically mutate them so that their bodies are better adapted to the atmosphere. Over thousands of years, after the adapted humans see the aliens as a threatening force and destroy them, they are left with dense bones largely constructed from a superdense metal that is rich in the soils and minerals of the moon. (as well as stronger muscles and lungs and other minor physiological changes)
My question is this, with an environment supporting moon like (0.16 g) gravity but also a breathable atmosphere, would these newly dense humans be able to walk on the surface like every-day humans do in earth, their density simulating earth gravity, or would they simply move the same way humans already do on the moon, because weight doesn't matter in low gravity, even while in an environment with oxygen? Yes or no and why or why not?
Thanks folks! | 2017/05/08 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/80268",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/37919/"
] | Acceleration remains 0.16 g
===========================
No, your humans will not walk about as they would on Earth. Your aliens have actually made it **harder** for them to move about.
The reason is that you have normalized their **weight**, that is to say the **force** on the ground and thereby restored friction to what it is on Earth. But you have done so by increasing their **mass**, and not done a thing about the **acceleration**.
So the astronauts will still need to resort to [that bunny-hop mode of moving that the astronauts on the Moon used](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKdwcLytloU) used, but now they will have to put much more effort into moving their extremities and body around. | Humans in this environment would move like humans on the moon. Their bones are heavier, but their muscles are also stronger. Given what seems to be an equivalent strength to weight ratio, these stronger, heavier humans would still move with the characteristic bounding gait of men on the moon, though atmospheric drag would lead to their leaps being less of a perfect parabola, resulting in a steeper descent than ascent.
Gravity operates as a field of constant acceleration irrespective of mass, the effective force between two objects being proportional to the combined mass. Lower gravity means slower falls. (It also usually means less atmosphere, since fast molecules can escape more easily.) |
1,070 | I think the only way to use them together is to put on dry lube first and then wet lube.
Will the wet lube hold? Will applying both give you the best that each has to offer?
**Update**
Just found this video on YouTube. It teaches you three techniques to clean your chain. If you forward to timecode 8:20 of the video. He mentions that you can put on Finish Line's Dry Teflon Lube and later you can put another lube on top of it:
Just wondering if this is ok.
**Update**
Just bought some Finish Line products to do some chain maintenance. On the back of the Finish Line product pamphlet they have a list called "Pro Team Mechanic Tips". Two of the items on the list contain techniques that use two different lubes/greases on the same chain...I've included them below...
* In extremely wet conditions, some mechanics will lube the chain with WET lube, then apply a top coating of Teflon Grease to the chain.
* In semi-wet conditions, some will apply DRY Lube to the chain as a base coat, and then a top coat of WET lube.
So, I think based on this list and the video link I found above. Applying both lubes is an acceptable technique. | 2010/09/20 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/1070",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/105/"
] | I don't think so - they are designed to be used individually, and for a specific purpose.
[Like I answered to a previous question](https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/q/633/213), the Wet / Dry naming of the product is a hint as to what conditions the product is designed for.
Wet lube is typically more like motor or sewing machine oil, and is designed to coat the chain and protect it in wet conditions. This will pick up dirt and gunk, but it will be mostly kept on the surface and will help keep water and other corrosive substances out of the links.
Dry lube is usually a teflon lube in an evaporating or wax base, so the teflon particles stay in the links without a lot of wet "gunk" left on the chain to pick up sand, dust, grime, etc. and is great for dry, dusty conditions. | Doubtful. Differing lubricants can act as solvents for each other, causing it to drip out and be lubeless. This was attributed as the cause of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashing; differing maintenance crews lubed the horizontal trim jackscrew with two different lubricants. They dripped out, the part failed, and the jet crashed. |
1,070 | I think the only way to use them together is to put on dry lube first and then wet lube.
Will the wet lube hold? Will applying both give you the best that each has to offer?
**Update**
Just found this video on YouTube. It teaches you three techniques to clean your chain. If you forward to timecode 8:20 of the video. He mentions that you can put on Finish Line's Dry Teflon Lube and later you can put another lube on top of it:
Just wondering if this is ok.
**Update**
Just bought some Finish Line products to do some chain maintenance. On the back of the Finish Line product pamphlet they have a list called "Pro Team Mechanic Tips". Two of the items on the list contain techniques that use two different lubes/greases on the same chain...I've included them below...
* In extremely wet conditions, some mechanics will lube the chain with WET lube, then apply a top coating of Teflon Grease to the chain.
* In semi-wet conditions, some will apply DRY Lube to the chain as a base coat, and then a top coat of WET lube.
So, I think based on this list and the video link I found above. Applying both lubes is an acceptable technique. | 2010/09/20 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/1070",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/105/"
] | I don't think so - they are designed to be used individually, and for a specific purpose.
[Like I answered to a previous question](https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/q/633/213), the Wet / Dry naming of the product is a hint as to what conditions the product is designed for.
Wet lube is typically more like motor or sewing machine oil, and is designed to coat the chain and protect it in wet conditions. This will pick up dirt and gunk, but it will be mostly kept on the surface and will help keep water and other corrosive substances out of the links.
Dry lube is usually a teflon lube in an evaporating or wax base, so the teflon particles stay in the links without a lot of wet "gunk" left on the chain to pick up sand, dust, grime, etc. and is great for dry, dusty conditions. | After some experimentation with dry and wet lubes I've found that they are -indeed- designed for what they're named after.
In summer I'll use dry lubricant. My chain will pick up less dust and other crap but if I get caught in the rain I need to clean and re-oil my chain immediately after or it'll start to rust.
The rest of the year I use wet lubricant. My chain picks up more gunk but less of it comes off the road when I pass, so that evens out, and with the wet lube my chain can take a few showers before I have to clean and re-oil. |
1,070 | I think the only way to use them together is to put on dry lube first and then wet lube.
Will the wet lube hold? Will applying both give you the best that each has to offer?
**Update**
Just found this video on YouTube. It teaches you three techniques to clean your chain. If you forward to timecode 8:20 of the video. He mentions that you can put on Finish Line's Dry Teflon Lube and later you can put another lube on top of it:
Just wondering if this is ok.
**Update**
Just bought some Finish Line products to do some chain maintenance. On the back of the Finish Line product pamphlet they have a list called "Pro Team Mechanic Tips". Two of the items on the list contain techniques that use two different lubes/greases on the same chain...I've included them below...
* In extremely wet conditions, some mechanics will lube the chain with WET lube, then apply a top coating of Teflon Grease to the chain.
* In semi-wet conditions, some will apply DRY Lube to the chain as a base coat, and then a top coat of WET lube.
So, I think based on this list and the video link I found above. Applying both lubes is an acceptable technique. | 2010/09/20 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/1070",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/105/"
] | I don't think so - they are designed to be used individually, and for a specific purpose.
[Like I answered to a previous question](https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/q/633/213), the Wet / Dry naming of the product is a hint as to what conditions the product is designed for.
Wet lube is typically more like motor or sewing machine oil, and is designed to coat the chain and protect it in wet conditions. This will pick up dirt and gunk, but it will be mostly kept on the surface and will help keep water and other corrosive substances out of the links.
Dry lube is usually a teflon lube in an evaporating or wax base, so the teflon particles stay in the links without a lot of wet "gunk" left on the chain to pick up sand, dust, grime, etc. and is great for dry, dusty conditions. | They will work one against the other. If it was such a good idea, you could probably find a pre-mixed bottle at your local bike store. |
1,070 | I think the only way to use them together is to put on dry lube first and then wet lube.
Will the wet lube hold? Will applying both give you the best that each has to offer?
**Update**
Just found this video on YouTube. It teaches you three techniques to clean your chain. If you forward to timecode 8:20 of the video. He mentions that you can put on Finish Line's Dry Teflon Lube and later you can put another lube on top of it:
Just wondering if this is ok.
**Update**
Just bought some Finish Line products to do some chain maintenance. On the back of the Finish Line product pamphlet they have a list called "Pro Team Mechanic Tips". Two of the items on the list contain techniques that use two different lubes/greases on the same chain...I've included them below...
* In extremely wet conditions, some mechanics will lube the chain with WET lube, then apply a top coating of Teflon Grease to the chain.
* In semi-wet conditions, some will apply DRY Lube to the chain as a base coat, and then a top coat of WET lube.
So, I think based on this list and the video link I found above. Applying both lubes is an acceptable technique. | 2010/09/20 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/1070",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/105/"
] | I asked [a friend](http://mattdeblass.blogspot.com/) about this. He's a bicycle mechanic, and he sent me this in response to this question:
>
> I don't think it will do any harm, I just doubt it will do much good either. First of all, my experience makes me think that "layering" lube isn't going to do much, since the motion of the chain pivots (the lube only works INSIDE the chain, where it pivots, all the lube sitting on top of your chain does nothing but attract dirt) will simply stir the two lubes together and mix them up, so the order that you put them on isn't going to have a measurable effect.
>
>
> Second, I don't know what benefit you'd get by blending the two. Teflon "dry" lube is a great all around lubricant which attracts relatively little crud. However, in very wet conditions it washes off pretty easily. Wet lubes are stickier and pick up more dirt, but don't wash off as easily in wet conditions. So by mixing wet and dry lube you should get a coating of lubrication that... well, picks up a lot of dirt but doesn't wash off easily in wet conditions.
>
>
> What the video he referenced may have meant is that you don't have to clean dry lube off your chain before putting on additional wet lube. It is possible that you can "thin out" a wet lubricant by mixing it with a lighter lube to get an in-between mix, I've never really experimented that much.
>
>
> The only way to really damage your chain with lubrication would be to use something like motor oil which hardens with prolonged exposure to air, to allow a sticky lube to attract too much grit which will wear your chain down, or to rely entirely something like WD-40 which evaporates within 48 hours and leaves your chain effectively unlubricated.
>
>
> | Doubtful. Differing lubricants can act as solvents for each other, causing it to drip out and be lubeless. This was attributed as the cause of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashing; differing maintenance crews lubed the horizontal trim jackscrew with two different lubricants. They dripped out, the part failed, and the jet crashed. |
1,070 | I think the only way to use them together is to put on dry lube first and then wet lube.
Will the wet lube hold? Will applying both give you the best that each has to offer?
**Update**
Just found this video on YouTube. It teaches you three techniques to clean your chain. If you forward to timecode 8:20 of the video. He mentions that you can put on Finish Line's Dry Teflon Lube and later you can put another lube on top of it:
Just wondering if this is ok.
