qid int64 1 74.7M | question stringlengths 12 33.8k | date stringlengths 10 10 | metadata list | response_j stringlengths 0 115k | response_k stringlengths 2 98.3k |
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165,506 | The Curse:
>
> **Clockwork Curse**
>
> All Attack Rolls the cursed target makes replace their d20 roll with a 10 instead of rolling, as per the effect of Clockwork Amulet.
>
>
>
Extra Details:
* This curse is expected to apply for at least a full in-game day.
* Encounters for the day will come from the Forest or Coastal Encounters (5-10) tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
* The character will be part of a 5-player group.
* The character's attacks are their ideal method of dealing damage.
The Goal:
* This curse is meant to be a setback or gameplay-shift to the player, not a crippling of the player.
+ I want the player to spend time affected by the curse to work with it or work around it.
* Since the players can decide not to remove it, the beneficial aspect of it should not be too strong.
The Question:
Is this curse too detrimental that it imposes more of a penalty than I expect? Is this curse too beneficial in the long-run? Or is it reasonably fair? | 2020/02/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/165506",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/14873/"
] | Against an average enemy this would be a buff not a curse
---------------------------------------------------------
Rolls are generally balanced around requiring an 8 to succeed in something you are good at, so always rolling a 10 is a buff (on average, assuming the player invested in the combat stat).
This does mean that against certain high AC enemies this player will never hit.
So how this will effect your game depends firstly on how many high AC enemies you chuck at the party / player, and how they will react to not being able to hit things. Some players will welcome the challenge and have to think of new tactics, some players just want to cause damage and put very little thought into it.
You know your players (hopefully) better than we do, so you would have to judge this for yourself. | Situational.
Sounds like it would make hitting most low to medium enemies easy, but make it impossible to hit a boss or demi-boss.
So useful for a front liner who will be wading through canon fodder mobs.
Not directly useful against a armored one or boss, but silver lining. Against those, it would encourage the player to use the "help" action to help their team hit the boss. |
165,506 | The Curse:
>
> **Clockwork Curse**
>
> All Attack Rolls the cursed target makes replace their d20 roll with a 10 instead of rolling, as per the effect of Clockwork Amulet.
>
>
>
Extra Details:
* This curse is expected to apply for at least a full in-game day.
* Encounters for the day will come from the Forest or Coastal Encounters (5-10) tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
* The character will be part of a 5-player group.
* The character's attacks are their ideal method of dealing damage.
The Goal:
* This curse is meant to be a setback or gameplay-shift to the player, not a crippling of the player.
+ I want the player to spend time affected by the curse to work with it or work around it.
* Since the players can decide not to remove it, the beneficial aspect of it should not be too strong.
The Question:
Is this curse too detrimental that it imposes more of a penalty than I expect? Is this curse too beneficial in the long-run? Or is it reasonably fair? | 2020/02/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/165506",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/14873/"
] | It seems fine. Finding out how it works seems somewhat fun. The player barely hits a sahuagin without needing to roll, then barely hits the next. Seems good, but there has to be a catch. Then they barely miss the armoured hobgoblin, still with no roll, and keep barely missing. There's the catch. At some point they'll get the idea or you'll just tell them about the "always 10" part.
Now you're onto the meat. The players may even discuss the problem. For each new monster type the player might take a test whack. Goblins, bugbears and a bugbear captain? Goblins are a sure hit -- but should they try the bugbears? If you allow heavy tabletalk, what are the odds someone has memorized the exact AC of each monster?
Options are using that +2 dagger (suppose their main weapon is only +1), or maybe a shove action or a grapple. Or a Bless spell (it seems to me the d4 would still be rolled, and added to the 10). They'll probably gain Advantage once before realizing it won't help. Few feats allow for an optional attack bonus, but they might have one. They can Assist another attack. Or try to draw attacks and Dodge (the monsters don't know the player can't hit them). Doing the last two for 1 fight isn't so bad.
You (the GM) can cheat. If 2 rolled encounters in a row only have monsters that guy can't hit, replace one hobgoblin with a softer gnoll. | Situational.
Sounds like it would make hitting most low to medium enemies easy, but make it impossible to hit a boss or demi-boss.
So useful for a front liner who will be wading through canon fodder mobs.
Not directly useful against a armored one or boss, but silver lining. Against those, it would encourage the player to use the "help" action to help their team hit the boss. |
165,506 | The Curse:
>
> **Clockwork Curse**
>
> All Attack Rolls the cursed target makes replace their d20 roll with a 10 instead of rolling, as per the effect of Clockwork Amulet.
>
>
>
Extra Details:
* This curse is expected to apply for at least a full in-game day.
* Encounters for the day will come from the Forest or Coastal Encounters (5-10) tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
* The character will be part of a 5-player group.
* The character's attacks are their ideal method of dealing damage.
The Goal:
* This curse is meant to be a setback or gameplay-shift to the player, not a crippling of the player.
+ I want the player to spend time affected by the curse to work with it or work around it.
* Since the players can decide not to remove it, the beneficial aspect of it should not be too strong.
The Question:
Is this curse too detrimental that it imposes more of a penalty than I expect? Is this curse too beneficial in the long-run? Or is it reasonably fair? | 2020/02/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/165506",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/14873/"
] | Seems like a serious debuff
---------------------------
In terms of what the character can actually do -- you roll a 15 or over like 25% of the time. That makes for a hard fight, but you can burn resources and win it. This curse makes easy fights trivial, and hard fights impossible. You might be able to, as the DM, design around this -- make things harder by giving more low-level enemies, and totally avoiding high level enemies. But that sounds really tedious.
Also, how will you deal with advantage? I suspect the expected value of a roll with advantage is about 15. If you give them a 15 on an advantaged attack, it might be more manageable (also more fun). | Situational.
Sounds like it would make hitting most low to medium enemies easy, but make it impossible to hit a boss or demi-boss.
So useful for a front liner who will be wading through canon fodder mobs.
Not directly useful against a armored one or boss, but silver lining. Against those, it would encourage the player to use the "help" action to help their team hit the boss. |
165,506 | The Curse:
>
> **Clockwork Curse**
>
> All Attack Rolls the cursed target makes replace their d20 roll with a 10 instead of rolling, as per the effect of Clockwork Amulet.
>
>
>
Extra Details:
* This curse is expected to apply for at least a full in-game day.
* Encounters for the day will come from the Forest or Coastal Encounters (5-10) tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
* The character will be part of a 5-player group.
* The character's attacks are their ideal method of dealing damage.
The Goal:
* This curse is meant to be a setback or gameplay-shift to the player, not a crippling of the player.
+ I want the player to spend time affected by the curse to work with it or work around it.
* Since the players can decide not to remove it, the beneficial aspect of it should not be too strong.
The Question:
Is this curse too detrimental that it imposes more of a penalty than I expect? Is this curse too beneficial in the long-run? Or is it reasonably fair? | 2020/02/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/165506",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/14873/"
] | This punishes player fun more than character mechanics
======================================================
Dependant on the AC of your enemies this curse is either a massive buff due to never missing, or a massive penalty due to never hitting. Either way it takes away the uncertainty and suspense of combat by making the result a formality.
In my experience a lot of the fun of combat is encapsulated in the thrill of the unknown. This curse takes away that unknown by removing the agency from a cursed characters turn. The curse has two states:
1. 10 + Attack modifier >= enemy AC. The player knows they are going to hit so every turn they can skip straight to rolling damage. No need for clever tactics or positioning to gain advantage or cancel a disadvantage. The character is effective but boring to play.
2. 10 + Attack modifier < enemy AC. The player knows they can't hit. There is no point trying so they are instead forced to play a support role, depending on the type of character they may quickly run out of things they can do in this role. No interesting options and a lack of effectiveness makes this character frustrating to play.
In both scenarios **the mechanical penalty to the character is not as significant as the penalty to player enjoyment**. In my opinion that makes this a bad curse.
A good curse challenges both the player and character to find a way to overcome, cure or circumvent the limitations imposed by the curse. Something that forces them to change their typical combat style or think outside the box. This curse doesn't do that. It is either good or it is bad, and there is (almost) nothing the player can do about it. | Against an average enemy this would be a buff not a curse
---------------------------------------------------------
Rolls are generally balanced around requiring an 8 to succeed in something you are good at, so always rolling a 10 is a buff (on average, assuming the player invested in the combat stat).
This does mean that against certain high AC enemies this player will never hit.
So how this will effect your game depends firstly on how many high AC enemies you chuck at the party / player, and how they will react to not being able to hit things. Some players will welcome the challenge and have to think of new tactics, some players just want to cause damage and put very little thought into it.
You know your players (hopefully) better than we do, so you would have to judge this for yourself. |
165,506 | The Curse:
>
> **Clockwork Curse**
>
> All Attack Rolls the cursed target makes replace their d20 roll with a 10 instead of rolling, as per the effect of Clockwork Amulet.
>
>
>
Extra Details:
* This curse is expected to apply for at least a full in-game day.
* Encounters for the day will come from the Forest or Coastal Encounters (5-10) tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
* The character will be part of a 5-player group.
* The character's attacks are their ideal method of dealing damage.
The Goal:
* This curse is meant to be a setback or gameplay-shift to the player, not a crippling of the player.
+ I want the player to spend time affected by the curse to work with it or work around it.
* Since the players can decide not to remove it, the beneficial aspect of it should not be too strong.
The Question:
Is this curse too detrimental that it imposes more of a penalty than I expect? Is this curse too beneficial in the long-run? Or is it reasonably fair? | 2020/02/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/165506",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/14873/"
] | This punishes player fun more than character mechanics
======================================================
Dependant on the AC of your enemies this curse is either a massive buff due to never missing, or a massive penalty due to never hitting. Either way it takes away the uncertainty and suspense of combat by making the result a formality.
In my experience a lot of the fun of combat is encapsulated in the thrill of the unknown. This curse takes away that unknown by removing the agency from a cursed characters turn. The curse has two states:
1. 10 + Attack modifier >= enemy AC. The player knows they are going to hit so every turn they can skip straight to rolling damage. No need for clever tactics or positioning to gain advantage or cancel a disadvantage. The character is effective but boring to play.
2. 10 + Attack modifier < enemy AC. The player knows they can't hit. There is no point trying so they are instead forced to play a support role, depending on the type of character they may quickly run out of things they can do in this role. No interesting options and a lack of effectiveness makes this character frustrating to play.
In both scenarios **the mechanical penalty to the character is not as significant as the penalty to player enjoyment**. In my opinion that makes this a bad curse.
A good curse challenges both the player and character to find a way to overcome, cure or circumvent the limitations imposed by the curse. Something that forces them to change their typical combat style or think outside the box. This curse doesn't do that. It is either good or it is bad, and there is (almost) nothing the player can do about it. | It seems fine. Finding out how it works seems somewhat fun. The player barely hits a sahuagin without needing to roll, then barely hits the next. Seems good, but there has to be a catch. Then they barely miss the armoured hobgoblin, still with no roll, and keep barely missing. There's the catch. At some point they'll get the idea or you'll just tell them about the "always 10" part.
Now you're onto the meat. The players may even discuss the problem. For each new monster type the player might take a test whack. Goblins, bugbears and a bugbear captain? Goblins are a sure hit -- but should they try the bugbears? If you allow heavy tabletalk, what are the odds someone has memorized the exact AC of each monster?
Options are using that +2 dagger (suppose their main weapon is only +1), or maybe a shove action or a grapple. Or a Bless spell (it seems to me the d4 would still be rolled, and added to the 10). They'll probably gain Advantage once before realizing it won't help. Few feats allow for an optional attack bonus, but they might have one. They can Assist another attack. Or try to draw attacks and Dodge (the monsters don't know the player can't hit them). Doing the last two for 1 fight isn't so bad.
You (the GM) can cheat. If 2 rolled encounters in a row only have monsters that guy can't hit, replace one hobgoblin with a softer gnoll. |
165,506 | The Curse:
>
> **Clockwork Curse**
>
> All Attack Rolls the cursed target makes replace their d20 roll with a 10 instead of rolling, as per the effect of Clockwork Amulet.
>
>
>
Extra Details:
* This curse is expected to apply for at least a full in-game day.
* Encounters for the day will come from the Forest or Coastal Encounters (5-10) tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
* The character will be part of a 5-player group.
* The character's attacks are their ideal method of dealing damage.
The Goal:
* This curse is meant to be a setback or gameplay-shift to the player, not a crippling of the player.
+ I want the player to spend time affected by the curse to work with it or work around it.
* Since the players can decide not to remove it, the beneficial aspect of it should not be too strong.
The Question:
Is this curse too detrimental that it imposes more of a penalty than I expect? Is this curse too beneficial in the long-run? Or is it reasonably fair? | 2020/02/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/165506",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/14873/"
] | This punishes player fun more than character mechanics
======================================================
Dependant on the AC of your enemies this curse is either a massive buff due to never missing, or a massive penalty due to never hitting. Either way it takes away the uncertainty and suspense of combat by making the result a formality.
In my experience a lot of the fun of combat is encapsulated in the thrill of the unknown. This curse takes away that unknown by removing the agency from a cursed characters turn. The curse has two states:
1. 10 + Attack modifier >= enemy AC. The player knows they are going to hit so every turn they can skip straight to rolling damage. No need for clever tactics or positioning to gain advantage or cancel a disadvantage. The character is effective but boring to play.
2. 10 + Attack modifier < enemy AC. The player knows they can't hit. There is no point trying so they are instead forced to play a support role, depending on the type of character they may quickly run out of things they can do in this role. No interesting options and a lack of effectiveness makes this character frustrating to play.
In both scenarios **the mechanical penalty to the character is not as significant as the penalty to player enjoyment**. In my opinion that makes this a bad curse.
A good curse challenges both the player and character to find a way to overcome, cure or circumvent the limitations imposed by the curse. Something that forces them to change their typical combat style or think outside the box. This curse doesn't do that. It is either good or it is bad, and there is (almost) nothing the player can do about it. | Seems like a serious debuff
---------------------------
In terms of what the character can actually do -- you roll a 15 or over like 25% of the time. That makes for a hard fight, but you can burn resources and win it. This curse makes easy fights trivial, and hard fights impossible. You might be able to, as the DM, design around this -- make things harder by giving more low-level enemies, and totally avoiding high level enemies. But that sounds really tedious.
Also, how will you deal with advantage? I suspect the expected value of a roll with advantage is about 15. If you give them a 15 on an advantaged attack, it might be more manageable (also more fun). |
165,506 | The Curse:
>
> **Clockwork Curse**
>
> All Attack Rolls the cursed target makes replace their d20 roll with a 10 instead of rolling, as per the effect of Clockwork Amulet.
>
>
>
Extra Details:
* This curse is expected to apply for at least a full in-game day.
* Encounters for the day will come from the Forest or Coastal Encounters (5-10) tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
* The character will be part of a 5-player group.
* The character's attacks are their ideal method of dealing damage.
The Goal:
* This curse is meant to be a setback or gameplay-shift to the player, not a crippling of the player.
+ I want the player to spend time affected by the curse to work with it or work around it.
* Since the players can decide not to remove it, the beneficial aspect of it should not be too strong.
The Question:
Is this curse too detrimental that it imposes more of a penalty than I expect? Is this curse too beneficial in the long-run? Or is it reasonably fair? | 2020/02/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/165506",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/14873/"
] | Against an average enemy this would be a buff not a curse
---------------------------------------------------------
Rolls are generally balanced around requiring an 8 to succeed in something you are good at, so always rolling a 10 is a buff (on average, assuming the player invested in the combat stat).
This does mean that against certain high AC enemies this player will never hit.
So how this will effect your game depends firstly on how many high AC enemies you chuck at the party / player, and how they will react to not being able to hit things. Some players will welcome the challenge and have to think of new tactics, some players just want to cause damage and put very little thought into it.
You know your players (hopefully) better than we do, so you would have to judge this for yourself. | It seems fine. Finding out how it works seems somewhat fun. The player barely hits a sahuagin without needing to roll, then barely hits the next. Seems good, but there has to be a catch. Then they barely miss the armoured hobgoblin, still with no roll, and keep barely missing. There's the catch. At some point they'll get the idea or you'll just tell them about the "always 10" part.
Now you're onto the meat. The players may even discuss the problem. For each new monster type the player might take a test whack. Goblins, bugbears and a bugbear captain? Goblins are a sure hit -- but should they try the bugbears? If you allow heavy tabletalk, what are the odds someone has memorized the exact AC of each monster?
Options are using that +2 dagger (suppose their main weapon is only +1), or maybe a shove action or a grapple. Or a Bless spell (it seems to me the d4 would still be rolled, and added to the 10). They'll probably gain Advantage once before realizing it won't help. Few feats allow for an optional attack bonus, but they might have one. They can Assist another attack. Or try to draw attacks and Dodge (the monsters don't know the player can't hit them). Doing the last two for 1 fight isn't so bad.
You (the GM) can cheat. If 2 rolled encounters in a row only have monsters that guy can't hit, replace one hobgoblin with a softer gnoll. |
165,506 | The Curse:
>
> **Clockwork Curse**
>
> All Attack Rolls the cursed target makes replace their d20 roll with a 10 instead of rolling, as per the effect of Clockwork Amulet.
>
>
>
Extra Details:
* This curse is expected to apply for at least a full in-game day.
* Encounters for the day will come from the Forest or Coastal Encounters (5-10) tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
* The character will be part of a 5-player group.
* The character's attacks are their ideal method of dealing damage.
The Goal:
* This curse is meant to be a setback or gameplay-shift to the player, not a crippling of the player.
+ I want the player to spend time affected by the curse to work with it or work around it.
* Since the players can decide not to remove it, the beneficial aspect of it should not be too strong.
The Question:
Is this curse too detrimental that it imposes more of a penalty than I expect? Is this curse too beneficial in the long-run? Or is it reasonably fair? | 2020/02/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/165506",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/14873/"
] | Against an average enemy this would be a buff not a curse
---------------------------------------------------------
Rolls are generally balanced around requiring an 8 to succeed in something you are good at, so always rolling a 10 is a buff (on average, assuming the player invested in the combat stat).
This does mean that against certain high AC enemies this player will never hit.
So how this will effect your game depends firstly on how many high AC enemies you chuck at the party / player, and how they will react to not being able to hit things. Some players will welcome the challenge and have to think of new tactics, some players just want to cause damage and put very little thought into it.
You know your players (hopefully) better than we do, so you would have to judge this for yourself. | Seems like a serious debuff
---------------------------
In terms of what the character can actually do -- you roll a 15 or over like 25% of the time. That makes for a hard fight, but you can burn resources and win it. This curse makes easy fights trivial, and hard fights impossible. You might be able to, as the DM, design around this -- make things harder by giving more low-level enemies, and totally avoiding high level enemies. But that sounds really tedious.
Also, how will you deal with advantage? I suspect the expected value of a roll with advantage is about 15. If you give them a 15 on an advantaged attack, it might be more manageable (also more fun). |
165,506 | The Curse:
>
> **Clockwork Curse**
>
> All Attack Rolls the cursed target makes replace their d20 roll with a 10 instead of rolling, as per the effect of Clockwork Amulet.
>
>
>
Extra Details:
* This curse is expected to apply for at least a full in-game day.
* Encounters for the day will come from the Forest or Coastal Encounters (5-10) tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
* The character will be part of a 5-player group.
* The character's attacks are their ideal method of dealing damage.
The Goal:
* This curse is meant to be a setback or gameplay-shift to the player, not a crippling of the player.
+ I want the player to spend time affected by the curse to work with it or work around it.
* Since the players can decide not to remove it, the beneficial aspect of it should not be too strong.
The Question:
Is this curse too detrimental that it imposes more of a penalty than I expect? Is this curse too beneficial in the long-run? Or is it reasonably fair? | 2020/02/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/165506",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/14873/"
] | It seems fine. Finding out how it works seems somewhat fun. The player barely hits a sahuagin without needing to roll, then barely hits the next. Seems good, but there has to be a catch. Then they barely miss the armoured hobgoblin, still with no roll, and keep barely missing. There's the catch. At some point they'll get the idea or you'll just tell them about the "always 10" part.
Now you're onto the meat. The players may even discuss the problem. For each new monster type the player might take a test whack. Goblins, bugbears and a bugbear captain? Goblins are a sure hit -- but should they try the bugbears? If you allow heavy tabletalk, what are the odds someone has memorized the exact AC of each monster?
Options are using that +2 dagger (suppose their main weapon is only +1), or maybe a shove action or a grapple. Or a Bless spell (it seems to me the d4 would still be rolled, and added to the 10). They'll probably gain Advantage once before realizing it won't help. Few feats allow for an optional attack bonus, but they might have one. They can Assist another attack. Or try to draw attacks and Dodge (the monsters don't know the player can't hit them). Doing the last two for 1 fight isn't so bad.
You (the GM) can cheat. If 2 rolled encounters in a row only have monsters that guy can't hit, replace one hobgoblin with a softer gnoll. | Seems like a serious debuff
---------------------------
In terms of what the character can actually do -- you roll a 15 or over like 25% of the time. That makes for a hard fight, but you can burn resources and win it. This curse makes easy fights trivial, and hard fights impossible. You might be able to, as the DM, design around this -- make things harder by giving more low-level enemies, and totally avoiding high level enemies. But that sounds really tedious.
Also, how will you deal with advantage? I suspect the expected value of a roll with advantage is about 15. If you give them a 15 on an advantaged attack, it might be more manageable (also more fun). |
75,471 | When using depth of field and hyperfocal calculators, I get very different result versus the in-camera DoF preview of my Fujifilm X-M1.
For example:
With [DOFMaster](http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html) (or any other online calculator), for a Fujifilm X-M1, with a focal length of 16mm and f-stop = 8, I am supposed to get hyperfocal distance at 1.62 meters with DoF from 0.81 meters to infinity.
If I use those settings on the camera, in-camera DoF preview shows that DoF is about from 1.2 to 2.5 meters.
What am I missing? | 2016/03/11 | [
"https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/75471",
"https://photo.stackexchange.com",
"https://photo.stackexchange.com/users/49597/"
] | First, a [word](https://photo.stackexchange.com/a/34801/15871) about what depth-of-field is and is not:
>
> **In a way, depth-of-field is an illusion.** There is only one plane of focus. Everything in front of or behind the point of focus is out
> of focus to one degree or another. **What we call DoF is the area
> where things *look, to our eyes, like they are in focus*.** This is
> based on the ability of the human eye to resolve certain minute
> differences at a particular distance. If the slightly out-of-focus
> blur is smaller than our eye's capability to resolve the detail then
> it appears to be in focus. ***When you magnify a portion of an image
> by making it larger or moving closer to it you allow your eye to see
> details that before were too close together to be seen by your eyes as
> separate pieces of the image.***
>
>
> ***Since things are gradually blurrier the further they are from the point of focus, as you gradually magnify the image the perceived depth
> of field gets narrower as the near and far points where your eyes can
> resolve fine details moves closer to the focus plane.***
>
>
>
Since depth-of-field is dependent upon viewing size and distance as well as the visual acuity of the viewer it is hard for a camera to indicate depth-of-field if it doesn't know what the display size of the photo will be. Any in-camera DoF measurement is going to be based upon an assumption regarding the eventual viewing conditions of the photograph.
Assuming the standard 8x10 viewed at 10 inches by a person with 20/20 vision is probably a little too broad in the current digital environment. But most of the online calculators still assume this standard viewing size and distance. If you expect to view images at a 1:1 pixel size on a computer monitor, the DoF for the same exact image will be much narrower. After all, viewing a 22MP or so image on a monitor with 96ppi pitch is like viewing a part of a 60x40 inch print! | >
> What am I missing?
>
>
>
You're missing that Depth of Field is subjective. In actuality, there's only one plane that's in focus — everything else can't be. Then, there's an area around that plane that is indistinguishable from out of focus because it's beyond the technical limitations of your camera to distinguish from perfectly in-focus. But, that's often quite small, too. Outside of that, it's a matter of how much blur you're willing to consider in-focus.
