typography - What’s the right character for a minus sign?

Almost everywhere I see the so called hyphen-minus (Unicode character U+002D and HTML symbol -) used as a minus sign, which is actually the standard hyphen character (Unicode character U+2010 and HTML symbol ‐) as you can see in this example equation:

As you can realize, in most fonts the hyphen-minus does not have the optimal width, thickness or position to represent a minus sign and therefore practicaltypography.com suggests to

use an en dash, which makes an acceptable minus sign in spread­sheets or mathematical expressions.

which looks like this when we follow our example:

But in my opinion this is a little bit misleading, because an en dash is also used to indicate spans or differentiation:

On the other hand there exists a “correct” minus sign (Unicode character U+2212 and HTML symbol −) for "everyday speech" but which is rarely used for some reason:

I wonder now if a hyphen(-minus) sign, en dash or a minus sign should be used to represent a minus in typographic context.

---

As @PieBie and @Zach Saucier pointed out there are many use cases out there. But does the type of publication make any difference?

I mean why should we not use the same minus character when writing a mathematical equation or indicate a negative vote for a post for instance on this site:

---

As a side note: I also dont know why no minus sign (U+2212) but rather a hyphen(-minus) gets displayed when we press the minus key - on our numpad. Why are there two same keys for different characters?

^{Note: The sans-serif typeface Arial was used in the examples.}

Answer

That's what it's for, after all.

That being said—unless you are writing for a mathematical publication or in a similar context it probably won't go noticed if you do use a hyphen or dash. I know I have used a hyphen-minus or en-dash countless times in the past.

As you mentioned in your question, there is no key for a minus sign on a keyboard, only a hyphen. For that reason alone, average Joe doesn't use a minus sign, he uses a hyphen (or hyphen-minus).

A few things to note.

A hyphen or dash will usually have a different vertical alignment to the minus and other mathematical symbols. It often isn't much but if you are using more mathematical symbols than just a minus sign it may be noticeable. If you are going to the trouble of using other correct mathematical symbols then it's not much more effort to use the correct minus sign.

A few examples of dashes and mathematical symbols in different fonts, to illustrate the difference in alignment:

If no minus sign is available, the en-dash should be closest in design and should be used instead.

Keyboard hyphen key

The hyphen key on your keyboard is actually called hyphen-minus because it is intended to be used as the minus sign and for hyphens/dashes. This character is still present in Unicode for compatibility reasons (its character code is U+002D), but Unicode also encodes the hyphen (‐, U+2010) and minus sign (−, U+2212) separately.

I assume no minus sign, or any specific dashes are included in keyboard layouts for a number of reasons. Firstly historical—it saved space on typewriter and early computer keyboard keys. Secondly, it wouldn't really make sense—how would you differentiate the various dashes, hyphen and minus sign? The length would be hardly noticeable in isolation and adding en, em etc would probably confuse anyone not versed in typographical terms.

With regards to your note on the numpad, I'm not sure why a minus sign isn't used. It seems like it should be. It may be for technical reasons. I'm not familiar with the engineering of a keyboard but maybe both hyphen(-minus) keys use (or historically did) the same circuitry. It may also simply be not to cause confusion, with two identical looking keys outputting different characters.

In short—If you are writing mathemtical formulae, use the correct symbol. Otherwise you can probably get away with a hyphen-minus or an en-dash (but if you're going to the trouble of using an en-dash, just use a minus sign!).

---

Some Related Reading

Innovative methods for form input on mobile

Looking to have a form on mobile for scheduling an appointment (similar to registration form info), run in a webapp.

Are there any better, innovative, more interesting methods to do a form on mobile? Examples?

Answer

You seem to be already familiar with it, but staged obligation is one of the best methods for lengthy form inputs.

This might be best exemplified in online store checkouts. Instead of inputting their shipping/billing address, applicable discounts, and payment info all in to one lengthy form, it is broken down into steps. This is also seen in surveys, where questions are grouped into different pages, so potential respondents aren't scared off when they see the amount of questions being asked.

Applying this to other forms will keep the user interested. You will see some users bail when they see the next page, but most will be in the mindset of, "I've already filled out the last page, and there's only a few more boxes. I'll keep going." A progress indicator is helpful for users to understand what they're getting into, but it may scare away some.

Although you haven't shared details on what goes into scheduling an appointment for your application, I could easily convert the process into steps:

• Information about you


• Who you need to see and why


• Pick a date and time


• Confirm and make appointment

And assuming the user wants to schedule the appointment (as opposed to say, filling out a survey), I could see this being very effective.

However, because the form in question would be on mobile and is subject to more potential interruptions between steps (network difficulties, data usage, app crashes, etc.), separation by pages might not be effective. Steps could instead be separated on a single page, such as through drop-down views that reveal themselves as the user completes the previous step.

returns - Should cointegration be tested using close or adjusted close prices?

When doing cointegration tests should I use the adjusted close price or just close price for the time series? The dividend of each stock is on different dates and can cause jumps in the data.

Answer

Such tests should always be done using adjusted prices. In fact, ideally, you should reconstruct your own price series using the total returns series. To see this, suppose you have a 10:1 split rather than a relatively small cash dividend. Then it is clear that the cointegration relationship can only hold with respect to the adjusted series.

position - centered logo ok?

I'm designing a website for a rather unknown software company. The company likes the design but cannnot get along with our desicion to center their logo on the top of their page, although all the other elements are centered. Therefore a left aligned logo wouldn't look good. I know, it seems all UX studies prove them right, but positioning the logo in the center isn't a unpopular practice anymore.

Furthermore I think the way we read a website has adapted the last 10 years. Are there any studies about this topic that could help prove my point?

Thanks

Answer

There is nothing wrong with putting the logo in the center. You're not going to implode anything. What you're fighting though is what is called the "f-shaped pattern".

Nielson did a study in 2006 (which I believe you found, based on your comments above) that showed people tend to scan a page from left-to-right, top-to-bottom in a "f shape". http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/

While this study is back in 2006, it is based on the natural scan pattern of the web users tested. These users would be familiar with a left-to-right scan pattern (i.e., most western cultures), versus someone with a right-to-left or alternative scan pattern in other media.

How we scan media really hasn't changed. There is no particular evidence that western cultures have stopped scanning from left-to-right and top-to-bottom, as we continue to do so in all other media types.

What type of information you are presenting on your web site is also important. The f-shaped pattern shows you that people will capture certain information if it is placed appropriately on your site, and also that something important can be entirely missed (or glazed over) if it is put in the "wrong" place.

To bring this study into the more recent years, here are two articles that were posted in 2012 that discuss the pattern and give relevant information to more current web design patterns:

http://www.timeforcake.com/blog/post/web-designer-secrets-the-f-pattern-demystified/

http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/understanding-the-f-layout-in-web-design--webdesign-687

The 'tutsplus' article has a "chicken or the egg" section about which comes first, here is what it says:

So which came first? Was the F-Layout designed in response to people scanning sites in the F-Pattern, or did web-surfers begin scanning pages in the F-Pattern as a response to so many sites being designed that way... My personal guess is that it's a little bit of both. Yes, people have always been reading top-to-bottom, left-to-right; but the prevalence of the 2-column site layout certainly encourages website visitors to scan the way that they do.

The simple fact is that the F-Pattern is supported by research, so whether or not you want your layout to adhere closely to it, it's worth at least considering how visitors will react to your site if they do prefer to "F-scan" the web.

(emphasis added by me, concerning research support)

The 'tutsplus' article also runs the same tests on a more modern layout.

Does this demand your logo be left-align, or centered-aligned? No, such a scan pattern can be supported with it being in either place. But your logo may be less salient if placed in the center, then if in the top-left.

creative writing - Invoking Deliberate Values Dissonance

Deliberate Values Dissonance is when the morals of a character or culture in-story (whether historical or fictional) that modern people don't agree with are presented in-universe. Not because the author believes in them, but because the culture being represented in-universe does.