**Update**
Just bought some Finish Line products to do some chain maintenance. On the back of the Finish Line product pamphlet they have a list called "Pro Team Mechanic Tips". Two of the items on the list contain techniques that use two different lubes/greases on the same chain...I've included them below...
* In extremely wet conditions, some mechanics will lube the chain with WET lube, then apply a top coating of Teflon Grease to the chain.
* In semi-wet conditions, some will apply DRY Lube to the chain as a base coat, and then a top coat of WET lube.
So, I think based on this list and the video link I found above. Applying both lubes is an acceptable technique. | 2010/09/20 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/1070",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/105/"
] | I asked [a friend](http://mattdeblass.blogspot.com/) about this. He's a bicycle mechanic, and he sent me this in response to this question:
>
> I don't think it will do any harm, I just doubt it will do much good either. First of all, my experience makes me think that "layering" lube isn't going to do much, since the motion of the chain pivots (the lube only works INSIDE the chain, where it pivots, all the lube sitting on top of your chain does nothing but attract dirt) will simply stir the two lubes together and mix them up, so the order that you put them on isn't going to have a measurable effect.
>
>
> Second, I don't know what benefit you'd get by blending the two. Teflon "dry" lube is a great all around lubricant which attracts relatively little crud. However, in very wet conditions it washes off pretty easily. Wet lubes are stickier and pick up more dirt, but don't wash off as easily in wet conditions. So by mixing wet and dry lube you should get a coating of lubrication that... well, picks up a lot of dirt but doesn't wash off easily in wet conditions.
>
>
> What the video he referenced may have meant is that you don't have to clean dry lube off your chain before putting on additional wet lube. It is possible that you can "thin out" a wet lubricant by mixing it with a lighter lube to get an in-between mix, I've never really experimented that much.
>
>
> The only way to really damage your chain with lubrication would be to use something like motor oil which hardens with prolonged exposure to air, to allow a sticky lube to attract too much grit which will wear your chain down, or to rely entirely something like WD-40 which evaporates within 48 hours and leaves your chain effectively unlubricated.
>
>
> | After some experimentation with dry and wet lubes I've found that they are -indeed- designed for what they're named after.
In summer I'll use dry lubricant. My chain will pick up less dust and other crap but if I get caught in the rain I need to clean and re-oil my chain immediately after or it'll start to rust.
The rest of the year I use wet lubricant. My chain picks up more gunk but less of it comes off the road when I pass, so that evens out, and with the wet lube my chain can take a few showers before I have to clean and re-oil. |
1,070 | I think the only way to use them together is to put on dry lube first and then wet lube.
Will the wet lube hold? Will applying both give you the best that each has to offer?
**Update**
Just found this video on YouTube. It teaches you three techniques to clean your chain. If you forward to timecode 8:20 of the video. He mentions that you can put on Finish Line's Dry Teflon Lube and later you can put another lube on top of it:
Just wondering if this is ok.
**Update**
Just bought some Finish Line products to do some chain maintenance. On the back of the Finish Line product pamphlet they have a list called "Pro Team Mechanic Tips". Two of the items on the list contain techniques that use two different lubes/greases on the same chain...I've included them below...
* In extremely wet conditions, some mechanics will lube the chain with WET lube, then apply a top coating of Teflon Grease to the chain.
* In semi-wet conditions, some will apply DRY Lube to the chain as a base coat, and then a top coat of WET lube.
So, I think based on this list and the video link I found above. Applying both lubes is an acceptable technique. | 2010/09/20 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/1070",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/105/"
] | I asked [a friend](http://mattdeblass.blogspot.com/) about this. He's a bicycle mechanic, and he sent me this in response to this question:
>
> I don't think it will do any harm, I just doubt it will do much good either. First of all, my experience makes me think that "layering" lube isn't going to do much, since the motion of the chain pivots (the lube only works INSIDE the chain, where it pivots, all the lube sitting on top of your chain does nothing but attract dirt) will simply stir the two lubes together and mix them up, so the order that you put them on isn't going to have a measurable effect.
>
>
> Second, I don't know what benefit you'd get by blending the two. Teflon "dry" lube is a great all around lubricant which attracts relatively little crud. However, in very wet conditions it washes off pretty easily. Wet lubes are stickier and pick up more dirt, but don't wash off as easily in wet conditions. So by mixing wet and dry lube you should get a coating of lubrication that... well, picks up a lot of dirt but doesn't wash off easily in wet conditions.
>
>
> What the video he referenced may have meant is that you don't have to clean dry lube off your chain before putting on additional wet lube. It is possible that you can "thin out" a wet lubricant by mixing it with a lighter lube to get an in-between mix, I've never really experimented that much.
>
>
> The only way to really damage your chain with lubrication would be to use something like motor oil which hardens with prolonged exposure to air, to allow a sticky lube to attract too much grit which will wear your chain down, or to rely entirely something like WD-40 which evaporates within 48 hours and leaves your chain effectively unlubricated.
>
>
> | They will work one against the other. If it was such a good idea, you could probably find a pre-mixed bottle at your local bike store. |
614,835 | I have a v-large number of hierarchical structures (or DTO's) that are shared across different business logic, application tiers, web service and WCF contracts. I want to refactor all of my code to split the structures into discreet business domain areas.
Two questions:
1. Are there any tools that can help me do this (given that I want class A, list all of the dependencies)?
2. Is there a case for duplicating DTO's in different application domains to allow them to evolve independently? The idea of a fixed Canonical Business Model is pure fiction! | 2009/03/05 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/614835",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/31188/"
] | Resharper/CodeRush can help with question# 1. They both have good support for refactoring. | Structure 101 (not free)(www.structure101.com/) and/or Code Navigator (free) (<http://plugins.intellij.net/plugin/?id=3202>) might be useful |
614,835 | I have a v-large number of hierarchical structures (or DTO's) that are shared across different business logic, application tiers, web service and WCF contracts. I want to refactor all of my code to split the structures into discreet business domain areas.
Two questions:
1. Are there any tools that can help me do this (given that I want class A, list all of the dependencies)?
2. Is there a case for duplicating DTO's in different application domains to allow them to evolve independently? The idea of a fixed Canonical Business Model is pure fiction! | 2009/03/05 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/614835",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/31188/"
] | Regarding number 2:
sure, bounded context: <http://dddcommunity.org/discussion/messageboardarchive/BoundedContext.html>
check this post to understand it better: <http://devlicio.us/blogs/casey/archive/2009/02/11/ddd-bounded-contexts.aspx>
For number 1 Resharper :) | Resharper/CodeRush can help with question# 1. They both have good support for refactoring. |
614,835 | I have a v-large number of hierarchical structures (or DTO's) that are shared across different business logic, application tiers, web service and WCF contracts. I want to refactor all of my code to split the structures into discreet business domain areas.
Two questions:
1. Are there any tools that can help me do this (given that I want class A, list all of the dependencies)?
2. Is there a case for duplicating DTO's in different application domains to allow them to evolve independently? The idea of a fixed Canonical Business Model is pure fiction! | 2009/03/05 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/614835",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/31188/"
] | <http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/code_refactoring.html#Rename> | Structure 101 (not free)(www.structure101.com/) and/or Code Navigator (free) (<http://plugins.intellij.net/plugin/?id=3202>) might be useful |
614,835 | I have a v-large number of hierarchical structures (or DTO's) that are shared across different business logic, application tiers, web service and WCF contracts. I want to refactor all of my code to split the structures into discreet business domain areas.
Two questions:
1. Are there any tools that can help me do this (given that I want class A, list all of the dependencies)?
2. Is there a case for duplicating DTO's in different application domains to allow them to evolve independently? The idea of a fixed Canonical Business Model is pure fiction! | 2009/03/05 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/614835",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/31188/"
] | Regarding number 2:
sure, bounded context: <http://dddcommunity.org/discussion/messageboardarchive/BoundedContext.html>
check this post to understand it better: <http://devlicio.us/blogs/casey/archive/2009/02/11/ddd-bounded-contexts.aspx>
For number 1 Resharper :) | <http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/code_refactoring.html#Rename> |
614,835 | I have a v-large number of hierarchical structures (or DTO's) that are shared across different business logic, application tiers, web service and WCF contracts. I want to refactor all of my code to split the structures into discreet business domain areas.
Two questions:
1. Are there any tools that can help me do this (given that I want class A, list all of the dependencies)?
2. Is there a case for duplicating DTO's in different application domains to allow them to evolve independently? The idea of a fixed Canonical Business Model is pure fiction! | 2009/03/05 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/614835",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/31188/"
] | I'll start with [NDepend](http://www.ndepend.com/) analysis to list dependencies (see this article : [Control Component Dependencies to gain cleaner architecture](http://www.theserverside.net/tt/articles/showarticle.tss?id=ControllingDependencies))
And then I'll use Resharper to ease the refactoring.
Good luck. | Structure 101 (not free)(www.structure101.com/) and/or Code Navigator (free) (<http://plugins.intellij.net/plugin/?id=3202>) might be useful |
614,835 | I have a v-large number of hierarchical structures (or DTO's) that are shared across different business logic, application tiers, web service and WCF contracts. I want to refactor all of my code to split the structures into discreet business domain areas.
Two questions:
1. Are there any tools that can help me do this (given that I want class A, list all of the dependencies)?
2. Is there a case for duplicating DTO's in different application domains to allow them to evolve independently? The idea of a fixed Canonical Business Model is pure fiction! | 2009/03/05 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/614835",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/31188/"
] | Regarding number 2:
sure, bounded context: <http://dddcommunity.org/discussion/messageboardarchive/BoundedContext.html>
check this post to understand it better: <http://devlicio.us/blogs/casey/archive/2009/02/11/ddd-bounded-contexts.aspx>
For number 1 Resharper :) | I'll start with [NDepend](http://www.ndepend.com/) analysis to list dependencies (see this article : [Control Component Dependencies to gain cleaner architecture](http://www.theserverside.net/tt/articles/showarticle.tss?id=ControllingDependencies))
And then I'll use Resharper to ease the refactoring.
Good luck. |
614,835 | I have a v-large number of hierarchical structures (or DTO's) that are shared across different business logic, application tiers, web service and WCF contracts. I want to refactor all of my code to split the structures into discreet business domain areas.