Sounds like your camera is simply more strict than the numbers used by the online calculators. I'm not seeing the X-M1 in [DOFMaster](http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html) as a pre-selected camera option, but I note that when choosing the X-Pro1 or X100, which use the same sensor, the calculator chooses a [circle of confusion](https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/9024/what-is-the-circle-of-confusion) of 0.02 mm. That's giving me slightly different numbers than the near limit of 0.81 m which you say you get, but turns out I see that with a CoC of 0.019 mm, so I bet your other calculator is using that value for Fujifilm. (Or, it might just be rounding errors — with [TawbaWare's calculator](http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm) I get your values with CoC of 0.02 mm.)
On the other hand, if you chose a circle of confusion of around 0.007 mm, then you'll see values like Fujifilm is giving you in-camera. So, there's your answer in technical terms — Fujifilm has chosen a much more discerning value for CoC than the online calculators assume. (This value gives a hyperfocal distance of about 4.6 meters at 16mm and f/8, by the way.) |
75,471 | When using depth of field and hyperfocal calculators, I get very different result versus the in-camera DoF preview of my Fujifilm X-M1.
For example:
With [DOFMaster](http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html) (or any other online calculator), for a Fujifilm X-M1, with a focal length of 16mm and f-stop = 8, I am supposed to get hyperfocal distance at 1.62 meters with DoF from 0.81 meters to infinity.
If I use those settings on the camera, in-camera DoF preview shows that DoF is about from 1.2 to 2.5 meters.
What am I missing? | 2016/03/11 | [
"https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/75471",
"https://photo.stackexchange.com",
"https://photo.stackexchange.com/users/49597/"
] | >
> What am I missing?
>
>
>
You're missing that Depth of Field is subjective. In actuality, there's only one plane that's in focus — everything else can't be. Then, there's an area around that plane that is indistinguishable from out of focus because it's beyond the technical limitations of your camera to distinguish from perfectly in-focus. But, that's often quite small, too. Outside of that, it's a matter of how much blur you're willing to consider in-focus.
Sounds like your camera is simply more strict than the numbers used by the online calculators. I'm not seeing the X-M1 in [DOFMaster](http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html) as a pre-selected camera option, but I note that when choosing the X-Pro1 or X100, which use the same sensor, the calculator chooses a [circle of confusion](https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/9024/what-is-the-circle-of-confusion) of 0.02 mm. That's giving me slightly different numbers than the near limit of 0.81 m which you say you get, but turns out I see that with a CoC of 0.019 mm, so I bet your other calculator is using that value for Fujifilm. (Or, it might just be rounding errors — with [TawbaWare's calculator](http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm) I get your values with CoC of 0.02 mm.)
On the other hand, if you chose a circle of confusion of around 0.007 mm, then you'll see values like Fujifilm is giving you in-camera. So, there's your answer in technical terms — Fujifilm has chosen a much more discerning value for CoC than the online calculators assume. (This value gives a hyperfocal distance of about 4.6 meters at 16mm and f/8, by the way.) | **Film Format Basis vs. Pixel Basis**
The depth of field (DoF) is the region in which, due to optical physics, a point has, on the film or the sensor, an image smaller than the size of the circle of confusion (CoC).
The CoC is "classically" determined from the accuracy of the human eye and the distance at which a given size image will be looked at, a common assumption is that the viewer will be at a distance equal to the diagonal of the image. This is the approach of the film format based DoF, taken by lens manufacturers *even Fujifilm takes this path for Fujifilm X lens* and DoF calculators. The CoC standard value for a full frame 24/36mm film is set to 0.03mm, and the equivalent CoC for a Fujifilm APS-C size is 0.02mm.
But, in a digital camera, you can also have the other approach, you could set the CoC to get the maximum use of your sensor taking in account its pixel size. This is the path Fujifilm takes when it calibrates the CoC for the viewers DoF indicator at 0.007mm
On its latest camera X-Pro2 and X-T2, Fujifilm gives you the option to choose one or the other value : "Film Format Basis" / "Pixel Basis" |
75,471 | When using depth of field and hyperfocal calculators, I get very different result versus the in-camera DoF preview of my Fujifilm X-M1.
For example:
With [DOFMaster](http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html) (or any other online calculator), for a Fujifilm X-M1, with a focal length of 16mm and f-stop = 8, I am supposed to get hyperfocal distance at 1.62 meters with DoF from 0.81 meters to infinity.
If I use those settings on the camera, in-camera DoF preview shows that DoF is about from 1.2 to 2.5 meters.
What am I missing? | 2016/03/11 | [
"https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/75471",
"https://photo.stackexchange.com",
"https://photo.stackexchange.com/users/49597/"
] | First, a [word](https://photo.stackexchange.com/a/34801/15871) about what depth-of-field is and is not:
>
> **In a way, depth-of-field is an illusion.** There is only one plane of focus. Everything in front of or behind the point of focus is out
> of focus to one degree or another. **What we call DoF is the area
> where things *look, to our eyes, like they are in focus*.** This is
> based on the ability of the human eye to resolve certain minute
> differences at a particular distance. If the slightly out-of-focus
> blur is smaller than our eye's capability to resolve the detail then
> it appears to be in focus. ***When you magnify a portion of an image
> by making it larger or moving closer to it you allow your eye to see
> details that before were too close together to be seen by your eyes as
> separate pieces of the image.***
>
>
> ***Since things are gradually blurrier the further they are from the point of focus, as you gradually magnify the image the perceived depth
> of field gets narrower as the near and far points where your eyes can
> resolve fine details moves closer to the focus plane.***
>
>
>
Since depth-of-field is dependent upon viewing size and distance as well as the visual acuity of the viewer it is hard for a camera to indicate depth-of-field if it doesn't know what the display size of the photo will be. Any in-camera DoF measurement is going to be based upon an assumption regarding the eventual viewing conditions of the photograph.
Assuming the standard 8x10 viewed at 10 inches by a person with 20/20 vision is probably a little too broad in the current digital environment. But most of the online calculators still assume this standard viewing size and distance. If you expect to view images at a 1:1 pixel size on a computer monitor, the DoF for the same exact image will be much narrower. After all, viewing a 22MP or so image on a monitor with 96ppi pitch is like viewing a part of a 60x40 inch print! | **Film Format Basis vs. Pixel Basis**
The depth of field (DoF) is the region in which, due to optical physics, a point has, on the film or the sensor, an image smaller than the size of the circle of confusion (CoC).
The CoC is "classically" determined from the accuracy of the human eye and the distance at which a given size image will be looked at, a common assumption is that the viewer will be at a distance equal to the diagonal of the image. This is the approach of the film format based DoF, taken by lens manufacturers *even Fujifilm takes this path for Fujifilm X lens* and DoF calculators. The CoC standard value for a full frame 24/36mm film is set to 0.03mm, and the equivalent CoC for a Fujifilm APS-C size is 0.02mm.
But, in a digital camera, you can also have the other approach, you could set the CoC to get the maximum use of your sensor taking in account its pixel size. This is the path Fujifilm takes when it calibrates the CoC for the viewers DoF indicator at 0.007mm
On its latest camera X-Pro2 and X-T2, Fujifilm gives you the option to choose one or the other value : "Film Format Basis" / "Pixel Basis" |
191,849 | Is "if at all" of the following understood as "(even) if the new law helps new immigrants at all"?
>
> The new law will fail to help new immigrants significantly, **if at all**.
>
>
>
I'd appreciate your help. | 2019/01/04 | [
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/191849",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/users/3865/"
] | What is ellipted in that concession is "if [the new law...helps them] at all".
With **fails** it is a little "off". But the polarity is
>
> The new law will not help immigrants significantly, if it helps them at all.
>
>
>
Stylistically it would be clearer to write it that way, or like this:
>
> The new law will offer immigrants little, if any, help.
>
>
> | You are correct. The sentence means that the new law won't be able to help new immigrants a lot. Maybe it won't help them at all |
6,394,756 | Can anyone recommend a tool or technique that can help me detect and read the http cookies etc that my website receives and then acts on? | 2011/06/18 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/6394756",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/504612/"
] | Use Developer Tools.
If you are using a WebKit browser like Chromium or Opera, you should be able to right click on a page and click **Inspect Element**. There should be a tab for **Resources** and then on the side should be a button that says **Cookies**.
There are also a great many other resources for web designers in Developer Tools.
Firefox also has an extension called [Firebug](http://getfirebug.com/network) that allows you to see HTTP headers.
IE may also work with **Firebug Lite**.
For seeing all packets on your network, check out [Wireshark](http://www.wireshark.org/). There are plenty of tutorials on the web on how to use it to extract HTTP header packets and browser data. | You could also try Fiddler: <http://www.telerik.com/fiddler>
It is a great tool, and also has a proxy that you can use to track traffic that is to/from processes other than your browser. |
1,263 | Once I've baked a texture and want to save it - by default Blender offers me to save it as PNG RGBA, I change it to PNG RGB (no alpha) and save it.
The problem is that every time I re-bake the same texture and simply hit Save, it somehow saves as PNG RGBA again, not RGB as I saved it initially.
So I have two questions:
1. Why is it not remembering my file format when saving with "Save", not with "Save as" (from uv window)?
2. Where can I set its defaults to PNG RGB, so that every time I save a baked texture I won't have to go and click PNG RGB? | 2013/06/21 | [
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1263",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/772/"
] | To change the default image file type produced by Blender, you actually want to change the image settings in the Render panel.
To change the default for a single file, go to the Properties>Render panel and scroll down to the 'Output' submenu. Then select the file format and BW/RGB/RGBA to your desired format.
If you want to set this as your default image type for *all* of your projects, first open a new file or open a new instance of Blender. Change the settings to what you would like to be default, then press `Ctrl`+`U`.
This changes your startup .blend file so that when you open future projects, they will come preloaded with these settings. It will not affect any of your old .blend files. | It keeps defaulting to RGBA because the image has a alpha channel (and is trying not to loose information). Uncheck the Alpha option when creating the image and it'll default to RGB.
 |
1,263 | Once I've baked a texture and want to save it - by default Blender offers me to save it as PNG RGBA, I change it to PNG RGB (no alpha) and save it.
The problem is that every time I re-bake the same texture and simply hit Save, it somehow saves as PNG RGBA again, not RGB as I saved it initially.
So I have two questions:
1. Why is it not remembering my file format when saving with "Save", not with "Save as" (from uv window)?
2. Where can I set its defaults to PNG RGB, so that every time I save a baked texture I won't have to go and click PNG RGB? | 2013/06/21 | [
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1263",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/772/"
] | To change the default image file type produced by Blender, you actually want to change the image settings in the Render panel.
To change the default for a single file, go to the Properties>Render panel and scroll down to the 'Output' submenu. Then select the file format and BW/RGB/RGBA to your desired format.
If you want to set this as your default image type for *all* of your projects, first open a new file or open a new instance of Blender. Change the settings to what you would like to be default, then press `Ctrl`+`U`.
This changes your startup .blend file so that when you open future projects, they will come preloaded with these settings. It will not affect any of your old .blend files. | Thank you very much for bringing up this issue. I had the same problem where the saved render always display RGBA.
I managed to fix it by mainly going to my *Node Editor > Properties Toolshelf (N) > Properties* and unchecking *Alpha*. |
86,925 | I was reading a book and I saw the word "stains" in a sentence. Here is the sentence:
>
> Out of the shed came a long, low, yellow-and-brown animal. There were red, wet *stains* around its mouth and neck.
>
>
>
Source: ["Tooth and Claw"](http://www.okread.info/read.php?ys=1&d=sc/ychzz/005&ch=1).
I looked up the defintion of it but I can't decide which one is used in this sentence. Here are the definitions:
1. a discoloration produced by foreign matter having penetrated into or chemically reacted with a material; a spot not easily removed.
2. a natural spot or patch of color different from that of the basic color, as on the body of an animal.
3. a cause of reproach; stigma; blemish:
Which one could it be?
Thanks | 2016/04/08 | [
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/86925",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/users/31540/"
] | The description of the stains as "wet" indicates that this is something like meaning 1; but it is not literally that definition, because this is not a discolouration that has become embedded permanently into some material, but some coloured matter that is visible on the surface. Since the matter is clearly blood, there is a hint of meaning 3 here as well.
This use does not correspond precisely to any of the definitions, even in the Oxford English Dictionary - it is somewhat allusive, a bit of a metaphor. | >
> red, wet stains around its mouth and neck.
>
>
>
As a reader, I would interpret that as if the animal has hunted or fought, and those **stains are that of blood**, or might have tried to drink some liquid which has a red colouration.
As the mouth and neck are stained red, it might well be a hunt or a very bad fight.
The second interpretation is because blood isn't generally described by the *wet* adjective, or it is very rarely done.
So, it should be your first guess, which is:
>
> a discoloration produced by foreign matter having penetrated into or
> chemically reacted with a material; a spot not easily removed.
>
>
> |
86,925 | I was reading a book and I saw the word "stains" in a sentence. Here is the sentence:
>
> Out of the shed came a long, low, yellow-and-brown animal. There were red, wet *stains* around its mouth and neck.
>
>
>
Source: ["Tooth and Claw"](http://www.okread.info/read.php?ys=1&d=sc/ychzz/005&ch=1).
I looked up the defintion of it but I can't decide which one is used in this sentence. Here are the definitions:
1. a discoloration produced by foreign matter having penetrated into or chemically reacted with a material; a spot not easily removed.
2. a natural spot or patch of color different from that of the basic color, as on the body of an animal.
3. a cause of reproach; stigma; blemish:
Which one could it be?
Thanks | 2016/04/08 | [
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/86925",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/users/31540/"
] | The story is [here](http://www.okread.info/read.php?ys=1&d=sc/ychzz/005&ch=1). It is strongly implied that the aunt was killed or horribly wounded by the ferret. So the "red, wet stains around its mouth and neck" are stains of the blood of the aunt. So they are indeed "blood stains."
In this sense, definition 1 works, since the foreign matter is the aunt's blood. However, the blood has probably not had time to "penetrate into" into the ferret's skin or fur. Some dictionaries have better definitions than others, and many times they give overlapping or even redundant definitions. | >
> red, wet stains around its mouth and neck.
>
>
>
As a reader, I would interpret that as if the animal has hunted or fought, and those **stains are that of blood**, or might have tried to drink some liquid which has a red colouration.
As the mouth and neck are stained red, it might well be a hunt or a very bad fight.
The second interpretation is because blood isn't generally described by the *wet* adjective, or it is very rarely done.
So, it should be your first guess, which is:
>
> a discoloration produced by foreign matter having penetrated into or
> chemically reacted with a material; a spot not easily removed.
>
>
> |
86,925 | I was reading a book and I saw the word "stains" in a sentence. Here is the sentence:
>
> Out of the shed came a long, low, yellow-and-brown animal. There were red, wet *stains* around its mouth and neck.
>
>
>
Source: ["Tooth and Claw"](http://www.okread.info/read.php?ys=1&d=sc/ychzz/005&ch=1).
I looked up the defintion of it but I can't decide which one is used in this sentence. Here are the definitions:
1. a discoloration produced by foreign matter having penetrated into or chemically reacted with a material; a spot not easily removed.
2. a natural spot or patch of color different from that of the basic color, as on the body of an animal.
3. a cause of reproach; stigma; blemish:
Which one could it be?
Thanks | 2016/04/08 | [
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/86925",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/users/31540/"
] | The story is [here](http://www.okread.info/read.php?ys=1&d=sc/ychzz/005&ch=1). It is strongly implied that the aunt was killed or horribly wounded by the ferret. So the "red, wet stains around its mouth and neck" are stains of the blood of the aunt. So they are indeed "blood stains."
In this sense, definition 1 works, since the foreign matter is the aunt's blood. However, the blood has probably not had time to "penetrate into" into the ferret's skin or fur. Some dictionaries have better definitions than others, and many times they give overlapping or even redundant definitions. | The description of the stains as "wet" indicates that this is something like meaning 1; but it is not literally that definition, because this is not a discolouration that has become embedded permanently into some material, but some coloured matter that is visible on the surface. Since the matter is clearly blood, there is a hint of meaning 3 here as well.
This use does not correspond precisely to any of the definitions, even in the Oxford English Dictionary - it is somewhat allusive, a bit of a metaphor. |
12,194 | I would like to learn the subject **'complex numbers'**. My goal is to study this on my own. Are there any good tips, books, sites to study this? | 2017/04/12 | [
"https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/12194",
"https://matheducators.stackexchange.com",
"https://matheducators.stackexchange.com/users/8031/"
] | I don't know much about knot theory but I know that Meike Akveld taught knot theory at both high school and university level. Here's a bibliography of one of her courses at ETH Zürich:
<https://www2.math.ethz.ch/education/bachelor/lectures/fs2015/math/knot/bibliography_FS2015.pdf>
It includes Englisch and German books both for high school and university level. I only list English books for university level:
>
> General books about knots - accessible to (under-)graduate students:
>
>
> * M.A. Armstrong, *Basic Topology*, Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics, Springer-Verlag, 1983 - Chapter 10 is devoted to knots.
> * G. Burde, H. Zieschang, *Knots*, Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, 1985.
> * A.Kawauchi, *A Survey of Knot Theory*, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, 1996.
> * W.B.R. Lickorish, An Introduction to Knot Theory, Springer-Verlag. New York, 1997.
> * C. Livingston, *Knotentheorie für Einsteiger*, Vieweg, 1995 (also available in English).
> * K. Murasugi, *Knot Theory & Its Applications*, Chapters 5 and 6, Birkhäuser Boston, 2008.
> * J. Roberts, *Knots Knotes*, unpublished lecture notes, 2010, <http://math.ucsd.edu/~justin/Roberts-Knotes-Jan2015.pdf>.
> * D. Rolfsen, *Knots and Links*, AMS Chelsea Publishing, 2003.
>
>
>
There are still old exercises and solutions from the class available online [here](https://www2.math.ethz.ch/education/bachelor/lectures/fs2015/math/knot/uebungen.html). They usually get deleted a year or two after the class, so I'd download them just in case. Plus, you can find some hand-drawn examples on the [lecture website](https://www2.math.ethz.ch/education/bachelor/lectures/fs2015/math/knot.html) itself. | You may find the [SageMath knot and links capabilities](http://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/reference/knots/sage/knots/knot.html) useful for computation and visualization.
The [Knot Atlas](http://katlas.org/wiki/Main_Page) might be a bit more comprehensive than you are looking for but is certainly a reference to be quite aware of. |
29,273,853 | I am writing an embedded system, where I am creating a USB mass storage device driver that uses an 8MB chunk of RAM as the FAT fileystem..
Although it made sense at the time to allow the OS to take my zero'd out RAM area and format a FAT partition itself, I ran into problems that I am diagnosing on Jan Axelson's (popular author of books on USB) [PORTS forum](http://janaxelson.com/forum/index.php?topic=1454.0). The problem is related to erasing the blocks in the drive, and may be circumvented by pre-formatting the memory area to a FAT filesystem before USB enumeration. Then, I could see if the drive will operate normally. Ideally, the preformatted partition would include a file on it to test the read operation.
It would be nice if I could somehow create and mount a mock 8MB FAT filesystem on my OS (OSX), write a file to it, and export it to an image file for inclusion in my project. Does someone know how to do this? I could handle the rest. I'm not too concerned whether that would be FAT12/16/32 at the moment, optional MBR inclusion would be nice..
If that option doesn't exist, I'm looking to use a pre-written utility to create a FAT img file that I could include into my project and upload directly to RAM. this utility would allow me to specify an 8MB filesystem with 512-byte sectors, for instance, and possibly FAT12 / FAT16 / FAT32.
Is anyone aware of such a utility? I wasn't able to find one.
If not, can someone recommend a first step to take in implementing this in C? I'm hoping a library exists. I'm pretty exhausted after implementing the mass storage driver from scratch, but I understand I might have to 'get crinkled' and manually create the FAT partition. It's not too hard. I imagine some packed structs and some options. I'll get there. I already have resources on FAT filesystem itself. | 2015/03/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/29273853",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1481124/"
] | I ended up discovering that [FatFS](http://elm-chan.org/fsw/ff/00index_e.html) has facilities for formatting and partitioning the "drive" from within the embedded device, and it relieved of me of having to absolutely format it manually or use host-side tools.
I would like to cover in more detail the steps taken, but I am exhausted. I may edit in further details at a later time. | There are several, they're normally hidden in the OS source.
On BSD (ie OS-X) you should have a "mkdosfs" tool, if not the source will be available all over the place ... here's a random example
<http://www.blancco.com/downloads/source/utils/mkdosfs/mkdosfs.c>
Also there's the 'mtools' package, it's normally use for floppies, but I think it does disk images too.
Neither of these will create partition tables though; you'd need something else if that's required too. |
2,565,058 | I love using irb to quickly check how my ruby code reacts. Im wondering is there a way to do the same say in Firebug or soem other tool? | 2010/04/02 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/2565058",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/189090/"
] | Sure, start up Firebug while using any page that has jquery loaded and type commands into the console. Am I missing something? | I was googling for irb and jquery. Much better would have been injecting jquery firebug.
Found this
<http://www.learningjquery.com/2006/12/jquerify-bookmarklet>
and it answers my question. If any one has any other tips please share. |
8,437,955 | Can you have a column display either text or a link based on another column in the report?
The only way I can think of is to change to text to a link with the SQL query using anchor tags.
Is there another way? | 2011/12/08 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/8437955",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/936633/"
] | Nope. Doing this in an IR is not really possible, because you'd need hidden columns. But setting columns to hidden doesn't output them into html anymore, so not targetable through JS. It'd be possible with the columns shown on the report, but that gets messy fast.
Using classic reports though, it is rather easy (and oddly enough, only found this after answering [this](https://stackoverflow.com/q/8432811/814048)): [See this link](http://tylermuth.wordpress.com/2007/12/01/conditional-column-formatting-in-apex/)
If you want to take it even further, then indeed, output through your select, or use javascript to target hidden columns and use their values to manipulate the value of another column. Classic report only. | I have just described a way to do it [in this blog post](http://tonyandrews.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/conditional-column-linking-in-apex.html). This uses the normal APEX column link method with some CSS and Javascript to make it conditional. Beware that I only came up with this solution today and it may have issues I'm not yet aware of! |
149,016 | When I was reading the summary of previous work in *Dogsa T, Batic D. The effectiveness of test-driven development: an industrial case study. Software Quality Journal. 2011;19(4):643-661.* it struck me that the measurements used in a lot of studies around TDD are based on things like lines of code, defects and time spent on development.
Are there any studies out there that focus on the [total cost of ownership](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_cost_of_ownership) for products that have been developed using TDD vs ex traditional development or test-last?
I am especially interested in the total cost of acquisition and operating costs. | 2012/05/17 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/149016",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/127/"
] | There are some studies about the implications and benefits of doing TDD, but the results are contradictory. Some projects (this is in my experience) have a lower bug rate and cost to ownership as a result of using TDD, as the cost of changing a feature reduces drastically. Some others are halted to a stop.
Some studies ([here](http://www.slideshare.net/andreas.zeller/myths-in-software-engineering) is one - check slide n50) show that the number of bugs increased with the coverage. I'm assuming that greater coverage implies TDD and that a higher number of bugs implies a higher cost of ownership.
From my point of view, no metric or practice on its own can be related to better quality or lower cost of ownership. There's a combination of factors that can lead to some correlation. And those factors change between teams and projects.
I think we've all heard stories of teams, which just started doing TDD, writing 100-line test methods, which (in my view) increases the cost of ownership, as updating that test will be expensive.
My pragmatic rule is that *people who care* and *are eager to learn*, working in *an environment that supports them and their ideas* have better quality and cost of ownership. | I don't have any specific studies but I can tell you from personal experience, and from the experiences of other developers I know that when applied correctly for medium and larger projects TDD reduces time to market, reduces bugs and defects, and improves code quality.
Having said that their are no silver bullets, can you write good code with out TDD? yes, can you write bad code using TDD yes. Also depending on your project TDD can greatly increase your cost of ownership for the code, a good example is NASA, where the cost per line of code is huge, but the cost of ownership isn't the focus, it's lack of defects.