My series features a character who is heavily implied to be Jeanne d'Arc (and goes by the name of Catherine Romée) as it's deuteragonist. In the series, "Catherine" is subjected to quite a culture shock, after having her soul contained within an ancient artefact called a "Divine Tool" for 600 years. Throughout the series, I plan on having instances where "Catherine" encounters aspects of the modern world that conflicts with her Catholic values.

Key highlights include:

• 
  

  Expressing shock at women being able to serve as soldiers.

  
  


• 
  

  Displaying bafflement at modern society being very accepting of homosexuality.

  
  
  


• 
  

  Being awestruck at people's rather lax attitude towards profanity and atheism.

  
  


• 
  

  Expressing horror and disgust upon learning that the protagonist had premarital sex with a girl prior to the events that unfold in the series.

  
  

None of this is played for laughs, as it suggested that "Catherine" is suffering from suicidal depression due to her loved ones being dead, existing in a world that is radically different from her own and having to work with the protagonist, who she doesn't get along with. It's also implied that she may be insane, due to being in social isolation for 6 centuries. But, rather than writing her as a stereotypical homophobic, God-fearing Catholic or making it look like I condone her beliefs, I wish to portray her as someone who hails from a period in time when her religious views were commonplace.

Is anyway that I can achieve such a feat?

Answer

The values of the Middle Ages existed for more reasons than church dogma. For example, sleeping with a girl before marrying her meant a fair chance of her getting pregnant. Which was also why men wanted their bride to be a virgin - when resources are scarce, nobody wants to raise another man's child. Woman's modern position in society too is connected to modern ability to choose when to get pregnant, as well as to a higher measure of safety from rape. Your Catherine could confront the other protagonist with the expected consequences of such actions, and then struggle to re-evaluate things in light of different consequences.

Regarding profanity and atheism, be very careful about doing your research. If you read Shakespeare, for example, he uses more profanity than would be considered reasonable for theatre nowadays. It's just different profane words, so we don't perceive them as all that dirty. And while people did not actually say they did not believe in God back then (there was no alternative explanation for natural phenomena), actual religious observance was meh - there's ample record of churches being empty except for holidays, and of the Church being angry at people sinning right and left. Tolerance towards homosexuality is also older than we think. A homosexual couple appears as background characters in Alexandre Dumas' Le Comte de Monte Cristo, for example.

Instead, how would Catherine respond to the Protestant heresy? Heresy is not a word we use nowadays, but it is a word she would be quite familiar with. Worldview is reflected in the words we use. BY using outdates concepts, you can invoke a worldview that is different from our modern one, and within which certain beliefs are understandable.

plugin - File backups for Photoshop

I've been working with Photoshop for a long time, and every once in a while I work on a file, sometimes in a rush, sometimes just being lazy.. what happens is that I end up ruining it.

I save, go on with my day, and then I open it later only to realize/remember that a previous version was better, only if I would of saved it in multiple versions as I usually do.. but sometimes it happens and I DON'T.

Do you know of a plugin or an add-on or something that does this, is there some option somewhere in Photoshop that I don't know about ? I saw some new features about Recovery Information Under Preferences > File Handling but I find no use for it.. I want something that prevents me from overwriting, or rather it doesn't even prevent me, it just saves a different file with an incremental number at the end.

(What I need is something that won't let me overwrite a file when saving, but rather create another file with the exact same name and a number at the end. Something like Save as but not Saves As and not me writing a different file name every time. I wan't it as part of my normal routine, to be safe and never sorry that I lost something I spen hours working on and ruined it in a few minutes, then saved the turd and wonder at it later.)

For example, when I use the default Ctrl + S (Save) multiple times, I want it to automatically do:

• ThisPsdFile-1.psd



• ThisPsdFile-2.psd


• ThisPsdFile-3.psd

[Please restrain from comments like: "you are too lazy, blabla.." it just happens sometimes, and I want this error solved forever... something I install once and boom, that's about it.

Thank you for your time.

Locking input form fields, does it make sense?

In certain views of our web-application, all information is usually presented as input fields as they can be modified.

Now, because of our rights and roles system, for some people, several input fields would be locked because they have reading but not modifying rights.

Is it appropriate to show this data as regular, read-only text, even if they, in a different scenario, like editing another person, would see editable inputs?

Answer

Showing disabled input fields can be useful because it indicates to the user that there are additional options or that the information can be edited in different circumstances.

If there is a benefit in your particular application for the user to know that this information is editable in a certain scenario (the correct role), then you could show them as locked. An additional message could also be displayed to explain why some fields are locked.

---

See Windows update settings example: This example shows that the Important Updates field can't be changed, but showing it as an input rather than plain text, means I am aware that this is in fact a setting not just informative, and the additional red message explains why this field is locked. I now know that if I want to get at this setting I need to track down my system administrator and ask permission from them.

adobe illustrator - AI vs EPS vs SVG

What's the technical difference? I'm interested in switching from Illustrator to Inkscape and would prefer to work exclusively with SVG, but is this going to be a problem for my team if they stay on Illustrator? Are .ai's more capable than SVGs or EPS?

I want to be a graphic designer. How should I approach learning Photoshop?

While reading a lot of design blogs and notable designers, I keep seeing the joke/statement come up over and over again that using Photoshop does not entitle one to the name Designer (or one who can do Graphic Design). As an experienced designer or one who has gone through the process:

How would you approach using Photoshop in such a way that sooner or later one can go try the road of the designer?

Answer

For a skilled designer the tools being used don't make so much of a difference. It's the line between the tools using you and vice versa. A "real" graphic designer has a clear concept and plan in mind and then chooses the tools that will best accomplish that goal.

So, approach photoshop as a toolset, and determine what it can do to get you where you need to go.

The comments you have seen are trying to point out that the tool is just that, a tool. So someone who has a typewriter sitting on their table is not necessarily a novelist, and the guy who spent a small fortune on a fancy chess set and routinely beats his 12 year old nephew at the game is not necessarily a chess master.

drawing - Illustrator: How to draw circles at control points?

I drew a polygon using the pen tool. Now I'd like to draw small circles (illustrating vertices) at the polygon control points.

Answer

As per request, a script to do this on selected paths. This is an alternative for @CConroy answer that may make things easier to do in the long run. It draws symbols on points and tangents and connects the tangents with lines, You can use symbols palette to change how they look after the fact. Might be useful for somebody.

Put following in a .jsx file and run it with paths selected:

#target illustrator

main();


function main(){
  var sym = createSymbolsIfNeeded(activeDocument);
  handlePaths(activeDocument.selection, 
              sym.anchor, sym.tangent); 
  // pass undefined for sym tangent if you dont want 
  // tangent handles.
}

function handlePaths(sel, symAcnhor, symDir) {

  for(var i = 0; i < sel.length; i++){
      if(sel[i].typename == "PathItem"){
          symbolsOnPoints(sel[i], symAcnhor, symDir);
      }
      // you would possibly need to recurse
      // the groups and compound paths in some 
      // cases.
  }
}


function symbolsOnPoints(path, symAcnhor, symDir) {
  var pts = path.pathPoints;
  for(var i = 0; i < pts.length; i++){
      var pos = pts[i].anchor

      if(!(symDir === undefined)) {
        var pos2 = pts[i].rightDirection;
        if (dist(pos, pos2) > 0.1){
          drawLine(pos, pos2);
          centeredSymbol(pos2, symDir);

        }

        pos2 = pts[i].leftDirection;
        if (dist(pos, pos2) > 0.1){
          drawLine(pos, pos2);
          centeredSymbol(pos2, symDir);
        }
      }

      centeredSymbol(pos, symAcnhor);

  }
}

function centeredSymbol(pos, symbol) {
  var p = pos.slice(0);
  sym = activeDocument.symbolItems.add(symbol);
  p[0] -= sym.width/2.0;
  p[1] += sym.height/2.0;   
  sym.position = p;
  return sym;

}

function drawLine(p1, p2) {
    var line = activeDocument.pathItems.add();
    line.setEntirePath([p1,p2]);
    return line;
}

function dist(a, b){


  return Math.sqrt(Math.pow(b[0]-a[0], 2) + 
                   Math.pow(b[1]-a[1], 2));        
}

function createSymbolsIfNeeded(doc){
    var symAnchor;
    try {
        symAnchor = doc.symbols.getByName("Anchor");
    }
    catch(err) {

        var circle = doc.pathItems.ellipse(5,5,5,5);
        symAnchor = doc.symbols.add(circle);
        symAnchor.name = "Anchor";
        circle.remove();
    }

    var symTangent;
    try {
        symTangent = doc.symbols.getByName("Tangent");
    }

    catch(err) {
        var rect = doc.pathItems.rectangle(5,5,5,5);
        var symTangent = doc.symbols.add(rect);
        symTangent.name = "Tangent";
        rect.remove();
    }
    return {anchor : symAnchor, tangent: symTangent};
}

    

Image 1: Example result. You can easily change the different marker symbols win the symbol palette.