Two questions:
1. Are there any tools that can help me do this (given that I want class A, list all of the dependencies)?
2. Is there a case for duplicating DTO's in different application domains to allow them to evolve independently? The idea of a fixed Canonical Business Model is pure fiction! | 2009/03/05 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/614835",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/31188/"
] | Regarding number 2:
sure, bounded context: <http://dddcommunity.org/discussion/messageboardarchive/BoundedContext.html>
check this post to understand it better: <http://devlicio.us/blogs/casey/archive/2009/02/11/ddd-bounded-contexts.aspx>
For number 1 Resharper :) | Structure 101 (not free)(www.structure101.com/) and/or Code Navigator (free) (<http://plugins.intellij.net/plugin/?id=3202>) might be useful |
80,283 | I spoke with a research professor who informed me that I may be able to work with him on a systematic review. However, he warned that it can be very tedious and frustrating so I should think about it. I understand that a systematic review involves looking through many papers, however, I would appreciate if someone could tell me, from their experience, how it is tedious. I would also have other classes in addition to this research so would be able to work on it for about 10 hours a week. | 2016/11/22 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/80283",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63878/"
] | Tedious has a negative connotation. In many ways systematic review is meticulous, which to some people may appear tedious. One who enjoys reading, inspecting clues, and putting puzzles together to reveal hidden patterns would enjoy doing a systematic review.
The first hurdle is perhaps setting up the research question and search criteria. If the set of keywords is not close to perfect the resultant articles may not be exhaustive, and being exhaustive is a spirit of systematic review. In addition, all searches need to be documented through writing or using codes, so that the search can be replicated by other people.
The second hurdle is combing through moderate to large amounts of abstracts in order to identify the right targets. A set of carefully developed selection criteria will help. But a good handful of the retrieved abstracts may still fall into the gray zone and require some meetings to sort them out
Then it comes the actual reading and data extraction. This can take months and months of reading, re-reading, tabulation, and revision. Again, if the authors know what to extract very clearly, the process can get less iterative.
Notice that for the previous two hurdles, some research team may require two or more researchers to do them independently and then compare their results for agreement before divvying up the work. Be prepared for frequent team meetings or communications for troubleshooting.
The last hurdle is to put all the tabulated information into use, through grouping, sorting, summary, and synthesis. This requires a great deal of understanding from the reading process and one's experience. The process can often be iterative. Making a good conceptual framework will help setting up a more robust draft. Keeping the research questions in mind as the north pointer can also prevent getting lost.
And, all of the actions above need to be documented so that anyone can pick up the review and conduct a similar search (say, maybe 5 or 10 years later) in order to compare with what you found. In a way, systematic review can be viewed as an exhaustive, planned, and replicable literature review.
Now back to your case. If it's 10 hours a week for a semester, chance is you will not see the fruition of the article, but you can definitely take part. The important part is to get a very clear idea which part of the process you're taking. Article searching and downloading may work for more flexible schedule, even 10 hours on a day per week is fine as long as you keep good searching notes. But if it's the later stage, it's better to work on it by small amount, like 2 hours every day, as the later stage requires more consistent immersion and regurgitating.
And if I may make another suggestion, ask if the supervisor needs anyone to do a more general literature review for a grant proposal or a journal article. That should give you a smaller, more defined task and you can use this chance to see if you like this kind of work and, more importantly, if you and your supervisor work well together. | A review article can be a massive undertaking.
There might be no co-authorship if your contribution is not significant enough, if the scope of the review paper is very large and your contribution is a very small proportion of the work involved. Check whether or not you may expect authorship credit.
I am concerned that this might end up being grunt work for you.
On the other hand, even without co-authorship, if you are really interested in the subject, and if you are able to put clear limits on how much time you put in, and stick to them, it could be worthwhile for you.
It can be tedious in the sense that there can be so many articles to include in the review that it starts to feel like you're crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a rowboat.
(Not that I have ever written one. But I typed one in LaTeX for my advisor and even that started to feel rather endless after a while. I am still astounded how he managed to keep track of so many different papers.) |
80,283 | I spoke with a research professor who informed me that I may be able to work with him on a systematic review. However, he warned that it can be very tedious and frustrating so I should think about it. I understand that a systematic review involves looking through many papers, however, I would appreciate if someone could tell me, from their experience, how it is tedious. I would also have other classes in addition to this research so would be able to work on it for about 10 hours a week. | 2016/11/22 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/80283",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63878/"
] | Tedious has a negative connotation. In many ways systematic review is meticulous, which to some people may appear tedious. One who enjoys reading, inspecting clues, and putting puzzles together to reveal hidden patterns would enjoy doing a systematic review.
The first hurdle is perhaps setting up the research question and search criteria. If the set of keywords is not close to perfect the resultant articles may not be exhaustive, and being exhaustive is a spirit of systematic review. In addition, all searches need to be documented through writing or using codes, so that the search can be replicated by other people.
The second hurdle is combing through moderate to large amounts of abstracts in order to identify the right targets. A set of carefully developed selection criteria will help. But a good handful of the retrieved abstracts may still fall into the gray zone and require some meetings to sort them out
Then it comes the actual reading and data extraction. This can take months and months of reading, re-reading, tabulation, and revision. Again, if the authors know what to extract very clearly, the process can get less iterative.
Notice that for the previous two hurdles, some research team may require two or more researchers to do them independently and then compare their results for agreement before divvying up the work. Be prepared for frequent team meetings or communications for troubleshooting.
The last hurdle is to put all the tabulated information into use, through grouping, sorting, summary, and synthesis. This requires a great deal of understanding from the reading process and one's experience. The process can often be iterative. Making a good conceptual framework will help setting up a more robust draft. Keeping the research questions in mind as the north pointer can also prevent getting lost.
And, all of the actions above need to be documented so that anyone can pick up the review and conduct a similar search (say, maybe 5 or 10 years later) in order to compare with what you found. In a way, systematic review can be viewed as an exhaustive, planned, and replicable literature review.
Now back to your case. If it's 10 hours a week for a semester, chance is you will not see the fruition of the article, but you can definitely take part. The important part is to get a very clear idea which part of the process you're taking. Article searching and downloading may work for more flexible schedule, even 10 hours on a day per week is fine as long as you keep good searching notes. But if it's the later stage, it's better to work on it by small amount, like 2 hours every day, as the later stage requires more consistent immersion and regurgitating.
And if I may make another suggestion, ask if the supervisor needs anyone to do a more general literature review for a grant proposal or a journal article. That should give you a smaller, more defined task and you can use this chance to see if you like this kind of work and, more importantly, if you and your supervisor work well together. | >
> tedious and frustrating
>
>
>
Systematic reviews are tedious and frustrating. There is a high level of transparency and accountability in every stage of the review process, which can make it very complex. Many "big" reviews are a product of a series of articles as the result. Some reviews publish there methodology as a separate article, BMJ Open is one I have seen, and then their review in another.
Ultimately, you are setting up and defending a process that another researcher can hopefully pick up, rinse and repeat when they want to pick up new articles from when your review finished. Setting up a search strategy, usually with an academic librarian is important. Then strategising and documenting the tedious process before the next step of sifting through the sometimes enormous numbers of articles. I have seen reviews which included nearly 10K to 20K title elimination. That is probably where the frustration levels hit the roof (and you haven't even started the analysis and write up process!).
I thought this is worth a new contribution because there are now plenty of systematic review tools that can help reduce the tediousness and frustration. So more time can be spent on the "meatier" sections of analysis and write up, but there is no consensus on the tools as yet.Most of the systematic review tools are developed by the health disciplines, so understandably some are open source are available to all. So you can hopefully adapt them to whatever field that you are in. My simple Google found these sites, but I am sure you can find more appropriate ones for yourself (Google adapts to your preferences).
Personally, I was keen to use Covidence for my review, but my supervisors were keen to stick to their tried and trusted Excel, argh.
<https://ktdrr.org/resources/sr-resources/tools.html>
<http://systematicreviewtools.com> |
109,552 | In one of my books it says that you omit the definite article in cases when you talk about things in general. Is there a sentence in which I could use 20s or 60s as a time period of some years without *the*?
This is an example with a definite article (I think):
>
> We got through the 20s as ...
>
>
>
Does this mean that we got through the 20's of the current/last century (1920s in this case)?
Could there be something like this?
>
> We love 20s.
>
>
>
Does this mean that we love the 20s of any century in general?
Or is perhaps "20s" without an article possible in some other context?
I'm a bit confused about what is a general thing and what is a unique thing which is with
*the* as well, at least in my books. For example:
>
> Let's meet at the cinema.
>
>
>
...meaning a unique cinema in a city. | 2016/11/16 | [
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/109552",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/users/28935/"
] | I suppose if you wanted to say something about the "20s decade" of any century, you could say, "I love 20s" or "20s are periods of change" or whatever. But it's such an unlikely thing to say, I'd be surprised if you could find an example.
But to take a more likely analogy, suppose you were talking about the basement of a building. If you were talking about the basement of one particular building, you might say, "I clean the basement." You use "the" because you are talking about one particular basement. But if you wanted to talk about the basement of any building, you could say, "I clean basements." Now there's no article because we are talking about basements in general and not one particular basement.
As "the 20s" would normally be understood to mean "the 1920s", we are talking about one particular period of time, so you use the singular and the definite article. (I suppose if someone in 1840 talked about "the 20s", he presumably meant "the 1820s", and if 30 years from now people talk about "the 20s", they'll probably mean "the 2020s", unless the context makes clear that you're talking about some other century.)
Note that regardless of whether you are talking about a specific thing or a general thing, if you use the singular, you need an article, a possessive, the number "one", or one of a few other special pronouns. Like if we are searching for your lost dog, I might say, "I see the dog" or "I see your dog." If we are wandering about and see an unknown dog, I would say, "I see a dog." It would never be correct to say, "I see dog." (Well, you could say "I see Dog" if you are talking about Dog the Bounty Hunter, a person named "Dog". But then it's a proper noun.)
As Mick notes in his comment, you could use "20s" without an article if you were using it as an adjective rather than a noun, and the noun in question does not call for an article. Which would usually mean that it is either plural or uncountable. "I like 20s music" (uncountable) or "There were several 20s cars in the antique car show" (plural). | You are referring to the 1920's, the years 1920 to 1929 inclusive.