When applied correctly TDD will increase your starting costs, and your code base, but you get the long term benefits of regression testing, early bug detection, and better code design which should reduce defects and testing costs and maintenance time, thus reducing overall cost of ownership. |
14,584 | **Is Polyjuice Potion a *chemical* transformation or a form of Transfiguration?** I'm not a science genius and I genuinely can't decide if this is a chemical transformation or Transfiguration, or a combination of both. Yes, yes, I know it's a *potion*, which is chemical, but I've always thought the Polyjuice Potion has elements of Transfiguration magic to it as well. So I'm asking you fine people, **which one is it?**
For reference, see chapter 12 of *Chamber of Secrets* - *The Polyjuice Potion*. | 2012/04/09 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/14584",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/3500/"
] | According to [the answer to this question](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11846/can-a-muggle-become-a-potions-maker), there will be a magical component, so Polyjuice potions won't be solely a chemical transformation. It makes sense that the magical component comes from transfiguration, then. | Transfiguration is the ability to change into another creature at will. This is not the same as being a werewolf because a werewolf is a monthly change and this is not something that everyone chooses due to the chance that they were bitten or otherwise. Transfiguration is something that is learned by the witch or wizard and they are able to do so whenever they choose and for however long they want (ex: Peter Pettigrew) and they also have to register their animal that they change into to the ministry of magic (Order of the Phoenix). Transfiguration does not give someone the ability to change into another person.
The polyjuice potion allows the drinker to take the form of another person for a limited amount of time. And this can only be done after the potion has been brewed for a month. The limitations for polyjuice potion is that the person cannot take the form of an animal (Ex: Hermione in the Chamber of Secrets)and they have to constantly be drinking the potion to maintain the other person's form. Making Polyjuice potion a chemically and magically induced temporary change, whereas transfiguration is a magically induced biological change that has no time limit. |
1,206,519 | I have two Corsair RAMs 4GB DDR3 Desktop memory. CPU-Z reports one as PC3-10700 & other as PC3-10700H. See the attached screenshot.
What does H in PC3-10700H stand for and is there any difference between the two? The part number for both sticks is same. I have searched the internet but could not get any relevant references.
Thanks in advance.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iVlqI.jpg) | 2017/05/05 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/1206519",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/724167/"
] | I believe the H stands for the timing of the RAM module, specifically the timing 9-9-9-9.
I do not believe there is likely any significant difference between the two modules, especially as the part number is the same.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM> | That H generally means that there is an XMP/DOCP profile available for the RAM. It will default to 667MHz, but can likely be bumped up to 800MHz. |
760,930 | I'm trying to setup dns on the cheap and running into some problems.
* I have a domain registered with crazydomains.com.au
* I have a vps served by Iniz.com
* I have setup (i think) dns settings with namecheap.com
Checking the information at intodns.com reveals a bunch of errors.
In the Parent section, I have the following blue warnings.
>
> Domain NS Records:
>
>
> Nameserver records returned by the parent servers are:
>
>
> dns1.registrar-servers.com. ['216.87.155.33'] (NO GLUE)
>
> [TTL=86400] dns2.registrar-servers.com. ['216.87.152.33'] (NO GLUE)
> [TTL=86400]
>
>
> a0.org.afilias-nst.info was kind enough to give us that information.
>
>
>
I think the warning relates to the lack of glue, but I'm not sure.
>
> DNS Parent sent Glue
>
>
> The parent nameserver a0.org.afilias-nst.info is not sending out GLUE
> for every nameservers listed, meaning he is sending out your
> nameservers host names without sending the A records of those
> nameservers. It's ok but you have to know that this will require an
> extra A lookup that can delay a little the connections to your site.
> This happens a lot if you have nameservers on different TLD
> (domain.com for example with nameserver ns.domain.org.)
>
>
>
more glue issues, it seems.
In the NS section I have the following warnings
blue:
>
> NS records from your nameservers
>
>
> NS records got from your nameservers listed at the parent NS are:
> Oups! I could not get any nameservers from your nameservers (the ones
> listed at the parent server). Please verify that they are not lame
> nameservers and are configured properly.
>
>
>
red:
>
> Mismatched NS records
>
>
> WARNING: One or more of your nameservers did not return any of your NS records.
>
>
>
>
> DNS servers responded
>
>
> ERROR: One or more of your nameservers did not respond:
> The ones that did not respond are:
> 216.87.155.33 216.87.152.33
>
>
>
>
> Multiple Nameservers
>
>
> ERROR: Looks like you have less than 2 nameservers. According to RFC2182 >section 5 you must have at least 3 nameservers, and no more than 7. Having 2 >nameservers is also ok by me.
>
>
> Missing nameservers reported by your nameservers
>
>
> You should already know that your NS records at your nameservers are
> missing, so here it is again:
>
>
> dns1.registrar-servers.com. dns2.registrar-servers.com.
>
>
>
I also have SOA, MX and WWW A record problems, but I think they are secondary to the above.
My dns settings in crazydomains:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Utk7W.png)
My dns settings in namecheap:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/aOSu1.png) Ignore error, it's just the IP number. However it shows I have set up the NS records at the name server.
/etc/resolv/conf from the vps:
>
> nameserver 216.87.152.33
>
> nameserver 216.87.155.33
>
> ~
>
>
>
How do I fix my name server issue? If there's any other information that would be useful, just let me know and I'll add it. | 2016/03/02 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/760930",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/237927/"
] | You have created a CNAME record for your domain apex.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4I1oQ.png)
Remember that the CNAME overrides all other records for a given name, and that means the NS records in particular cease to have effect.
Namecheap really should have rejected the attempt to create this record, but since they didn't, you will have to remove it yourself. | if you are using namecheap dns hosting then you need to update namecheap name server in domain control panel (crazydomains.com.au) and update A records (vps server IP) . |
28,099,493 | I need t create a web app that will utilize ffmpeg for compositing , converting video sources. I cam across videoConverter.js.
<https://bgrins.github.io/videoconverter.js/>
Does anyone know of any other options?
Can I use a C# solution? | 2015/01/22 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/28099493",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/129899/"
] | 5 years later, actually you can run ffmpeg inside the browser.
Check out <https://github.com/ffmpegwasm/ffmpeg.wasm>
"ffmpeg.wasm is a pure Webassembly / Javascript port of FFmpeg. It enables video & audio record, convert and stream right inside browsers." | You are going to have a tough time running something like that directly in the browser - and even if you did it would require a lot of code. I would suggest building a small web application that lives on a server that will take a media file as a parameter along with any configuration options that you want to pass along with it and let ffmpeg do the hard work on the server without having to recreate the wheel then return the modified media file. I've done something similar and it works great and in the end is a very small, lightweight application. |
12,261,412 | I have two asp.net mvc projects. Moreover one of them used ASPX view engine and other Razor.
First project it is something common from all users, other for some group of these users. They both share one session per user.
I'm going to join these projects and use [areas](http://www.asp.net/whitepapers/what-is-new-in-aspnet-mvc#_TOC3_2) for each. Now I want to know is that possible for my requirements?
I have two questions:
1. Is it possible to put two projects with different view engines in one project and separate them in areas?
2. Is it possible to deploy one area in asp.net mvc and leave other area without changes?
PS: I feel that answer for first question is not. But I still interesting in second (just want to know if it is possible and in which way). | 2012/09/04 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/12261412",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/182344/"
] | Here you find a blog post how to use multiple view engines in the same project:
<http://weblogs.asp.net/gunnarpeipman/archive/2010/07/29/asp-net-mvc-3-using-multiple-view-engines-in-same-project.aspx>
I guess this can also work with areas...
To your second question. There is a framework called mef. With the Managed Extensibility Framework (Mef) you could build up a plugin structure for your web-page where each plugin an be maintained indepentently. But you have to do a little of extra work for it.
See these links that might point you in the right direction:
<http://blog.maartenballiauw.be/post/2009/04/21/ASPNET-MVC-and-the-Managed-Extensibility-Framework-%28MEF%29.aspx>
<http://www.fidelitydesign.net/?p=88>
I hope I did understand your question correct and could help... | 1 - YES
=======
Yes I work on a project that runs Spark and Razor at the same time.
You can't mix the 2 together
* Rendering a partial Spark from within a Razor page doesn't work (at least not well).
2 - NO
======
You can deploy changes to Views without affecting the rest of the site.
However, **touching either the Bin folder or a .config file will reset the AppDomain**. Also, changes to shared code will obviously affect both areas.
**Resetting the AppDomain will clear any SessionState** unless you are using an out-of-process session state provider (like StateServer, SQL Server, MemCache, etc...)
Why do you want to do this?
Alternate solutions:
1. Create 2 websites in IIS, you can bind them to separate IP addresses or Host Headers
2. Create 2 virtual directories with 2 separate sites |
2,459 | Some years ago, I picked up a Cannondale R3000 and moved all the components to my current bike as an exercise in bike building, never repeated (in fairness, the Cannondale fit me a little better but my beautiful 1998 Klein has such a sweet, sweet paint job...). I've been putting the frame on Craigslist off and on for a few years, but no one seems to want to pay what I'm asking. Regardless, my current MTB is an all-mountain beast that I bought before I knew my riding style, and I'm thinking of picking up a more cross-country steed.
Times being tight and all, is there anything preventing me from building out the Cannondale road frame as a mountain bike? Obvious [potential] answers (e.g., tire clearance) are good, more involved ones (e.g., frame robustness) are too. I'm trying to get a picture of what might lie ahead in this venture. | 2011/01/02 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/2459",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/840/"
] | If you want to use it for "proper mountain biking" (however you define that) the answer is almost certainly no. You won't be able to fit wide enough tyres to give you decent grip, and punctures are likely to be a problem. Additionally, the geometry will be all wrong (if you put straight bars on it you'll probably feel quite cramped without a long stem, which will make the handling wierd). That's without getting into the strength issue - Cannondales have always seemed quite fragile to me (but that's an opinion only, never owned one).
However, if you want something for blasting along relatively smooth forest trails that aren't muddy, fit the widest grippiest tyres you can and give it a whirl. Despite what I said about strength in relation to proper mountain biking, road bikes are surprisingly strong provided the forces are applied to them in the way the bike is designed. A few small bumps are unlikely to break it assuming you're not a large rider, you don't try jumping and you don't crash. It'll be a very different experience from a proper mountain bike, but on the right trails could still be a lot of fun.
Ultimately though for proper cross country mountain biking you do need a mountain bike (or a cyclo cross bike). I'd suggest trying ebay with a reserve price to find out what people are prepared to pay for it. Second hand aluminium road bike frames aren't that desireable any more, even if they did have dura ace on them when purchased, simply because carbon frames are so much cheaper. However, second hand mountain bike frames are also pretty cheap, and a couple of hundred dollars towards one from selling the R3000 frame is infinitely more than nothing if it's just gathering dust.
Hope this helps. | I would strongly advise against converting an aluminum Cannondale road frame to mountain bike duty. They're not built to take the headtube stress a typical suspension fork will inflict on the frame. If you keep a rigid front fork and go the cyclocross route, you'll have better luck. |
2,459 | Some years ago, I picked up a Cannondale R3000 and moved all the components to my current bike as an exercise in bike building, never repeated (in fairness, the Cannondale fit me a little better but my beautiful 1998 Klein has such a sweet, sweet paint job...). I've been putting the frame on Craigslist off and on for a few years, but no one seems to want to pay what I'm asking. Regardless, my current MTB is an all-mountain beast that I bought before I knew my riding style, and I'm thinking of picking up a more cross-country steed.
Times being tight and all, is there anything preventing me from building out the Cannondale road frame as a mountain bike? Obvious [potential] answers (e.g., tire clearance) are good, more involved ones (e.g., frame robustness) are too. I'm trying to get a picture of what might lie ahead in this venture. | 2011/01/02 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/2459",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/840/"
] | If you want to use it for "proper mountain biking" (however you define that) the answer is almost certainly no. You won't be able to fit wide enough tyres to give you decent grip, and punctures are likely to be a problem. Additionally, the geometry will be all wrong (if you put straight bars on it you'll probably feel quite cramped without a long stem, which will make the handling wierd). That's without getting into the strength issue - Cannondales have always seemed quite fragile to me (but that's an opinion only, never owned one).
However, if you want something for blasting along relatively smooth forest trails that aren't muddy, fit the widest grippiest tyres you can and give it a whirl. Despite what I said about strength in relation to proper mountain biking, road bikes are surprisingly strong provided the forces are applied to them in the way the bike is designed. A few small bumps are unlikely to break it assuming you're not a large rider, you don't try jumping and you don't crash. It'll be a very different experience from a proper mountain bike, but on the right trails could still be a lot of fun.
Ultimately though for proper cross country mountain biking you do need a mountain bike (or a cyclo cross bike). I'd suggest trying ebay with a reserve price to find out what people are prepared to pay for it. Second hand aluminium road bike frames aren't that desireable any more, even if they did have dura ace on them when purchased, simply because carbon frames are so much cheaper. However, second hand mountain bike frames are also pretty cheap, and a couple of hundred dollars towards one from selling the R3000 frame is infinitely more than nothing if it's just gathering dust.
Hope this helps. | Converting to a straight-up mountain bike would be hard. Converting a road bike to a 650B bike capable of handling dirt trails and gravel is a pretty established practice, mostly entailing swapping the wheelset and brakes:
<http://www.cyclofiend.com/cc/2010/cc769-joehuddleston0410.html>
It's more usually done on older frames, but nothing necessarily precludes doing it on a newish racy frame. However, a narrow chainstay/seatstay/fork gap may make fitting fat tires difficult.
However, you'd be able to pick up a decent used mountain bike for the price of a decent 650b wheelset, especially if you'd be fine with a rigid bike. $125 or so can get you Tange Prestige with early 90s Deore LX and the like.
If you want a project for your R300 frame rather than selling it cheap, there's always a singlespeed conversion (the Wabi wheelset is great for the price). |
2,459 | Some years ago, I picked up a Cannondale R3000 and moved all the components to my current bike as an exercise in bike building, never repeated (in fairness, the Cannondale fit me a little better but my beautiful 1998 Klein has such a sweet, sweet paint job...). I've been putting the frame on Craigslist off and on for a few years, but no one seems to want to pay what I'm asking. Regardless, my current MTB is an all-mountain beast that I bought before I knew my riding style, and I'm thinking of picking up a more cross-country steed.
Times being tight and all, is there anything preventing me from building out the Cannondale road frame as a mountain bike? Obvious [potential] answers (e.g., tire clearance) are good, more involved ones (e.g., frame robustness) are too. I'm trying to get a picture of what might lie ahead in this venture. | 2011/01/02 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/2459",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/840/"
] | Converting to a straight-up mountain bike would be hard. Converting a road bike to a 650B bike capable of handling dirt trails and gravel is a pretty established practice, mostly entailing swapping the wheelset and brakes:
<http://www.cyclofiend.com/cc/2010/cc769-joehuddleston0410.html>
It's more usually done on older frames, but nothing necessarily precludes doing it on a newish racy frame. However, a narrow chainstay/seatstay/fork gap may make fitting fat tires difficult.
However, you'd be able to pick up a decent used mountain bike for the price of a decent 650b wheelset, especially if you'd be fine with a rigid bike. $125 or so can get you Tange Prestige with early 90s Deore LX and the like.
If you want a project for your R300 frame rather than selling it cheap, there's always a singlespeed conversion (the Wabi wheelset is great for the price). | I would strongly advise against converting an aluminum Cannondale road frame to mountain bike duty. They're not built to take the headtube stress a typical suspension fork will inflict on the frame. If you keep a rigid front fork and go the cyclocross route, you'll have better luck. |
148,741 | One of my players and I differed on how we interpreted the [Chuul](https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16824-chuul)'s multiattack the other night. Below is the MM text:
>
> ***Multiattack.*** The chuul makes two pincer attacks. If the chuul is grappling a creature, the chuul can also use its tentacles once.
>
>
>
If a Chuul grapples a creature as a result of its Multiattack, can it make a tentacle attack on the same turn?
The situation was as follows:
The chuul attacked player A with its first pincer attack and missed. It attacked A with its second pincer attack and hit, thus grappling A. I ruled that the tentacle attack could occur on the chuul's next turn if A were still grappled. (The other possible ruling is that the tentacle attack can occur on the chuul's current turn.)
My thinking is that a Multiattack is one action, and that the "If the chuul is grappling..." is a prerequisite condition to the action that must be met to grant the tentacle attack. The wording of "grappling", as opposed to "grapples", means that the chuul must be currently grappling the target before the Multiattack action is taken.
Which is the correct interpretation? | 2019/05/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/148741",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/52994/"
] | Questionable, but yes, it can.
------------------------------
As far as I can tell there is not a rule or ruling that decides this situation in either direction. The answer depends on whether the creature needs to meet all conditions for the targets of the attack action when using Multiattack when declaring the action.
There is no ruling stating that all the conditions of the Multiattack have to be met at the start of the Attack action.
Since there are no rules declaring this specifically, I would apply a similar ruling for the Extra Attack feature.
According to [a tweet by Jeremy Crawford](https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/06/01/extra-attack-targets/) about Extra Attack, *you can pick your target before each attack*. If we suppose the same rule applies for Multiattack, then the creature can choose to use its tentacle attack because it has a valid target at that point and the condition is met. | No, it can't.
=============
The Player's Handbook explains on page 189 *"On your turn, you can move a distance up to your speed and take one action."* There is no mention of this being any different for monsters, therefore Multiattack is still a single action, even though it can target multiple targets and cause different effects.
To get the 2 Pincers + 1 Tentacle attacks as part of its Multiattack action, the condition must be met before the action begins. |
148,741 | One of my players and I differed on how we interpreted the [Chuul](https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16824-chuul)'s multiattack the other night. Below is the MM text:
>
> ***Multiattack.*** The chuul makes two pincer attacks. If the chuul is grappling a creature, the chuul can also use its tentacles once.
>
>
>
If a Chuul grapples a creature as a result of its Multiattack, can it make a tentacle attack on the same turn?
The situation was as follows:
The chuul attacked player A with its first pincer attack and missed. It attacked A with its second pincer attack and hit, thus grappling A. I ruled that the tentacle attack could occur on the chuul's next turn if A were still grappled. (The other possible ruling is that the tentacle attack can occur on the chuul's current turn.)
My thinking is that a Multiattack is one action, and that the "If the chuul is grappling..." is a prerequisite condition to the action that must be met to grant the tentacle attack. The wording of "grappling", as opposed to "grapples", means that the chuul must be currently grappling the target before the Multiattack action is taken.
Which is the correct interpretation? | 2019/05/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/148741",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/52994/"
] | Based on English grammar I would argue that it can't tentacle attack on this turn.
The form used in the sentence "if it is grappling a creature" is the present continuous. This form is used for two cases [(source)](https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar-reference/present-continuous):
* **activities at the moment of speaking**. This means when declaring the attack action, something is already grappled. You also wouldn't say "I am attacking" if you are not right now doing it but declaring the intent to do so in the near future.
* **future plans or arrangements**. There is no arrangement to grappel someone. Also from my understanding this usage of present continuous would require specifying the time when you plan on doing it. "if at the end of the attacks it is grappling someone, it may use its tentacle as well". | No, it can't.
=============
The Player's Handbook explains on page 189 *"On your turn, you can move a distance up to your speed and take one action."* There is no mention of this being any different for monsters, therefore Multiattack is still a single action, even though it can target multiple targets and cause different effects.
To get the 2 Pincers + 1 Tentacle attacks as part of its Multiattack action, the condition must be met before the action begins. |
148,741 | One of my players and I differed on how we interpreted the [Chuul](https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16824-chuul)'s multiattack the other night. Below is the MM text:
>
> ***Multiattack.*** The chuul makes two pincer attacks. If the chuul is grappling a creature, the chuul can also use its tentacles once.
>
>
>
If a Chuul grapples a creature as a result of its Multiattack, can it make a tentacle attack on the same turn?
The situation was as follows:
The chuul attacked player A with its first pincer attack and missed. It attacked A with its second pincer attack and hit, thus grappling A. I ruled that the tentacle attack could occur on the chuul's next turn if A were still grappled. (The other possible ruling is that the tentacle attack can occur on the chuul's current turn.)
My thinking is that a Multiattack is one action, and that the "If the chuul is grappling..." is a prerequisite condition to the action that must be met to grant the tentacle attack. The wording of "grappling", as opposed to "grapples", means that the chuul must be currently grappling the target before the Multiattack action is taken.
Which is the correct interpretation? | 2019/05/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/148741",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/52994/"
] | The Chuul makes a single-action Multiattack; the tentacle use is part of that action.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the [Sage Advice Compendium V.2.3](https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf) (11):
>
> **Is the grappling rule in the *Player’s Handbook* usable by a handless creature?**
>
> The grappling rule (*PH*, 195) was written for a
> grappler with at least one hand, but a DM can easily adapt the rule
> for a handless creature that has a bite or an appendage, such as a
> tentacle, that could reasonably seize someone. A wolf, for example,
> could plausibly try to seize a person with its bite, and the animal
> wouldn’t be able to use its bite attack as long as it held onto the
> person. Keep in mind that the grappling rule in the *Player’s
> Handbook* requires the Attack action, so a creature must take that
> action—rather than Multiattack or another action in the creature’s
> stat block—when it uses that rule. A monster, such as a roper, that
> has a special grappling attack doesn’t follow that rule when using its
> special attack.
>
>
>
The special grappling attack of the Chuul is the *Multiattack* with pincers and its tentacles. If the condition is met it does not have to spend an extra action. It does not follow the PHB's grappling rules.
>
> **Multiattack**. The chuul makes two pincer attacks. If the chuul is grappling a creature, the chuul can also use its tentacles once.
>
>
>
The creature can choose to use its tentacle because it has a valid target at that point and the condition is met. The *Multiattack* is a single action.
Also see MM (10) on **Actions**, more specifically MM (11) on **Multiattack** and **Grapple Rules for Monsters**.
---
We also have some insight into design intent, albeit unofficial, in [this tweet sequence and in particular the answer by Jeremy Crawford](https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/06/17/when-a-creature-multiattacks-does-it-choose-the-order/), who says:
>
> The DM decides the order of a creature's attacks using Multiattack,
> unless the creature's stat block mandates a particular order.
>
>
>
---
This ruling is supported by **Simultaneous Effects** (XGtE, chapter 2)
>
> Most effects in the game happen in succession, following an order set
> by the rules or the DM. In rare cases, effects can happen at the same
> time, especially at the start or end of a creature’s turn. If two or
> more things happen at the same time on a character or monster’s turn,
> the person at the game table — whether player or DM — who controls
> that creature decides the order in which those things happen. For
> example, if two effects occur at the end of a player character’s turn,
> the player decides which of the two effects happens first.
>
>
>
So what are effects?
[DMG errata version 2.0](https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf) (1):
>
> ***Combining Game Effects (p. 252).*** This is a new subsection at the end
> of the “Combat” section:
>
>
>
> >
> > Different game features can affect a target at the same time. But when
> > two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one
> > of them—the most potent one—apply while the durations of the effects
> > overlap. For example, if a target is ignited by a fire elemental’s
> > Fire Form trait, the ongoing fire damage doesn’t increase if the
> > burning target is subjected to that trait again. Game features include
> > spells, class features, feats, racial traits, monster abilities, and
> > magic items. See the related rule in the “Combining Magical Effects”
> > section of chapter 10 in the *Player’s Handbook*.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
So we can safely gather that monster abilities are indeed effects and that either way the controller of the creature decides the order of the effect. In this case, it is most likely the DM who may choose either way. | No, it can't.
=============
The Player's Handbook explains on page 189 *"On your turn, you can move a distance up to your speed and take one action."* There is no mention of this being any different for monsters, therefore Multiattack is still a single action, even though it can target multiple targets and cause different effects.
To get the 2 Pincers + 1 Tentacle attacks as part of its Multiattack action, the condition must be met before the action begins. |
148,741 | One of my players and I differed on how we interpreted the [Chuul](https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16824-chuul)'s multiattack the other night. Below is the MM text:
>
> ***Multiattack.*** The chuul makes two pincer attacks. If the chuul is grappling a creature, the chuul can also use its tentacles once.
>
>
>
If a Chuul grapples a creature as a result of its Multiattack, can it make a tentacle attack on the same turn?
The situation was as follows:
The chuul attacked player A with its first pincer attack and missed. It attacked A with its second pincer attack and hit, thus grappling A. I ruled that the tentacle attack could occur on the chuul's next turn if A were still grappled. (The other possible ruling is that the tentacle attack can occur on the chuul's current turn.)