PS: The script is not really super secure and stable because its one of my own scripts for quick documentation so be careful.

PPS: I have pushed this code to bitbucket

how to quickly create many arrowheads on a path using illustrator?

My question is simple. How to quickly create many arrowheads on a path using Adobe Illustrator? like this

inkscape - Convert a line drawing from raster to vector **LINES**

Here are already such questions, like:

... and others.

I have an B&W png image, contains a drawing like an maze, e.g. it contains only lines, no areas.

Need convert it into (any) vector format, but as LINES. Every program what i tried, e.g. VectorMagic, potrace etc. converts the lines into closed path areas.

Small part of the original PNG image - zoomed:

The result of the trace:

As you can see, the "line" is traced from its both side like any other area-like shape.

Looking for a way, how to trace lines into real lines (PATHS), best with the matching line-width. (but would be enough any line with).

The reason behind: need work with the traced lines and nodes, e.g. convert some nodes to bezier and like. Not possible (easily) with shapes.

Any idea:

• how to get vectorised lines from any tracing program.



• which tool can do this? (any OS - could use Windows, OS X, Linux..)

Answer

Centerline Tracing

There is a free Open Source tool AutoTrace which is able to perform a centerline trace of a line-art bitmap.

Run AutoTrace with at least the following options:

autotrace -centerline -color-count 2 -output-file output.svg -output-format SVG input.png 

We can then fine tune the strokes and add the desired stroke strength..

We may also install the graphical frontend Frontline for AutoTrace in case we are not familiar with the command line.

Linux users may be able to install autotrace provided from their default repositories in most distributions. For Windows there are precompiled packages to download form the project's page.

There are many additional parameters for AutoTrace which can be found in the application's man page or by calling it with autotrace -help.

To rather get straight lines than splines we can e.g. use the following parameters:

• 
  

  -line-threshold [real]:
  If a spline does not deviate from the straight line defined by its endpoints by more than the specified number of pixels, then treat it as a straight line (default: 1).

  
  



• 
  

  - line-reversion-threshold [real]:
  If a spline is closer to a straight line than this, weighted by the square of the curve length, keep it a straight line even if it is a list with curves; default is .01.

  
  

option pricing - Why isn't this IV calc correct?

I'm trying to calculate implied volatility for the following put option:

Stock price = 185.55
Strike = 180
Option price = 3.00
Days to expire = 63

I've run the numbers through here http://www.option-price.com/implied-volatility.php using a risk-free rate of zero and get 17.57.

My calculations are based on the formula from here How can the implied volatility be calculated? using yoonkwon's answer. The formula doesn't use risk free rate (or strike price) so I'm using a risk-free rate of zero in the above webpage.

Formula from above link:

My calculations look like this:

sqrt((2 x 3.1415)/.17260) x 3/185.55 = 9.75

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Answer

You are using Put vs Call I think. You can convert the put price to call using put call parity: 3+5.55 when you assume zero interest rate. This would be more important for the other approximations.

The main problem with the approximation formula is that, as noted in the comments in the answer you referenced, your approximation will not be accurate for non-ATM options. You can try a simple alternative which adjusts for the money-ness:

$\sigma= \sqrt{\frac{2\pi}{T}}\frac{C-\delta}{S-\delta}$

Where

$\delta=\frac{S-K e^{-rT}}{2}$

This is the Bharadia, Christofides, and Salkin approximation. And for still better results you can try Corrado-Miller:

Which I copied from the article below and where X is the discounted value of the strike. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=584982

How to create custom Arrowheads in Illustrator properly

Arrowheads.ai file in C:\Users\admin\Documents\Illustrator specifies: " ... add new arrowhead symbols of your own design. A horizontal stroked line in the back of the design is used to indicate the placement of the arrowhead and the default scale relative to the stroke weight. (The preset arrowheads are drawn with a stroke weight of 1 pt, but you can use any stroke weight as long as the arrowhead is drawn as it should look with a Scale option of 100% on a stroke of that weight.)

However after numerous attempts to create a new arrowhead and add it to symbols, it does not perform as it should when used from a "Stroke" pannel in a project.

This is what happens:

Can anyone elaborate on any kinks that may arise out of this process? There doesn't seem to be any tutorial online to show the exact way this should be done. Thanks for any help in advance.

transparency - Is there a way in photoshop to convert k values to alpha values?

Basically, I would like to make it so that the lighter a pixel is (the more white it has) the more transparent it becomes. Black pixels would be opaque, white pixels would be transparent.

I currently use the slider in blending options on the first tab to get rid of the white and make it transparent but find it works slightly better if I use the magic wand tool with delete.

I figure that there is some blending option out there but there are so many and I'm not sure which to use to achieve my goal.

(Using Photoshop CS6)

user research - Are there standard metrics to gauge process complexity?

One aspect of user experience in a software application or website is the complexity of the processes involved in completing a user task/goal. It probably comes as no surprise that if the steps required to complete the task is long and complex, then the user will have a difficult time getting a good user experience from trying to achieve his/her goals. Off the top of my head I can only think of things like the number of screens and clicks as quantifiable measures. I would like to know if there are any standard metrics used to measure the relative degree of quality of content that takes into account of various elements that comprise of process complexity, and how this relates to the overall user experience.

Answer

Things that I think would help to derive some metrics for the answer is to understand some different types of processes.

• Independent/Pooled – Each component of the task is completed independent of each other task with no specific dependency on any other task.


• Sequential – Each component of scheduled task is dependent on the preceding task.



• Interdependent/Networked – Each component of scheduled task is dependent on one or a number of other task being completed.

Some of the factors influencing task complexity:

• Size of the task - how many sub-tasks comprise of the task


• Length of the task - how many steps / screens / clicks / time


• Variation of the task - number of alternate steps

I think the weighting applied to the different factors might need to be related to how much impact it has on the user being able to successfully complete the task.

business - What’s the difference between an art director and a creative director?

I have seen both Art Director and Creative Director as titles, but I'm not sure what the difference is. Is one to do with visuals and the other with content? Are they more or less interchangeable? Do they have different responsibilities? Can you have both in the same shop?

Answer

Is one to do with visuals and the other with content?

An article published "Creative Director vs. Art Director":

Creative Director's Key Role

The creative director typically thinks through the early phase of the project to develop the concept. This director oversees the entire team, which includes the copy chief, photographer and art director. Many creative directors ultimately work their way up through the ranks to become partner or CEO. The creative director generally has the final say on what gets delivered to the client. This vital position nurtures the studio or agency's talent and also steers its design philosophy.

Art Director Key Role

An art director executes a strategy, concept or idea provided by the creative director. After the concept has been created, the art director is generally responsible for the stylistic look of the ad or design. He brainstorms with workers and provides direction and inspiration to the staff, which includes the graphic designer, sketch artists or typesetters. The art director helps maintain brand consistency. He oversees the project through the production department and other phases, including prepress and printing. The art director may have the final approval for delivery of the project if there is no creative director.