In the same way you are referring to the 1960's. These are a definite article, they are "The 1920's", which can be shortened to: "The 20's", to mean the 1920's. So you need "the" definite article.
If you want to refer to the 1820's, you should probably specify this in full, to avoid ambiguity. |
77,775 | In catalog design the cover often has little information. A photo, company name, maybe a website, and a header possibly with subheader seems to be fairly common.
For an example here's a Ford Fiesta catalog:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ImV4u.jpg)
They could've put additional copy. The HP, Best in Class, ample cargo space, etc in some of that white space and still had a nice design.
Here's a Pelican case catalog cover:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JjZT9.jpg)
Again, they could've chosen a different design to fit a small blurb about their cases build quality and durability on there beyond the "Watertight Protector Cases" tagline.
---
Is there any factual data to support this design over jumping right into the body copy on the cover? Understandably there's a historical trend from books of... This is the cover, open the cover and then you have the content. The question is, in current design of marketing collateral does any data indicate a relevance to keep with that precedence? | 2016/09/21 | [
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/77775",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/2611/"
] | I'm sure there are other ways to go about this, but this is how I successfully created this effect in just a few minutes.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xkeuh.gif)
1. Begin with a solid white or black shape. (I used a square.)
2. Then, I would draw the lines using the pen tool across the shape to
create the flow of the design. I'd turn off fill and use whatever
color stroke you like. (The stroke will help you see what you are
doing and won't appear in the final design.) I created a very quick
example myself, but you can take more time/care to lay these lines
out in an interesting and aesthetically appealing manner. I began by
creating one curvy line across the middle of the rectangle.
3. I then Alt-clicked the line and dragged a copy below that one.
4. I adjusted the curves just a tiny bit as I saw fit.
5. I continued to copy/paste and adjust these lines until my entire
shape was completely covered.
6. Now, select everything (Ctrl+A) and use the Pathfinder tool and
choose "Divide".
7. Right-click and choose "Ungroup." You now have individual shapes
that you can alternately color black and white (or whatever colors
you choose.) If you Ctrl+Shift-click every other shape you can color
them all at together at the same time. | You could also get more refined or closer to perfect lines if you use BLEND to transition from one line to the next. It might be quicker too because you only need to draw 2 lines possibly.
I would create the top line and then the last line and then select both lines and select on the menu: Object / Blend / Make.
Now you can go to Object / Blend / Blend Options to make changes to how the lines blend.
Once the multiple lines are created then you can do as SaraB says by creating a box around all of the lines and then following steps 6 and 7:
1. Now, select everything (Ctrl+A) and use the Pathfinder tool and
choose "Divide".
2. Right-click and choose "Ungroup." You now have
individual shapes that you can alternately color black and white (or
whatever colors you choose.) If you Ctrl+Shift-click every other
shape you can color them all at together at the same time.
Hope this helps.
Chris |
14,327 | In the 2009 film *Star Trek*, we see a young Kirk enter StarFleet Academy. A few years pass, and he takes the Kobayashi Maru test. Shortly afterwards, Nero attacks, and he ends up on the Enterprise. What rank (if any) was he at this point? Shortly afterwards, Pike promotes him, and through his cunning he manages to get promoted to Captain. I'd hope he wasn't just a rank-less cadet at the start of this, but the movie never makes it obvious. | 2012/04/05 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/14327",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | Kirk was a suspended cadet when the attack happens.
>
> This was due to his [questionable behavior regarding the Kobiyashi Maru test](http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/James_T._Kirk_%28alternate_reality%29#Starfleet_academy).
>
>
>
[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/James\_T.*Kirk*(alternate\_reality)](http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/James_T._Kirk_%28alternate_reality%29#USS_Enterprise) | He was a cadet. Cadet is a rank in and of itself; the various cadet grades are usually not considered outside the cadet hierarchy.
That he was suspended doesn't change his rank (tho' he was apparently seconds away from being an ex-cadet).
We also do not know the canonical cadet grades, but, we presume to use the same system of cadet grades as the [USNA at Anapolis does](http://navyadministration.tpub.com/12966/css/12966_186.htm), he's a Cadet 1st Class (4th year cadet), possibly holding the positional grade of Cadet Lieutenant.
**A Note on Midshipman**
In the US, at least, a Midshipman is a Cadet or officer candidate in a naval officer training program, including the US Naval Academy at Annapolis and NROTC. It is also used for the cadets at the US Merchant Marine Academy. They hold authority just below that of a Chief Warrant Officer (W2), according to Naval manuals ([such as *Naval Orientation - Military manual for administrative purposes*](http://navyadministration.tpub.com/12966/css/12966_185.htm)). Historically, there was a rank called "Passed Midshipman," but it was replaced with Ensign in the late 19th C.
Various non-canon sources (especially the various Role-playing games) make an artificial distinction between Midshipman and Cadet, with Cadets being in the 4 year undergraduate program, and Midshipmen being in later training prior to assignment as an Ensign or Lieutenant JG. This distinction was introduced to this author in FASA's Star Trek The Role-Playing Game, and may be based upon prior fanon; the use of Midshipman in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan may have contributed to this.
Such a distinction would make Star Fleet less like the US Navy ranks-wise; A US Navy Midshipman is an academy cadet; upon completion of the undergraduate portion, they are commissioned as ensigns, exactly as USMA West Point cadets are graduated as Second Lieutenants. Post graduation schooling at the USNA does occur; attendees are not cadets nor midshipmen, retaining full commissioned rank, even as some privileges are suspended for persons assigned to take training.
In either case, Kirk was a 4th year, and the mode of address in the film is "Cadet," so by either mode for midshipman, Mr. Kirk was not one. Starfleet either doesn't use "Midshipman" during that era, or reserves it for some other use. |
14,327 | In the 2009 film *Star Trek*, we see a young Kirk enter StarFleet Academy. A few years pass, and he takes the Kobayashi Maru test. Shortly afterwards, Nero attacks, and he ends up on the Enterprise. What rank (if any) was he at this point? Shortly afterwards, Pike promotes him, and through his cunning he manages to get promoted to Captain. I'd hope he wasn't just a rank-less cadet at the start of this, but the movie never makes it obvious. | 2012/04/05 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/14327",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | When Chekov is trying to lock on to Kirk and Sulu (to beam them up) as they were falling from the black hole device, you can see on the screen that Chekov is using the names **Lt, J. Kirk** and **Lt, H. Sulu**. So I assume then that he was holding the rank of **Lieutenant.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YkER3.png)
Obviously this raises another question about how quickly he went from Lieutenant to Captain (an extremely short period of time) but I suppose in wartime they did promote fast through 'battlefield promotions'. Maybe that's what happened to Kirk. | Kirk was a suspended cadet when the attack happens.
>
> This was due to his [questionable behavior regarding the Kobiyashi Maru test](http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/James_T._Kirk_%28alternate_reality%29#Starfleet_academy).
>
>
>
[http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/James\_T.*Kirk*(alternate\_reality)](http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/James_T._Kirk_%28alternate_reality%29#USS_Enterprise) |
14,327 | In the 2009 film *Star Trek*, we see a young Kirk enter StarFleet Academy. A few years pass, and he takes the Kobayashi Maru test. Shortly afterwards, Nero attacks, and he ends up on the Enterprise. What rank (if any) was he at this point? Shortly afterwards, Pike promotes him, and through his cunning he manages to get promoted to Captain. I'd hope he wasn't just a rank-less cadet at the start of this, but the movie never makes it obvious. | 2012/04/05 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/14327",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | When Chekov is trying to lock on to Kirk and Sulu (to beam them up) as they were falling from the black hole device, you can see on the screen that Chekov is using the names **Lt, J. Kirk** and **Lt, H. Sulu**. So I assume then that he was holding the rank of **Lieutenant.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YkER3.png)
Obviously this raises another question about how quickly he went from Lieutenant to Captain (an extremely short period of time) but I suppose in wartime they did promote fast through 'battlefield promotions'. Maybe that's what happened to Kirk. | He was a cadet. Cadet is a rank in and of itself; the various cadet grades are usually not considered outside the cadet hierarchy.
That he was suspended doesn't change his rank (tho' he was apparently seconds away from being an ex-cadet).
We also do not know the canonical cadet grades, but, we presume to use the same system of cadet grades as the [USNA at Anapolis does](http://navyadministration.tpub.com/12966/css/12966_186.htm), he's a Cadet 1st Class (4th year cadet), possibly holding the positional grade of Cadet Lieutenant.
**A Note on Midshipman**
In the US, at least, a Midshipman is a Cadet or officer candidate in a naval officer training program, including the US Naval Academy at Annapolis and NROTC. It is also used for the cadets at the US Merchant Marine Academy. They hold authority just below that of a Chief Warrant Officer (W2), according to Naval manuals ([such as *Naval Orientation - Military manual for administrative purposes*](http://navyadministration.tpub.com/12966/css/12966_185.htm)). Historically, there was a rank called "Passed Midshipman," but it was replaced with Ensign in the late 19th C.
Various non-canon sources (especially the various Role-playing games) make an artificial distinction between Midshipman and Cadet, with Cadets being in the 4 year undergraduate program, and Midshipmen being in later training prior to assignment as an Ensign or Lieutenant JG. This distinction was introduced to this author in FASA's Star Trek The Role-Playing Game, and may be based upon prior fanon; the use of Midshipman in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan may have contributed to this.
Such a distinction would make Star Fleet less like the US Navy ranks-wise; A US Navy Midshipman is an academy cadet; upon completion of the undergraduate portion, they are commissioned as ensigns, exactly as USMA West Point cadets are graduated as Second Lieutenants. Post graduation schooling at the USNA does occur; attendees are not cadets nor midshipmen, retaining full commissioned rank, even as some privileges are suspended for persons assigned to take training.
In either case, Kirk was a 4th year, and the mode of address in the film is "Cadet," so by either mode for midshipman, Mr. Kirk was not one. Starfleet either doesn't use "Midshipman" during that era, or reserves it for some other use. |
126,287 | I came across this sentence:
>
> Marriage is -- first and foremost -- a societal institution, which is why it is only natural that it would primarily be formed in a magistrate.
>
>
>
I find this argument to be overly-simplistic, because it appears to ignore all the cultural background of marriage as an institution. But if I had to describe this argument, I would like to use an adjective that draws attention to its "rationality". I'm not really sure how to describe it. To me the argument seems too focused on being rational (i.e. based on cold hard logic), and in doing so it ignores the more humane aspects of marriage, which in my opinion is un-wise.