My thinking is that a Multiattack is one action, and that the "If the chuul is grappling..." is a prerequisite condition to the action that must be met to grant the tentacle attack. The wording of "grappling", as opposed to "grapples", means that the chuul must be currently grappling the target before the Multiattack action is taken.
Which is the correct interpretation? | 2019/05/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/148741",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/52994/"
] | Questionable, but yes, it can.
------------------------------
As far as I can tell there is not a rule or ruling that decides this situation in either direction. The answer depends on whether the creature needs to meet all conditions for the targets of the attack action when using Multiattack when declaring the action.
There is no ruling stating that all the conditions of the Multiattack have to be met at the start of the Attack action.
Since there are no rules declaring this specifically, I would apply a similar ruling for the Extra Attack feature.
According to [a tweet by Jeremy Crawford](https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/06/01/extra-attack-targets/) about Extra Attack, *you can pick your target before each attack*. If we suppose the same rule applies for Multiattack, then the creature can choose to use its tentacle attack because it has a valid target at that point and the condition is met. | Based on English grammar I would argue that it can't tentacle attack on this turn.
The form used in the sentence "if it is grappling a creature" is the present continuous. This form is used for two cases [(source)](https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar-reference/present-continuous):
* **activities at the moment of speaking**. This means when declaring the attack action, something is already grappled. You also wouldn't say "I am attacking" if you are not right now doing it but declaring the intent to do so in the near future.
* **future plans or arrangements**. There is no arrangement to grappel someone. Also from my understanding this usage of present continuous would require specifying the time when you plan on doing it. "if at the end of the attacks it is grappling someone, it may use its tentacle as well". |
148,741 | One of my players and I differed on how we interpreted the [Chuul](https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16824-chuul)'s multiattack the other night. Below is the MM text:
>
> ***Multiattack.*** The chuul makes two pincer attacks. If the chuul is grappling a creature, the chuul can also use its tentacles once.
>
>
>
If a Chuul grapples a creature as a result of its Multiattack, can it make a tentacle attack on the same turn?
The situation was as follows:
The chuul attacked player A with its first pincer attack and missed. It attacked A with its second pincer attack and hit, thus grappling A. I ruled that the tentacle attack could occur on the chuul's next turn if A were still grappled. (The other possible ruling is that the tentacle attack can occur on the chuul's current turn.)
My thinking is that a Multiattack is one action, and that the "If the chuul is grappling..." is a prerequisite condition to the action that must be met to grant the tentacle attack. The wording of "grappling", as opposed to "grapples", means that the chuul must be currently grappling the target before the Multiattack action is taken.
Which is the correct interpretation? | 2019/05/27 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/148741",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/52994/"
] | Questionable, but yes, it can.
------------------------------
As far as I can tell there is not a rule or ruling that decides this situation in either direction. The answer depends on whether the creature needs to meet all conditions for the targets of the attack action when using Multiattack when declaring the action.
There is no ruling stating that all the conditions of the Multiattack have to be met at the start of the Attack action.
Since there are no rules declaring this specifically, I would apply a similar ruling for the Extra Attack feature.
According to [a tweet by Jeremy Crawford](https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/06/01/extra-attack-targets/) about Extra Attack, *you can pick your target before each attack*. If we suppose the same rule applies for Multiattack, then the creature can choose to use its tentacle attack because it has a valid target at that point and the condition is met. | The Chuul makes a single-action Multiattack; the tentacle use is part of that action.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the [Sage Advice Compendium V.2.3](https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf) (11):
>
> **Is the grappling rule in the *Player’s Handbook* usable by a handless creature?**
>
> The grappling rule (*PH*, 195) was written for a
> grappler with at least one hand, but a DM can easily adapt the rule
> for a handless creature that has a bite or an appendage, such as a
> tentacle, that could reasonably seize someone. A wolf, for example,
> could plausibly try to seize a person with its bite, and the animal
> wouldn’t be able to use its bite attack as long as it held onto the
> person. Keep in mind that the grappling rule in the *Player’s
> Handbook* requires the Attack action, so a creature must take that
> action—rather than Multiattack or another action in the creature’s
> stat block—when it uses that rule. A monster, such as a roper, that
> has a special grappling attack doesn’t follow that rule when using its
> special attack.
>
>
>
The special grappling attack of the Chuul is the *Multiattack* with pincers and its tentacles. If the condition is met it does not have to spend an extra action. It does not follow the PHB's grappling rules.
>
> **Multiattack**. The chuul makes two pincer attacks. If the chuul is grappling a creature, the chuul can also use its tentacles once.
>
>
>
The creature can choose to use its tentacle because it has a valid target at that point and the condition is met. The *Multiattack* is a single action.
Also see MM (10) on **Actions**, more specifically MM (11) on **Multiattack** and **Grapple Rules for Monsters**.
---
We also have some insight into design intent, albeit unofficial, in [this tweet sequence and in particular the answer by Jeremy Crawford](https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/06/17/when-a-creature-multiattacks-does-it-choose-the-order/), who says:
>
> The DM decides the order of a creature's attacks using Multiattack,
> unless the creature's stat block mandates a particular order.
>
>
>
---
This ruling is supported by **Simultaneous Effects** (XGtE, chapter 2)
>
> Most effects in the game happen in succession, following an order set
> by the rules or the DM. In rare cases, effects can happen at the same
> time, especially at the start or end of a creature’s turn. If two or
> more things happen at the same time on a character or monster’s turn,
> the person at the game table — whether player or DM — who controls
> that creature decides the order in which those things happen. For
> example, if two effects occur at the end of a player character’s turn,
> the player decides which of the two effects happens first.
>
>
>
So what are effects?
[DMG errata version 2.0](https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf) (1):
>
> ***Combining Game Effects (p. 252).*** This is a new subsection at the end
> of the “Combat” section:
>
>
>
> >
> > Different game features can affect a target at the same time. But when
> > two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one
> > of them—the most potent one—apply while the durations of the effects
> > overlap. For example, if a target is ignited by a fire elemental’s
> > Fire Form trait, the ongoing fire damage doesn’t increase if the
> > burning target is subjected to that trait again. Game features include
> > spells, class features, feats, racial traits, monster abilities, and
> > magic items. See the related rule in the “Combining Magical Effects”
> > section of chapter 10 in the *Player’s Handbook*.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
So we can safely gather that monster abilities are indeed effects and that either way the controller of the creature decides the order of the effect. In this case, it is most likely the DM who may choose either way. |
615,340 | Please I really need suggestions on this.
I want to generate a -/+50V dual-rail at >=100mA supply for a circuit I am working on.
I bought 2 copies of this boost converter module from Amazon and it converts 9V to 50V no problem.
<https://support.envistiamall.com/kb/xl6009-dc-dc-5v-to-48v-boost-step-up-converter-power-supply-module/> However, when I tried to get the negative rail by connecting the positive Vout+ of one board to the negative Vout- of the other to create a ground so as to have a +50V, a -50V, and a ground, I got sparks. I later thought that the board might be built in such a way that the negative output Vout- is connected to the input voltage ground for safety, and when I connected Vout+ to the other Vout-, I short circuited the supply….which makes sense. (May be that is also because I was testing it with the same desktop power supply instead of 2 separate 9V batteries)
But now it is the weekend, the lab is closed and I am out of solutions. I saw this IC on AD ([LT8471](https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/8471fd.pdf)) that can do what I need but it has an incredibly long lead time which I cannot afford.
I also contemplated using a NE555 timer to do what I want, but that chip has a maximum current output of around 50mA (I need 100mA). The LTspice simulation produced an output voltage of 50V, current 800mA. But I doubt it will handle what I want.
Please I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks in advance!!!! | 2022/04/10 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/615340",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/311131/"
] | Your explanation about why you got sparks is probably right: most DC-DC converters (and all really cheap ones I've used so far) have a common ground between input and output.
I don't think it's for safety (I would even say that isolated output is safer), but it is cheaper and simpler, and OK for 98% of hobbyist projects (+ it avoids the begginer's mistake to forget to connect grounds together).
So if you want to generate a -50V as you suggested, then you need either isolated DC-DC converters (it is usually written explicitly), or you need to use independent supplies (without connecting their grounds): two 9V batteries are a good solution for this (if you use main connected supplies, make 100% sure they are fully isolated).
WARNING: most DC-DC converters can not handle to sink current on the Vout+ pin, not to source current on the Vout- pin: if you want to go this way, make sure you don't have any current going "the wrong way" (if need be, post you schematics for other people to check).
Otherwise, the "normal" solution would be to buy either a symetric supply, or a negative voltage supply.
I would also suggest you do some readings about electrical safety if you are not familiar with it: 100V DC starts to be dangerous (48V DC is the maximum considered "safe by default"). | >
> I want to generate a -/+50V dual-rail at >=100mA supply for a circuit I am working on.
>
>
>
Here is an inverter that supplies the 2 voltages simultaneously.
Just use PWM for driving, with some "protection" to be provided.
Transformer should not be too hard to find or make.
Note that 2 A (or more at starting) are needed for generating the outputs voltages. (around 2 \* 7 W ... for 2 \* 50 V - 100 mA outputs).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UN75e.png) |
15,004,804 | I'm new for IOS programming. I want to send data to iPhone via TCP/IP protocol using WiFi network. I have already done with client to send data. I want to known Iphone can be a server that receive data and display on the screen? Server have to listening on port from client what would i suppose to use command or method? any suggestion? | 2013/02/21 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/15004804",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2095822/"
] | Check if this could be helpful for you: <https://github.com/fpotter/socketio-cocoa> | Yes, iPhone can act as server.
An easy way out would be using Robbie Hanson's wrapper
called [CocoaAsyncSocket](https://github.com/robbiehanson/CocoaAsyncSocket).
It comes with server examples. I believe server code is written for OSX
but it can be easily converted for iOS usage.
One problem that you might encounter is discoverability - finding
the current IP of the device - you can overcome this problem using
Bonjour, but that is another topic. Pretty easy to implement though. |
133,511 | Sometimes, when we say "Nobody wants me to do what I don't want to do？", I was always wondering and dying to know if I could say "Nobody wants me to do what I don't want to" instead? Thanks. | 2017/06/24 | [
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/133511",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/users/56486/"
] | In English, there can be ellipsis of a verb clause.
**Nobody wants me to do|| what I don't want to do||**.
In this case, you cannot leave out the do. Because there is a complex sentence made up of a main clause and a subordinate clause.
You can only leave out **repetition of the verb that comes after to when the context is clear**. That said, some people in speaking might very well leave it out: **Nobody wants me to do what I don't want [to do]**.
Person One: I **want you to go** to the movies with me.
Do you want to? [you can leave out repeating go]
Person Two: Yes, I want to. [to go to the movies, implied]
Person One: I want you to do this, I insist on it.
Person Two: Why do you want me to? [to do this]. | British English is much more likely to include the *do*. Most Americans omit it whenever we can get away with doing so, and would probably prefer the "Nobody wants me to do what I don't want to" form. |
31,386 | Do girls and boys really need different toys especially when they are very young? I am speculating part of reason why girls tend to play with Barbie dolls and boys tend to play with transformers is:
* Parents make decisions for them.
Would girls play with Lego at all? | 2017/08/22 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/31386",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/28457/"
] | Let the child decide. Offer both and see what they like. | My wife thought the same thing until we had a boy.
While the range of enjoyment varies more within the sexes than across the sexes, in general, left to their own devices, girls will gravitate more towards traditional "girl" toys, and boys towards traditional "boy" toys.
Girls can (and do) enjoy lego, but they don't gain satisfaction from spending hours of time alone building towers and space ships. Boys will play with dolls (okay action figures), but not to the extent that girls will play with Barbies.
In our household, we base our decisions about what toys to buy based on what the kids actually play with when they get their hands on it. Most parents I know do pretty much the same thing. Most families have no time or energy to worry about the politically correct issue of the day.
My daughter was considered a tom boy. She often preferred playing with the boys to the girls, and had a selection of both "boy" and "girl" toys. Later, my son inherited many of her toys. He plays much more with the trucks and transformer action toys than she ever did, and not at all with the "girl" toys that still survive.
Disney has not been able to break into the aftermarket for boys nearly the way they have with girls, and it's not for a lack of trying. Girls are eager to dress up as their favorite princess, but boys in general have no prolonged interest in dressing up as this or that pirate or prince.
In the mid 2000's Disney commissioned an anthropologist to study the culture of boys. What they discovered was that boys, as a whole, have an entirely different type of culture than girls, within the same macro-culture. [See Link](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/arts/television/14boys.html?pagewanted=all&mcubz=1)
Based on that research they had to invent a whole new marketing machine from scratch to reach the boys aftermarket. They went so far as too buy marvel comics and Lucasfilm (star wars). Yet they still have not been able to establish a solid aftermarket product that is particularly sought after by boys. |
31,386 | Do girls and boys really need different toys especially when they are very young? I am speculating part of reason why girls tend to play with Barbie dolls and boys tend to play with transformers is:
* Parents make decisions for them.
Would girls play with Lego at all? | 2017/08/22 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/31386",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/28457/"
] | My wife thought the same thing until we had a boy.
While the range of enjoyment varies more within the sexes than across the sexes, in general, left to their own devices, girls will gravitate more towards traditional "girl" toys, and boys towards traditional "boy" toys.
Girls can (and do) enjoy lego, but they don't gain satisfaction from spending hours of time alone building towers and space ships. Boys will play with dolls (okay action figures), but not to the extent that girls will play with Barbies.
In our household, we base our decisions about what toys to buy based on what the kids actually play with when they get their hands on it. Most parents I know do pretty much the same thing. Most families have no time or energy to worry about the politically correct issue of the day.
My daughter was considered a tom boy. She often preferred playing with the boys to the girls, and had a selection of both "boy" and "girl" toys. Later, my son inherited many of her toys. He plays much more with the trucks and transformer action toys than she ever did, and not at all with the "girl" toys that still survive.
Disney has not been able to break into the aftermarket for boys nearly the way they have with girls, and it's not for a lack of trying. Girls are eager to dress up as their favorite princess, but boys in general have no prolonged interest in dressing up as this or that pirate or prince.
In the mid 2000's Disney commissioned an anthropologist to study the culture of boys. What they discovered was that boys, as a whole, have an entirely different type of culture than girls, within the same macro-culture. [See Link](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/arts/television/14boys.html?pagewanted=all&mcubz=1)
Based on that research they had to invent a whole new marketing machine from scratch to reach the boys aftermarket. They went so far as too buy marvel comics and Lucasfilm (star wars). Yet they still have not been able to establish a solid aftermarket product that is particularly sought after by boys. | Ask any parent how many toys they've bought for their children that the kids outright ignored. There's a certain amount of cultural influence, but your kids like what they like. They have individual opinions and preferences from a very young age.
My eldest daughter has a very narrow interest in toys. She likes blinky lights and sounds, and will have one favorite toy she plays with until it wears out. People keep giving her dolls, which she has always completely ignored. We just sort of amassed a collection and kind of forgot about them.
Five years later, her little sister was born, and we had this big collection of unused dolls and other "girly" toys lying around in toy boxes, and she took to them like a duck to water. No one gave them to her, or encouraged her to play with them, she just found them on her own. Because of our older daughter we had sort of forgotten that little girls were supposed to like dolls.
So just treat your kids like individuals. They will definitely tell you what toys they like, and there's not much you can do other than introduce them to a wide variety. |
31,386 | Do girls and boys really need different toys especially when they are very young? I am speculating part of reason why girls tend to play with Barbie dolls and boys tend to play with transformers is:
* Parents make decisions for them.
Would girls play with Lego at all? | 2017/08/22 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/31386",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/28457/"
] | Let the child decide. Offer both and see what they like. | I think if you have several kids of differing genders and sexes you will see that overall, no they don't need different toys & your sons can play with barbies just fine.
What makes you assume a lego is a preferable toy to one that allows you to role-play, make up story lines, etc? What makes building better? ;)
Overall though, my children gravitate toward toys you would likely think of being typical of gender. They are homeschooled, have toys of all sorts to choose from and don't have network TV - sooooo, I'd say it's not an uncommon preference and likely not instilled by parents. That said, I do not think a parent should ever discourage a child from what toys they prefer.
That said, I wonder why toy makers make such gender specific toys (dolls saying only "mama") and why the stores most often make such gender specific sections. My sons loved toy kitchens and shopping carts, foods and such. In most store this was all put over with girl toys and many were only available in pink. While my boys don't mind some pink, they didn't want a ton of pink toys. My one son also loved baby dolls. He wanted one that said "dada" so badly and I never was able to find one. So many of these toys have several things they can do these days, there is no reason a doll maker cannot put a "mama" and "dada" switch onto a doll. None.
And of course girls will play with legos, and transformers and generally they are allowed to. Your bigger cultural issue is are boys allowed to play Barbies, My Little ponies, Strawberry Shortcake, or similar "girl" things. Girls have been "allowed" to play with boy toys all my life, they just get thought of as "tom boys". Boys on the other hand are seldom allowed that same freedom to enjoy nurturing play, domestic play, cute play. |
31,386 | Do girls and boys really need different toys especially when they are very young? I am speculating part of reason why girls tend to play with Barbie dolls and boys tend to play with transformers is:
* Parents make decisions for them.
Would girls play with Lego at all? | 2017/08/22 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/31386",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/28457/"
] | I think if you have several kids of differing genders and sexes you will see that overall, no they don't need different toys & your sons can play with barbies just fine.
What makes you assume a lego is a preferable toy to one that allows you to role-play, make up story lines, etc? What makes building better? ;)
Overall though, my children gravitate toward toys you would likely think of being typical of gender. They are homeschooled, have toys of all sorts to choose from and don't have network TV - sooooo, I'd say it's not an uncommon preference and likely not instilled by parents. That said, I do not think a parent should ever discourage a child from what toys they prefer.
That said, I wonder why toy makers make such gender specific toys (dolls saying only "mama") and why the stores most often make such gender specific sections. My sons loved toy kitchens and shopping carts, foods and such. In most store this was all put over with girl toys and many were only available in pink. While my boys don't mind some pink, they didn't want a ton of pink toys. My one son also loved baby dolls. He wanted one that said "dada" so badly and I never was able to find one. So many of these toys have several things they can do these days, there is no reason a doll maker cannot put a "mama" and "dada" switch onto a doll. None.
And of course girls will play with legos, and transformers and generally they are allowed to. Your bigger cultural issue is are boys allowed to play Barbies, My Little ponies, Strawberry Shortcake, or similar "girl" things. Girls have been "allowed" to play with boy toys all my life, they just get thought of as "tom boys". Boys on the other hand are seldom allowed that same freedom to enjoy nurturing play, domestic play, cute play. | Ask any parent how many toys they've bought for their children that the kids outright ignored. There's a certain amount of cultural influence, but your kids like what they like. They have individual opinions and preferences from a very young age.
My eldest daughter has a very narrow interest in toys. She likes blinky lights and sounds, and will have one favorite toy she plays with until it wears out. People keep giving her dolls, which she has always completely ignored. We just sort of amassed a collection and kind of forgot about them.
Five years later, her little sister was born, and we had this big collection of unused dolls and other "girly" toys lying around in toy boxes, and she took to them like a duck to water. No one gave them to her, or encouraged her to play with them, she just found them on her own. Because of our older daughter we had sort of forgotten that little girls were supposed to like dolls.
So just treat your kids like individuals. They will definitely tell you what toys they like, and there's not much you can do other than introduce them to a wide variety. |
31,386 | Do girls and boys really need different toys especially when they are very young? I am speculating part of reason why girls tend to play with Barbie dolls and boys tend to play with transformers is:
* Parents make decisions for them.
Would girls play with Lego at all? | 2017/08/22 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/31386",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/28457/"
] | Let the child decide. Offer both and see what they like. | Ask any parent how many toys they've bought for their children that the kids outright ignored. There's a certain amount of cultural influence, but your kids like what they like. They have individual opinions and preferences from a very young age.
My eldest daughter has a very narrow interest in toys. She likes blinky lights and sounds, and will have one favorite toy she plays with until it wears out. People keep giving her dolls, which she has always completely ignored. We just sort of amassed a collection and kind of forgot about them.
Five years later, her little sister was born, and we had this big collection of unused dolls and other "girly" toys lying around in toy boxes, and she took to them like a duck to water. No one gave them to her, or encouraged her to play with them, she just found them on her own. Because of our older daughter we had sort of forgotten that little girls were supposed to like dolls.
So just treat your kids like individuals. They will definitely tell you what toys they like, and there's not much you can do other than introduce them to a wide variety. |
4,327,918 | Up until now, even though I do a lot of small home projects, I have never used any source control for my own projects. I am now almost at the point of deploying my first personal public website and figured that this would be a good time to set something up. One of the main things I am looking for is version control (labelling etc). Integration with Visual Studio (2010) is nice but not essential.
I realise that for free, I am not going to get anything as good as TFS or similar, but what am looking for suggestions for a free source control.
Any ideas? | 2010/12/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4327918",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/92040/"
] | Assuming a Windows environment, I can't recommend [VisualSVN](http://www.visualsvn.com/) Server enough. The server is free, but the GUI does cost a few bucks. Not a lot. Considering how well the GUI interfaces with Visual Studio, it's well work the price. | You can easily use [Mercurial](https://www.mercurial-scm.org/wiki/Mercurial) for Windows and get a [plugin for Visual Studio](http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/OtherTools).
Joel Spolsky wrote a [guide to using Mercurial](http://hginit.com/). |
4,327,918 | Up until now, even though I do a lot of small home projects, I have never used any source control for my own projects. I am now almost at the point of deploying my first personal public website and figured that this would be a good time to set something up. One of the main things I am looking for is version control (labelling etc). Integration with Visual Studio (2010) is nice but not essential.
I realise that for free, I am not going to get anything as good as TFS or similar, but what am looking for suggestions for a free source control.
Any ideas? | 2010/12/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4327918",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/92040/"
] | Why don't you give a try to [Plastic SCM](http://www.plasticscm.com)?? It is free for teams up to 15 users and it is actually stronger than TFS for version control:
* Much stronger branching and merging
* Distributed (like Git and mercurial)
* Graphical (have you seen the branch explorer??) | If there's just you then [Perforce](http://www.perforce.com/perforce/download_eval.html) is an option.
It's free for 2 users and integrates well with Visual Studio.
The big plus point for me is the changelist management features so you can work on two or more edits at the same time if necessary without getting your files mixed up.
The big drawback is that you are limited to 2 users so if you get more people on board you'll have to switch. |
4,327,918 | Up until now, even though I do a lot of small home projects, I have never used any source control for my own projects. I am now almost at the point of deploying my first personal public website and figured that this would be a good time to set something up. One of the main things I am looking for is version control (labelling etc). Integration with Visual Studio (2010) is nice but not essential.
I realise that for free, I am not going to get anything as good as TFS or similar, but what am looking for suggestions for a free source control.
Any ideas? | 2010/12/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4327918",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/92040/"
] | Assuming a Windows environment, I can't recommend [VisualSVN](http://www.visualsvn.com/) Server enough. The server is free, but the GUI does cost a few bucks. Not a lot. Considering how well the GUI interfaces with Visual Studio, it's well work the price. | Why don't you give a try to [Plastic SCM](http://www.plasticscm.com)?? It is free for teams up to 15 users and it is actually stronger than TFS for version control:
* Much stronger branching and merging
* Distributed (like Git and mercurial)
* Graphical (have you seen the branch explorer??) |
4,327,918 | Up until now, even though I do a lot of small home projects, I have never used any source control for my own projects. I am now almost at the point of deploying my first personal public website and figured that this would be a good time to set something up. One of the main things I am looking for is version control (labelling etc). Integration with Visual Studio (2010) is nice but not essential.
I realise that for free, I am not going to get anything as good as TFS or similar, but what am looking for suggestions for a free source control.
Any ideas? | 2010/12/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4327918",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/92040/"
] | You could look at [Mercurial](https://www.mercurial-scm.org/). Basically you'd want to run [TortoiseHg](http://tortoisehg.bitbucket.io/) + [VisualHG](http://visualhg.codeplex.com/) add-in for VS integration. | I use [**AnkhSVN**](http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/) - a Subversion Support for Visual Studio (a plugin). But, **it is not enough**. I need also SVN Client: I use [**SmartSVN Foundation**](https://www.smartsvn.com/features) ..It is the most professional client ..from what I found). **Both are 100% FREE!** There is also *SmartSVN Professional* - a full featured version that costs, but the free version is featured enough for me.