Joint Forces

The creative director relies on intuition and creativity to get the job done. He understands the psychology of advertising and works to create an effective vehicle for reaching consumers. Although a creative director's forte is not necessarily his technical skills, he can write copy, design logos or choose typefaces, if necessary. The art director relies on his technical skills to execute the project. Both roles complement each other.

Education and Pay

Both creative directors and art directors need at least a bachelor's degree in advertising, fine art or design. Creative directors may continue their education to prepare for the best job opportunities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for art directors in 2010 was $80,600 per year. In comparison, a creative director's median salary was $125,000, according to a 2011 AIGA/Aquent Survey of Design Salaries.

Source of the article from chron and there has been a discussion on the topic at Graphic Design Forum here ages ago.

Art Directors at bigger studios or corporations often oversee just a particular segment of design or at least different teams. So you might have an art director for interactive design and another for package design. The Creative Director would oversee all these.

Do they have different responsibilities?

Can you have both in the same shop?

yes

humor - seeking a humorous example of long winded paragraph one sentence long

Back in the day, good writing meant it was a goal to make sentences short. As I have grown older this rule has served me well, especially as it relates to technical writing.

I am looking for a humorous example of the opposite -- a full paragraph 5, 6, or more lines long but consisting of only one sentence. Any referrals or leads to such an animal would be greatly appreciated.

Jim T.

What would a reader like to know about a character first?

Two characters of opposite sex meet in a blank room (nothing remarkable about the setting) for the first time and the reader isn't familiar with either of them. Since genre would sway the answer to this, let me say it is Action-adventure.

My question: 'What would the reader want to know about each character in order to make them more real physically?'

Answer

Good answers already, but I think you are looking for something different.

You are looking for "The woman in the red dress".

You immediately had a picture from "The Matrix" in your head there, right?

Characters in your story should have one identifiable feature this can be a physical feature, or a behaviour, but it is something that we would notice on them and remember. This is unique for each character, and which one you pick says a lot about the character in question and their place in the story.

This is the first thing you should tell a reader, though from time to time you can make it the 2nd or 3rd thing for variety.

The identifiable feature is what other characters in the story use to talk about the character in question if they don't know or don't want to use his or her name. "The girl with the red hair" or "that bodybuilder guy" if it is about physical features, "the man in the old uniform", or "the woman in the red dress" if you use clothes. If can be "the arrogant dude" or "the shy girl" if you use body language or gait, etc.

This is a very realistic depiction of people as well, as we tend to use these things in real life. You can spot it when going out with a group of friends and talking about strangers you see or meet. Typically someone identifies a person by such a unique feature and everyone else immediately knows who they are talking about.

Registration: Username and password or email and password

During a registration process, what would the reasons be for using either username/password or email/password combinations to register the user?

• Is it a case of identification once in the system (it may be preferable to refer to a user by their username instead of their email)


• Simplicity - using email means the user doesn't have to create two
  
  memorable items?

What other reasons are there for choosing either option? Is there a relationship between the types of service?

Answer

For the same number of fields (2) you get more useful information about the user. Both username and password are content free, but an email address is not.

In addition, my experience has been that using email address rather than a username bypasses people's privacy filter. Many people avoid giving out their email address, or use a throwaway address when they are asked specifically for it in a form. But when it is their identity, they are more likely to use the address that they think of as 'them', which means not a throwaway.

Finally, in forum/comment environments you also need to ask for a Display Name; phrased in this way, people are more likely to use their real name than an alias. It serves the same purpose as the original username, but again in my experience a far larger percentage of users provide their real name, but since they don't have to provide their real name it does not turn away or offend those who value privacy like 'First Name', 'Last Name' fields do.

editing - Typography for a book?

I know this must vary based on preference. I haven't gone to school for writing but regardless have started writing a book. I have a few chapters done, and need to start format and editing it.

Should the spacing be 1, 1.5 or 2? I am using Times New Roman as the font for text which is pretty standard.

Right now the font size is set on 12. But, is that what I should be using? Also, the width setting? Right now it's whatever the standard is on windows word but should I change the width parameters?

I thank you in advance for whatever guidance you can offer me.

Why does Photoshop call ppi "resolution"?

There are some things in Photoshop's "new" dialog window that I find troubling:

1. Assume an image of 1000 pixels by 1000 pixels. How can there be an input box for ppi? Ppi a property of the result of displaying or printing an image, not a property of the image itself, am I right?


2. Also, why does Photoshop call ppi "Resolution"? Shouldn't it be called "density"?

Answer

The PPI doesn't really matter if you use pixels as units; 1000x1000 pixels at 300 or 72ppi will still be 1000x1000 pixels. But when you change the units to inches, then you'll notice one is smaller than the other; there will be be more pixels per inch as the name says. As you mentioned, PPI is more for printing, but it can also now be used as a reference for high density screens (eg. Retina) for web projects.

The field is not that useful for PPI and pixels together, but it can be convenient when comparing sizes like inches VS pixels combined with PPI, if one needs to visualize all this quickly.

PPI or DPI (dots-per-inch) are the standard units for resolution, and it's true it could be called density but it might not be that useful to rename a standard and well-known unit based only on the new display technology. There's still LPI (lines-per-inch) used in printing as well, and all these names make sense together. The name pixels-per-inch is quite self-explanatory, easy to understand, and still appropriate for the technology that is used today.

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About density and how PPI/DPI work (to respond to comment):

Pixels-per-inch (PPI):

When the resolution is higher, the pixels are smaller and the image is also smaller.

When people ask for a 1000x1000 pixel image with 300DPI (or 300PPI), they actually want a 3.33inch x 3.33inch image at 300DPI (or 8.47cm x 8.47cm at 300DPI if you prefer). But when you create your file in Photoshop, you can simply use the pixels and enter the 300dpi if you really want to have the right print size; when you save it, it will be at the right size and with the right "pixel concentration" no matter the unit the printer/client prefers. For you it won't make a difference on performance or image quality, it's the same number of pixels.

As a trick, if you wonder if a web image of 72 dpi (72ppi) will be good enough for printing, you can already visualize that image 4x smaller (1/4) than what you see on the screen at 100% and guess how big it can be used on a print project.

Dot-per-inch (DPI):

In offset printing, instead of using square pixels, they use dots. When you send files for printing, it's transferred on a metal plate and your pixels are re-encoded in dots. The darker the color, the bigger the dot. When you see a printed color image, it's a set of 4 dots (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black) and they each have their own angle. A vector or bitmap file is clearer because there no anti-aliasing being reproduced; so no tiny dots next to your full shape which gives that "hairy letter" effect.

For digital printing, they'll use DPI when talking about the quality of their machines. In general, the printer uses powders that are dropped on a sheet, mixed together and cooked in the process. That's why there's no visible dots. The difference of quality between vector and rasterized images will be less obvious too.

For large format prints such as a pull-up banner, it's the same concept as an inkjet and they use DPI too.

Line-per-inch (LPI):

To put it simply, LPI is the unit related to the quality of the offset press itself and indicates how big the dots are and how many lines of dots are in one inch; LPI is 1/2 of the DPI/PPI. It's the same logic as dpi/ppi except with lines; more lines = more quality. Usually, when you hear about a file that needs to be 300DPI, this image will be printed at 150LPI.

Standard newspapers are printed at 85LPI, most offset press have 133LPI and top quality press (rarer) 150LPI. Yes, nice 300DPI images are often printed in reality at 266DPI on offset.

Why it's important to know about LPI: if you needed to select a printer for a jewellery catalog for example, you would need to ask if your printer can handle 150LPI for maximum quality and clarity. You can also ask this when requesting quotes and wondering why one printer is way lower than the other... His estimate could be for digital printing, 85lpi, 133lpi or 150lpi.

Top image: Inkjet, digital (DPI)

Second image: Pixels, display, web (PPI)

Thirdimage: Offset color printing (DPI + LPI)

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Other question related to this topic here.

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^{Images source: DPI/LPI theme.fm, PPI kalliopimonoyios.com, EYE www.rgbcmyk.net}

translation - Can one be a co-translator of a book, if he does not know the language that the book is translated into?

