I am working on Photoshop CS6 and i face the following problem.
When I open a jpg file on Photoshop CS6, the image appears to be much more dark than the original jpg.
If I start editing the picture in order to be brighter and then I try to save to a new jpg, then the result I get is completely different again: The new picture is bleached...
I try to open it with a different Photoshop version (CS5) but the problem still remains.
I very recently started learning how to use Adobe Illustrator (CS6), and just now I noticed something strange. When I add a 1pt stroke to my shape, it gets slightly distorted. This distortion does not disappear if I remove the stroke. (But only if I remove the stroke by setting its weight to 0. Using CTRL+Z does return the shape to its former state.)
After adding and removing the stroke a few times, the difference becomes quite noticable: 
Am I doing something wrong? Is it a bug? I can't imagine this being the expected behaviour.
EDIT: I think I figured it out. Appearantly, turning 'Align to pixel grid' off doesn't affect previous shapes. If I turn it off and then recreate my shape from scratch, the problem is fixed.
However, I was wondering if their is a way to disable the effect for existing shapes. In other words, can I 'fix' the shapes I created while 'Align to pixel grid' was still on?
Answer
The control for whether or not each individual object is aligned to the pixel grid is hidden by default (in CS6, and I think in CS5 too). Why? No idea... one of those many confusing things.
In the Transform window (open it with Window > Transform), in the flyout menu (icon in top right corner), click Show options. In most panels in Adobe applications, many of the most important controls are helpfully hidden without trace like this...
That then gives you two checkboxes:
The 'Align to pixel grid' button controls the setting for whatever you currently have selected, and works whether or not you have Align new objects to pixel grid ticked.
I'm 90% sure that this is what Scott was referring to, and that because there was no visible Align to Pixel Grid button, you thought he meant the Align new objects to pixel grid option. Personally, I always hit 'show options' on everything and don't remember what's hidden by default and what isn't (because why would I ever hide options? Silly Adobe...).
Select everything (cmd+A), then tick the now-unhidden Align to Pixel Grid box until it's empty to completely cleanse your document of Align new objects to pixel grid having been ticked by default.
Personally, I don't really trust Align to Pixel Grid except as a last resort when designed-for-web images are rendering really badly - I prefer to use the Wundes script Pixel Align which just nudges the selected objects onto the pixel grid once with no unexpected consequences.
I'm building an MS Word template for my reports. I am not sure what to use for fonts. I see lots of reports from clients and others using Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Calibri, Cambrai, and Trebuchet MS. I personally like Trebuchet for tables and charts but do not fancy it for wording in a report.
What are your suggestions for fonts to be used in technical engineering reports? Add to that, what would you suggest the proper font-spacing, size, paragraph and line spacings for that font should be?
I'm currently working on naming a product, and I have a list of names. Some are okay, some aren't, but I know at some point I have to close the list, pick a couple that sound good, and present them to the team members as the available choices for the next round.
I've experienced this sort of thing with logo designs as well in particular, but this is an issue that can happen with pretty much anything we design.
Sometimes you create something and you know it's perfect, or great enough to present to the client and move on with. But how do you move on when that's not the case?
I made some designs for T-Shirts and I want to print them.
I want to know what's the best printing resolution for the best quality
And what's the ideal type of printers should I use if I want to market them.
I tried the deformed circle to intercept but find it very complicated. Anybody knows how to achieve this?
Answer
The receipe seemingly is already given. It is unfortunately distributed between all the comments and have an implicit form. But here it's written together:
Start with a circle in Illustrator. Copy it to a series of concentric circles. I had 40 of them.
Prepare in Photoshop a new hi-res empty image. I took 3000 x 3000 pixels. Copy and paste your circle set into it. Stretch it to max size and select paste as pixels. Then write your text onto the circles as a new layer:
Select with the Magic Wand the exterior of the text. Delete with that selection the exessive parts of the circles. Hide the text. The circles are now like masked by the text.
Blur the circles. I gave a slight Gaussian blur and a spinning radial blur:
Make a rectangular selection and copy the blurred pattern to Illustrator, drag the size to comfortable and goto Object > Live Trace > Tracing options. Select black&white tracing, Ignore white and Preview=ON. Play with the treshold and other settings until the result is ok.