**Why the VS plugin is not enough?**
Because you cannot do some things from within Visual Studio. For example: moving a file from one folder to another. Another example: You want to add files (let say some '.h' files) to SVN repository that are not added to (or part of) the Visual Studio project. etc. |
4,327,918 | Up until now, even though I do a lot of small home projects, I have never used any source control for my own projects. I am now almost at the point of deploying my first personal public website and figured that this would be a good time to set something up. One of the main things I am looking for is version control (labelling etc). Integration with Visual Studio (2010) is nice but not essential.
I realise that for free, I am not going to get anything as good as TFS or similar, but what am looking for suggestions for a free source control.
Any ideas? | 2010/12/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4327918",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/92040/"
] | Assuming a Windows environment, I can't recommend [VisualSVN](http://www.visualsvn.com/) Server enough. The server is free, but the GUI does cost a few bucks. Not a lot. Considering how well the GUI interfaces with Visual Studio, it's well work the price. | I would suggest [VisualSVN](http://www.visualsvn.com/server/) for the server (I use it for all my projects) and [RocketSVN](http://www.axosoft.com/rocketsvn) for the Visual Studio client.
VisualSVN Server is a great (and easy) way to control your Subversion server, while RocketSVN integrates with Visual Studio 2010 in a seamless way.
Both, of course, are free. |
4,327,918 | Up until now, even though I do a lot of small home projects, I have never used any source control for my own projects. I am now almost at the point of deploying my first personal public website and figured that this would be a good time to set something up. One of the main things I am looking for is version control (labelling etc). Integration with Visual Studio (2010) is nice but not essential.
I realise that for free, I am not going to get anything as good as TFS or similar, but what am looking for suggestions for a free source control.
Any ideas? | 2010/12/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4327918",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/92040/"
] | Assuming a Windows environment, I can't recommend [VisualSVN](http://www.visualsvn.com/) Server enough. The server is free, but the GUI does cost a few bucks. Not a lot. Considering how well the GUI interfaces with Visual Studio, it's well work the price. | I use [**AnkhSVN**](http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/) - a Subversion Support for Visual Studio (a plugin). But, **it is not enough**. I need also SVN Client: I use [**SmartSVN Foundation**](https://www.smartsvn.com/features) ..It is the most professional client ..from what I found). **Both are 100% FREE!** There is also *SmartSVN Professional* - a full featured version that costs, but the free version is featured enough for me.
**Why the VS plugin is not enough?**
Because you cannot do some things from within Visual Studio. For example: moving a file from one folder to another. Another example: You want to add files (let say some '.h' files) to SVN repository that are not added to (or part of) the Visual Studio project. etc. |
4,327,918 | Up until now, even though I do a lot of small home projects, I have never used any source control for my own projects. I am now almost at the point of deploying my first personal public website and figured that this would be a good time to set something up. One of the main things I am looking for is version control (labelling etc). Integration with Visual Studio (2010) is nice but not essential.
I realise that for free, I am not going to get anything as good as TFS or similar, but what am looking for suggestions for a free source control.
Any ideas? | 2010/12/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4327918",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/92040/"
] | Why don't you give a try to [Plastic SCM](http://www.plasticscm.com)?? It is free for teams up to 15 users and it is actually stronger than TFS for version control:
* Much stronger branching and merging
* Distributed (like Git and mercurial)
* Graphical (have you seen the branch explorer??) | Git is a good choice; so is Subversion. The CollabNet version runs very nicely on my home machine as a Windows service. |
4,327,918 | Up until now, even though I do a lot of small home projects, I have never used any source control for my own projects. I am now almost at the point of deploying my first personal public website and figured that this would be a good time to set something up. One of the main things I am looking for is version control (labelling etc). Integration with Visual Studio (2010) is nice but not essential.
I realise that for free, I am not going to get anything as good as TFS or similar, but what am looking for suggestions for a free source control.
Any ideas? | 2010/12/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4327918",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/92040/"
] | I use [**AnkhSVN**](http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/) - a Subversion Support for Visual Studio (a plugin). But, **it is not enough**. I need also SVN Client: I use [**SmartSVN Foundation**](https://www.smartsvn.com/features) ..It is the most professional client ..from what I found). **Both are 100% FREE!** There is also *SmartSVN Professional* - a full featured version that costs, but the free version is featured enough for me.
**Why the VS plugin is not enough?**
Because you cannot do some things from within Visual Studio. For example: moving a file from one folder to another. Another example: You want to add files (let say some '.h' files) to SVN repository that are not added to (or part of) the Visual Studio project. etc. | Since Subversion is mentioned I can recommend the [SmartSVN](https://www.smartsvn.com/) client, great SVN client, free version available. |
4,327,918 | Up until now, even though I do a lot of small home projects, I have never used any source control for my own projects. I am now almost at the point of deploying my first personal public website and figured that this would be a good time to set something up. One of the main things I am looking for is version control (labelling etc). Integration with Visual Studio (2010) is nice but not essential.
I realise that for free, I am not going to get anything as good as TFS or similar, but what am looking for suggestions for a free source control.
Any ideas? | 2010/12/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4327918",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/92040/"
] | I think git is a good choice, see below link
[Using Git with Visual Studio](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/507343/using-git-with-visual-studio/507453#507453) | You could look at [Mercurial](https://www.mercurial-scm.org/). Basically you'd want to run [TortoiseHg](http://tortoisehg.bitbucket.io/) + [VisualHG](http://visualhg.codeplex.com/) add-in for VS integration. |
4,327,918 | Up until now, even though I do a lot of small home projects, I have never used any source control for my own projects. I am now almost at the point of deploying my first personal public website and figured that this would be a good time to set something up. One of the main things I am looking for is version control (labelling etc). Integration with Visual Studio (2010) is nice but not essential.
I realise that for free, I am not going to get anything as good as TFS or similar, but what am looking for suggestions for a free source control.
Any ideas? | 2010/12/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4327918",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/92040/"
] | I would suggest [VisualSVN](http://www.visualsvn.com/server/) for the server (I use it for all my projects) and [RocketSVN](http://www.axosoft.com/rocketsvn) for the Visual Studio client.
VisualSVN Server is a great (and easy) way to control your Subversion server, while RocketSVN integrates with Visual Studio 2010 in a seamless way.
Both, of course, are free. | If there's just you then [Perforce](http://www.perforce.com/perforce/download_eval.html) is an option.
It's free for 2 users and integrates well with Visual Studio.
The big plus point for me is the changelist management features so you can work on two or more edits at the same time if necessary without getting your files mixed up.
The big drawback is that you are limited to 2 users so if you get more people on board you'll have to switch. |
79,281 | I need to batch process 100's of images in one go, these are largely product photographs for my e-commerce store & the task are repetitive such as white background , image resizing,and compressing .
Currently , I use:
* GIMP - White Background ( Couldn't batch Process for white background)
* Faststone - for Batch Resizing
I find this laborious & time consuming ? Is there a better way ..Do recommend | 2016/10/26 | [
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/79281",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/78920/"
] | Yo there!, I have used one plugin [David's Batch Processor GIMP plugin](https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/79281/batch-processing)
its easy to use and stable, at least it can do the resizing part.
Other option is [BIMP. Batch Image Manipulation Plugin](http://registry.gimp.org/node/26259), it seems it manage a bit more options. But I haven tried yet.
But in the other hand, IMHO, as cited by Scribblemacher, the imagemagick way is better | If you are using photoshop you may want to look into image proccessor within the script dropdown. Or better yet search Image Processor Pro (free photoshop script) and it will prove much more option and control. |
1,413,960 | I am trying to create a new style in Word, say 'My style'. But when I bold, italize or underline a word or sentence in that style, it appears as a new style 'My style (with para space) + Bold'. Is there any way to include them as part of a style so that it appears as 'My style' itself even if we bold or italize a word in that style.
 | 2019/03/14 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/1413960",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/1007610/"
] | I figured it. In style pane options, unchecking 'Select formatting to show as styles' will stop every formatting changes being made to come up as a new style.
 | There are two options for this. The quickest and, I feel, messiest is to highlight the text in Word and rightclick on the style and select "Update style to match selection". This will update all the text using that format.
Alternatively you can create a new style.
1. Click the little expansion arrow on the styles box.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LXFZm.png)
2. Click Add New Style
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mmc15.png)
3. Choose the style you want to base your new style off and click OK
4. In the popup dialog box, click the **bold** icon then click OK
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tvx85.png) |
1,718,574 | I'd like to mark a tableview row in some way that shows it has been clicked by the user. I have a large number of rows and want users to know if they have already visited a particular row. This same technique will be useful for identifying row new entries as well.
I have two questions: Would such a subtle technique violate the HIGS and what would be a nice way to do it without muddying up the UI? | 2009/11/11 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1718574",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/40106/"
] | Perhaps you could have a colored dot like in Apple's Mail app:
This obviously shouldn't violate HIGS. | Maybe you could use a subtle background colouring of the rows that have been already visited. |
1,718,574 | I'd like to mark a tableview row in some way that shows it has been clicked by the user. I have a large number of rows and want users to know if they have already visited a particular row. This same technique will be useful for identifying row new entries as well.
I have two questions: Would such a subtle technique violate the HIGS and what would be a nice way to do it without muddying up the UI? | 2009/11/11 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1718574",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/40106/"
] | While my guess it that no, it doesn't violate the HIGS (they use both of my suggestions below in different apps, themselves), you never can tell with Apple!
Background color can be good for such things, depending upon the nature of the table.
Another choice is to have a bullet which can be in three states:
* absent
* unfilled circle
* filled circle
Example here is the Podcasts in your iPod: they start out full, then go to partially full once the podcast is partially played, then go away once you've listened to it to the end.
[alt text http://www.me.com/ro/bencox76/Galleries/100014/Security%20Now%20Screen/web.jpg?ver=12579803280001](http://www.me.com/ro/bencox76/Galleries/100014/Security%20Now%20Screen/web.jpg?ver=12579803280001)
However, in this case you have two different meanings you are trying to convey. I might combine them - maybe full circle on unvisited rows, no circle on visited, and a special background color on new ones?
Good luck! | Maybe you could use a subtle background colouring of the rows that have been already visited. |
16,703 | What are the easiest trekking routes to take in [Sarek National Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarek_National_Park) in Sweden?
Consider late summer, Saltoluokta and Kvikkjokk as starting/ending points, 5 to 7 days without access to food store.
**Edit:** By "the easiest" I mean a route which would e.g. require minimum of river fording, bringing less equipment than in other cases, can possibly take advantage of boat and helicopter traffic etc. | 2017/07/25 | [
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/16703",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/13675/"
] | The easiest is to take the routes that many people take, because on those routes, social trails have formed and you may find help if you are in trouble.
5–7 days is too short. Although you can get through quickly if you take take the route from Tjåmotis into Aktse and you might make it to Akkastugorna in 5 days, I would not recommend it. You should take extra days in case of delays, and if you are not late, you can use those extra days for detours or day trips. However, if you mean you have 7 days to get from Aktse to Kisuris (for example), you should be OK.
Kungsleden (the mountain "highway" full of cabins and trails so well maintained they remind of North American National Parks) leads through the far southeastern corner of the park, from Saltoluokta via Aktse to Kvikkjokk. At Aktse, you can take a boat to a point under Nammásj. From here, there is a reasonably good trail all the way to Skarja and Kutjaure at the tri-park-point with Stora Sjöfallet and Padjelanta. Although this trail is not an official trail and contains some laborious stretches, in particular through Rapaselet, it is nowhere difficult by Sarek standards, and at times actually has wooden planks laid out through wet areas. However, you will still need a tent and you will still need to ford streams. There are no navigational challenges.
This route is popular and if you hike it in summer, you will meet plenty of other people, probably several groups every day. That makes it easier as well, because you will not need to bring equipment such as a satellite phone: in summer on the trail you are certain to meet other people who may be of assistance in case of an emergency (by warning authorities as soon as they reach civilisation). However, I recommend autumn as the birch forest may be full of mosquitoes in summer.
I hiked this route in September 2013, and it's very, very beautiful, in particular the view from Skierffe above Aktse. We met people three times in total. If you do one thing in Sarek, hike to Skierffe — you can do it as a day trip from Aktse. You can also hike from Skierffe down to Rapadalen (we did this in 2013) but that requires more off-trail navigation including through the woods.
If you seriously only have 5–7 days, you won't make it far into Sarek. Use Aktse as a base and hike into the park 1–2 days, then turn around to where you came from. You won't have time to cross Sarek through Aktse if you start at Kvikkjokk or Saltoluokta.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xkOJC.jpg)
View from Skierffe toward Laitaure, 11 September 2013
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/g0VYo.jpg)
View from Skierffe toward Námmasj. The boat will drop you off at the bottom of Námmasj, so if you want to enjoy the view from Skierffe, do that as a day trip from Aktse before setting off into the Sarek wilderness.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bJtDP.jpg)
Rapaselet, 14 September 2013
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9izc3.jpg)
Alep Vássjájågåsj, 15 September 2013. You will need to ford this river (the contributary on the right, not the big one on the left, which is Ráhpaädno)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/eDIFH.jpg)
"Canal" without name on the map to be crossed. Not difficult, but unavoidable. No flow but it is around waist-deep. This obstacle is less than 30 minutes hiking west of crossing Alep Vássjájågåsj, and as I remember the terrain in-between is easy, so in good weather you could consider keeping your river-crossing footwear on.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iNHcA.jpg)
Trails through Ruohtesvágge. 17 September 2013
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qpkpV.jpg)
Smájllájåhkå, 17 September 2013. In my experience, this is the most difficult ford of the route. As you can see, it's glacier-fed so it has substantial amounts of water year-round. It's not particularly difficult, but it's rather cold. I recommend to bring a [wading staff](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/13167/566).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xn0ov.jpg)
19 September 2013. Approaching the merger between Sjnjuvtjudisjåhkå and Sjpietjavjåhkå, where Sarek, Padjelanta and Stora Sjöfallet meet, and the staffed Kisuris cabin is located. Soon after, you will reach the Mountain Highway of Padjelantaleden, from where getting back to civilisation is a walk in the park. | Here comes my variant of the trekking route which I've recently done without any problems.
Starting point is Kvikkjokk, the end is in Saltoluokta.
**Day 1.** Kvikkjokk - Pårte.
**Day 2.** Pårte - Aktse. You'll have to cross Laitaure lake to get to Aktse.
There are rowing boats at any time or a motor boat twice a day. If you want to take a motor boat you'll need to hurry up as the walking distance is long (about 20 km) and the latter boat is at 5 PM.
**Day 3.** Aktse - Rapadalen. There is a boat from Akste to Nammasj in Rapa river delta at 10 AM every morning. Rapadalen is a bit too long for a one day tour so consider staying one night there. It's also easy to loose the trail in some places and finding it in the forest will require some time.
**Day 4.** Rapadalen - around Smaila Moot. You can stay somewhere in the middle of Sarek. Variants are many.
**Day 5.** Smaila Moot - Pastavagge. Pastavagge can be done in one day but it's good to have an extra one for unforeseen obstacles and just to enjoy the nature around.
**Day 6.** Pastavagge - Sitojaurestugorna. You can take a boat from Rinim in the end of Pastavagge directly to Sitojaurestugorna.
**Day 7.** Sitojaurestugorna - Saltoluokta.
As there is a food store in Aktse there's only 5 days without refill.
The route can be done faster or slower depending on the weather conditions and your plans.
There were only 5 streams that required some wading skills this time of year (beginning of August), the deepest one was about the knee.
The route can be done in an opposite way obviously. |
10,693 | Sometimes I make whipped cream in my ISI cream whipper and it comes out beautifully fluffy and smooth, and other times when I dispense it, the cream looks "ragged" for lack of a better description. Any ideas what factor accounts for the difference? | 2011/01/03 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10693",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393/"
] | I was taught how to whip cream with a handheld mixer and there are a few things to consider
Is the whipped cream being over whipped? When you beat it too hard with a handheld it starts to form ragged peaks
Is the cannister almost empty? Gas charged cannisters often 'sputter' a little bit when over-charged or almost empty. | I don't suppose that it could be a little clogged and just need a cleaning in addition to the possibility of the temperature needing to change? If you happen to have another dispenser, you could always fill and use both the same way to make sure one isn't faulty. |
10,693 | Sometimes I make whipped cream in my ISI cream whipper and it comes out beautifully fluffy and smooth, and other times when I dispense it, the cream looks "ragged" for lack of a better description. Any ideas what factor accounts for the difference? | 2011/01/03 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10693",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393/"
] | When I first got my iSi I had wildly inconsistent results, including exactly what you're describing. I'm not sure if you're *just* whipping cream or if you're whipping other cream-based *preparations*, but the most common reason for this happening is that the liquid going in isn't quite, er, *liquid*. Any solid particles of any kind will almost assuredly cause sputtering, which is why they recommend that you strain everything through a fine sieve.
Other things I've learned about the iSi whippers to help prevent these inconsistent results:
* Ignore *everything* the instructions tell you about how to charge it. They're somewhere between very misleading and complete nonsense. What I actually do is this:
1. Screw on a charger as described.
2. Shake it *vigorously*, as if it were a cocktail shaker.
3. Let it rest for a moment, then shake again. Repeat the shaking 4-5 times.
4. Finally, remove the charger and screw the cap back on.The instructions are full of ominous warnings about not being able to discharge it properly if you shake it too much because the nozzle will get blocked or something. Never happened. What's *far* more likely is that the cream doesn't actually *whip fully* or there are large air pockets. Do *not* err on the side of caution here; many "external" iSi recipes such as those you find in the HRC actually tell you to shake frequently as the dispenser chills. I'm not sure if I'd do this with cream (as opposed to a water-based foam) but I can't stress this enough, don't skimp on the shaking.
* If you need to chill it some more after charging, make sure to chill it on its side. The instructions are quite explicit about this and in this case they're actually correct.
* Shake it again after you chill it and before you dispense any. This is *very* important and conspicuously *absent* from the instructions. You shouldn't need to shake as much as the first pass, but some of the gas does seem to separate over time.
* Start by dispensing the cream very, very slowly, until you actually see some come out, then you can apply more pressure as needed. If you squeeze the trigger as hard as you can right off the bat, you'll just end up depressurizing the thing before any cream has a chance to come out. Every single time I've pulled too hard, I've ended up with spatters.
* Finally, make sure that you actually thoroughly clean it all between uses, including the tiny horizontal hole in the metal tube that you screw the tips onto (I forget what it's called) as well as the socket that piece goes into. Any blockages whatsoever, no matter how small, can cause at least minor sputtering.
Hope some of that helps. If you do all of that, you shouldn't have any sputtering issues. Last 7 or 8 times I've used mine, I haven't had any. | I was taught how to whip cream with a handheld mixer and there are a few things to consider
Is the whipped cream being over whipped? When you beat it too hard with a handheld it starts to form ragged peaks
Is the cannister almost empty? Gas charged cannisters often 'sputter' a little bit when over-charged or almost empty. |
10,693 | Sometimes I make whipped cream in my ISI cream whipper and it comes out beautifully fluffy and smooth, and other times when I dispense it, the cream looks "ragged" for lack of a better description. Any ideas what factor accounts for the difference? | 2011/01/03 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10693",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393/"
] | I was taught how to whip cream with a handheld mixer and there are a few things to consider
Is the whipped cream being over whipped? When you beat it too hard with a handheld it starts to form ragged peaks
Is the cannister almost empty? Gas charged cannisters often 'sputter' a little bit when over-charged or almost empty. | Whilst resolve whipped cream dispenser is important, it is more important to give the liquid time to dissolve the nitrous oxide into the fatty components. If it doesn't have time to dissolve, it will force them liquid out, bit it won't expand evenly as it leaves the nozzle. |
10,693 | Sometimes I make whipped cream in my ISI cream whipper and it comes out beautifully fluffy and smooth, and other times when I dispense it, the cream looks "ragged" for lack of a better description. Any ideas what factor accounts for the difference? | 2011/01/03 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10693",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393/"
] | Four things:
(1) You are definitely over whipping the cream. Please read the instructions - these are tested in the iSi lab to ensure your best results.And they do give you the correct amount of shakes per the fat content of the cream. You describe what we call "choppy" cream.
(2) Hold the whipper upside down in your hands. This means that your little finger is on the lever - not your index finger. This can position is very important because you need to have the gas behind the cream when it's dispensed. this will ensure that the gas is working with gravity and going through the cream and will result in less sputtering, and a full dispensing of your cream.
(3) Make sure you are using iSi branded chargers. Not all chargers are the same, and while the less expensive chargers will fit onto the charging mechanism, it can damage the pin of your iSi whipper and will VOID your warranty. The off brand chargers will provide an inconsistent amount of gas in use, and contain a high amount of oils from manufacturing that will be injected into your foods, this can change the recipe outcome.
(4) Carefully measure your contents, and don't over fill; The head room is very important for the best use of the mixing between the cream and the n20 gas. There is a pour line indicated; make sure your liquid + solid ingredients do not exceed that level (10-x sugar and cream) | I was taught how to whip cream with a handheld mixer and there are a few things to consider
Is the whipped cream being over whipped? When you beat it too hard with a handheld it starts to form ragged peaks
Is the cannister almost empty? Gas charged cannisters often 'sputter' a little bit when over-charged or almost empty. |
10,693 | Sometimes I make whipped cream in my ISI cream whipper and it comes out beautifully fluffy and smooth, and other times when I dispense it, the cream looks "ragged" for lack of a better description. Any ideas what factor accounts for the difference? | 2011/01/03 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10693",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393/"
] | When I first got my iSi I had wildly inconsistent results, including exactly what you're describing. I'm not sure if you're *just* whipping cream or if you're whipping other cream-based *preparations*, but the most common reason for this happening is that the liquid going in isn't quite, er, *liquid*. Any solid particles of any kind will almost assuredly cause sputtering, which is why they recommend that you strain everything through a fine sieve.
Other things I've learned about the iSi whippers to help prevent these inconsistent results:
* Ignore *everything* the instructions tell you about how to charge it. They're somewhere between very misleading and complete nonsense. What I actually do is this:
1. Screw on a charger as described.
2. Shake it *vigorously*, as if it were a cocktail shaker.
3. Let it rest for a moment, then shake again. Repeat the shaking 4-5 times.
4. Finally, remove the charger and screw the cap back on.The instructions are full of ominous warnings about not being able to discharge it properly if you shake it too much because the nozzle will get blocked or something. Never happened. What's *far* more likely is that the cream doesn't actually *whip fully* or there are large air pockets. Do *not* err on the side of caution here; many "external" iSi recipes such as those you find in the HRC actually tell you to shake frequently as the dispenser chills. I'm not sure if I'd do this with cream (as opposed to a water-based foam) but I can't stress this enough, don't skimp on the shaking.
* If you need to chill it some more after charging, make sure to chill it on its side. The instructions are quite explicit about this and in this case they're actually correct.
* Shake it again after you chill it and before you dispense any. This is *very* important and conspicuously *absent* from the instructions. You shouldn't need to shake as much as the first pass, but some of the gas does seem to separate over time.
* Start by dispensing the cream very, very slowly, until you actually see some come out, then you can apply more pressure as needed. If you squeeze the trigger as hard as you can right off the bat, you'll just end up depressurizing the thing before any cream has a chance to come out. Every single time I've pulled too hard, I've ended up with spatters.
* Finally, make sure that you actually thoroughly clean it all between uses, including the tiny horizontal hole in the metal tube that you screw the tips onto (I forget what it's called) as well as the socket that piece goes into. Any blockages whatsoever, no matter how small, can cause at least minor sputtering.
Hope some of that helps. If you do all of that, you shouldn't have any sputtering issues. Last 7 or 8 times I've used mine, I haven't had any. | I don't suppose that it could be a little clogged and just need a cleaning in addition to the possibility of the temperature needing to change? If you happen to have another dispenser, you could always fill and use both the same way to make sure one isn't faulty. |
10,693 | Sometimes I make whipped cream in my ISI cream whipper and it comes out beautifully fluffy and smooth, and other times when I dispense it, the cream looks "ragged" for lack of a better description. Any ideas what factor accounts for the difference? | 2011/01/03 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10693",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393/"
] | Four things:
(1) You are definitely over whipping the cream. Please read the instructions - these are tested in the iSi lab to ensure your best results.And they do give you the correct amount of shakes per the fat content of the cream. You describe what we call "choppy" cream.