I am translating a religious book from language A to language B and have hired a student worker to help me. He is a native speaker of language A but does not speak language B at all. What I ask him to do is, whenever a Bible verse (for example, Mark 16:16) is mentioned in the book, he will find the corresponding name of the book in language B from a table and then copy and paste the name in language B to my file. Since the book quotes heavily from the Bible, my student has done a lot of work in this translation work.

My question is, should I add my student worker as a cotranslator based on what he did, though he does not know language B at all?

r - How to interpret results of Johansen Test?

I have two time-series a & b. The objective is to find out whether two series are cointegrated or not. I am using Johansen Test in R to find this out.

I am using urca package of R.

Here is the summary of test (trace test with constant intercept): ca.jo(cbind(a,b), type="trace", ecdet = "const", K = 2, spec ="longrun")

Summary:

Johansen-Procedure

Test type: trace statistic , without linear trend and constant in cointegration

Eigenvalues (lambda):

[1] 1.729720e-02 4.118294e-03 1.294090e-19

Values of teststatistic and critical values of test:

             test  10pct 5pct  1pct

    r <= 1 | 2.46  7.52  9.24  12.97
    r = 0  | 12.88 17.85 19.96 24.60

Eigenvectors, normalised to first column: (These are the cointegration relations)

            a.l2          b.l2         constant
a.l2        1.000000     1.0000000     1.000000
b.l2       -3.662895     0.6463026     1.725186

constant 1135.666923 -2889.4155208 -7862.128714

Weights W: (This is the loading matrix)

       a.l2         b.l2        constant
a.d    0.002621493 -0.006226421 1.245608e-18
b.d    0.010169925 -0.001446919 2.187151e-18

Now my question how to interpret this result and determine whether a & b are cointegrated or not? What is a loading matrix in a cointegration test? How to interpret the critical values? How to determine whether to keep a constant intercept or zero intercept? Do I need to check individual series is an I(1) series before running johansen test?

There is a similar question which has been asked before here but it didn't answer my question completely.

Answer

Some of your question was already answered on the question you mention. Please read it carefully to understand better. In particular it answers very well how to conclude if there is co-integration or not. Also note that this question is not really relevant here both on level and subject (It is a pure statistical question and can be asked on stats.stackexchange.com). If you need more detail and proofs on that subject you could read Johansen seminal article: Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Cointegration Vectors in Gaussian Vector Autoregressive Models. (It is very technical though)

Now Let's take the other one by one.

1/The loading matrix is the matrix generaly reffered to as alpha (Check urca documentation).

2/ The critical values: If the null hypothesis (r=0, r<=1) is verified your test statistic follows a known distribution. Given the cumulative distribution you can find where lie 90%, 95%, 99% of the values. Here under the null your test statistic (the trace) is distributed a chi^2. Therefore if it's value is greater than some of the critical values you can reject the null at this confidence. Obviously in your case you cannot reject anything at any confidence (doesn't mean that you proved the null is verified). I'm not telling you if this means co-integration or not as it is much better that you find that out for yourself.

3/ I'm not so sure about the intercept (in the VECM) but it is critical as it corresponds to a deterministic trend in the VAR representation and changes your test statistics. I suppose you could first fit a model with th intercept and test for it's significance. My belief is that deterministic trend is not very probable with financial time series.

4/ Contrary to the tests (ADF and others) based on Engle and Granger methodology you do not need to test if your series are I(1) previously as this is one of the null in your trace test. Chek which one in the previous question you mentioned.

As a rule I think anyone should try to apply : Don't use a statistical method if you don't understand it.

software - Search and replace words across whole project?

I'm still new to articy:draft and I want to know if it's possible to search and replace words across the whole project. I know searching is possible, but I can't find the replace function, if it's even there. Ctrl+H doesn't do anything.

Of course it would be more convenient if there was a function similair to what I described here, but I'd already be happy if I can just replace multiple instances of the same word with another word.

How to duplicate circles increasing their size in Illustrator?

I want to copy a circle and re-size it at the same time, then do Ctrl+D several times to imitate the behavior and end up having circles with increasing diameter.

I don't want it to scale the new circle by the same fixed %, ending up with a sort of logarithmic growth related to the original circle. What I'd need to do is to have a linear growth, so that the increasing in the radius is linear.

Not sure if I explained it correctly, any doubt let me know!

Answer

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:: Quick and dirty ::

• On the Tools Palette, click and hold on the "Line Tool".


• Choose "Polar Grid Tool" from the drop-down


• Begin dragging your shape, but don't release the mouse button


• Pressing the arrow keys in this "unreleased shape" state will alter the number of line dividers, and will yield something like the result you seem to be asking for.

If that won't suffice, you either want the Scaling Tool or Blending.

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:: An overlooked fundamental ::

Select you shape with the Selection Tool, then choose the Scale Tool (keyboard shortcut: 's').

In this instance, you'll want to press "Enter" with the shape selected to bring up the Scale Tool Dialog, tweak the settings, and choose "Copy" at the bottom of the dialog.

Press Cmd / Ctrl + D to repeat the effect the desired number of times.

One setting to pay attention to in the dialog is "Scale Strokes and Effects".

As you can see, the strokes in this example are not increased as in the other result:

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:: Powerful but sometimes more than necessary ::

1. Make one circle sized as your innermost circle, and one as your outermost.


2. Select both objects.


3. In File Menu / Menu Bar: Object > Blend > Make


4. This probably won't yield the desired results, so again from your Menu options, choose Object > Blend > Blending Options*



5. In the dialog, for "Spacing", choose either "Specified Steps" or "Specified Distance". Tweak the numbers until you a result you like (make sure you have the "Preview" box ticked!)

*Alternatively, you can double-click on your "Blend Tool" in the Tools Palette to bring up your Blend Options dialog box.

Illustrator - Using an RGB transparency mask in a CMYK file

My file is CMYK, but it has a Link to an RGB PSD file as a transparency mask.

The file renders properly in illustrator (the preview), but whenever I try to export to any other format, the colors are messed up.

When I converted the RGB PSD file (transparency mask) to CMYK within Illustrator, I was able to replicate the messed-up colors.

How can I convert the RGB PSD file to CMYK without messing up all the colors?

If that's not possible, is the best option to take a screenshot of the preview, and use that instead of Exporting?

Answer

Blend modes will give very unexpected results in CMYK if you're used to working with them only in RGB.

If the purpose of the PSD is only to provide a transparency mask, why not create a PSD consisting only of the (alpha channel) luminosity values and place that instead? You could create that very quickly with Image > Calculations, using the gray values for both sources, Normal blending and setting the Result to "New Document":

This creates a new Photoshop file with a single channel of grey values.

If you just want to have a Photoshop file inside an AI clipping mask, then use Edit > Convert to Profile (not Image > Mode > CMYK) in Photoshop and convert the document to your working CMYK profile (the one that you've set up in Bridge to coordinate all of your Creative Suite applications), or to the same one that you're using in AI. Be sure to use "Perceptual" or "Relative Colorimetric" as the rendering intent in that case, otherwise you may get undesirable color shifts.

modal windows - Are "close" and "x" on a popup redundant?

I am working with a basic bootstrap modal popup which is a popular modal used on many sites. I noticed that the default template comes with both a close button on the bottom, as well as an x on the top, these two buttons essentially having the same purpose.

Are the two redundant and the close button completely unnecessary and just taking up extra space? Or, is having multiple usage options more user friendly?

To make this even more fun, suppose I throw in a Save button:

Is it now clearer that if you don't press save and just press the x, your changes will be canceled, or is there now more of a need for a cancel button for users who are scared that a mistake will become permanent?

Update:

To clarify for those who feel this question is similar to Can we expect users to close popovers by just clicking away? - That question is asking if a clickable background is sufficient to close a popup. I'm using buttons and it is just a matter of how many buttons to use. (I do also have a clickable overlay and ESC key enabled, but that is irrelevant to my question)

Answer

It may be redundant, but independently of this the real concern should be to evaluate if this redundancy is beneficial, harmful or neutral.