The characters may need some tuning. I expanded the trace, ungrouped and deleted the strokes. I made the sizes to more uniform with Envelope distortion. The pattern was bulged and the last E was distorted to compensate the horizontal perspective like angle.
Finally a test background was added.
NOTE: This all should be possible in Illustrator without Photoshop. Maybe someone writes the receipe.
ADDENDUM: No new methods invented here, but applied the suggested 2-layer concept to get more variation to the stroke width without manual editing:
The uppermost is in Photoshop. There were 2 sets of circles with different line widths. The narrow was cut with the text. The wide was cut with expanded selection. The layers were merged
In the middle: Still in Photoshop. Radial blur (=spinning) was added
At the bottom: Traced and added a background. Tried Inkscape at this time.
I'm designing a booklet about science facts and stories for kids. The format is based on questions and answers between a teacher and a student. It's text based; few images/graphics are used. The booklet tries to emulate a real interaction between a student that wants to learn more about science and the teacher. My question is how to visually format all those questions/answers in an easy to follow the story?
Things that I want to avoid.
Enclose the spoken words with quotation marks. The whole booklet is a "dialog", so it will look quite ugly having every sentence/paragraph quoted.
Using an indicator like A: and Q:. That can help separate the questions from the answers, but it doesn't indicate who is "talking", if is the teacher or the student.
I initially thought of separating the content by colours. For example. When the teacher "talks", the font or background would be in blue. The student will be yellow. My concern is that a) it will increase the printing price b) it may become "too" colourful. So, I'm not sure now.
Answer
Teacher: How to visually format questions/answers to easily follow the story?
Student: I think that using "T" as prefix for Teacher and "S" as prefix for Student may help. You may also use the full word (see also) at the beginning. Do not omit this if roles can be inverted or the flow will be soon unclear (unless this is your creative intent.) Consider to repeat the full word when normal T/S/T/S sequence is subverted (like in this discussion.)
T: You're right but how can you distinguish between questions and answers?
S: I think you don't need to, after all questions are short and they probably end with a question mark, a visually uninterrupted flow may be read as a fluent speech instead of a bulleted list of points.
T: I'm not sure it's enough and not all questions end with a quotation mark. Also note that question text might become pretty long and it may be easily confused with other answers. Take this one, for example.
S: I think it may be useful only to quickly browse the questions to find a specific point but, if you really think it's not enough, you may use some subtle formatting like italic to denote questions. Alternatively another (paired) font, clearly distinguishable from the normal one (in size and/or style). I am a mature guy but if the book is for young children then you may use a serious font for the teacher and a comic one for students. In the Chicago Manual of Style QA, for example, questions are dimmed and printed in gray. I don't especially like it: you put emphasis on answers but often questions are as much important as their answers. APA suggests to use bold for questions but it may be visually distracting and it puts too much emphasis on questions.
Student: What do you think about it?
T: I admit it may work, if questions are not too long then even just italic won't add too much noise. In this way I may also keep color for something else (if any). If I'm not wrong I think I saw this technique (sometimes using bold or even bold italic) used very often in printed magazines. I think I saw also answers in italic and questions in bold but that makes everything confusing: I do not want to read a long text in italic and I do not want to over-empathize questions unless they're searchable titles.
Teacher: Do you have any other idea instead of italic/bold text, just in case? I'm not sure they fit graphical style I have in mind.
S: An answer is logically related to its question then you may also drop italic text and use indentation. You may also use them both, in typography the limit is only our creativity.
T: Can you give me an example?
S: Of course, it's my pleasure!
T: Do you think it works?
S: Yes! Clear spatial separation may also help children to follow the path.
Note that above suggestion applies to traditional printed material, electronic and/or interactive content has more options and you do not have to keep it simple because of printing costs (color Vs b&w and text Vs imagery/graphics). I'd suggest to also ask to your typographer, their experience is invaluable.