(2) Hold the whipper upside down in your hands. This means that your little finger is on the lever - not your index finger. This can position is very important because you need to have the gas behind the cream when it's dispensed. this will ensure that the gas is working with gravity and going through the cream and will result in less sputtering, and a full dispensing of your cream.
(3) Make sure you are using iSi branded chargers. Not all chargers are the same, and while the less expensive chargers will fit onto the charging mechanism, it can damage the pin of your iSi whipper and will VOID your warranty. The off brand chargers will provide an inconsistent amount of gas in use, and contain a high amount of oils from manufacturing that will be injected into your foods, this can change the recipe outcome.
(4) Carefully measure your contents, and don't over fill; The head room is very important for the best use of the mixing between the cream and the n20 gas. There is a pour line indicated; make sure your liquid + solid ingredients do not exceed that level (10-x sugar and cream) | I don't suppose that it could be a little clogged and just need a cleaning in addition to the possibility of the temperature needing to change? If you happen to have another dispenser, you could always fill and use both the same way to make sure one isn't faulty. |
10,693 | Sometimes I make whipped cream in my ISI cream whipper and it comes out beautifully fluffy and smooth, and other times when I dispense it, the cream looks "ragged" for lack of a better description. Any ideas what factor accounts for the difference? | 2011/01/03 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10693",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393/"
] | When I first got my iSi I had wildly inconsistent results, including exactly what you're describing. I'm not sure if you're *just* whipping cream or if you're whipping other cream-based *preparations*, but the most common reason for this happening is that the liquid going in isn't quite, er, *liquid*. Any solid particles of any kind will almost assuredly cause sputtering, which is why they recommend that you strain everything through a fine sieve.
Other things I've learned about the iSi whippers to help prevent these inconsistent results:
* Ignore *everything* the instructions tell you about how to charge it. They're somewhere between very misleading and complete nonsense. What I actually do is this:
1. Screw on a charger as described.
2. Shake it *vigorously*, as if it were a cocktail shaker.
3. Let it rest for a moment, then shake again. Repeat the shaking 4-5 times.
4. Finally, remove the charger and screw the cap back on.The instructions are full of ominous warnings about not being able to discharge it properly if you shake it too much because the nozzle will get blocked or something. Never happened. What's *far* more likely is that the cream doesn't actually *whip fully* or there are large air pockets. Do *not* err on the side of caution here; many "external" iSi recipes such as those you find in the HRC actually tell you to shake frequently as the dispenser chills. I'm not sure if I'd do this with cream (as opposed to a water-based foam) but I can't stress this enough, don't skimp on the shaking.
* If you need to chill it some more after charging, make sure to chill it on its side. The instructions are quite explicit about this and in this case they're actually correct.
* Shake it again after you chill it and before you dispense any. This is *very* important and conspicuously *absent* from the instructions. You shouldn't need to shake as much as the first pass, but some of the gas does seem to separate over time.
* Start by dispensing the cream very, very slowly, until you actually see some come out, then you can apply more pressure as needed. If you squeeze the trigger as hard as you can right off the bat, you'll just end up depressurizing the thing before any cream has a chance to come out. Every single time I've pulled too hard, I've ended up with spatters.
* Finally, make sure that you actually thoroughly clean it all between uses, including the tiny horizontal hole in the metal tube that you screw the tips onto (I forget what it's called) as well as the socket that piece goes into. Any blockages whatsoever, no matter how small, can cause at least minor sputtering.
Hope some of that helps. If you do all of that, you shouldn't have any sputtering issues. Last 7 or 8 times I've used mine, I haven't had any. | Whilst resolve whipped cream dispenser is important, it is more important to give the liquid time to dissolve the nitrous oxide into the fatty components. If it doesn't have time to dissolve, it will force them liquid out, bit it won't expand evenly as it leaves the nozzle. |
10,693 | Sometimes I make whipped cream in my ISI cream whipper and it comes out beautifully fluffy and smooth, and other times when I dispense it, the cream looks "ragged" for lack of a better description. Any ideas what factor accounts for the difference? | 2011/01/03 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10693",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393/"
] | When I first got my iSi I had wildly inconsistent results, including exactly what you're describing. I'm not sure if you're *just* whipping cream or if you're whipping other cream-based *preparations*, but the most common reason for this happening is that the liquid going in isn't quite, er, *liquid*. Any solid particles of any kind will almost assuredly cause sputtering, which is why they recommend that you strain everything through a fine sieve.
Other things I've learned about the iSi whippers to help prevent these inconsistent results:
* Ignore *everything* the instructions tell you about how to charge it. They're somewhere between very misleading and complete nonsense. What I actually do is this:
1. Screw on a charger as described.
2. Shake it *vigorously*, as if it were a cocktail shaker.
3. Let it rest for a moment, then shake again. Repeat the shaking 4-5 times.
4. Finally, remove the charger and screw the cap back on.The instructions are full of ominous warnings about not being able to discharge it properly if you shake it too much because the nozzle will get blocked or something. Never happened. What's *far* more likely is that the cream doesn't actually *whip fully* or there are large air pockets. Do *not* err on the side of caution here; many "external" iSi recipes such as those you find in the HRC actually tell you to shake frequently as the dispenser chills. I'm not sure if I'd do this with cream (as opposed to a water-based foam) but I can't stress this enough, don't skimp on the shaking.
* If you need to chill it some more after charging, make sure to chill it on its side. The instructions are quite explicit about this and in this case they're actually correct.
* Shake it again after you chill it and before you dispense any. This is *very* important and conspicuously *absent* from the instructions. You shouldn't need to shake as much as the first pass, but some of the gas does seem to separate over time.
* Start by dispensing the cream very, very slowly, until you actually see some come out, then you can apply more pressure as needed. If you squeeze the trigger as hard as you can right off the bat, you'll just end up depressurizing the thing before any cream has a chance to come out. Every single time I've pulled too hard, I've ended up with spatters.
* Finally, make sure that you actually thoroughly clean it all between uses, including the tiny horizontal hole in the metal tube that you screw the tips onto (I forget what it's called) as well as the socket that piece goes into. Any blockages whatsoever, no matter how small, can cause at least minor sputtering.
Hope some of that helps. If you do all of that, you shouldn't have any sputtering issues. Last 7 or 8 times I've used mine, I haven't had any. | Four things:
(1) You are definitely over whipping the cream. Please read the instructions - these are tested in the iSi lab to ensure your best results.And they do give you the correct amount of shakes per the fat content of the cream. You describe what we call "choppy" cream.
(2) Hold the whipper upside down in your hands. This means that your little finger is on the lever - not your index finger. This can position is very important because you need to have the gas behind the cream when it's dispensed. this will ensure that the gas is working with gravity and going through the cream and will result in less sputtering, and a full dispensing of your cream.
(3) Make sure you are using iSi branded chargers. Not all chargers are the same, and while the less expensive chargers will fit onto the charging mechanism, it can damage the pin of your iSi whipper and will VOID your warranty. The off brand chargers will provide an inconsistent amount of gas in use, and contain a high amount of oils from manufacturing that will be injected into your foods, this can change the recipe outcome.
(4) Carefully measure your contents, and don't over fill; The head room is very important for the best use of the mixing between the cream and the n20 gas. There is a pour line indicated; make sure your liquid + solid ingredients do not exceed that level (10-x sugar and cream) |
10,693 | Sometimes I make whipped cream in my ISI cream whipper and it comes out beautifully fluffy and smooth, and other times when I dispense it, the cream looks "ragged" for lack of a better description. Any ideas what factor accounts for the difference? | 2011/01/03 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/10693",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/1393/"
] | Four things:
(1) You are definitely over whipping the cream. Please read the instructions - these are tested in the iSi lab to ensure your best results.And they do give you the correct amount of shakes per the fat content of the cream. You describe what we call "choppy" cream.
(2) Hold the whipper upside down in your hands. This means that your little finger is on the lever - not your index finger. This can position is very important because you need to have the gas behind the cream when it's dispensed. this will ensure that the gas is working with gravity and going through the cream and will result in less sputtering, and a full dispensing of your cream.
(3) Make sure you are using iSi branded chargers. Not all chargers are the same, and while the less expensive chargers will fit onto the charging mechanism, it can damage the pin of your iSi whipper and will VOID your warranty. The off brand chargers will provide an inconsistent amount of gas in use, and contain a high amount of oils from manufacturing that will be injected into your foods, this can change the recipe outcome.
(4) Carefully measure your contents, and don't over fill; The head room is very important for the best use of the mixing between the cream and the n20 gas. There is a pour line indicated; make sure your liquid + solid ingredients do not exceed that level (10-x sugar and cream) | Whilst resolve whipped cream dispenser is important, it is more important to give the liquid time to dissolve the nitrous oxide into the fatty components. If it doesn't have time to dissolve, it will force them liquid out, bit it won't expand evenly as it leaves the nozzle. |
13,622 | I edited [this question](https://superuser.com/questions/1418589/how-to-store-result-of-commands-to-a-variable-in-batch-file) to remove two misleading tags - the question has nothing to do with either PowerShell or bash. It was rejected twice, once by a subsequent edit by a high-rep user, and once by PeterH, giving a reason of "This edit does not make the post even a little bit easier to read, easier to find, more accurate or more accessible. Changes are either completely superfluous or actively harm readability."
I disagree that the tag removal was superfluous or harmful; if someone were to search for questions tagged bash or powershell, this question would be irrelevant to them, and really should not come up in such a search.
If this rejection was in fact reasonable and valid, may I have an explanation of the policy regarding such tag edits? | 2019/03/28 | [
"https://meta.superuser.com/questions/13622",
"https://meta.superuser.com",
"https://meta.superuser.com/users/675220/"
] | This is the suggested edit in question: <https://superuser.com/review/suggested-edits/849224>
I see that [PeterH](https://meta.superuser.com/users/774984/peterh) voted to reject the edit, but [one minute later](https://superuser.com/posts/1418589/timeline#history_79030d35-2746-4db6-86c8-7d2e6a7db71e), [a subsequent edit](https://superuser.com/posts/1418589/revisions) caused your edit to be auto-rejected. Nobody else had a chance to review your edit before it was superseded.
If I could restate the reason the edit was rejected, I would say this:
>
> This edit conflicted with a subsequent edit.
>
>
>
The edit still would have been rejected for that reason regardless of PeterH's vote. | To state the obvious, yes, your edit was OK in itself and normally shouldn't have been rejected.
However, there's one thing you should consider when editing - "is the question / answer worth the effort?" Editing a poor question is a complete waste of both your time and the time of reviewers, because when such post is deleted, your edit will be gone (and so will be the 2 rep points you earn). This would not be case here because duplicate questions normally don't get deleted, but in general you shouldn't be very surprised if your otherwise reasonable edit to an off-topic or nonsensical question is rejected. |
13,622 | I edited [this question](https://superuser.com/questions/1418589/how-to-store-result-of-commands-to-a-variable-in-batch-file) to remove two misleading tags - the question has nothing to do with either PowerShell or bash. It was rejected twice, once by a subsequent edit by a high-rep user, and once by PeterH, giving a reason of "This edit does not make the post even a little bit easier to read, easier to find, more accurate or more accessible. Changes are either completely superfluous or actively harm readability."
I disagree that the tag removal was superfluous or harmful; if someone were to search for questions tagged bash or powershell, this question would be irrelevant to them, and really should not come up in such a search.
If this rejection was in fact reasonable and valid, may I have an explanation of the policy regarding such tag edits? | 2019/03/28 | [
"https://meta.superuser.com/questions/13622",
"https://meta.superuser.com",
"https://meta.superuser.com/users/675220/"
] | >
> If this rejection was, in fact, reasonable and valid, may I have an explanation of the policy regarding such tag edits?
>
>
>
Your edit was automatically rejected to the fact it conflicted with another edit proposal. The edit was proposed by a user who can make edits without it going through a review process.
>
> I disagree that the tag removal was superfluous or harmful;
>
>
>
The reason for your edit being rejected wasn't that it was **harmful to readability** but due to the fact it was superfluous due to the fact, no other improvements were made to the question.
The question you modified, is likely going to be closed as a duplicate of an existing question, but it also appears to have several duplicate candidates. | To state the obvious, yes, your edit was OK in itself and normally shouldn't have been rejected.
However, there's one thing you should consider when editing - "is the question / answer worth the effort?" Editing a poor question is a complete waste of both your time and the time of reviewers, because when such post is deleted, your edit will be gone (and so will be the 2 rep points you earn). This would not be case here because duplicate questions normally don't get deleted, but in general you shouldn't be very surprised if your otherwise reasonable edit to an off-topic or nonsensical question is rejected. |
174,752 | I don't why but in spring and summer time outside the main door of the house, there are usually 15 to 20 mosquitos just lying around. It is so bad to the point we have to avoid using the main door and use the garage for entry. How can I get rid of them? | 2019/09/20 | [
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/174752",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/users/54673/"
] | First, are the products chemically compatible? The mere fact that they're water-based does not make it so. The best place to ask is the factory.
However, there's a bigger problem. Even if they're compatible, a colored paint diluted (what, 2:1?) with a clear coating **will have very poor coverage**. If it's going to take 6 coats to get decent coverage on the deck, then why not just paint 4 coats of clear stain, and 2 coats of paint?
The third problem is that floor paint is a very tough service. I don't have confidence in any water-based product, *but you certainly don't want to use wall paint!* For best use of the materials, you might try 1 coat of sealer (to actually seal), 2 coats of wall paint (to color), then more coats of sealer (to provide a durable coating over the color). That's a stupid amount of work, and I still wouldn't have high hopes.
If it goes wrong, you may have to remove the failed paint. That will be far more tedious and expensive than any savings you might have had on paint.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Believe me, I get it. Nobody wants to waste paint. I have tens of gallons of paint I have no use for (I am a fastidious color matcher, and I buy a lot of quarts just for color tests). But my problem is, everything I might paint is too valuable to risk a failed paint job *and the huge amount of work to recover from that*.
There's one more problem with newer water-based paints. The paint industry has done their level best to reduce VOCs, especially toxic VOCs. The result is nothing poisons the paint from growing microbes or mold. There have been many cases of people finding paint that's stinkier than normal, painting their walls, and finding the stink *won't go away*. Covering it with fresh paint doesn't work, their only option is to peel off all the layers of paint down to the failed coat. This is a staggering amount of work that can go into hundreds of hours. That makes me very reluctant to use old paint *at all*. Again, most of my projects are too important for that kind of risk, so I find myself just buying new to avoid any chance of a big problem. | you can add pigment to the paint ("sealer"). Oxide pigments are sold for tinting cement but also work on paint. In fact this is the same stuff paint manufacturers use to colour their paint.
Or you could take it to a paint shop and ask them to tint it for you... a clear paint will need a lot of tint to make it opaque and will be diluted by the liquid part of the liquid tinting compound used in retail, and you'll probably have to pay for the service. |
406 | We're currently trying to optimize our site so the end users get fast response times. One of the areas we are looking at moment is the media served from the Sitecore Media Library.
What settings are available and what techniques can be used to ensure that the media items are both optimized in terms of size?
For example, it's not uncommon for users to upload large high quality 1MB+ images, but the image may only used as a small thumbnail on a related content widget or even when used as a main image on a page, the uploaded image is much larger than the conataining HTML element.
Are there any settings available to "down size" the image for each use or should be instead ensure that the editors upload the correct size image to begin with? | 2016/10/04 | [
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/questions/406",
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com",
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/users/135/"
] | You've got a few options:
**The Simple Option:**
Add a width (see here: [Sitecore Image Parameters](https://briancaos.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/sitecore-image-parameters/)) - the image sizes will be processed. The disadvantage of this approach is that you get a processing hit the first time the image is resized (it then caches the result I believe).
**A more complex option:**
You can build something which farms the images out to a CDN and processes the images within the CDN - you'd have to do quite a bit of heavy bespoke work to get this going but it would be pretty cool :)
**An enterprise option:**
You could use an external DAM to do the heavy lifting for you (something like Picturepark, Asset Bank, EDAM, DigiZuite etc). | You could also use this...
<https://github.com/kamsar/Dianoga>
An automatic image optimizer for the Sitecore media library. |
406 | We're currently trying to optimize our site so the end users get fast response times. One of the areas we are looking at moment is the media served from the Sitecore Media Library.
What settings are available and what techniques can be used to ensure that the media items are both optimized in terms of size?
For example, it's not uncommon for users to upload large high quality 1MB+ images, but the image may only used as a small thumbnail on a related content widget or even when used as a main image on a page, the uploaded image is much larger than the conataining HTML element.
Are there any settings available to "down size" the image for each use or should be instead ensure that the editors upload the correct size image to begin with? | 2016/10/04 | [
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/questions/406",
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com",
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/users/135/"
] | You've got a few options:
**The Simple Option:**
Add a width (see here: [Sitecore Image Parameters](https://briancaos.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/sitecore-image-parameters/)) - the image sizes will be processed. The disadvantage of this approach is that you get a processing hit the first time the image is resized (it then caches the result I believe).
**A more complex option:**
You can build something which farms the images out to a CDN and processes the images within the CDN - you'd have to do quite a bit of heavy bespoke work to get this going but it would be pretty cool :)
**An enterprise option:**
You could use an external DAM to do the heavy lifting for you (something like Picturepark, Asset Bank, EDAM, DigiZuite etc). | I would always make sure that your renderings output images with a max-width that is suitable for that rendering, so that any images larger than this uploaded by your editors isn't rendered onto the page at a size much larger than it needs to be. The beauty of the Sitecore media pipeline is that this processing is done on the fly and the images are cached for their next use, so you don't need to specify that images are "pre-processed" to certain sizes at upload time.
I would also encourage the use of a library like [Picturefill](https://github.com/scottjehl/picturefill) if you are using large images on your site in heros, carousels, etc. This allows the page to specify different sized images and the browser will only download the image that is suitable for the screen-width of their device. Again, because Sitecore can generate resized images on the fly, they can all come from a single media source.
Thirdly, and this lies outside of Sitecore image optimization, but you could look at a lazy-loading technique for images on your pages, e.g. not loading images out of view until they are about to be displayed. |
406 | We're currently trying to optimize our site so the end users get fast response times. One of the areas we are looking at moment is the media served from the Sitecore Media Library.
What settings are available and what techniques can be used to ensure that the media items are both optimized in terms of size?
For example, it's not uncommon for users to upload large high quality 1MB+ images, but the image may only used as a small thumbnail on a related content widget or even when used as a main image on a page, the uploaded image is much larger than the conataining HTML element.
Are there any settings available to "down size" the image for each use or should be instead ensure that the editors upload the correct size image to begin with? | 2016/10/04 | [
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/questions/406",
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com",
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/users/135/"
] | You've got a few options:
**The Simple Option:**
Add a width (see here: [Sitecore Image Parameters](https://briancaos.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/sitecore-image-parameters/)) - the image sizes will be processed. The disadvantage of this approach is that you get a processing hit the first time the image is resized (it then caches the result I believe).
**A more complex option:**
You can build something which farms the images out to a CDN and processes the images within the CDN - you'd have to do quite a bit of heavy bespoke work to get this going but it would be pretty cool :)
**An enterprise option:**
You could use an external DAM to do the heavy lifting for you (something like Picturepark, Asset Bank, EDAM, DigiZuite etc). | If your question re DAM selection is still open then I would recommend to consider building your external asset management based on [Amazon Web Services](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/Welcome.html) and then plugging it into Sitecore.
I have recently released an open source module called "External Asset Management in Sitecore" what does all the integration routine, it is available on GitHub [here](https://github.com/kate-orlova/external-asset-management-in-sitecore) and I hope that you will find it helpful. |
406 | We're currently trying to optimize our site so the end users get fast response times. One of the areas we are looking at moment is the media served from the Sitecore Media Library.
What settings are available and what techniques can be used to ensure that the media items are both optimized in terms of size?
For example, it's not uncommon for users to upload large high quality 1MB+ images, but the image may only used as a small thumbnail on a related content widget or even when used as a main image on a page, the uploaded image is much larger than the conataining HTML element.
Are there any settings available to "down size" the image for each use or should be instead ensure that the editors upload the correct size image to begin with? | 2016/10/04 | [
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/questions/406",
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com",
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/users/135/"
] | You could also use this...
<https://github.com/kamsar/Dianoga>
An automatic image optimizer for the Sitecore media library. | If your question re DAM selection is still open then I would recommend to consider building your external asset management based on [Amazon Web Services](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/Welcome.html) and then plugging it into Sitecore.
I have recently released an open source module called "External Asset Management in Sitecore" what does all the integration routine, it is available on GitHub [here](https://github.com/kate-orlova/external-asset-management-in-sitecore) and I hope that you will find it helpful. |
406 | We're currently trying to optimize our site so the end users get fast response times. One of the areas we are looking at moment is the media served from the Sitecore Media Library.
What settings are available and what techniques can be used to ensure that the media items are both optimized in terms of size?
For example, it's not uncommon for users to upload large high quality 1MB+ images, but the image may only used as a small thumbnail on a related content widget or even when used as a main image on a page, the uploaded image is much larger than the conataining HTML element.
Are there any settings available to "down size" the image for each use or should be instead ensure that the editors upload the correct size image to begin with? | 2016/10/04 | [
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/questions/406",
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com",
"https://sitecore.stackexchange.com/users/135/"
] | I would always make sure that your renderings output images with a max-width that is suitable for that rendering, so that any images larger than this uploaded by your editors isn't rendered onto the page at a size much larger than it needs to be. The beauty of the Sitecore media pipeline is that this processing is done on the fly and the images are cached for their next use, so you don't need to specify that images are "pre-processed" to certain sizes at upload time.
I would also encourage the use of a library like [Picturefill](https://github.com/scottjehl/picturefill) if you are using large images on your site in heros, carousels, etc. This allows the page to specify different sized images and the browser will only download the image that is suitable for the screen-width of their device. Again, because Sitecore can generate resized images on the fly, they can all come from a single media source.
Thirdly, and this lies outside of Sitecore image optimization, but you could look at a lazy-loading technique for images on your pages, e.g. not loading images out of view until they are about to be displayed. | If your question re DAM selection is still open then I would recommend to consider building your external asset management based on [Amazon Web Services](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/Welcome.html) and then plugging it into Sitecore.
I have recently released an open source module called "External Asset Management in Sitecore" what does all the integration routine, it is available on GitHub [here](https://github.com/kate-orlova/external-asset-management-in-sitecore) and I hope that you will find it helpful. |
19,626 | Is there a tool like the subject for Solidity. Let's say I have a contract with import and that import has three imports etc. I'd like to combine all of them into one file and play with it in Remix, for example.
I know how to make it manually. | 2017/07/07 | [
"https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/19626",
"https://ethereum.stackexchange.com",
"https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/users/1778/"
] | I'd also suggest you to try this - <http://remix.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorial_remixd_filesystem.html>
This feature is currently an alpha version but it may help you. | please have a look on : [solidity-flattener](https://github.com/BlockCatIO/solidity-flattener)
This script automatically traverses the dependency graph and outputs all of your imports in the correct order, ready to be pasted into the contract verifier. |
19,626 | Is there a tool like the subject for Solidity. Let's say I have a contract with import and that import has three imports etc. I'd like to combine all of them into one file and play with it in Remix, for example.
I know how to make it manually. | 2017/07/07 | [
"https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/19626",
"https://ethereum.stackexchange.com",
"https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/users/1778/"
] | Use [sol-merger](https://github.com/RyuuGan/sol-merger). This works like a charm. It creates a separate folder and put the merged contracts there. | I'd also suggest you to try this - <http://remix.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorial_remixd_filesystem.html>
This feature is currently an alpha version but it may help you. |
19,626 | Is there a tool like the subject for Solidity. Let's say I have a contract with import and that import has three imports etc. I'd like to combine all of them into one file and play with it in Remix, for example.