That's how I feel, and that's what I'd like to communicate.
Is there any (probably uncommon and advanced-level) adjective that would help me communicate my thoughts? A bit longer expressions are also fine, it doesn't need to be one single word. I'm just looking to expand my vocabulary. | 2017/04/11 | [
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/126287",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/users/48794/"
] | If you look at the entry for **give** in the [Cambridge Dictionary](http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/give), you will see that it can have two objects. This means that you can specify the recipient in two ways:
>
> Give the money to me -*recipient linked with preposition **to***
>
> Give me the money - *recipient is an indirect object: no preposition required*
>
>
>
If you look at the entry for [recommend](http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/recommend), you will not see any reference to two objects: The only object is the information that you are providing. Although it is technically possible to insert an indirect object for any verb, most people use a preposition with **recommend**, and I advise you to do the same.
If you want to specify the recipient, you should therefore use the preposition **to**. Note that if the recipient is the person that you are talking to, it is not necessary to specify the recipient:
>
> May I recommend a group class to deal with your anger
>
>
>
For anybody else, you should use **to**:
>
> I recommended an anger management class **to** him
>
> I recommended **to** him that he should take a group class to deal with his anger
>
>
> | You don't need it: this construction is generally available with ditransitive verbs.
>
> I gave the book to him = I gave him the book.
>
>
> She offered a drink to me = She offered me a drink.
>
>
>
So
>
> May I recommend a group class to you to deal with your anger = May I recommend you a group class to deal with your anger.
>
>
>
Having said that, the construction is much more frequent with short, common verbs like "give" and send" than with longer verbs such as "recommend". The NOW corpus has the following numbers of instances of the construction "*verb* *pronoun* *article*" with different verbs:
* *give* 199408
* *send* 29430
* *show* 12797
* *offer* 7439
* *sell* 1932
* *owe* 1853
* *read* 905
* *promise* 469
* *recommend* 30
* *demonstrate* 4
As you see, there are not many instances of "recommend" used in this way in the corpus. |
83,704 | I have two existing 12/3 NM-B cables that are used to connect two different circuits, which are distributed from a junction box close to the location I want to add a washing machine. The washing machine requires 12/2 wire, and a 20A fuse. Each of these existing 12/3 cables has a spare red wire. Can I use one of these red wires as neutral, and the other as load to the 20A fuse? Should I pull a new cable instead? | 2016/02/04 | [
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/83704",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/users/48758/"
] | You should definitely pull a new cable for the washing machine circuit.
---
Problems with your solution
---------------------------
* You can't use a red wire as a neutral (See NEC 200.6(A)).
* Circuit conductors (wires) must be contained in the same "*raceway, auxiliary gutter, cable tray, cablebus assembly, trench, cable, or cord*" (See NEC 300.3(B)).
* You have not clearly described where all the wires in the junction box come from/go to, or what else is on those circuits. So there's no way to know for sure if it's possible to use them to power the washing machine.
* Laundry branch circuits are not allowed to have any other outlets (See NEC 210.11(C)(2)).
* Laundry outlets must be GFCI protected (See NEC 210.8(A)(10)). | This would be called a multi wire branch circuit. The circuit breaker for the red and black wires must be on adjacent circuit breakers for it to be legal.
The red black also need to be identified so the wiring doesn’t get separated at a later date as that would undersize your neutral.
This is legal because 1 wire is on L1 and 1 wire is on L2 the return current on the white is 180 out of phase so if there were a big load on both wires the total would always be below the 20A rating in this case.
(When I say adjacent breakers I mean full size not “split” or double breakers in 1 space). Let me be more specific you have to use the neutral and ground with the 12-3 with the black and red on adjacent breakers. I thought I had explained this but with minus it must not have been clear now it should be. |
83,704 | I have two existing 12/3 NM-B cables that are used to connect two different circuits, which are distributed from a junction box close to the location I want to add a washing machine. The washing machine requires 12/2 wire, and a 20A fuse. Each of these existing 12/3 cables has a spare red wire. Can I use one of these red wires as neutral, and the other as load to the 20A fuse? Should I pull a new cable instead? | 2016/02/04 | [
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/83704",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/users/48758/"
] | You should definitely pull a new cable for the washing machine circuit.
---
Problems with your solution
---------------------------
* You can't use a red wire as a neutral (See NEC 200.6(A)).
* Circuit conductors (wires) must be contained in the same "*raceway, auxiliary gutter, cable tray, cablebus assembly, trench, cable, or cord*" (See NEC 300.3(B)).
* You have not clearly described where all the wires in the junction box come from/go to, or what else is on those circuits. So there's no way to know for sure if it's possible to use them to power the washing machine.
* Laundry branch circuits are not allowed to have any other outlets (See NEC 210.11(C)(2)).
* Laundry outlets must be GFCI protected (See NEC 210.8(A)(10)). | Maybe you CAN do this.
You cannot send current up one cable and down another. Wires are grouped for a reason, so magnetic fields cancel out. Anything inside a loop of wire becomes the core of a toroid, which is much more powerful than you think, especially if there is any metal inside.
Are you saying both 12/3’s power a circuit on their black wire, and the red wires are used for nothing? Hmm, there might be a way to do this, depending on what else they go to. Specifically, there must be a site near the washing machine where a crossover can be run, and one of them must serve no loads before that site - let's call that cable B.
First, bone up on what a multi-wire branch circuit is (MWBC). Critics, bear with me!
Cable A becomes a MWBC. Its black wire serves the loads already on it. Its red wire serves cable B past the washer.
Cable B is cut at a carefully chosen place that leaves enough wire to do this: The upstream side (the homerun, let's call it cable BB now) goes from the service panel to the washing machine site. The downstream side crosses over to cable A, and its black wire is now fed by cable A's red wire. Its neutral and ground tie to cable A's.
Circuit A is now an MWBC feeding cables A and B. At the panel, Cable A's red and black must go into a 2-pole breaker, or 2 singles tied with an approved handle tie. This will force them to be on opposite poles. If you use GCFI it must be a 2-pole GFCI.
Circuit BB now feeds the washer receptacle exclusively, as required by code.
You will almost certainly need to extend one or both cables to make this work. This is allowed, as long as the splices are inside a junction box and a sensible amount of excess lead is available.
Send your house's electrician a gift basket for spending the extra $5 to put in extra wire. |
90,673 | In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.
Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.
My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?
**Update**
I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.
I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference). | 2017/06/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] | (Disclosure: I'm not a professor.)
I don't personally see any ethical concerns SO LONG AS you indicate clearly (as you said you would do) that the recommendation letter will be equally strong regardless of whether or not the student applies through your spouse. Under those circumstances, I'd call this "networking," not "bribery" or "coercion".
The idea you proposed of writing the letter first and *then* informing the student seems like a nice way of ensuring that the student knows you've written a strong letter. There is the possibility that the student will still feel pressured, of course -- "if I don't say yes, then my professor will send a second contradictory letter" -- but assuming you have a positive relationship with the student, that seems unlikely. | Disclaimer: this is not legal advice. This is just a personal opinion. I might be somewhat though in comparison with most.
This is a borderline case. In general however I would stay away from this unless you are very sure the alumni would like this job. Although I am utterly convinced of your good intention, even if you say there will be no consequences the alumni might not believe you. That sounds like it is not your problem but you have an authority position and so you don't have a relationship of equals. This means that you must be much more careful. And in this case the doubt might, completely independent of you, be somewhat justified, because you might not **intentionally** write a worse recommendation letter. But **unintentionally** you might. At least I could see that as a legitimate worry.
First writing the letter might be a good guarantee like @tonysdg pointed out. However I still think this is not optimal since then you might write an overly positive recommendation letter because you want the student to be hired **for your personal gain** (reputation within the college can also be gain) or it might at least be perceived that way.
This might be immoral to the company or towards other students (since they get comparatively less positive recommendation letters).
I can see this working in a morally acceptable way but I think there is alot to be carfull about. In general I would be at the very least cautious when having a monetary/reputational (outside your reputation as teacher) incentive in dealing with students outside of the money adn reputation you get from the university. |
90,673 | In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.
Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.
My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?
**Update**
I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.
I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference). | 2017/06/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] | (Disclosure: I'm not a professor.)
I don't personally see any ethical concerns SO LONG AS you indicate clearly (as you said you would do) that the recommendation letter will be equally strong regardless of whether or not the student applies through your spouse. Under those circumstances, I'd call this "networking," not "bribery" or "coercion".
The idea you proposed of writing the letter first and *then* informing the student seems like a nice way of ensuring that the student knows you've written a strong letter. There is the possibility that the student will still feel pressured, of course -- "if I don't say yes, then my professor will send a second contradictory letter" -- but assuming you have a positive relationship with the student, that seems unlikely. | I don’t see any conflict (or need to donate the bonus). Simply inform the student that as an applicant, that they are more likely to be accepted if they are referred by an existing employee and that at this company employees receive bonuses when they successfully refer a applicant. Ask if they have such a referral, and if not offer to have your spouse submit one on their behalf.
This is a classic win-win situation, where all parties benefit from cooperation. The only potential conflict is if the student already has such a referral, it might seem that you are pressuring them to use your spouse instead, which is why you ask if they have one before volunteering your spouse.
The only possible conflict is if you embellished the LoR in order to increase the students chance of gaining the job in order get the bonus, which is more than balanced by the resulting damage to you and your spouses reputations. An appropriately luke-warm recommendation and referral is going to better for both of you in the long run. |
90,673 | In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.
Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.
My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?
**Update**
I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.
I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference). | 2017/06/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] | (Disclosure: I'm not a professor.)
I don't personally see any ethical concerns SO LONG AS you indicate clearly (as you said you would do) that the recommendation letter will be equally strong regardless of whether or not the student applies through your spouse. Under those circumstances, I'd call this "networking," not "bribery" or "coercion".
The idea you proposed of writing the letter first and *then* informing the student seems like a nice way of ensuring that the student knows you've written a strong letter. There is the possibility that the student will still feel pressured, of course -- "if I don't say yes, then my professor will send a second contradictory letter" -- but assuming you have a positive relationship with the student, that seems unlikely. | Your job includes writing letters of recommendation when students have earned them. Finding students a referral opportunity from a company employee is doing better than what you need to do.