I am working on an application where a set of data is displayed, based on a specific week. The user selects this week from a drop down box, and one of my objectives is to format the way these week options display in this drop down box. The dropdown is a set requirement; I am only formatting the way the weeks display in that list.
I have done some HCI research, in the past; and I feel confident that the weeks should be displayed in the form of "
I am designing for a users purely in Australia, but I am certain that this should only have an impact on the format of day month, instead of month day. There is no requirement to meet ISO standards; so we do not necessarily have to use a strict number format.
Is there a particularly intuitive way to display weeks as text, or is the matter to subjective?
Answer
Ah Socrates answered whilst I was drawing, so ignore the text ones as I'm suggesting the same thing, the other type is a calendar control programmed to select a week, for the line on which you place the cursor.
Socrates is right, you need to test your users with different types to find out what works for them.
In a story set in a fantasy version of 5th century Persia, I've been told by a beta reader that a boy wouldn't call his father "dad", (would use "father" instead), wouldn't say "no spoilers", etc.
I am somewhat confused by this: a boy in 5th century Persia wouldn't be speaking English, and wouldn't be speaking any language that would be understandable today. Why, then, is "pass me the figs" OK, but "no spoilers" not OK? I'm not talking here of modern concepts, like rockets (as discussed in this question), but of modern turns of phrase, that describe things that existed back then as much as they exist now.
Are such turns of phrase really jarring, considering the setting? What should guide me, in terms of word choice, so as not to create this jarring effect? That is, what makes a phrase "too modern" as opposed to "timeless/transparent"?
Do you have historical market/pricing ticket data that you would like to donate to the Open Source Trader project (OST)??
Please: upload your files! Once we gather some data, we'll do our best to help create an excellent web-service (RESTFul API) based repository of free market tick data. If we can afford the services, I'll host it in a cloud-platform (but that's still to-be-decided)
No we are not going to resell your data!!! The only income the site has right now is revenue from CPC advertising, and we'll use this to fund the bandwidth and server space required to redistribute data for free later.
Thanks!
Upload here: http://www.opensourcetrader.com/api/free-tick-data/
P.S. Keep checking for updates, free market data of any size-able breadth or depth that is none-paid and redistributable for our project (visa via the now defunct 'opentick') has been hard to come by, so I'm soliciting for donations of data dumps!!
Answer
While noble, unfortunately, this type of effort is not very practical. Mostly because market data is a major source of revenue for the market centers and is never simply given away, at least not in intraday form. A few things to consider:
Becoming a market data distributor is both costly and entails entering into agreements with each market center. If we simply consider US equities, that means completing contracts with a minimum of: NASDAQ, NYSE, BATS, and Direct Edge. This isn't a fun process. Simply purchasing data directly from these places, with no intent to re-distribute, entails tens to hundreds of pages of contract documents.
If you do become a distributor you will be required to maintain accurate records of your end users. Not only that, but most venues require you to maintain records of your end users uses of the data. For example, one end user using the data on two separate devices would be responsible for paying twice for their market data usage. You have to collect device fees from these users, build a report, send that report to the market center, and then cut a check to the market center for your end users uses. This isn't a fun process.
Web sites such as Yahoo and Google pay handsomely for their right to redistribute data. Intraday data made available via API likely only represents a specific market center. For example, Yahoo, unsurprisingly, gets their intraday quotes from BATS. BATS is the easiest to work with in regards to market data (and most things, actually).
If I were to contribute my market data to this effort I would be in violation of the many agreements I've signed as an end user of data. All of those agreements require me to indicate whether I intend to redistribute etc. Receiving data from folks that have no right to redistribute is a quick way to run into trouble, IMO.
I have a question about using rich black for a print document. In InDesign, I set a rich black color for the background (0/80/0/100), and I need to set a faded round gray shape, with an opacity around 30-40%, on top of the black background. I create this shape in Photoshop and import the PSD file in InDesign.
Issue : as the rich black contains Magenta, and the gray has transparency on top of it, it appears colored (because of the Magenta in the mix).
Is there a solution to make the gray actually gray on top of my rich black background ?
Thank you very much !