I know how to make it manually. | 2017/07/07 | [
"https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/19626",
"https://ethereum.stackexchange.com",
"https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/users/1778/"
] | Use [sol-merger](https://github.com/RyuuGan/sol-merger). This works like a charm. It creates a separate folder and put the merged contracts there. | please have a look on : [solidity-flattener](https://github.com/BlockCatIO/solidity-flattener)
This script automatically traverses the dependency graph and outputs all of your imports in the correct order, ready to be pasted into the contract verifier. |
80,661 | So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how to deal out XP for these situations and how much is a suitable amount. Also should I some characters get more XP than others for certain missions? For instance if you're trying to steal an artifact from a temple then a rogue will be very good at this while a barbarian will likely not be able to do much and so deserves less XP than the rogue but is this a fair way of managing things? | 2016/05/25 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80661",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/26088/"
] | The DMG gives you several alternate XP/leveling options on pages 260-261.
You may benefit from "milestone" leveling rather than doling out XP per encounter. Thus characters level up when they accomplish story specific events, so the exact path they take isn't dependent on being murder hobos. You can also get rid of XP altogether and just level characters up when you feel appropriate.
Characters can earn XP for defeating creatures via negotiation, stealth, or intimidation, not just for direct combat (called "noncombat challenges" in the DMG) if YOU deem it so. You should explain this up front and possibly "over reward" non-combat interactions initially to get players in the habit of looking for non-combat solutions. If YOU only give out XP for killing things then expect your players to try to kill everything. Train your players.
It sounds like you may be planning to award XP to characters based on individual achievements (thus the barbarian you mention wouldn't get XP if the rogue does all the thieving). Collective XP will let the barbarian share in XP for things when rogue did the majority of work, just like the rogue can get XP when the barbarian slaughters a room full of guards. Many GMs add up the total XP awarded and divide by number of players, then possibly add some individual character XP awards for good roleplaying, MVP, etc, rather than try to attribute XP to each character for every specific task. The DMG also addresses allowing characters to level up at different rates, though this is mostly due to a player missing a session rather than not contributing as much in a particular session. | You can also award XP based on how important the non combat event was toward progressing the general adventure. A technique I have found to work fairly well is to take the party's average level as a base CR. Tiny inconsequential events (ex: talking to a shopkeeper in character) are worth CR minus 2 as an experience award. Moderate events (ex: finding an important clue, or procuring a map of the area to be adventured in) are worth CR minus 1, while events upon which the adventure hangs (ex: Tracking down the BBEG's lair, unmasking the Evil Prime Minister) are worth a full CR. Award experience per the CR values given in the Monster Manual and DMG.
Thus if the party has an average level of 4, then finding an important clue has a CR of (4-1) or CR 3, and is worth 700 xp. If the characters were 3rd level, it would be worth 450 xp.
The nice thing about this is that tying the CR for the event to the party's level will tend to scale it with the characters, so that they never lose the incentive to find non-combat solutions, or to forgo non-violent interactions with the environment. Note that my values work for my campaign. Adjust and season for taste.
One last thing, if you do adopt an approach that rewards non-combat interaction, make sure the players are aware that you are doing so. If you don't tell them, they have no incentive to try alternative behaviors. |
80,661 | So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how to deal out XP for these situations and how much is a suitable amount. Also should I some characters get more XP than others for certain missions? For instance if you're trying to steal an artifact from a temple then a rogue will be very good at this while a barbarian will likely not be able to do much and so deserves less XP than the rogue but is this a fair way of managing things? | 2016/05/25 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80661",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/26088/"
] | The DMG gives you several alternate XP/leveling options on pages 260-261.
You may benefit from "milestone" leveling rather than doling out XP per encounter. Thus characters level up when they accomplish story specific events, so the exact path they take isn't dependent on being murder hobos. You can also get rid of XP altogether and just level characters up when you feel appropriate.
Characters can earn XP for defeating creatures via negotiation, stealth, or intimidation, not just for direct combat (called "noncombat challenges" in the DMG) if YOU deem it so. You should explain this up front and possibly "over reward" non-combat interactions initially to get players in the habit of looking for non-combat solutions. If YOU only give out XP for killing things then expect your players to try to kill everything. Train your players.
It sounds like you may be planning to award XP to characters based on individual achievements (thus the barbarian you mention wouldn't get XP if the rogue does all the thieving). Collective XP will let the barbarian share in XP for things when rogue did the majority of work, just like the rogue can get XP when the barbarian slaughters a room full of guards. Many GMs add up the total XP awarded and divide by number of players, then possibly add some individual character XP awards for good roleplaying, MVP, etc, rather than try to attribute XP to each character for every specific task. The DMG also addresses allowing characters to level up at different rates, though this is mostly due to a player missing a session rather than not contributing as much in a particular session. | I will answer this on a generic level, as I have not gm'd a dnd game yet, so keep that in mind and fill in appropriate game system constructs for yourself.
In general, I dont feel like its a good idea to hand out experience points on a per enemy or interaction level. In other systems, particularly TDE, I will hand out the same experience points for everyone at either the end of an adventure or at critical points where it makes sense.
Every player will get the exact same amount of experience as everybody else. Why? I have found that if I hand out experience individually, I risk to get several problems:
1. Kill-Stealing/Opportunity Stealing
2. Split of Power
3. Adventure Design
Now what do I mean by this?
The first point may be detrimental to cooperation. Your players may start trying to rush into situations without prior thinking, just to get extra experience, or similarly, trying to outplay each other in timing the moment to get more experience faster. Now this is probably not what will happen to you if your players like working together or if your encounter design is difficult. It may, depending on the "Social encounter" design, still occur though.
More pressing is a split of power. If a player happens to consistently have more opportunities than other players playing into the pcs strengths, a player may rush ahead in level of power, making balancing the encounters harder.
The most important factor I feel is mission desin and its impact on the "fun" of your players. I believe the GMs job is to make the games equally fun for everyone present. This also plays massively into the way you design your adventures. If you design them in a way that does not allow everyone to play important roles, the respective players will probably be dissatisfied afterwards. If it happens once, no problem, but more often...
So, If you want to do this, make sure you have have at least some opportunities for everyone to shine, at the very least you'd have more opportunities in the next adventure for those players disadvantaged in the current one.
In the end, its up to you, BUT I would advise on giving the whole group equal experience points and encourage the development of ideas and tactics more than actual mechanical performance. The only exception I would make is for good roleplay. Good ideas should result in an *overall* increase of experience to be handed out, not specific for individual players.
TL;DR:
If you have a competitive group or want to encourage it, while at the same time you're willing to spend extra effort on balancing each adventure in itself and towards the previous/next ones, go ahead and hand out individual experience points.
As a modification for this, try not only to hand out XP for the actual interaction, but also for Ideas.
However, I'd pool up experience and hand out the same amount for everyone, except for special occasions where you feel good roleplay needs to be rewarded, similar to what @Jason K wrote. |
80,661 | So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how to deal out XP for these situations and how much is a suitable amount. Also should I some characters get more XP than others for certain missions? For instance if you're trying to steal an artifact from a temple then a rogue will be very good at this while a barbarian will likely not be able to do much and so deserves less XP than the rogue but is this a fair way of managing things? | 2016/05/25 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80661",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/26088/"
] | The DMG gives you several alternate XP/leveling options on pages 260-261.
You may benefit from "milestone" leveling rather than doling out XP per encounter. Thus characters level up when they accomplish story specific events, so the exact path they take isn't dependent on being murder hobos. You can also get rid of XP altogether and just level characters up when you feel appropriate.
Characters can earn XP for defeating creatures via negotiation, stealth, or intimidation, not just for direct combat (called "noncombat challenges" in the DMG) if YOU deem it so. You should explain this up front and possibly "over reward" non-combat interactions initially to get players in the habit of looking for non-combat solutions. If YOU only give out XP for killing things then expect your players to try to kill everything. Train your players.
It sounds like you may be planning to award XP to characters based on individual achievements (thus the barbarian you mention wouldn't get XP if the rogue does all the thieving). Collective XP will let the barbarian share in XP for things when rogue did the majority of work, just like the rogue can get XP when the barbarian slaughters a room full of guards. Many GMs add up the total XP awarded and divide by number of players, then possibly add some individual character XP awards for good roleplaying, MVP, etc, rather than try to attribute XP to each character for every specific task. The DMG also addresses allowing characters to level up at different rates, though this is mostly due to a player missing a session rather than not contributing as much in a particular session. | I play RoleMaster but the idea of XP is similar.
The answer is in the word. I give experience points for relevant **experiences**. I dole them out (in order) by:
1. **Milestones**: Accomplishing a mission or reaching a certain plateau
2. **New experiences**: first time ever in town, picking a lock, meeting an owlbear, etc. (2nd time in a town, not such a big deal),
3. **roleplaying**: more on that later,
4. **Hits taken or received** (relative to monster difficulty),
5. **Spells** successfully thrown (relative to caster's level),
6. **criticals** (RoleMaster is a critical heavy playing system),
7. **ideas/specials** ("It was my idea to trap the gelatinous cube in the giant
squirt gun."),
8. **kills**, and
9. **treasures** (treasures are their own reward, in my opinion, and players usually don't get any XP for gold and magic items).
Rearrange or add to the list based on what is important in your campaign.
I also, with each new level, give the players a blank "Experience Sheet" form which has areas for hits taken, given, spells, ideas, thing encountered, etc. It's their job to keep track of things they've done individually on these sheets and I collect them when I'm going to award XP. (It's funny what some of them will put down to wrangle extra XP sometimes!) When I really like the way a character is playing their character (i.e. a character sniveling in front of a noble, polishing his boots, acting as a decoy) I make sure that the player wrote it on their sheet or I write it on a master sheet I keep for just those occasions.
Because I place the group activities highest (just watching an Owlbear rip apart your fighter is an experience), the individual experience is fairly well grouped with the more immersed individuals ending up getting a little bit more.
Hope this helped. |
80,661 | So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how to deal out XP for these situations and how much is a suitable amount. Also should I some characters get more XP than others for certain missions? For instance if you're trying to steal an artifact from a temple then a rogue will be very good at this while a barbarian will likely not be able to do much and so deserves less XP than the rogue but is this a fair way of managing things? | 2016/05/25 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80661",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/26088/"
] | The DMG gives you several alternate XP/leveling options on pages 260-261.
You may benefit from "milestone" leveling rather than doling out XP per encounter. Thus characters level up when they accomplish story specific events, so the exact path they take isn't dependent on being murder hobos. You can also get rid of XP altogether and just level characters up when you feel appropriate.
Characters can earn XP for defeating creatures via negotiation, stealth, or intimidation, not just for direct combat (called "noncombat challenges" in the DMG) if YOU deem it so. You should explain this up front and possibly "over reward" non-combat interactions initially to get players in the habit of looking for non-combat solutions. If YOU only give out XP for killing things then expect your players to try to kill everything. Train your players.
It sounds like you may be planning to award XP to characters based on individual achievements (thus the barbarian you mention wouldn't get XP if the rogue does all the thieving). Collective XP will let the barbarian share in XP for things when rogue did the majority of work, just like the rogue can get XP when the barbarian slaughters a room full of guards. Many GMs add up the total XP awarded and divide by number of players, then possibly add some individual character XP awards for good roleplaying, MVP, etc, rather than try to attribute XP to each character for every specific task. The DMG also addresses allowing characters to level up at different rates, though this is mostly due to a player missing a session rather than not contributing as much in a particular session. | It as been awhile since I have been able to DM, however, I have always believed in a very simple system. Most of what I was taught growing up with the game is posted here, just in different variants.
I have always taken the campaign as a whole. The completion of the campaign creates x amount of experience.
Roleplaying is required by all members. Those who actually role-play their characters get experience points for doing so. Those who are along for the ride will find the struggle to level up harder.
Character Class tasks: A fighter is expected to fight, wizard expected to fight with magic (offense and defense) or use their spells to detect the out of the ordinary things In the world. Clerics are expected to fight, heal and protect from the supernatural. Rogues are expected to fight when it is advantageous to them (sneak attacks, back stabbing, etc...), detect traps, remove traps, pick locks, etc...
These tasks are rewarded on a simple method. If they are a bystander and watch, they get experience points for the experience (small amount) but those who actually are involved in the character class task get rewarded for success or failure with more xp for success.
Attacking and killing creatures is part of the total campaign xp. I truly believe in the keep it simple stupid method. (KISS). |
80,661 | So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how to deal out XP for these situations and how much is a suitable amount. Also should I some characters get more XP than others for certain missions? For instance if you're trying to steal an artifact from a temple then a rogue will be very good at this while a barbarian will likely not be able to do much and so deserves less XP than the rogue but is this a fair way of managing things? | 2016/05/25 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80661",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/26088/"
] | You can also award XP based on how important the non combat event was toward progressing the general adventure. A technique I have found to work fairly well is to take the party's average level as a base CR. Tiny inconsequential events (ex: talking to a shopkeeper in character) are worth CR minus 2 as an experience award. Moderate events (ex: finding an important clue, or procuring a map of the area to be adventured in) are worth CR minus 1, while events upon which the adventure hangs (ex: Tracking down the BBEG's lair, unmasking the Evil Prime Minister) are worth a full CR. Award experience per the CR values given in the Monster Manual and DMG.
Thus if the party has an average level of 4, then finding an important clue has a CR of (4-1) or CR 3, and is worth 700 xp. If the characters were 3rd level, it would be worth 450 xp.
The nice thing about this is that tying the CR for the event to the party's level will tend to scale it with the characters, so that they never lose the incentive to find non-combat solutions, or to forgo non-violent interactions with the environment. Note that my values work for my campaign. Adjust and season for taste.
One last thing, if you do adopt an approach that rewards non-combat interaction, make sure the players are aware that you are doing so. If you don't tell them, they have no incentive to try alternative behaviors. | I will answer this on a generic level, as I have not gm'd a dnd game yet, so keep that in mind and fill in appropriate game system constructs for yourself.
In general, I dont feel like its a good idea to hand out experience points on a per enemy or interaction level. In other systems, particularly TDE, I will hand out the same experience points for everyone at either the end of an adventure or at critical points where it makes sense.
Every player will get the exact same amount of experience as everybody else. Why? I have found that if I hand out experience individually, I risk to get several problems:
1. Kill-Stealing/Opportunity Stealing
2. Split of Power
3. Adventure Design
Now what do I mean by this?
The first point may be detrimental to cooperation. Your players may start trying to rush into situations without prior thinking, just to get extra experience, or similarly, trying to outplay each other in timing the moment to get more experience faster. Now this is probably not what will happen to you if your players like working together or if your encounter design is difficult. It may, depending on the "Social encounter" design, still occur though.
More pressing is a split of power. If a player happens to consistently have more opportunities than other players playing into the pcs strengths, a player may rush ahead in level of power, making balancing the encounters harder.
The most important factor I feel is mission desin and its impact on the "fun" of your players. I believe the GMs job is to make the games equally fun for everyone present. This also plays massively into the way you design your adventures. If you design them in a way that does not allow everyone to play important roles, the respective players will probably be dissatisfied afterwards. If it happens once, no problem, but more often...
So, If you want to do this, make sure you have have at least some opportunities for everyone to shine, at the very least you'd have more opportunities in the next adventure for those players disadvantaged in the current one.
In the end, its up to you, BUT I would advise on giving the whole group equal experience points and encourage the development of ideas and tactics more than actual mechanical performance. The only exception I would make is for good roleplay. Good ideas should result in an *overall* increase of experience to be handed out, not specific for individual players.
TL;DR:
If you have a competitive group or want to encourage it, while at the same time you're willing to spend extra effort on balancing each adventure in itself and towards the previous/next ones, go ahead and hand out individual experience points.
As a modification for this, try not only to hand out XP for the actual interaction, but also for Ideas.
However, I'd pool up experience and hand out the same amount for everyone, except for special occasions where you feel good roleplay needs to be rewarded, similar to what @Jason K wrote. |
80,661 | So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how to deal out XP for these situations and how much is a suitable amount. Also should I some characters get more XP than others for certain missions? For instance if you're trying to steal an artifact from a temple then a rogue will be very good at this while a barbarian will likely not be able to do much and so deserves less XP than the rogue but is this a fair way of managing things? | 2016/05/25 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80661",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/26088/"
] | You can also award XP based on how important the non combat event was toward progressing the general adventure. A technique I have found to work fairly well is to take the party's average level as a base CR. Tiny inconsequential events (ex: talking to a shopkeeper in character) are worth CR minus 2 as an experience award. Moderate events (ex: finding an important clue, or procuring a map of the area to be adventured in) are worth CR minus 1, while events upon which the adventure hangs (ex: Tracking down the BBEG's lair, unmasking the Evil Prime Minister) are worth a full CR. Award experience per the CR values given in the Monster Manual and DMG.
Thus if the party has an average level of 4, then finding an important clue has a CR of (4-1) or CR 3, and is worth 700 xp. If the characters were 3rd level, it would be worth 450 xp.
The nice thing about this is that tying the CR for the event to the party's level will tend to scale it with the characters, so that they never lose the incentive to find non-combat solutions, or to forgo non-violent interactions with the environment. Note that my values work for my campaign. Adjust and season for taste.
One last thing, if you do adopt an approach that rewards non-combat interaction, make sure the players are aware that you are doing so. If you don't tell them, they have no incentive to try alternative behaviors. | I play RoleMaster but the idea of XP is similar.
The answer is in the word. I give experience points for relevant **experiences**. I dole them out (in order) by:
1. **Milestones**: Accomplishing a mission or reaching a certain plateau
2. **New experiences**: first time ever in town, picking a lock, meeting an owlbear, etc. (2nd time in a town, not such a big deal),
3. **roleplaying**: more on that later,
4. **Hits taken or received** (relative to monster difficulty),
5. **Spells** successfully thrown (relative to caster's level),
6. **criticals** (RoleMaster is a critical heavy playing system),
7. **ideas/specials** ("It was my idea to trap the gelatinous cube in the giant
squirt gun."),
8. **kills**, and
9. **treasures** (treasures are their own reward, in my opinion, and players usually don't get any XP for gold and magic items).
Rearrange or add to the list based on what is important in your campaign.
I also, with each new level, give the players a blank "Experience Sheet" form which has areas for hits taken, given, spells, ideas, thing encountered, etc. It's their job to keep track of things they've done individually on these sheets and I collect them when I'm going to award XP. (It's funny what some of them will put down to wrangle extra XP sometimes!) When I really like the way a character is playing their character (i.e. a character sniveling in front of a noble, polishing his boots, acting as a decoy) I make sure that the player wrote it on their sheet or I write it on a master sheet I keep for just those occasions.
Because I place the group activities highest (just watching an Owlbear rip apart your fighter is an experience), the individual experience is fairly well grouped with the more immersed individuals ending up getting a little bit more.
Hope this helped. |
80,661 | So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how to deal out XP for these situations and how much is a suitable amount. Also should I some characters get more XP than others for certain missions? For instance if you're trying to steal an artifact from a temple then a rogue will be very good at this while a barbarian will likely not be able to do much and so deserves less XP than the rogue but is this a fair way of managing things? | 2016/05/25 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80661",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/26088/"
] | You can also award XP based on how important the non combat event was toward progressing the general adventure. A technique I have found to work fairly well is to take the party's average level as a base CR. Tiny inconsequential events (ex: talking to a shopkeeper in character) are worth CR minus 2 as an experience award. Moderate events (ex: finding an important clue, or procuring a map of the area to be adventured in) are worth CR minus 1, while events upon which the adventure hangs (ex: Tracking down the BBEG's lair, unmasking the Evil Prime Minister) are worth a full CR. Award experience per the CR values given in the Monster Manual and DMG.
Thus if the party has an average level of 4, then finding an important clue has a CR of (4-1) or CR 3, and is worth 700 xp. If the characters were 3rd level, it would be worth 450 xp.
The nice thing about this is that tying the CR for the event to the party's level will tend to scale it with the characters, so that they never lose the incentive to find non-combat solutions, or to forgo non-violent interactions with the environment. Note that my values work for my campaign. Adjust and season for taste.
One last thing, if you do adopt an approach that rewards non-combat interaction, make sure the players are aware that you are doing so. If you don't tell them, they have no incentive to try alternative behaviors. | It as been awhile since I have been able to DM, however, I have always believed in a very simple system. Most of what I was taught growing up with the game is posted here, just in different variants.
I have always taken the campaign as a whole. The completion of the campaign creates x amount of experience.
Roleplaying is required by all members. Those who actually role-play their characters get experience points for doing so. Those who are along for the ride will find the struggle to level up harder.
Character Class tasks: A fighter is expected to fight, wizard expected to fight with magic (offense and defense) or use their spells to detect the out of the ordinary things In the world. Clerics are expected to fight, heal and protect from the supernatural. Rogues are expected to fight when it is advantageous to them (sneak attacks, back stabbing, etc...), detect traps, remove traps, pick locks, etc...
These tasks are rewarded on a simple method. If they are a bystander and watch, they get experience points for the experience (small amount) but those who actually are involved in the character class task get rewarded for success or failure with more xp for success.
Attacking and killing creatures is part of the total campaign xp. I truly believe in the keep it simple stupid method. (KISS). |
80,661 | So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how to deal out XP for these situations and how much is a suitable amount. Also should I some characters get more XP than others for certain missions? For instance if you're trying to steal an artifact from a temple then a rogue will be very good at this while a barbarian will likely not be able to do much and so deserves less XP than the rogue but is this a fair way of managing things? | 2016/05/25 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80661",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/26088/"
] | I will answer this on a generic level, as I have not gm'd a dnd game yet, so keep that in mind and fill in appropriate game system constructs for yourself.
In general, I dont feel like its a good idea to hand out experience points on a per enemy or interaction level. In other systems, particularly TDE, I will hand out the same experience points for everyone at either the end of an adventure or at critical points where it makes sense.
Every player will get the exact same amount of experience as everybody else. Why? I have found that if I hand out experience individually, I risk to get several problems:
1. Kill-Stealing/Opportunity Stealing
2. Split of Power
3. Adventure Design
Now what do I mean by this?
The first point may be detrimental to cooperation. Your players may start trying to rush into situations without prior thinking, just to get extra experience, or similarly, trying to outplay each other in timing the moment to get more experience faster. Now this is probably not what will happen to you if your players like working together or if your encounter design is difficult. It may, depending on the "Social encounter" design, still occur though.
More pressing is a split of power. If a player happens to consistently have more opportunities than other players playing into the pcs strengths, a player may rush ahead in level of power, making balancing the encounters harder.
The most important factor I feel is mission desin and its impact on the "fun" of your players. I believe the GMs job is to make the games equally fun for everyone present. This also plays massively into the way you design your adventures. If you design them in a way that does not allow everyone to play important roles, the respective players will probably be dissatisfied afterwards. If it happens once, no problem, but more often...
So, If you want to do this, make sure you have have at least some opportunities for everyone to shine, at the very least you'd have more opportunities in the next adventure for those players disadvantaged in the current one.
In the end, its up to you, BUT I would advise on giving the whole group equal experience points and encourage the development of ideas and tactics more than actual mechanical performance. The only exception I would make is for good roleplay. Good ideas should result in an *overall* increase of experience to be handed out, not specific for individual players.
TL;DR:
If you have a competitive group or want to encourage it, while at the same time you're willing to spend extra effort on balancing each adventure in itself and towards the previous/next ones, go ahead and hand out individual experience points.
As a modification for this, try not only to hand out XP for the actual interaction, but also for Ideas.
However, I'd pool up experience and hand out the same amount for everyone, except for special occasions where you feel good roleplay needs to be rewarded, similar to what @Jason K wrote. | I play RoleMaster but the idea of XP is similar.
The answer is in the word. I give experience points for relevant **experiences**. I dole them out (in order) by:
1. **Milestones**: Accomplishing a mission or reaching a certain plateau
2. **New experiences**: first time ever in town, picking a lock, meeting an owlbear, etc. (2nd time in a town, not such a big deal),
3. **roleplaying**: more on that later,
4. **Hits taken or received** (relative to monster difficulty),
5. **Spells** successfully thrown (relative to caster's level),
6. **criticals** (RoleMaster is a critical heavy playing system),
7. **ideas/specials** ("It was my idea to trap the gelatinous cube in the giant
squirt gun."),
8. **kills**, and
9. **treasures** (treasures are their own reward, in my opinion, and players usually don't get any XP for gold and magic items).
Rearrange or add to the list based on what is important in your campaign.