Different goals, different designs

Do you need a confirmation modal or just an informative one?

Confirmation: To start with you'd need a OK/Cancel pattern which will offer a clear binary option. You could avoid the X button here but I see no reason to to do it, since it can impact in the user flow if they are used to close everything with it.

Informative: Is it always necessary or recommendable for the users to actually read the message?

• 
  

  Yes: Don't place a X button nor a Close button, because you don't want to give the user the easiest and fastest way out. Place one "OK" / "Got it!" button so the user is less likely to pass over the message. Also you should take care of the "clicking outside the modal" in this case.

  
  
  


• 
  

  No: Place both an OK or Close button plus a X button. There are different types of users with different interaction habits, so there's not a good reason to cut off the natural flow for each one. Moreover if the message is not very important you should ask....

  
  

Is the modal really necessary?

If your goal is to inform the user, there are less obtrusive options such as notifications; try to limit modal use to when it is really necessary. Examples from the Nielsen Norman Group article:

• The user is about to take an action that has serious consequences and is difficult to reverse.



• It’s essential to collect a small amount of information before letting users proceed to the next step in a process.


• The content in the overlay is urgent, and users are more likely to notice it in an overlay.

mobile - How does use in bright sunlight affect how a web site should be designed?

We're building a mobile web site that will mainly be used outdoors in bright sunlight. What design factors should I consider?

Answer

Some of the most important things are going to be high contrast, large text and dark on light design.

Some good examples of high contrast designs are here on Web Design Guru Blog. They have some nice color examples but remember to keep it minimalist.

Keep your text large to keep it readable and force yourself to cut out as much text as possible. Keep the interaction areas (buttons/links) large to make it easy for people to press them, keep the boundaries of such elements very clear so they can be seen.

Dark text on a light background will be important; brightness is the key to overtaking the sun on most smartphone models.

Most importantly: test your design on multiple leading smartphone models. To get a quick impression of some differences, see this video showing smartphone screen comparisons in direct sunlight.

Don't just test the iPhone 4S, the Galaxy Nexus and call it quits. Test the most popular (not the most high-tech) models of a variety of devices to see how well you can see the display in direct sunlight.

Have real users test the site on a sunny day in direct sun; they'll be able to tell you if your site is reasonably readable. Try a couple different models of phone as well if possible. You or your design team will know what they're looking for on the site and be able to parse things a new user might not. A fresh look is important.

publishing - Can I change my work and seel it if I am published with no contract?

I have had a falling out with my publisher. She has published many of my works and is telling me I am not legally able to resell my work anywhere. I have no contract to refer to. There is no verbal agreement other than she would publish and I would get royalties.

Since we had a falling out I would like to take my work and sell it elsewhere. I would be revamping my work with my own things. Title, clipart, adding and subtracting from the work itself.

My question is why, when we have no legal agreement (and there is nothing implied anywhere), could I not take my work, change it, and sell it?

Am I missing something?

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The issue I am now running into after reading, talking and reading some more is that I would like to do my own publishing.

The items in questions are a preschool line, the whole alphabet.

If I relinquish my rights and sign those over to her and she removes my name from them, would I then be free to create my own, ORIGINAL and completely different from what she has alphabet line. Yes, originally I was going to revamp what was there. I am no longer looking for that, it is to complicated. I am now looking just to do something original... from scratch.

I don't see how I can be in any violation of any agreement or copyright whether verbal or otherwise, but after all the reading I have done nothing would surprise me.

user behavior - "Typocaptcha" - an alternative to CAPTCHA?

We all hate CAPTCHAs, but to some applications they're a necessary evil. Today I wondered if there's a better alternative we just haven't thought of yet. I considered the dilemma: how do you create something that is indecipherable to a computer, but readable to a human?

Then I remembered an email doing the rounds years ago along the lines of:

I cdn'uolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg: the phaonmneel pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rseearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Scuh a cdonition is arppoiatrely cllaed Typoglycemia.

In case you can't read the above:

I couldn't believe that I could actually understand what I was reading: the phenomenal power of the human mind. According to a research team at Cambridge University, it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be in the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without a problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself, but the word as a whole. Such a condition is appropriately called Typoglycemia.

This is called Typoglycemia, and although it wasn't actually researched at Cambridge, there is an element of truth in that people find it surprisingly easy to read.

Could Typocaptcha be the future? Read these three questions:

• Wihch anmial is bgeigr - a fox or an eplthneat?


• Waht aianml is siad to nverr freogt?


• Waht tpye of aimnal was Wlat Dsi'enys Dmbuo?

In case you haven't guessed it, the same answer to all three questions - is:

elephant

There are millions of possible combinations of questions, but before getting into the 'how', it all boils down to user experience.

Would Typocaptcha result in a better or worse user experience when compared to CAPTCHA?

P.S. I am aware that this would not be very accessible to visually impaired users, much like CAPTCHAs aren't.

Answer

This is not effective for keeping out a targeted attack by someone who uses a word list, such as /usr/share/dict/words, to solve your anagrams. A task like "unscramble the words in standard input, assuming the first and last letters are correct, given a word list file for the language" is probably so straightforward that it'd make a good puzzle for our Code Golf site. Sorting out words that are already anagrams, such as could and cloud, could be done with an n-gram database derived from the Project Gutenberg corpus. Then the attacker sees each clue, makes a database of correct responses with the help of Mechanical Turk, and gains the technical ability to spam your site.

If an English proficiency test like this is effective for anything, it'd be for shutting out human users who happen to live in the wrong country. If you have a license to offer your service only to customers in (say) the United States, then someone coming in through a VPN who's not a native English speaker is less likely to actually be a U.S. resident. So it might be useful for the sign-up page of an Internet music or video streaming service, which are markets that are still heavily balkanized by decades-long exclusive territorial distribution contracts. In fact this technique has been seen in the wild: Two levels of the first WarioWare game for Game Boy Advance were typo tests in Japanese, which made it hard for people who downloaded an infringing copy to play through until Nintendo released the English version of the game to the North American market later.

methodology - How to group users into personas

I'm freaking out! I've read more articles about personas than I can remember but there is one thing I can't seem to understand. And that is how do you group users into personas?

What methods and questions do you use to understand how to form user groups? All these articles seem to skim this bit and go directly into how to write a persona - you know, "Well, first you need an image, and a name and then specify if he's more of a cat person than a dog person etc, showing a 5 pages long description about this person. I get that. That's the easy part. What I wanna know is how to group visitors. The stage before this step.

Some articles seem to hint that a persona is based on the motive behind the visit, but if I ask 20 people why they have arrived and what tasks they want to perform I could get 20 different motives. It can't be right to create 20 personas in that case? Some articles states that a ux persona is su-hu-hu-hu-reley not the same thing as target groups or a already defined market segment. And they are not the same thing as a high level stakeholder such as a new client, existing client or a job seeker.

So I have no idea where to start and if you could help me explaining this to me like I'm 5 years old, you not only answer a question and get a lovley upvote, you're also preventing a guy from an early death (ok, that last part was a little exaggerated).

Answer

Grouping people's traits into personas is not "a step before", it is rather "a step after" the initial interviews.

As you probably already know, the persona should be probable, believable, consistent, have boundaries and so on... That means, persona is a representation of people who share similiar:

• Goals



• Needs


• Problems


• Thinking

The main problems with that are (mainly) two:

• People do not directly speak about their needs


• People usually mix the roles they act as

So, they would (for example) tell you what they would like to see or do but not why they need that representation of information or action. So, before you can recognize such needs as the same, you should first recognize the needs.

They would also, easily mix the roles they act as, because they mix it as easily in a real life. So (for example), they would tell you about their use of your "job portal" as a person who seeks for a job and a moment later, they would tell you how they use it as a person who wants to post a job ad. So again, it's your job to separate those behaviour into a separate personas with separate goals...