I'm trying to produce the effect in the below image:
I'd preferably like to do this with Photoshop or Illustrator. How can this be accomplished?
Answer
The quick and easy solution is using a PSD mock-up template. There are a lot of options available on Pixeden, such as this free one: Psd Business Card Mock-Up Vol 1
I made this in Photoshop using that template:
Here is one that is available for purchase that is a little closer to the one you linked: Psd Business Card Mockup Vol7
I've grown used to the GUI paradigm of pre-select on mouse-down, action on mouse-up. In fact, I rely on it, sometimes canceling an unwanted action after mouse-down by dragging outside of the click area and then releasing the mouse.
However, this is only an arbitrary standard, and may not be universal. For example, I noticed that in Microsoft Outlook's header pane, category selection occurs on mouse-down (and interrupts attempts to drag).
With the introduction of touch-oriented interfaces, the dividing line is even sharper. iOS automatically "retracts" finger-down events and converts them into drag-view events when the finger moves after finger-down.
What are some situations where it's preferable to take action on mouse-down? What sorts of actions are better this way, rather than waiting for mouse(/finger)-up?
What techniques (or different fonts) could I use to fonts to make small text (about 10px) look nice in Photoshop?
Here is what I tried, but every time it looks blurry, or too bold:
Answer
Pixel Fonts. These are fonts designed to not use or rely on anti-aliasing and be clear and legible at very small sizes. Most of the fonts have a range of 1 or 2 sizes they can be used at specifically.
A great place for pixel fonts is fontsforflash.com
When using a pixel font, you want to turn off all anti-aliasing within Photoshop for the text.
my departments are setting up some new file naming conventions. We use a CMD system to autogenerate a number of folders from a dynamically created Job Number. Currently, we have the following structure
JOB NUMBER/
--/DOCUMENTS
--/SCANS_LOGOS
--/CLIENT_ORIGINALS
DOCUMNETS for InDesign and PDF outputs
SCANS_LOGOS for Indesing links / photoshop / ai files a
CLIENT_ORIGINAL for Word docs supplied by clients and used for text in inDesing
In my mind, this is an antiquated/inadequate filing system as Adobe is pushing towards alternative workflows. Below are a few modern workflow scenarios: -An InDesign document might have links saved from a CC Library (should we save a link to the library in the job? -Photohsop user might be using artboards and exporting images from photoshop using prefixes Illustrator exports assets as well as artboards.
Does anyone have a good workflow for print /they could suggest
I am trying to make something similar to this?
Obviously it's possible to make it manually piece by piece, but I am looking for some kind of automated feature in Illustrator to achieve this?
Is this possible?
Thanks man in advance!
Answer
Colliderscribe is a great option. Another method of doing it is through the "transform each" feature.
The results will not be as good as Colliderscribe, but it works.
Is there anyway to break up a polygon into paths? Actually what I want to do is to change the colour and dash of certain sides of the polygon, but that seems like the straight forward way. I can't seem to make this work. I know I could draw the polygon from scratch but that seems tedious given that there exists a polygon drawing tool...
Answer
Indeed, it does require a few steps:
Paths->Object to path
Path->break Apart (ctrl + shift + k)There you are, just unselect the objects, and you can now select the lines individually. You probably will want to make use of Objects->group to stick the lines together in the polygon after you are done.
I am taking a regular version of a typeface I love and making a light version of it, and I'm wondering:
Is the light version just an inset of the regular version?
Are there any special considerations I am missing?
This is my first albeit tenuous foray into type design, and while I have experience with and appreciate good typography, I have never actually got my hands dirty in making or altering a type face.
Extra credit question: Am I using the terms correctly here? I understand typeface is the term for the design of type but at what point should I be using the term font?
A friend and I are starting from scratch—neither of us have backgrounds in finance.
Currently when we have a question, e.g. What variations on the Slow Stochastic Oscillator have been explored, and how have their backtesting results compared?, we rely on Google and Google Scholar.
But we want to put together a list of sources more targeted toward quantitative finance research so we feel more consistent about the information we comb through. Not just arbitrarily reading 10, 20, or 100 pages of search results depending on our level of interest and attention that day.