Your spouse's job includes earning referral bonuses.
Both of you are doing your jobs. There is no conflict. Your spouse could reasonably keep the bonus.
* Don't require the student to use the referral, apply for the job, or accept the job.
* Warn students not to apply for companies you know are abusive.
* Don't recommend students who will do a bad job. |
90,673 | In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.
Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.
My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?
**Update**
I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.
I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference). | 2017/06/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] | (Disclosure: I'm not a professor.)
I don't personally see any ethical concerns SO LONG AS you indicate clearly (as you said you would do) that the recommendation letter will be equally strong regardless of whether or not the student applies through your spouse. Under those circumstances, I'd call this "networking," not "bribery" or "coercion".
The idea you proposed of writing the letter first and *then* informing the student seems like a nice way of ensuring that the student knows you've written a strong letter. There is the possibility that the student will still feel pressured, of course -- "if I don't say yes, then my professor will send a second contradictory letter" -- but assuming you have a positive relationship with the student, that seems unlikely. | I often found jobs for my cs students at the company I consulted with. I arranged to have the referral bonus given directly to my department.
I made sure everyone knew about this arrangement up front. |
90,673 | In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.
Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.
My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?
**Update**
I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.
I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference). | 2017/06/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] | I don’t see any conflict (or need to donate the bonus). Simply inform the student that as an applicant, that they are more likely to be accepted if they are referred by an existing employee and that at this company employees receive bonuses when they successfully refer a applicant. Ask if they have such a referral, and if not offer to have your spouse submit one on their behalf.
This is a classic win-win situation, where all parties benefit from cooperation. The only potential conflict is if the student already has such a referral, it might seem that you are pressuring them to use your spouse instead, which is why you ask if they have one before volunteering your spouse.
The only possible conflict is if you embellished the LoR in order to increase the students chance of gaining the job in order get the bonus, which is more than balanced by the resulting damage to you and your spouses reputations. An appropriately luke-warm recommendation and referral is going to better for both of you in the long run. | Disclaimer: this is not legal advice. This is just a personal opinion. I might be somewhat though in comparison with most.
This is a borderline case. In general however I would stay away from this unless you are very sure the alumni would like this job. Although I am utterly convinced of your good intention, even if you say there will be no consequences the alumni might not believe you. That sounds like it is not your problem but you have an authority position and so you don't have a relationship of equals. This means that you must be much more careful. And in this case the doubt might, completely independent of you, be somewhat justified, because you might not **intentionally** write a worse recommendation letter. But **unintentionally** you might. At least I could see that as a legitimate worry.
First writing the letter might be a good guarantee like @tonysdg pointed out. However I still think this is not optimal since then you might write an overly positive recommendation letter because you want the student to be hired **for your personal gain** (reputation within the college can also be gain) or it might at least be perceived that way.
This might be immoral to the company or towards other students (since they get comparatively less positive recommendation letters).
I can see this working in a morally acceptable way but I think there is alot to be carfull about. In general I would be at the very least cautious when having a monetary/reputational (outside your reputation as teacher) incentive in dealing with students outside of the money adn reputation you get from the university. |
90,673 | In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.
Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.
My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?
**Update**
I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.
I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference). | 2017/06/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] | Your job includes writing letters of recommendation when students have earned them. Finding students a referral opportunity from a company employee is doing better than what you need to do.
Your spouse's job includes earning referral bonuses.
Both of you are doing your jobs. There is no conflict. Your spouse could reasonably keep the bonus.
* Don't require the student to use the referral, apply for the job, or accept the job.
* Warn students not to apply for companies you know are abusive.
* Don't recommend students who will do a bad job. | Disclaimer: this is not legal advice. This is just a personal opinion. I might be somewhat though in comparison with most.
This is a borderline case. In general however I would stay away from this unless you are very sure the alumni would like this job. Although I am utterly convinced of your good intention, even if you say there will be no consequences the alumni might not believe you. That sounds like it is not your problem but you have an authority position and so you don't have a relationship of equals. This means that you must be much more careful. And in this case the doubt might, completely independent of you, be somewhat justified, because you might not **intentionally** write a worse recommendation letter. But **unintentionally** you might. At least I could see that as a legitimate worry.
First writing the letter might be a good guarantee like @tonysdg pointed out. However I still think this is not optimal since then you might write an overly positive recommendation letter because you want the student to be hired **for your personal gain** (reputation within the college can also be gain) or it might at least be perceived that way.
This might be immoral to the company or towards other students (since they get comparatively less positive recommendation letters).
I can see this working in a morally acceptable way but I think there is alot to be carfull about. In general I would be at the very least cautious when having a monetary/reputational (outside your reputation as teacher) incentive in dealing with students outside of the money adn reputation you get from the university. |
90,673 | In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.
Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.
My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?
**Update**
I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.
I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference). | 2017/06/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] | I often found jobs for my cs students at the company I consulted with. I arranged to have the referral bonus given directly to my department.
I made sure everyone knew about this arrangement up front. | Disclaimer: this is not legal advice. This is just a personal opinion. I might be somewhat though in comparison with most.
This is a borderline case. In general however I would stay away from this unless you are very sure the alumni would like this job. Although I am utterly convinced of your good intention, even if you say there will be no consequences the alumni might not believe you. That sounds like it is not your problem but you have an authority position and so you don't have a relationship of equals. This means that you must be much more careful. And in this case the doubt might, completely independent of you, be somewhat justified, because you might not **intentionally** write a worse recommendation letter. But **unintentionally** you might. At least I could see that as a legitimate worry.
First writing the letter might be a good guarantee like @tonysdg pointed out. However I still think this is not optimal since then you might write an overly positive recommendation letter because you want the student to be hired **for your personal gain** (reputation within the college can also be gain) or it might at least be perceived that way.
This might be immoral to the company or towards other students (since they get comparatively less positive recommendation letters).
I can see this working in a morally acceptable way but I think there is alot to be carfull about. In general I would be at the very least cautious when having a monetary/reputational (outside your reputation as teacher) incentive in dealing with students outside of the money adn reputation you get from the university. |
90,673 | In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.
Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.
My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?
**Update**
I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.
I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference). | 2017/06/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] | I don’t see any conflict (or need to donate the bonus). Simply inform the student that as an applicant, that they are more likely to be accepted if they are referred by an existing employee and that at this company employees receive bonuses when they successfully refer a applicant. Ask if they have such a referral, and if not offer to have your spouse submit one on their behalf.
This is a classic win-win situation, where all parties benefit from cooperation. The only potential conflict is if the student already has such a referral, it might seem that you are pressuring them to use your spouse instead, which is why you ask if they have one before volunteering your spouse.
The only possible conflict is if you embellished the LoR in order to increase the students chance of gaining the job in order get the bonus, which is more than balanced by the resulting damage to you and your spouses reputations. An appropriately luke-warm recommendation and referral is going to better for both of you in the long run. | Your job includes writing letters of recommendation when students have earned them. Finding students a referral opportunity from a company employee is doing better than what you need to do.
Your spouse's job includes earning referral bonuses.
Both of you are doing your jobs. There is no conflict. Your spouse could reasonably keep the bonus.
* Don't require the student to use the referral, apply for the job, or accept the job.
* Warn students not to apply for companies you know are abusive.
* Don't recommend students who will do a bad job. |
90,673 | In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.
Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.
My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?
**Update**
I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.
I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference). | 2017/06/08 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269/"
] | I don’t see any conflict (or need to donate the bonus). Simply inform the student that as an applicant, that they are more likely to be accepted if they are referred by an existing employee and that at this company employees receive bonuses when they successfully refer a applicant. Ask if they have such a referral, and if not offer to have your spouse submit one on their behalf.
This is a classic win-win situation, where all parties benefit from cooperation. The only potential conflict is if the student already has such a referral, it might seem that you are pressuring them to use your spouse instead, which is why you ask if they have one before volunteering your spouse.
The only possible conflict is if you embellished the LoR in order to increase the students chance of gaining the job in order get the bonus, which is more than balanced by the resulting damage to you and your spouses reputations. An appropriately luke-warm recommendation and referral is going to better for both of you in the long run. | I often found jobs for my cs students at the company I consulted with. I arranged to have the referral bonus given directly to my department.
I made sure everyone knew about this arrangement up front. |
94,359 | I am an Indian citizen.
I need to go to spain for 10 days to attend a summer school.
Flight details
Delhi->munich->Bilbao
Bilbao->Munich->Frankfurt->Delhi
There is no overnight stay at any of the transit airports.
What type of Visa do I need?
Do I still need an airport transit visa? | 2017/06/01 | [
"https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/94359",
"https://travel.stackexchange.com",
"https://travel.stackexchange.com/users/61931/"
] | Both Spain and Germany are in the Schengen travel area. You will enter the Schengen area in Munich and go through immigration controls there, and leave again from Frankfurt. The flights from Germany to Spain are effectively domestic flights.
* You need a Schengen C visa, valid from the day when you land in Munich to the day you leave from Frankfurt.
* The visa will be issued by Spain, not Germany, because Spain is the main destination of your trip. | You will not need an airport transit visa because you will have a short-stay type C visa. You will enter the Schengen area in Munich and leave it in Frankfurt. There will be no "systematic" passport control in Spain, though there is a chance that you'll encounter a less formal check. |
234,032 | Spam gets fairly heavily punished - 100 reputation penalty, if I recall correctly, and the content itself gets hidden in the revision history.
Now if we just have some rubbish:
>
> dfajiojaifojadiofjadhigaowkokaomdiovnuiyhioqejgioqejgio
>
>
>
I'm not talking about someone posting a question or comment as an answer (i.e. possibly just not knowing the rules or being frustrated with not having the required privileges), or someone making some really horrible attempt at answering the question, I'm talking about an answer that clearly shows absolutely no observation of any content on the page.
This, in my opinion, causes a similar amount of harm to the site - I'm inclined to say the fact that someone posts spam isn't as important as the fact that they're posting something that needs to be deleted, since we're likely going to delete it pretty quickly, and they're (likely) behaving maliciously, or am I wrong?
Why don't we treat this equally harshly, or why do we treat spam as harshly as we do?
---
Side notes:
I'm sure I've seen a few times where users get punished for posting spam when their link is likely actually relevant to the question and useful (should I flag these? They are still link-only answers, so they shouldn't really come back, and often I'm just not sure enough). While false positives are bad, it seems worse that we're treating worse behaviour better.