If you really, I mean really, encounter the 20 different people with 20 different motives, then you should refer to the vision of your product. Whom are you building it for? With limited resources you can not build a product for everyone, their motives may be contrary also. Your target and your vision should guide you when creating the personas.

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Edit, case study type example:

Lets assume that people bruggle (a fictional verb). Our vision is to create a product which will help people who bruggle on their own.

We do research and initial interviews. It looks like most of the people can't bruggle alone, it is too complicated and they need professional help.

So we change the vision and decide to support such bruggler-helper relation. We adjust the group and continue the interviews. There are some small companies which help to bruggle and ex-professionals (or professionals) who do it off hours.

The interviewed people tend to mix their roles. One minute they are speaking about how they work in company, and the next minute they are speaking about how are they helping off-hours. Both roles have a common goal (or set of goals): to help the bruggler. It looks like a one-persona-situation. If you ask about their preferences, thinking, principles, you will probably get an answer related to one of the roles they are currently thinking about. It is difficult to realize there are two different mindsets in play, because interviewed person does not make such distinction (but when we do realize it, it becomes obvious...)

After interviews, it becomes clear: both professionals and companies, in order to generate enough income, need to work with multiple brugglers. One bruggle-helper may use our product but not all of his brugglers will. Since our product will have a significant impact on them and since we can not afford to miss such opportunity - we will be forced to create a persona for a bruggler who doesn't use our product but is in the circle of its influence.

And it goes on and on... Of course, not all of the personas are primary, but there are often a very strong reasons for creating one. I can not call it "one persona per motivation".

description - Tips for describing features of unusual place that I often visit

I'm having problems describing certain parts of a place that I usually visit. Here are some pictures:

For instance, I have no idea how I should refer to the wooden platform on the left (so I just called it wooden platform). I'm also not very sure how to call the section between the wooden platform and the handrail (I just called it sidewalk).

Well, here is the description.

The darkness and fog made it hard for Jun to see the end of the sidewalk. There were no people around, and the streets were unusually quiet. After walking a few meters, he spotted a large wooden platform and decided to sit there. He pulled a Busch beer from is bag, opened it, and looked up. In front of him, there was a sewage canal that was surrounded by a handrail and streetlights.

A minute or two passed when Jun heard the sound of a second can opening. He looked to his side and realized that someone was sitting just a few meters away from him. It was a girl. She was looking up. Something at the other side of the sewage canal.

Jun glanced his watch. It was 2 A.M. What is a girl doing here at this time, he wondered. He tried following her line of vision to the other side of the canal. It took him some time to make out the shape. It looked like a tree. A standing dead tree. It had a grayish color and had long branches.

After finishing his can, he pulled another one from his bag and continued staring at the decayed tree. He glanced to the girl from time to time, but she never never took off her eyes away from the tree.

Jun woke up in his bed with a terrible headache, wondering how he had reached home. His bag was lying on the floor with nine empty beer cans inside. An hour or two passed when the phone called. He let it ring for moment and then picked up the receiver.

Beyond simply finding words for these particular items, I would like to know how to figure out good descriptions on my own in similar cases.

Answer

Doing research is part of being a writer. So, don't know what that pavilion is called? Find out. Look online, look around the thing to see if there's a plaque that may give you a hint, heck, you could even ask some people in the area, like cafe workers.

That said, you don't necessarily need to know what it is:

...spotted a large wooden platform with an asian-looking arbor over it. It looked vaguely Shinto, not that Jun's experience with oriental shrines extended much past martial arts movies.

But that's only if you need to focus that much attention on it. I think the problem you're running into has less to do with the wooden platform and more to do with over-describing and under-showing the scene. That is, you've basically got a bullet point list of what Jun sees and does. This takes a scene with some very interesting concepts (the staring girl, the dead tree, the blackout), and dulls and flattens it.

Compare your first two paragraphs to this:

The darkness and fog muffled the street. Jun could barely see to the end of the sidewalk, so he felt, more than saw, his way along. He kept the parked scooters rising and falling in the mist like chained derelicts to his left and the dead iron ladder of the sewage canal's railing stretching to infinity on the right. He'd steer between the two, and eventually he'd be home.

Eventually. He wasn't quite ready to get there just yet.

A wooden pavilion shaped itself out of the gloom and Jun sat down. A couple of cans of beer in his backpack called to him so he open one, drank, and pondered the dark wavelets in the canal.

The hiss-click of another can of beer startled Jun out of his reverie. There was a girl sitting on the far end of the pavilion, her legs dangling over the sides. Had she been there the whole time? He watched her drink the beer down in one long swallow, her eyes closed, her throat bobbing in time.

She didn't seem to notice him. Instead she stared across the canal, the beer can, now empty, forgotten in her lap.

This isn't necessarily the best way to write this, but it shows you that you don't have to tell the reader the boring bits of how a character moves through space (X meters, spotting, looking this way and that) -- their mind will fill in those blanks.

The blanks they can't fill in are how the scene feels -- and how it'll make them (the readers) feel. This is texture, and you have to provide that. And that can't be done by listing facts.

Consider, for instance, when Jun first sees the dead tree. You write:

It took him some time to make up the shape. It looked like a tree. A standing dead tree. It had a grayish color and had long branches.

"It had a grayish color and had long branches." Really? No! This tree is a pivotal element on the scene that, if my impression is right, gives the scene's spooky nature a reason for being. I mean, the whole thing was set up for the girl to stare at that dead tree, right? So why not something like:

"It stood there like a forgotten evil, its bark the shriveled gray of a drowned man's flesh, its skeletal branches grasping through streamers of murky night air, lusting after the memory of its trembling victims.

Both here and and in the first paragraph with the scooters and canal railing, I'm using similes and adjectives to give these elements some punch.

I'll grant you, I am over-doing it a bit. The tree thing especially is over the top. But that's just for purposes of example to make my point.

When describing a setting you don't want to describe everything, which inevitably leads to summarization. Instead, you want to use a few elements shown in loving, delicious detail to set the whole scene for you.

So remember, it's about texture.

storyline - Is wanting to ask what to write an indication that you need to change your story?

Many writers eventually come to a point in their writing where they don't know what to write. They have a certain status or state of affairs that the narration has reached and another state that they need to get to in order to continue their story to the end they have envisioned (or just to get the characters out of a predicament), but they don't know how to overcome that gap in their storyline with the characters they have in the situation that they have gotten them into.

In a comment to a recent what-to-write question, @Spectrosaurus opines¹ that "if you don't have a good idea for [how to overcome that gap in your narration], maybe it's not the best idea for you to explore?", and they advise the writer to "come up with something that's more interesting to you personally, so that you won't feel the need to ask others what to write!"

When a writer feels the need to ask others what to write, is that truly a sure sign that they need to change their story to something where they know what to write? Why? Does asking for and accepting story ideas from others somehow predict a lower quality to the finished text?

@Spectrosaurus' advice feels intuitively right to me, but is it actually correct?

---

Notes

1 @Spectrosaurus has corrected my misunderstanding of their advice in a comment here below.

usability - Why are aluminium soda cans typically round instead of square?

Why are beverage cans usually round? Considering the amount that are made, and the need to be transported - isn't a round design inefficient? (ie the lost space from not tightly fitting together).

Is there a usability impact on a round can vs a squared can for one handed drinking use?

There is a related question here but I believe the physical properties of aluminium mean there is a difference here.

Answer

It is a combination of manufacturing and usability... but mostly manufacturing.

Doing a quick web search for "why are soda cans round" (Google does a decent job) yields multiple insights in the issue. But the only result you need to visit is engineerguy's YouTube video (you should also be Subscribed to engineerguy, because he is awesome).

The Ingenious Design of the Aluminum Beverage Can

The answer of why a soda can is shaped the way it is is answered in the first 1 minute and 40 seconds.