I also, with each new level, give the players a blank "Experience Sheet" form which has areas for hits taken, given, spells, ideas, thing encountered, etc. It's their job to keep track of things they've done individually on these sheets and I collect them when I'm going to award XP. (It's funny what some of them will put down to wrangle extra XP sometimes!) When I really like the way a character is playing their character (i.e. a character sniveling in front of a noble, polishing his boots, acting as a decoy) I make sure that the player wrote it on their sheet or I write it on a master sheet I keep for just those occasions.
Because I place the group activities highest (just watching an Owlbear rip apart your fighter is an experience), the individual experience is fairly well grouped with the more immersed individuals ending up getting a little bit more.
Hope this helped. |
80,661 | So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how to deal out XP for these situations and how much is a suitable amount. Also should I some characters get more XP than others for certain missions? For instance if you're trying to steal an artifact from a temple then a rogue will be very good at this while a barbarian will likely not be able to do much and so deserves less XP than the rogue but is this a fair way of managing things? | 2016/05/25 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80661",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/26088/"
] | I will answer this on a generic level, as I have not gm'd a dnd game yet, so keep that in mind and fill in appropriate game system constructs for yourself.
In general, I dont feel like its a good idea to hand out experience points on a per enemy or interaction level. In other systems, particularly TDE, I will hand out the same experience points for everyone at either the end of an adventure or at critical points where it makes sense.
Every player will get the exact same amount of experience as everybody else. Why? I have found that if I hand out experience individually, I risk to get several problems:
1. Kill-Stealing/Opportunity Stealing
2. Split of Power
3. Adventure Design
Now what do I mean by this?
The first point may be detrimental to cooperation. Your players may start trying to rush into situations without prior thinking, just to get extra experience, or similarly, trying to outplay each other in timing the moment to get more experience faster. Now this is probably not what will happen to you if your players like working together or if your encounter design is difficult. It may, depending on the "Social encounter" design, still occur though.
More pressing is a split of power. If a player happens to consistently have more opportunities than other players playing into the pcs strengths, a player may rush ahead in level of power, making balancing the encounters harder.
The most important factor I feel is mission desin and its impact on the "fun" of your players. I believe the GMs job is to make the games equally fun for everyone present. This also plays massively into the way you design your adventures. If you design them in a way that does not allow everyone to play important roles, the respective players will probably be dissatisfied afterwards. If it happens once, no problem, but more often...
So, If you want to do this, make sure you have have at least some opportunities for everyone to shine, at the very least you'd have more opportunities in the next adventure for those players disadvantaged in the current one.
In the end, its up to you, BUT I would advise on giving the whole group equal experience points and encourage the development of ideas and tactics more than actual mechanical performance. The only exception I would make is for good roleplay. Good ideas should result in an *overall* increase of experience to be handed out, not specific for individual players.
TL;DR:
If you have a competitive group or want to encourage it, while at the same time you're willing to spend extra effort on balancing each adventure in itself and towards the previous/next ones, go ahead and hand out individual experience points.
As a modification for this, try not only to hand out XP for the actual interaction, but also for Ideas.
However, I'd pool up experience and hand out the same amount for everyone, except for special occasions where you feel good roleplay needs to be rewarded, similar to what @Jason K wrote. | It as been awhile since I have been able to DM, however, I have always believed in a very simple system. Most of what I was taught growing up with the game is posted here, just in different variants.
I have always taken the campaign as a whole. The completion of the campaign creates x amount of experience.
Roleplaying is required by all members. Those who actually role-play their characters get experience points for doing so. Those who are along for the ride will find the struggle to level up harder.
Character Class tasks: A fighter is expected to fight, wizard expected to fight with magic (offense and defense) or use their spells to detect the out of the ordinary things In the world. Clerics are expected to fight, heal and protect from the supernatural. Rogues are expected to fight when it is advantageous to them (sneak attacks, back stabbing, etc...), detect traps, remove traps, pick locks, etc...
These tasks are rewarded on a simple method. If they are a bystander and watch, they get experience points for the experience (small amount) but those who actually are involved in the character class task get rewarded for success or failure with more xp for success.
Attacking and killing creatures is part of the total campaign xp. I truly believe in the keep it simple stupid method. (KISS). |
80,661 | So I'm creating my first D&D 5e campaign and I want there to be an even balance between combat and non-combat with a slight bias to the non-combat style of missions. However I'm unsure about how to deal out XP for these situations and how much is a suitable amount. Also should I some characters get more XP than others for certain missions? For instance if you're trying to steal an artifact from a temple then a rogue will be very good at this while a barbarian will likely not be able to do much and so deserves less XP than the rogue but is this a fair way of managing things? | 2016/05/25 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/80661",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/26088/"
] | I play RoleMaster but the idea of XP is similar.
The answer is in the word. I give experience points for relevant **experiences**. I dole them out (in order) by:
1. **Milestones**: Accomplishing a mission or reaching a certain plateau
2. **New experiences**: first time ever in town, picking a lock, meeting an owlbear, etc. (2nd time in a town, not such a big deal),
3. **roleplaying**: more on that later,
4. **Hits taken or received** (relative to monster difficulty),
5. **Spells** successfully thrown (relative to caster's level),
6. **criticals** (RoleMaster is a critical heavy playing system),
7. **ideas/specials** ("It was my idea to trap the gelatinous cube in the giant
squirt gun."),
8. **kills**, and
9. **treasures** (treasures are their own reward, in my opinion, and players usually don't get any XP for gold and magic items).
Rearrange or add to the list based on what is important in your campaign.
I also, with each new level, give the players a blank "Experience Sheet" form which has areas for hits taken, given, spells, ideas, thing encountered, etc. It's their job to keep track of things they've done individually on these sheets and I collect them when I'm going to award XP. (It's funny what some of them will put down to wrangle extra XP sometimes!) When I really like the way a character is playing their character (i.e. a character sniveling in front of a noble, polishing his boots, acting as a decoy) I make sure that the player wrote it on their sheet or I write it on a master sheet I keep for just those occasions.
Because I place the group activities highest (just watching an Owlbear rip apart your fighter is an experience), the individual experience is fairly well grouped with the more immersed individuals ending up getting a little bit more.
Hope this helped. | It as been awhile since I have been able to DM, however, I have always believed in a very simple system. Most of what I was taught growing up with the game is posted here, just in different variants.
I have always taken the campaign as a whole. The completion of the campaign creates x amount of experience.
Roleplaying is required by all members. Those who actually role-play their characters get experience points for doing so. Those who are along for the ride will find the struggle to level up harder.
Character Class tasks: A fighter is expected to fight, wizard expected to fight with magic (offense and defense) or use their spells to detect the out of the ordinary things In the world. Clerics are expected to fight, heal and protect from the supernatural. Rogues are expected to fight when it is advantageous to them (sneak attacks, back stabbing, etc...), detect traps, remove traps, pick locks, etc...
These tasks are rewarded on a simple method. If they are a bystander and watch, they get experience points for the experience (small amount) but those who actually are involved in the character class task get rewarded for success or failure with more xp for success.
Attacking and killing creatures is part of the total campaign xp. I truly believe in the keep it simple stupid method. (KISS). |
16,301,969 | Anyone with a bit of experience with CFWheels will know how awesome it is, but also how fiddly it is with its placement in the web root / sub-folders etc.
I have a CFWheels website, that I would now like to place alongside a WordPress installation.
CFWheels placed in the web root (which is fine) and I would like WordPress to run in a sub-folder in that same web root named 'blog'. How can I do this without invoking CFWheels desire to find a controller or action called 'blog'?
I know that the 'miscellaneous' folder is a folder that I can place things that CFWheels will ignore, but putting the blog into this directory isn't really an option.
Any help or advice would be great.
**EDIT:** ***I just noticed that the miscellaneous folder has a blank Application.cfc file that stops CFWheels messing with it. I'm not around to test this right now, but will update later if it's possible to use this same technique on other folders I create. I may have answered my own question in record time.***
Thanks,
Mikey. | 2013/04/30 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/16301969",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/695749/"
] | Wordpress runs on PHP so CFWheels should never get involved in the process. If it does, simply change the DirectoryIndex (or IIS equivalent) to have index.php ahead of index.cfm for the Wordpress directory (or link to blog using full URL and not just the directory) and you should be fine. | Placing a blank Application.cfc file in the folder of choice, stops CFWheels getting involved with everything in it. |
24,893 | I am using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, dual boot with Windows 7 on ThinkPad T400, I followed Ubuntu update hints and installed some update for my ATI Radeon graphic card, but when I boot to Ubuntu (means I can still load GRUB), the screen goes to blank and no matter what key stroke, I can not get any responds. I can't even open a terminal.
However when I hit the power button, the computer would pop out the Ubuntu shutdown screen briefly and shut down.
I figure out I should delete the updates package for my graphic card, but I don't even get a chance to go to text terminal, please help me! | 2011/02/05 | [
"https://askubuntu.com/questions/24893",
"https://askubuntu.com",
"https://askubuntu.com/users/10260/"
] | I got into the same "blank screen on startup" problem on my T400, after installing the suggested ATI driver. This notebook has 2 graphics chips, and the OS can switch / choose between them.
I could resolve the problem by adjusting two BIOS settings (hit F1 after power-on"):
1. Config > Display > Graphics Device: Discrete Graphics
2. Config > Display > OS Detection for Switchable Graphics: Disabled | One approach is to disable quiet in the boot options and read the debug messages to see how far you get in the boot process.
If this doesn't work then to toubleshoot, you might want to boot to recovery console or runlevel 1, chroot appropriately, and init 3. This will get most of your stuff loaded and let you see if you are having a service hang.
This should cover the possibility that some service or other is hanging during initialization.
I really doubt it's a "bad" driver in current stable.
You could just need to generate a new plymouth or xwindows config. Generating a new xorg.conf and testing is covered [here](http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1437980). Plymouth might black your screen for a bit, but it should pass if you get to fully booted.
I thought I had a similar problem once, and it was a plymouth glitch that blanked the screen combined with a fsck due to the number of times the disk is mounted. You could try pressing [c] to cancel the disk check in case it's occurring or manually fsck your drives from recovery console to eliminate this possibility. |
24,893 | I am using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, dual boot with Windows 7 on ThinkPad T400, I followed Ubuntu update hints and installed some update for my ATI Radeon graphic card, but when I boot to Ubuntu (means I can still load GRUB), the screen goes to blank and no matter what key stroke, I can not get any responds. I can't even open a terminal.
However when I hit the power button, the computer would pop out the Ubuntu shutdown screen briefly and shut down.
I figure out I should delete the updates package for my graphic card, but I don't even get a chance to go to text terminal, please help me! | 2011/02/05 | [
"https://askubuntu.com/questions/24893",
"https://askubuntu.com",
"https://askubuntu.com/users/10260/"
] | I got into the same "blank screen on startup" problem on my T400, after installing the suggested ATI driver. This notebook has 2 graphics chips, and the OS can switch / choose between them.
I could resolve the problem by adjusting two BIOS settings (hit F1 after power-on"):
1. Config > Display > Graphics Device: Discrete Graphics
2. Config > Display > OS Detection for Switchable Graphics: Disabled | You could try booting into safe mode if GRUB loads correctly and fixing the driver then by choosing System-> Administation-> Additional Drivers and use the ATI proprietary driver.
Once done you will need to reboot and you should be into a normal desktop. |
24,893 | I am using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, dual boot with Windows 7 on ThinkPad T400, I followed Ubuntu update hints and installed some update for my ATI Radeon graphic card, but when I boot to Ubuntu (means I can still load GRUB), the screen goes to blank and no matter what key stroke, I can not get any responds. I can't even open a terminal.
However when I hit the power button, the computer would pop out the Ubuntu shutdown screen briefly and shut down.
I figure out I should delete the updates package for my graphic card, but I don't even get a chance to go to text terminal, please help me! | 2011/02/05 | [
"https://askubuntu.com/questions/24893",
"https://askubuntu.com",
"https://askubuntu.com/users/10260/"
] | I got into the same "blank screen on startup" problem on my T400, after installing the suggested ATI driver. This notebook has 2 graphics chips, and the OS can switch / choose between them.
I could resolve the problem by adjusting two BIOS settings (hit F1 after power-on"):
1. Config > Display > Graphics Device: Discrete Graphics
2. Config > Display > OS Detection for Switchable Graphics: Disabled | ThinkPad T400 seems to be a laptop, but if you are using a different item just dismiss my answer.
What you are experiencing may be related to the ability of your video card to handle both the LCD and the external monitor configurations.
Even if this may sound silly, try connecting an external monitor and you may get the boot correctly in the secondary monitor. After that and just if it worked as we expect, upgrade or downgrade your video drivers in order to avoid this problem. My suggestion would be to remove all the drivers and after a reboot, try to install the one which was working before the update. |
9,079,165 | Are there any OpenSource projects which will run in Linux for editing a PDF document, and specifically editing the Acrobat JavaScript within the PDF document? | 2012/01/31 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/9079165",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/340241/"
] | I couldn't find a solution that exactly met your requirements. Hopefully, the following will provide some help.
1. **PDFedit** - <http://pdfedit.cz/en/index.html>
>
> PDFedit is a free open source pdf editor and a library for
> manipulating PDF documents, released under terms of GNU GPL version 2.
> It includes PDF manipulating library based on xpdf, GUI, set of
> command line tools and a pdf editor.
>
>
>
**PS** The PDFedit documentation mentions scripting support but does not explicit mention Acrobat scripts.
2. **Multi-platform PDF Editors** - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software#Editors>
3. **Unix and Linux PDF Editors** - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software#Editors_2>
4. **The Acrobat JavaScript Console (Windows)** - <http://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/javascript_console>
>
> The Acrobat JavaScript Console window (a.k.a. the Console window) is
> one of the tools included in the Acrobat JavaScript Debugger. The
> Console window is by far the most useful tool in Adobe Acrobat for
> testing and debugging JavaScript code, but it is more than just a
> utility for testing code. It can also execute code snippets for
> automating tasks in Acrobat and analyzing documents. In this article,
> we’ll cover setting up and using this essential tool.
>
>
> | If you are really desperate, you can open the .pdf file using a text editor. In all of the text you will find the field's Javascript, which you can edit and then save. It is a pain to do, but you can certainly make minor adjustments to the code in this way.
Be sure to make a copy of the original .pdf file as an archive before trying to edit it, of course. |
50,678 | Zootopia makes an effort to include mammals at almost every scale from every possible environment. There's Tundratown, Sahara Square, the Jungle place, home to animals from artic shrews to elephants. However, I didn't see any large aquatic mammals. Are there dolphins or whales that I missed? If there aren't, has the production team publicly discussed why there aren't any? | 2016/03/23 | [
"https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/50678",
"https://movies.stackexchange.com",
"https://movies.stackexchange.com/users/8170/"
] | According to the artbook ["Art of Zootopia](https://youtu.be/b4awFMpUbZk?t=2m54s)", it was simply too difficult for the film's concept artists to work out how to include large aquatic creatures (and other non-mammal animals) in the city. So they were just gently *airbrushed* out of the picture.
>
> *The team spoke with zoologists, animal behavior specialists, and
> scientists who study animal evolution. Based on what they discovered,
> the filmmakers decided to limit the film’s animals to mammals,
> although “reptiles and birds and other animals do exist on this
> planet. We just don’t go to those continents,” says screenwriter and
> co-director Jared Bush. This constraint led to an “aha!” moment that
> became a central tenet of Zootopia—that mammals are divided into two
> groups: predators and prey, and prey animals outnumber predators
> ten-to-one.*
>
>
> | I believe zootopia is like a regular zoo. If you go to a regular zoo, you can see lions, elephants, apes, birds, etc... , you don't see whales or dolphins only in an Aquazoo/park which Zootopia isn't.
If you look at the [Zootopia Disney Wiki](http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Zootopia) you can see the cast here and all the animals that are in the movie:
* Ginnifer Goodwin as Judy Hopps, a rabbit
* Jason Bateman as Nick Wilde, a red fox
* Idris Elba as Chief Bogo, a cape buffalo
* Jenny Slate as Bellwether, a sheep
* J. K. Simmons as Mayor Lionheart, an African lion
* Nate Torrence as Clawhauser, a cheetah
* Shakira as Gazelle, a gazelle
* Bonnie Hunt as Bonnie Hopps, a rabbit
* Don Lake as Stu Hopps, a rabbit
* Tommy "Tiny" Lister as Finnick, a fennec fox
* Alan Tudyk as Duke Weaselton, a weasel
* Maurice LaMarche as Mr. Big, an arctic shrew
* Phil Johnston as Gideon Grey, a red fox
* Raymond S. Persi as Flash, a three-toed sloth
* Tommy Chong as Yax, a yak
* Octavia Spencer as Mrs. Otterton, an otter
* Jesse Corti as Manchas, a black jaguar
* Katie Lowes as Dr. Badger, a honey badger
* John DiMaggio as Jerry Jumbeaux Jr., an African elephant
* Peter Mansbridge as Peter Moosebridge, a moose
* Mark "Rhino" Smith as Officer McHorn, a rhinoceros
* Kristen Bell as Priscilla, a three-toed sloth
* Leah Latham as Fru Fru, an arctic shrew
* John Lavelle as Mouse Foreman
* Rich Moore as Doug, a ram
* Byron Howard as Bucky Oryx-Antlerson, a kudu, and Travis, Gideon Grey's weasel friend.
* Jared Bush as Pronk Oryx-Antlerson, an oryx
* Josh Dallas as Frantic Pig Gita Reddy as Nangi, an elephant
* Fuschia as Drill Sergeant, a polar bear
* Zach King as a wolf |
50,678 | Zootopia makes an effort to include mammals at almost every scale from every possible environment. There's Tundratown, Sahara Square, the Jungle place, home to animals from artic shrews to elephants. However, I didn't see any large aquatic mammals. Are there dolphins or whales that I missed? If there aren't, has the production team publicly discussed why there aren't any? | 2016/03/23 | [
"https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/50678",
"https://movies.stackexchange.com",
"https://movies.stackexchange.com/users/8170/"
] | [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jqOA9.png)
They show hippos, which are large aquatic mammals. Further we see that the hippo commuters use a special water-filled "subway" that presumably could be used by other aquatic mammals. | I believe zootopia is like a regular zoo. If you go to a regular zoo, you can see lions, elephants, apes, birds, etc... , you don't see whales or dolphins only in an Aquazoo/park which Zootopia isn't.
If you look at the [Zootopia Disney Wiki](http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Zootopia) you can see the cast here and all the animals that are in the movie:
* Ginnifer Goodwin as Judy Hopps, a rabbit
* Jason Bateman as Nick Wilde, a red fox
* Idris Elba as Chief Bogo, a cape buffalo
* Jenny Slate as Bellwether, a sheep
* J. K. Simmons as Mayor Lionheart, an African lion
* Nate Torrence as Clawhauser, a cheetah
* Shakira as Gazelle, a gazelle
* Bonnie Hunt as Bonnie Hopps, a rabbit
* Don Lake as Stu Hopps, a rabbit
* Tommy "Tiny" Lister as Finnick, a fennec fox
* Alan Tudyk as Duke Weaselton, a weasel
* Maurice LaMarche as Mr. Big, an arctic shrew
* Phil Johnston as Gideon Grey, a red fox
* Raymond S. Persi as Flash, a three-toed sloth
* Tommy Chong as Yax, a yak
* Octavia Spencer as Mrs. Otterton, an otter
* Jesse Corti as Manchas, a black jaguar
* Katie Lowes as Dr. Badger, a honey badger
* John DiMaggio as Jerry Jumbeaux Jr., an African elephant
* Peter Mansbridge as Peter Moosebridge, a moose
* Mark "Rhino" Smith as Officer McHorn, a rhinoceros
* Kristen Bell as Priscilla, a three-toed sloth
* Leah Latham as Fru Fru, an arctic shrew
* John Lavelle as Mouse Foreman
* Rich Moore as Doug, a ram
* Byron Howard as Bucky Oryx-Antlerson, a kudu, and Travis, Gideon Grey's weasel friend.
* Jared Bush as Pronk Oryx-Antlerson, an oryx
* Josh Dallas as Frantic Pig Gita Reddy as Nangi, an elephant
* Fuschia as Drill Sergeant, a polar bear
* Zach King as a wolf |
50,678 | Zootopia makes an effort to include mammals at almost every scale from every possible environment. There's Tundratown, Sahara Square, the Jungle place, home to animals from artic shrews to elephants. However, I didn't see any large aquatic mammals. Are there dolphins or whales that I missed? If there aren't, has the production team publicly discussed why there aren't any? | 2016/03/23 | [
"https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/50678",
"https://movies.stackexchange.com",
"https://movies.stackexchange.com/users/8170/"
] | According to the artbook ["Art of Zootopia](https://youtu.be/b4awFMpUbZk?t=2m54s)", it was simply too difficult for the film's concept artists to work out how to include large aquatic creatures (and other non-mammal animals) in the city. So they were just gently *airbrushed* out of the picture.
>
> *The team spoke with zoologists, animal behavior specialists, and
> scientists who study animal evolution. Based on what they discovered,
> the filmmakers decided to limit the film’s animals to mammals,
> although “reptiles and birds and other animals do exist on this
> planet. We just don’t go to those continents,” says screenwriter and
> co-director Jared Bush. This constraint led to an “aha!” moment that
> became a central tenet of Zootopia—that mammals are divided into two
> groups: predators and prey, and prey animals outnumber predators
> ten-to-one.*
>
>
> | [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jqOA9.png)
They show hippos, which are large aquatic mammals. Further we see that the hippo commuters use a special water-filled "subway" that presumably could be used by other aquatic mammals. |
231,558 | I'm painting all my walls so I started prepping the surfaces by sanding. When I got to a peaked joint I proceeded to sand it with an electric orbital sander and paint started peeling more and more until it got to this state:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zgIwh.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VylVC.jpg)
I googled around and found this question: [How to prepare wall with peeling paint for painting](https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/85339/how-to-prepare-wall-with-peeling-paint-for-painting)
From the answer posted, I tried hand sanding the peeling edges but the paint layer is removed at a slower rate than the white material underneath, resulting in the surface dipping at the edge:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZpLCF.jpg)
Should I proceed to sand with my orbital sander until the paint stops peeling instead? And what would be the best way to fill in this patch? | 2021/08/07 | [
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/231558",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/users/140245/"
] | Sister another joist and add some more blocking. Second joist will cut down the width to 16" or just over, and blocking will help prevent additional flex that Trex has. | We just used [Fiberon composite decking](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Fiberon-ArmorGuard-15-16-in-x-5-1-4-in-x-8-ft-Nantucket-Gray-Square-Edge-Capped-Composite-Decking-Board-BRDVC-NG-8/202594357) to build deck stairs and the deck itself. As my first stairs project, we only put 3 stringers with about 20 inches on center.
The deck itself had 16 in OC span of joists. The difference is noticeable but not significant (IMHO). It seems that 17in OC is negligible difference especially since you will fasten rather long spans of the decking.
Adding blocking (screwing board into the joist) is definitely a solution. If you have access under the deck you can do it after the installation, if you find bounce problematic. |
6,090,716 | I see that there are some benefits to conditional compilation using constructs like #ifdef over runtime conditional checks such as smaller compiled file size, probably faster execution, and somewhat easier debugging, but when is it appropriate to use one over the other? Is it a best practice to use runtime conditional checks when the conditional statement being evaluated can only be determined at runtime?
In my opinion mixing #ifdefs with regular if-then-else statements makes the code ugly and harder to read, so I tend to avoid conditional compilation. However I've noticed that in a lot of C# log class examples conditional compilation is used to determine when to perform logging depending on whether symbols such as DEBUG/SHIP/TRACE are defined. | 2011/05/22 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/6090716",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/128948/"
] | It's best to minimise the use of #ifdef's. Like you said, they make the code harder to read and debug.
They can be unavoidable when targeting different platforms, or when there are differences between debug/release versions.
Performance *could* be a consideration to use #ifdef's e.g. for debugging, but in most cases the impact of an extra conditional statement to check for log level would be negligible. I'd say you'd have to profile the code and determine that this is a bottleneck before converting conditional logic to #ifdef's | Conditional compilation should be used for things like compiling the same source code for different platforms or if you have different versions of a programm (for example a test version and a full version). |
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