I'm assuming that's not what "abusive" in this reason is referring to: (I'm also not sure, off the top of my head, how this one gets treated)
>
> It is offensive, abusive, or hate speech
>
>
> | 2014/06/14 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/234032",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/206447/"
] | >
> I'm assuming that's not what "abusive" in this reason is referring to
>
>
>
Abusive means what it says. Don't overthink this.
Look... The problem folks have with these is that they see the pile of nonsense and *try to extract meaning from it.* "Surely if I can determine what the author's intent was," you might imagine them saying to themselves, "...I can then pick the *exact right type of flag.*"
This is an utter waste of time. **There is no meaning to the post!** It's VLQ, it's abuse, it's Not An Answer, heck it might even be a spammer, testing the waters... There's no metric you can apply that'll narrow that down, because **there is no meaningful content to apply metrics to.**
So pick the flag that speaks to you. I'm partial to "rude or abusive", because enough of them *immediately* delete and lock the post, which is handy in those rare scenarios where someone's flooding the site with a *lot* of these... But VLQ or NAA work just as well in the vast majority of cases. The important thing to remember here is that when the post clearly means nothing, you shouldn't be wasting too much thought trying to decipher it; flag it and move on with your life.
Note that this advice does *not* apply to questions or answers posted in horribly broken English; while those may well be Very Low Quality, in most cases they're still a slight step up from the sort of "cat on a keyboard" nonsense you're referring to. | As [one of the other answers](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/234035) states, multiple flags could be considered correct:
>
> It's VLQ, it's abuse, it's Not An Answer, heck it might even be a
> spammer, testing the waters...
>
>
>
Since there is more than one "correct" flag, it is ultimately up to you to decide which flag you prefer to use.
However, contrary to the preferences expressed in the other answers, I would personally be against using "rude or abusive" unless the account is brand new, and would instead flag it as "very low quality" or "not an answer."
The reason I feel this way is that **it is possible for someone to accidentally make such a post.**
Someone's phone might turn on while in their pockets or purse ("purse typing"). Someone's kid or pet might mess with their computer while they are away. Etc.
And in cases such as these, I do not feel that the harsh penalty imposed from such flags is warranted.
So if a user with a non-negligible amount of reputation made such a post, I feel that deleting their answer as VLQ or NAA is more fair than deleting it as rude or abusive (R/A).
However, if the account is brand new or has a very low reputation, **then** I would be in favor of flagging it as rude or abusive because in a case like this, it is much more likely to be deliberate rather than unintentional.
Therefore, in my opinion, it is most fair to use "rude or abusive" only if the account is new or has negligible reputation, and to otherwise flag such posts as VLQ or NAA.
Ultimately, the choice is yours as to how you wish to flag such answers (as long as the flag you choose makes sense), but this is my personal opinion about the most fair approach. |
234,032 | Spam gets fairly heavily punished - 100 reputation penalty, if I recall correctly, and the content itself gets hidden in the revision history.
Now if we just have some rubbish:
>
> dfajiojaifojadiofjadhigaowkokaomdiovnuiyhioqejgioqejgio
>
>
>
I'm not talking about someone posting a question or comment as an answer (i.e. possibly just not knowing the rules or being frustrated with not having the required privileges), or someone making some really horrible attempt at answering the question, I'm talking about an answer that clearly shows absolutely no observation of any content on the page.
This, in my opinion, causes a similar amount of harm to the site - I'm inclined to say the fact that someone posts spam isn't as important as the fact that they're posting something that needs to be deleted, since we're likely going to delete it pretty quickly, and they're (likely) behaving maliciously, or am I wrong?
Why don't we treat this equally harshly, or why do we treat spam as harshly as we do?
---
Side notes:
I'm sure I've seen a few times where users get punished for posting spam when their link is likely actually relevant to the question and useful (should I flag these? They are still link-only answers, so they shouldn't really come back, and often I'm just not sure enough). While false positives are bad, it seems worse that we're treating worse behaviour better.
I'm assuming that's not what "abusive" in this reason is referring to: (I'm also not sure, off the top of my head, how this one gets treated)
>
> It is offensive, abusive, or hate speech
>
>
> | 2014/06/14 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/234032",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/206447/"
] | >
> I'm assuming that's not what "abusive" in this reason is referring to
>
>
>
Abusive means what it says. Don't overthink this.
Look... The problem folks have with these is that they see the pile of nonsense and *try to extract meaning from it.* "Surely if I can determine what the author's intent was," you might imagine them saying to themselves, "...I can then pick the *exact right type of flag.*"
This is an utter waste of time. **There is no meaning to the post!** It's VLQ, it's abuse, it's Not An Answer, heck it might even be a spammer, testing the waters... There's no metric you can apply that'll narrow that down, because **there is no meaningful content to apply metrics to.**
So pick the flag that speaks to you. I'm partial to "rude or abusive", because enough of them *immediately* delete and lock the post, which is handy in those rare scenarios where someone's flooding the site with a *lot* of these... But VLQ or NAA work just as well in the vast majority of cases. The important thing to remember here is that when the post clearly means nothing, you shouldn't be wasting too much thought trying to decipher it; flag it and move on with your life.
Note that this advice does *not* apply to questions or answers posted in horribly broken English; while those may well be Very Low Quality, in most cases they're still a slight step up from the sort of "cat on a keyboard" nonsense you're referring to. | Let us see what the **rude or abusive** flag means.
>
> A reasonable person would find this content inappropriate for respectful discourse.
>
>
>
I think that
>
> agpyeghrujdsg
>
>
>
is inappropriate discourse in general (at least I would not start a conversation about it), so it is also inappropriate for respectful discourse. Hence this flag can be used for such answer.
Also, it is abusive since the post of such "answer" is abusing the system.
However, be careful with using this flag when the user has more than 1 rep or if the user has other, non-gibberish posts. It could be a mistake, e.g. a real cat on the keyboard, and then the -100 penalty is way too severe. However, this is extremely rare.
It is *not* spam. Use the spam flag only if a question is promoting services or if an answer is promoting services is a spammy way. |
234,032 | Spam gets fairly heavily punished - 100 reputation penalty, if I recall correctly, and the content itself gets hidden in the revision history.
Now if we just have some rubbish:
>
> dfajiojaifojadiofjadhigaowkokaomdiovnuiyhioqejgioqejgio
>
>
>
I'm not talking about someone posting a question or comment as an answer (i.e. possibly just not knowing the rules or being frustrated with not having the required privileges), or someone making some really horrible attempt at answering the question, I'm talking about an answer that clearly shows absolutely no observation of any content on the page.
This, in my opinion, causes a similar amount of harm to the site - I'm inclined to say the fact that someone posts spam isn't as important as the fact that they're posting something that needs to be deleted, since we're likely going to delete it pretty quickly, and they're (likely) behaving maliciously, or am I wrong?
Why don't we treat this equally harshly, or why do we treat spam as harshly as we do?
---
Side notes:
I'm sure I've seen a few times where users get punished for posting spam when their link is likely actually relevant to the question and useful (should I flag these? They are still link-only answers, so they shouldn't really come back, and often I'm just not sure enough). While false positives are bad, it seems worse that we're treating worse behaviour better.
I'm assuming that's not what "abusive" in this reason is referring to: (I'm also not sure, off the top of my head, how this one gets treated)
>
> It is offensive, abusive, or hate speech
>
>
> | 2014/06/14 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/234032",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/206447/"
] | >
> I'm assuming that's not what "abusive" in this reason is referring to
>
>
>
Abusive means what it says. Don't overthink this.
Look... The problem folks have with these is that they see the pile of nonsense and *try to extract meaning from it.* "Surely if I can determine what the author's intent was," you might imagine them saying to themselves, "...I can then pick the *exact right type of flag.*"
This is an utter waste of time. **There is no meaning to the post!** It's VLQ, it's abuse, it's Not An Answer, heck it might even be a spammer, testing the waters... There's no metric you can apply that'll narrow that down, because **there is no meaningful content to apply metrics to.**
So pick the flag that speaks to you. I'm partial to "rude or abusive", because enough of them *immediately* delete and lock the post, which is handy in those rare scenarios where someone's flooding the site with a *lot* of these... But VLQ or NAA work just as well in the vast majority of cases. The important thing to remember here is that when the post clearly means nothing, you shouldn't be wasting too much thought trying to decipher it; flag it and move on with your life.
Note that this advice does *not* apply to questions or answers posted in horribly broken English; while those may well be Very Low Quality, in most cases they're still a slight step up from the sort of "cat on a keyboard" nonsense you're referring to. | We don't, because **there's no need at all**.
### How are *spam* posts and *rude or abusive* posts similar?
* They add zero or even negative value to Stack Exchange
* We don't want either of them to exist on Stack Exchange
### How do we deal with S and R/A?
* We raise red flags
* 6 red flags = forced deletion + punishment
* The SE system doesn't distinguish S flags and R/A flags (they have exactly the same effect)
### What about rubbish?
* It adds zero or negative value to SE
* We hate rubbish
* We raise red flags for rubbish, more specifically, R/A flags
* Rubbish gets wiped out soon, and the OP receives rep penalty
* The SE system doesn't distinguish spam/RA/rubbish
### So what? Conclusion!
### Rubbish is essentially the same as spam and R/A. There's no need to tell them apart. |
234,032 | Spam gets fairly heavily punished - 100 reputation penalty, if I recall correctly, and the content itself gets hidden in the revision history.
Now if we just have some rubbish:
>
> dfajiojaifojadiofjadhigaowkokaomdiovnuiyhioqejgioqejgio
>
>
>
I'm not talking about someone posting a question or comment as an answer (i.e. possibly just not knowing the rules or being frustrated with not having the required privileges), or someone making some really horrible attempt at answering the question, I'm talking about an answer that clearly shows absolutely no observation of any content on the page.
This, in my opinion, causes a similar amount of harm to the site - I'm inclined to say the fact that someone posts spam isn't as important as the fact that they're posting something that needs to be deleted, since we're likely going to delete it pretty quickly, and they're (likely) behaving maliciously, or am I wrong?
Why don't we treat this equally harshly, or why do we treat spam as harshly as we do?