I looked around Q.SE and found some repeated references to SSRN (Social Science Research Network), but many more links to papers seem to lead to specific universities and domains. We no longer have academic affiliations to grant us access to digital libraries like JSTOR, but we'd consider paying subscription fees if worth it.
If there aren't any centralized resources, we'd still appreciate hearing from those involved in research: How do you go about conducting your research then? Do you have a "go to" list of websites or search terms that you find useful?
Answer
@quantivity is an aggregator of interesting papers, as is http://www.thewholestreet.com/
Beyond that, I guess you must find the isolated communities of practitioners who can guide you or (or course) just follow up all the references of papers. Wilmott has a pretty solid message board for quant finance, quantopian is trying to build one for algo trading systems.
For the sort of technical analysis you are trying to find, I am not totally certain, but quantopian might be a good start.
In my experience, having a "logout" button/link of some description in the upper right hand corner is (or was) pretty standard. Is this documented/recommended anywhere?
Sites that require javascript have been drifting toward hiding the link in a menu (albeit still a menu in the upper right corner) -- e.g., Stack Overflow, Facebook and Gmail. I've personally found this... violates the "Don't make me think" principle, to put it nicely.
Coincidentally, I just experimented: on SO, you can log in without javascript, but I can't find a way to log out!
So: are there any good documents to reference on this subject?
I am writing an autobiographical novel and there is a scene where 5 people will be discussing a subject matter. Now, how can I write the discussion without making it sound like a newbie like I want to write, A said
blah blah blah
to B and C and then D said that
blah blah blah
then I said
you are all wrong, I was there when that happened...
I want to write this dialogue but it should feel readable. Like, I don't want to use the words, he said this and she said that I don't want to use the word said that often.
Can you please explain to me what process I can follow to write a discussion with multiple participants?
Answer
Create looping patterns within the dialog, such as the order that people speak, and little mannerisms within their speech. Then repeat the pattern a few times. You don't need to be too rigid in the pattern. Once you've established it, you can play with it.
For instance, if you've established an order for talking, cut the loop early and go back to the dominant speaker. This gives the dialog a leader. When the dominant speaker isn't the person who should be talking, because they are wrong or saying something inappropriate or don't have the answer, it creates tension which is a good energy to drive the scene.
In a group of five, some characters will be less important. Most likely the conflict is between 2 or 3 speakers at any part of the scene. The other two speakers will echo one opinion by agreeing, or finishing the other's sentence. They become less individual in those moments, the same way backup singers will sway together and become one thing in the background. These two form their own smaller loop within the pattern. It leaves the reader's attention free to focus on the others where the dynamic is more important.
Even if a person doesn't have a line to say, give them a beat at their turn anyway, some sort of narrative acknowledgement.
You can also use one of the speakers to do a recognizable thing, a character quirk or a phrase, that helps mark their place in the loop. This will help the reader follow the pattern even if they aren't aware of it.
Here's a short example. Once I've established the speaking order, it should be easy to understand which person is talking, even though I cut the loop short. You wouldn't stick with this pattern throughout the whole scene. Use the loop to build up tension and expectation, play with it, then as the scene dynamic changes move to a new pattern.
A: Let's start the meeting.
B: Everyone, everyone! Let's start the meeting now, ok?
C: I've been here waiting.
D: Oh, we were about to go out for lunch.
E: It's half-price sushi day.
_: This won't take long.
_: Come on guys, this won't take long, ok?
_: (rubs forehead)
_: But, it's almost 12:30.
_: Gotta get there before 1pm to get the discount.
_: I just need to confirm where we are with the Morton account. Big day tomorrow.
_: This deal is going to be SO BIG.
_: Steve, this is what I was trying to tell you. I…
_: Just a minute, Linda. Would you two like to come and sit down?
_: Come on guys, come and sit down, ok?
_: But, we'll be back in 20min. We'll cut lunch short.
_: We'll get it to go! (moves to the door)
Linda's head fell backward like a cowboy that had been shot with an arrow but was somehow still sitting upright in the saddle. Slowly her body began to crumple as if the air was leaking out of her.