3 options are explored:

Sphere:

Pro:

• Uses the least amount of material


• No corners, so no weak points when under pressure

Cons:

• Difficult to manufacture


• Rolls off the table (a usability point)


• When packed together, only 74% of volume is taken up by product

Cuboid:

Pro:

• Sits on the table



• Easier to manufacture

Cons:

• Awkward to drink from (a usability point)


• Edges are weak points, requiring thick walls

Cylinder:

Pro:

• Elements of both shapes


• 91% of packing space used by product


• Round shapes can maintain itself under the pressure of its contents (both inward and outward pressure)


• Can be easily held (there's the usability answer)

free - How and when to transition from pro-bono to paid work, and how to ask to be paid?

Its common for new designers to take on volunteer/unpaid projects for the purpose of building a portfolio, practicing new skills, or developing a client base. When the designer has reached a certain level of proficiency and would like to discuss compensation with the same clients that were receiving free work, what is an appropriate approach?

price - Threshold calculation for buying a mean-reverting asset

I am trying to figure-out an optimal policy for buying a unit when its price follows a mean-reverting price process (Ornstein–Uhlenbeck), when I have a finite time deadline for buying the unit.

I tried to search the literature for it, but couldn't find anything. I would very much appreciate any help.

keyboard - Why CTRL + C multiple times

I have recently noticed that I press CTRL + C more than once, even if I know that the file has been copied to the clipboard. But I press CTRL + X or CTRL + V only once.

Why do I do this? Is this only a problem for me, or is anybody else is facing it too?

Answer

Because there is no feedback of the clipboard state. Pressing CTRL+C multiple times gives the guaranteed impression the right data is in the clipboard, just before the next action (CTRL+V, possible).

CTRL+X does have visual feedback, as the data either disappears or changes view (in case of file).

You are not the only one who does it.

vector - How do I split a circle shape into diaphragm-like segments in Illustrator?

How can I make a vector image like this using illustator? (I'm interested in the shape of the triangles) I'm moving from Photoshop to Illustrator and I have some difficulties...

measuring - Real life example how use Google Analytics to improve UX

I'm currently working as a visual designer for a small startup and because we are really small we don't have money to hire UX expert, so I'm trying to do UX as well.

We are measuring many kinds of data about customers with Google Analytics and with cca 1000 UIP/day and 2 years on the way, we have quite a huge data database.

My question is: Are there any general use cases or examples how to use these data to improve customers flow? Or at least which data I should look at? Which data could help me to find week points?

value at risk - How does Cornish-Fisher VaR (aka modified VaR) scale with time?

I am thinking about the time-scaling of Cornish-Fisher VaR (see e.g. page 130 here for the formula).

It involves the skewness and the excess-kurtosis of returns. The formula is clear and well studied (and criticized) in various papers for a single time period (e.g. daily returns and a VaR with one-day holding period).

Does anybody know a reference on how to scale it with time? I would be looking for something like the square-root-of-time rule (e.g. daily returns and a VaR with d days holding period). But scaling skewness, kurtosis and volatility separately and plugging them back does not feel good. Any ideas?

Answer

If $z_\alpha$ is the so-called standard normal $z$-score of the significance level $\alpha$ such that $$ \frac 1 {\sqrt{2\pi}}\int_{-\infty}^{z_\alpha} e^{-\xi^2/2}d\xi=\alpha $$ and we assume normality, (ignoring skewness and kurtosis,) then we can estimate the $\alpha$ quantile of a distribution with cdf $\Phi$ as $$\Phi^{-1}(\alpha)=\mu + \sigma z_\alpha.$$ The Cornish-Fisher expansion is an attempt to estimate this more accurately directly in terms of the first few cumulants as $$\Phi^{-1}(\alpha)=y_\alpha,$$ where (before we have applied any scaling) $$y_\alpha= \kappa_1 + \frac {z_\alpha}2 + \frac {z_\alpha \kappa_2 }2 + \frac {(z_\alpha^2-1) \kappa_3}6 + \frac {(z_\alpha^3-3z_\alpha) \kappa_4}{24} - \frac {(2z_\alpha - 5z_\alpha) \kappa_3^2}{36}. $$ (Note that $\mu=\kappa_1$ and $\sigma^2=\kappa_2$.) Expressed directly in terms of cumulants, let us try to scale this directly with time as the convolution of infinitely divisible, independent identically distributed random variables. Cumulants of all orders scale linearly with time in this case, since they are simply additive under convolution. $$y_\alpha[t] = \kappa_1t + \frac {z_\alpha}2 + \frac {z_\alpha \kappa_2 t}2 + \frac {(z_\alpha^2-1) \kappa_3 t}6 + \frac {(z_\alpha^3-3z_\alpha) \kappa_4 t}{24} - \frac {(2z_\alpha - 5z_\alpha) \kappa_3^2 t^2}{36}. $$ but we want $y_\alpha[t] = \mu t + (\sigma\sqrt t )x_\alpha[t]$ where $x_\alpha[t]$ is the quantile function of a random variable with zero mean and unit variance. First the term $\kappa_1t$ drops off as our $\mu t$ since all the other cumulants are shift-invariant. Second we need to divide each remaining cumulant $\kappa_kt$ by $(\sigma\sqrt t)^k=(\kappa_2t)^{k/2}$ (because the $k$th cumulant is homogeneous of order $k$.) So: $$y_\alpha[t] = \mu t + \sigma\sqrt t \left[ z_\alpha + \frac {(z_\alpha^2-1) \kappa_3 t}{6(\kappa_2t)^{3/2}} + \frac {(z_\alpha^3-3z_\alpha) \kappa_4 t}{24(\kappa_2t)^2} - \frac {(2z_\alpha - 5z_\alpha) \kappa_3^2 t^2}{36(\kappa_2t)^3}\right]. $$ $$y_\alpha[t] = \mu t + \sigma\sqrt t \left[ z_\alpha + \frac {(z_\alpha^2-1) \kappa_3}{6\sigma^3t^{1/2}} + \frac {(z_\alpha^3-3z_\alpha) \kappa_4}{24\sigma^4 t} - \frac {(2z_\alpha - 5z_\alpha) \kappa_3^2}{36\sigma^6t}\right]. $$ but generally we write $\gamma_1=\kappa_3/\sigma^3$ and $\gamma_2=\kappa_4/\sigma^4$ for the skewness and the kurtosis respectively, so that $$y_\alpha[t] = \mu t + \sigma\sqrt t \left[ z_\alpha + \frac {(z_\alpha^2-1) \gamma_1}{6\sqrt t} + \frac {(z_\alpha^3-3z_\alpha) \gamma_2}{24t} - \frac {(2z_\alpha - 5z_\alpha) \gamma_1^2}{36t}\right]. $$

The Value-at-Risk is then $$\mathrm{VaR} = K_0 \left( 1 - {\exp (y_{\alpha}[t]-rt})\right),$$ where $K_0$ is the initial capital, $\alpha$ is some level of significance, say 1 to 5% or so, and $r$ is some instantaneous risk-free rate, appropriate discount rate, or required rate of return, however one chooses to define it. (This expression ought to become negative for a long enough time, because in the long run one will almost surely make money if $\mu>0$.)

Should a desktop app open by default in fullscreen mode?

I'm currently building a multi platform desktop app. Should the app open by default in fullscreen mode?

Answer

No, a desktop app should remember the way it was set last time it was used - size, position and mode (minimized, maximized, normal) - and open in exactly the same way.

Please note that minimizing and maximizing a window changes its size and possibly its position settings, so to achieve this a desktop app should remember the size and position values when it gets minimized or maximized. Otherwise the "normal" size and position values will be overwritten with the minimized/maximized values.

How to create embossed text in Photoshop?

I am wanting to create text that looks like the following image:

Answer

There are lots of sites on the internet that offer tutorials on this. Beveled Text, Embossed Text, Watermarking (same concept just alpha transparency raised)...

These are just random Google/Bing searches:

Even youtube:

Or my best is Lynda.com. There is also Kelby Training & KelbyTV but these are more from a photographic point of view than the software perspective.

But expect this to get migrated as advised in the comments