---
Side notes:
I'm sure I've seen a few times where users get punished for posting spam when their link is likely actually relevant to the question and useful (should I flag these? They are still link-only answers, so they shouldn't really come back, and often I'm just not sure enough). While false positives are bad, it seems worse that we're treating worse behaviour better.
I'm assuming that's not what "abusive" in this reason is referring to: (I'm also not sure, off the top of my head, how this one gets treated)
>
> It is offensive, abusive, or hate speech
>
>
> | 2014/06/14 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/234032",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/206447/"
] | Let us see what the **rude or abusive** flag means.
>
> A reasonable person would find this content inappropriate for respectful discourse.
>
>
>
I think that
>
> agpyeghrujdsg
>
>
>
is inappropriate discourse in general (at least I would not start a conversation about it), so it is also inappropriate for respectful discourse. Hence this flag can be used for such answer.
Also, it is abusive since the post of such "answer" is abusing the system.
However, be careful with using this flag when the user has more than 1 rep or if the user has other, non-gibberish posts. It could be a mistake, e.g. a real cat on the keyboard, and then the -100 penalty is way too severe. However, this is extremely rare.
It is *not* spam. Use the spam flag only if a question is promoting services or if an answer is promoting services is a spammy way. | As [one of the other answers](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/234035) states, multiple flags could be considered correct:
>
> It's VLQ, it's abuse, it's Not An Answer, heck it might even be a
> spammer, testing the waters...
>
>
>
Since there is more than one "correct" flag, it is ultimately up to you to decide which flag you prefer to use.
However, contrary to the preferences expressed in the other answers, I would personally be against using "rude or abusive" unless the account is brand new, and would instead flag it as "very low quality" or "not an answer."
The reason I feel this way is that **it is possible for someone to accidentally make such a post.**
Someone's phone might turn on while in their pockets or purse ("purse typing"). Someone's kid or pet might mess with their computer while they are away. Etc.
And in cases such as these, I do not feel that the harsh penalty imposed from such flags is warranted.
So if a user with a non-negligible amount of reputation made such a post, I feel that deleting their answer as VLQ or NAA is more fair than deleting it as rude or abusive (R/A).
However, if the account is brand new or has a very low reputation, **then** I would be in favor of flagging it as rude or abusive because in a case like this, it is much more likely to be deliberate rather than unintentional.
Therefore, in my opinion, it is most fair to use "rude or abusive" only if the account is new or has negligible reputation, and to otherwise flag such posts as VLQ or NAA.
Ultimately, the choice is yours as to how you wish to flag such answers (as long as the flag you choose makes sense), but this is my personal opinion about the most fair approach. |
234,032 | Spam gets fairly heavily punished - 100 reputation penalty, if I recall correctly, and the content itself gets hidden in the revision history.
Now if we just have some rubbish:
>
> dfajiojaifojadiofjadhigaowkokaomdiovnuiyhioqejgioqejgio
>
>
>
I'm not talking about someone posting a question or comment as an answer (i.e. possibly just not knowing the rules or being frustrated with not having the required privileges), or someone making some really horrible attempt at answering the question, I'm talking about an answer that clearly shows absolutely no observation of any content on the page.
This, in my opinion, causes a similar amount of harm to the site - I'm inclined to say the fact that someone posts spam isn't as important as the fact that they're posting something that needs to be deleted, since we're likely going to delete it pretty quickly, and they're (likely) behaving maliciously, or am I wrong?
Why don't we treat this equally harshly, or why do we treat spam as harshly as we do?
---
Side notes:
I'm sure I've seen a few times where users get punished for posting spam when their link is likely actually relevant to the question and useful (should I flag these? They are still link-only answers, so they shouldn't really come back, and often I'm just not sure enough). While false positives are bad, it seems worse that we're treating worse behaviour better.
I'm assuming that's not what "abusive" in this reason is referring to: (I'm also not sure, off the top of my head, how this one gets treated)
>
> It is offensive, abusive, or hate speech
>
>
> | 2014/06/14 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/234032",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/206447/"
] | We don't, because **there's no need at all**.
### How are *spam* posts and *rude or abusive* posts similar?
* They add zero or even negative value to Stack Exchange
* We don't want either of them to exist on Stack Exchange
### How do we deal with S and R/A?
* We raise red flags
* 6 red flags = forced deletion + punishment
* The SE system doesn't distinguish S flags and R/A flags (they have exactly the same effect)
### What about rubbish?
* It adds zero or negative value to SE
* We hate rubbish
* We raise red flags for rubbish, more specifically, R/A flags
* Rubbish gets wiped out soon, and the OP receives rep penalty
* The SE system doesn't distinguish spam/RA/rubbish
### So what? Conclusion!
### Rubbish is essentially the same as spam and R/A. There's no need to tell them apart. | As [one of the other answers](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/234035) states, multiple flags could be considered correct:
>
> It's VLQ, it's abuse, it's Not An Answer, heck it might even be a
> spammer, testing the waters...
>
>
>
Since there is more than one "correct" flag, it is ultimately up to you to decide which flag you prefer to use.
However, contrary to the preferences expressed in the other answers, I would personally be against using "rude or abusive" unless the account is brand new, and would instead flag it as "very low quality" or "not an answer."
The reason I feel this way is that **it is possible for someone to accidentally make such a post.**
Someone's phone might turn on while in their pockets or purse ("purse typing"). Someone's kid or pet might mess with their computer while they are away. Etc.
And in cases such as these, I do not feel that the harsh penalty imposed from such flags is warranted.
So if a user with a non-negligible amount of reputation made such a post, I feel that deleting their answer as VLQ or NAA is more fair than deleting it as rude or abusive (R/A).
However, if the account is brand new or has a very low reputation, **then** I would be in favor of flagging it as rude or abusive because in a case like this, it is much more likely to be deliberate rather than unintentional.
Therefore, in my opinion, it is most fair to use "rude or abusive" only if the account is new or has negligible reputation, and to otherwise flag such posts as VLQ or NAA.
Ultimately, the choice is yours as to how you wish to flag such answers (as long as the flag you choose makes sense), but this is my personal opinion about the most fair approach. |
234,032 | Spam gets fairly heavily punished - 100 reputation penalty, if I recall correctly, and the content itself gets hidden in the revision history.
Now if we just have some rubbish:
>
> dfajiojaifojadiofjadhigaowkokaomdiovnuiyhioqejgioqejgio
>
>
>
I'm not talking about someone posting a question or comment as an answer (i.e. possibly just not knowing the rules or being frustrated with not having the required privileges), or someone making some really horrible attempt at answering the question, I'm talking about an answer that clearly shows absolutely no observation of any content on the page.
This, in my opinion, causes a similar amount of harm to the site - I'm inclined to say the fact that someone posts spam isn't as important as the fact that they're posting something that needs to be deleted, since we're likely going to delete it pretty quickly, and they're (likely) behaving maliciously, or am I wrong?
Why don't we treat this equally harshly, or why do we treat spam as harshly as we do?
---
Side notes:
I'm sure I've seen a few times where users get punished for posting spam when their link is likely actually relevant to the question and useful (should I flag these? They are still link-only answers, so they shouldn't really come back, and often I'm just not sure enough). While false positives are bad, it seems worse that we're treating worse behaviour better.
I'm assuming that's not what "abusive" in this reason is referring to: (I'm also not sure, off the top of my head, how this one gets treated)
>
> It is offensive, abusive, or hate speech
>
>
> | 2014/06/14 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/234032",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/206447/"
] | Let us see what the **rude or abusive** flag means.
>
> A reasonable person would find this content inappropriate for respectful discourse.
>
>
>
I think that
>
> agpyeghrujdsg
>
>
>
is inappropriate discourse in general (at least I would not start a conversation about it), so it is also inappropriate for respectful discourse. Hence this flag can be used for such answer.
Also, it is abusive since the post of such "answer" is abusing the system.
However, be careful with using this flag when the user has more than 1 rep or if the user has other, non-gibberish posts. It could be a mistake, e.g. a real cat on the keyboard, and then the -100 penalty is way too severe. However, this is extremely rare.
It is *not* spam. Use the spam flag only if a question is promoting services or if an answer is promoting services is a spammy way. | We don't, because **there's no need at all**.
### How are *spam* posts and *rude or abusive* posts similar?
* They add zero or even negative value to Stack Exchange
* We don't want either of them to exist on Stack Exchange
### How do we deal with S and R/A?
* We raise red flags
* 6 red flags = forced deletion + punishment
* The SE system doesn't distinguish S flags and R/A flags (they have exactly the same effect)
### What about rubbish?
* It adds zero or negative value to SE
* We hate rubbish
* We raise red flags for rubbish, more specifically, R/A flags
* Rubbish gets wiped out soon, and the OP receives rep penalty
* The SE system doesn't distinguish spam/RA/rubbish
### So what? Conclusion!
### Rubbish is essentially the same as spam and R/A. There's no need to tell them apart. |
64,362 | I'm an Advanced Level math teacher in my country. I teach two courses Pure and Applied. Its duration is 3 years. At the end of three years, there is one exam for the whole three years. Only 1200 students are selected for universities out of 50000.
I told (Privately) two of my students that they are going to fail the August AL exam if they are not going to work hard.
They have no knowledge of their syllabus. (They joined my class three weeks ago). I myself told them the truth and they stopped the class telling me that I'm a very discouraging teacher. I could have told them "Yes you can," but as a teacher I told them the reality.
Is it better to tell them that "You will get an A" or to tell them the truth?
This course contains 40 lessons and it is a 3 year course from which now only five months are left. | 2016/03/02 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/64362",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50139/"
] | You may use the same trick that support staff and sales representatives use: avoid using expressions like "no", "cannot", "sorry but...".
Instead you turn it around like so: "In order to achieve this goal, we need to do the following...", and then list all the things that are required for it to happen.
If you follow this pattern you have been honest and given full disclosure about what they need to do, without explicitly discouraging. | Many students lack the emotional maturity to understand you are telling them this for thier own benefit, but they will eventually realize it. A high schooler doesn't typically take a graduate level physics course, nor should someone who does not have the rudimentary math skills necessary to effectively complete an advanced class be taking it. Their time is simply better spent on progressing in area of math they have a base knowledge in. I wouldn't feel bad about telling them this, even if they get mad at you for saying so. It is, what it is. The field of mathematics is very linear as you know; you can't just jump from pre-algebra to econometrics without a hiccup, it will be a foreign language. |
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