_: I just want to be sure everyone is on my team.
_: Come on guys, are you on the team?
Linda slumped forward. Her head slowly dropped to the table and stayed there.
_: Maybe one of us could go.
_: I'll spot you, aight? (moves closer to the door)
By this point the reader should have a sense of whose turn it is to speak (and the person after that). When you break the loop or cut the loop early, you are playing against the reader's expectation to create dissonance and conflict, but you can return to the pattern to re-establish group harmony.
The reader can also see where each of the characters is headed because every time we went through the loop their character was updated on their beat.
I was asked today to look into designing a stock monitoring windows 8 application and I was looking around for design ideas when I noticed an interesting trend where it seems like most of these stock monitoring or financial apps are on black or dark backgrounds.
Now I understand white text on a black background is generally used when we want to draw our attention to something but its not a good idea when there is a lot of information to read because of this reason (as per this article from UX Movement) :
The kind of text that users read is paragraph text. You should avoid using white text on a dark background when displaying paragraph text to make it easier from them to read. Forcing users to fixate on the white text for a long time can strain the user’s eyes. This is because white stimulates all three types of color sensitive visual receptors in the human eye in nearly equal amounts. This makes reading white paragraph text on dark backgrounds stressful on the user’s eyes.
White also reflects all wavelengths of light. Because the words and letters in paragraph text are compact and close together, when white text reflects light, the reflected light scatters and runs into neighboring words and letters. This makes the shape of the words and letters harder to perceive, which affects the user’s readability. Compare that with black text, where the black absorbs the light around each word and letter, making them easy to distinguish.
So my question is " Considering most financial apps show a lot of data which are often close together and dynamically updated, why do they use white text on a black background when it has been proven that it would be hard to read over a period of time"
Answer
This was tackled by IDEO when they set out to redesign the Bloomberg terminal (see the article). They found that...
...the design also incorporated certain “badge of honor” elements inspired by expert users of the previous system...
and
...an estimated 75,000 machines in use worldwide—including one in the Vatican—users find the aesthetic is dated ...
Bloomberg dominate the space and therefore influence the context.
Traders are a fairly exclusive club. I've lost count of the terms and acronyms that I can't decipher. With a Bloomberg terminal you are 'set up' by an expert. You tailor the interface to your needs and then ... it is a steep and fairly long learning curve. The traders spend a lot of time mastering and perfecting their activities.
There is a lot of resistance to change.
My observation is that often (not always), design decisions are not made by designers. At least not to discover and solve a design decision. This is especially the case with the sort of large organisations that build big trading platforms.
Its often personal preference and branding that defines the broad approach. Therefore you can't always read into the trends (I can't offer much proof here, but these are my experiences).
However given the recent increase in prominence of UX in these organisations I'd expect this to change with platforms to be released in the next few years. Change will occur because competition is fierce.
I am aware of research that states it is easier to perceive colour and shading differences on dark backgrounds than light. The multilayered and complex charts you might see in such interfaces are easier to view.
When viewing smaller text it is easier to view dark on light.
The best source for this is another answer of UX.SE - https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/23429/15613
If this is true the optimal solution would be to have a dark background behind charts and a light one behind text. However this cases its own issues. A fragmented look and contrast clash for example. Therefore a compromise has to be made.
here are some examples I found with different approaches.
Light grey chart area with dark grey interface: 
Light interface and text with dark chart area 
In the Ansatz section of Jim Gatheral's book Volatility Surface (page 32), he assumes $$\mathbb E[x_s|x_T]=x_T\frac{\hat w_s}{\hat w_T}$$ where $\hat w_t:=\int_0^t \hat v_s ds$ is the expected total variance to time $t$, $\hat v_s$ is the unconditional expectation of the instantaneous variance $v_s$ at time $s$, $x_s = \log(S_s/K)$, and $T$ the time of the European option expiry.
Does anyone have a reference to a somewhat rigorous justification for this ansatz?
As shown below in the comments, Quantuple found the answer by Peter Friz, Slade then provided a newer version.
After Effects and other Mac only tools are popular among designers for prototyping animations of mobile apps. I wanted to know if there's anyone here who uses Blender for prototyping?
If you do use could you tell me your workflow and experience with it?
I have this small pixel art as example. Is there a way to make it bigger without it getting blurry or fuzzy in Photoshop?
I am designing a logo and I would like multiple forms of this logo. Example, I have a dark layer behind a white logo, or a light layer behind a black logo.
What I am asking is how can I update the main logo, lets say the black logo with the white background and the white logo will follow any changes made to the black logo, can this be done?
Answer
Illustrator sort of has this feature, it's limited but, can do what you ask. In fact this is one of those features that they have made worse in CC by disabling symbols within symbols, which in this kind of design case could be useful*. So be warned your mileage varies depending on what version of Illustrator you use, newer not equating better here.
Do this:
The logo should now cut trough the black background. To edit the logo double click on any instance edit then exit isolation mode and both should update.
Image 1: Symbol shared in different settings.
This is just one way it is possible to use styles to color symbol instances for example. In this case it may be a good idea to make the logo without colors at all as it makes easier to apply styles.
Image 2: Same symbol with ugly effects applied. Image is still live editing any of the symbols changes them all.
* Imagine logo text on right, below and in different colors, logo cuts into square but is only partial etc etc. :)
I know It should be on the menu bar -> Extensions -> Render -> LaTeX Formula. But when I use inkscape on windows, there is no "LaTeX Formula" in the above path. It should be hidden somehow. Anyone could let me know how to make "LaTeX Formula" show up? Thanks a lot.
Are there and apps/programs that allow an iPad to be used as a drawing tablet? I've tried Duet Display and Chrome Remote Desktop, which are great apps, but are not helpful with my situation. They don't allow you to click and drag with a stylus, pen, or finger - you can only click. I have a good drawing app on my iPad but it has limitations and my software is just sitting on my desktop unused. I do not like the Adobe apps available and I don't have a CC subscription anyways.
There's a million examples of this, but the one that comes to mind is "smoke shop" with images of pipes in place of the "S"s, like this:
Is there a word for this? (It's not a rebus!)
I often see it in lazy or sometimes terrible graphic design. "Visual pun" comes close, but in many cases there doesn't seem to be any punning at all, or maybe they're just unfunny. In the worst cases, the word is rendered nearly incomprehensible or ambiguous.
More examples, all of which are fairly "punny". (I can't find any examples of the unfunny/downright-incomprehensible ones, sorry.) 
Answer
The semantic is used in graphic design to emphasize the meaning of a word or phrase through graphic resources, alluding to some immediate quality directly or indirectly related.
Quite used as a graphic resource can be classified according to their to the modification used:
The Google searching term: double meaning logos or double meaning graphics.
Using typographic variables as a semantic resource: size, inclination, style, color, width.
Size
Slant
Style
Color
Width
Changing the position of the characters. 
Changing the direction of the characters.
Distortion of the characters.
The examples of the question make reference to the last point of this classification: semantic reinforcement with replacement by an image
Generally, writing something confusing is not good.
On the other hand, a writer should show rather than tell. (Generally.)
What I'm trying to do is imitate the way one's thoughts get all muddled while falling asleep. The settings: Character being hunted by people who are trying to kill her. Now she's hiding, and - after so much time on the run - is falling asleep.
Her drowsy brain tossed at her fake, annoying sounds of questions and requests in voices of people she knew. She wanted to fall asleep and sleep but she couldn’t sleep because she couldn’t fall asleep even though she was very tired. She wanted to giver herself away to her pursuers, to sleep, to death. She was tired, like a brink crawling and skipping off and on the height of a wall together with something else that wasn’t exactly the opposite of the sort of idea that tended to laugh particularly because when it was time to throw the street under the most medium lightning snake nobody would have to.
My question: Is this a valid way to demonstrate what the character is going through, or is it simply too weird and confusing?
Answer
I agree with Lauren. I like the concept a lot.
It is a very difficult balance to try to use a unique literary device like purposefully garbled inner-dialog while remaining invisible as the author. If you're too obvious it feels out of place, but if you're too subtle then it just looks like sloppy writing. It's a bold move for sure.
I can think of a couple alternatives you might use instead of, or in conjunction with your idea...
Poetic offsets are a useful tool if not used in excess. They signal a reader to read this text in a different way without necessarily having to say anything at all.
Her drowsy brain tossed at her fake, annoying sounds of questions and requests in voices of people she knew. She wanted to fall asleep and sleep but she couldn’t sleep because she couldn’t fall asleep even though she was very tired. She wanted to giver herself away to her pursuers, to sleep, to death. She was tired...
note: not suggesting that structure specifically, just an example.
Alliteration is another poetic tool that could get the point you want across. Wordsworth was the master of alliteration in my opinion. Anytime I wonder if it's possible to make words sound like something completely unfathomable I read his poetry and am usually inspired. I don't have a specific suggestion here, but I do think that classical poetry could offer something more to your idea.
A final thought. To answer your question as briefly as possible, I would say yes it is Ok. The one thought I can't shake though is, if you had not specifically asked if it was Ok, would I have noticed what you were doing on my own? I think you might get a better response to your raw idea if you ask us blind next time. It might have been the same, I might have thought it was really clever, but unfortunately I'll never know because I already knew what you were doing before I read your work. Very interesting idea Jacob, good luck with it!
As the images above show, when trying to use the Transform tool to rotate a layer the pixels in the end-result are in different positions from the preview. This also happens during other Transform actions, but rotate is the most obvious.
Is there a setting that would disable this from happening? Should I be using a different tool to apply the transformations?
I'm doing sprites for a game, which will be scaled up in the engine, so I'm trying to get the end-result to be exactly like the transform preview without added anti-aliasing.
I see many similarities in films to the point where I can often guess what will happen next,even if the part was intended to be suspenseful. is that bad writing? should "plot twists" always be surprising or do viewers/readers expect a level of predictability?
If you have a website where users 90% of time only read and view content, but rarely post, like a blog, does it make sense to force a login?
If I force the user to login to view some information, like how Quora.com lets you only view the 1st answer unless you log in, will this turn people away? Especially if other sites offering content close to yours don't force logins?
The advantages of a forced login are 2:
Generally, are people sick of logins?
Answer
Answering your question, which doesn't involve specific motivation behind it. Yes, people don't like to register on sites, people don't like giving information all the time, people don't like remembering passwords and user names.
This behaviour is common to everyone, but some groups are more annoyed than others and some are more radical than others; for instance, a person that doesn't have much interaction on Internet except to look for some minor things like reading news, visiting one or two social sites and not much more, won't mind registering in one more site if he has a reason to. On the other side of the spectrum, a persona that is browsing a lot, and is already registered in many sites through the years, is more likely to leave a site and not use it again if he has to register and there is no good reason to it.
The most important thing here, is the reason. usually people won't mind registering and then login if you give a good reason for it.
Leaving comments on a blog, for instance, is something that doesn't deserve an account, creating an account on Amazon to buy things, is worth the effort.
Remember, the information or control that you want to have over the user is something that you want, not the user, from the user perspective, it's your job to keep the site clean and functional. Whatever you do behind your site doors, is your problem.
Since I began thinking about portfolio optimization and option pricing, I've struggled to get an intuition for the risk premium, i.e. that investors are only willing to buy risky instruments when they are compensated by an add-on above $r$ (the risk free interest rate).
On the one hand this is understandable and backed by most empirical data.
On the other hand there is this divide between the risk-neutral world of derivatives pricing and the real world with real world probabilities.
The bridge between both worlds goes via a hedging argument.
I wonder (just to give one possibility of debunking the classic risk premium argument) if there really was something like a systematic risk premium $\mu-r$ nothing would be easier as to squeeze it out by simply buying the underlying and selling the futures contract against it. The result should be a reduction of the risk premium until it becomes $0$ and the trading strategy wouldn't work anymore.
The result should be that even in a risk-averse world probabilities become risk-neutral (i.e. the growth rate $\mu$ equals $r$) like in option pricing.
Is there something wrong with this reasoning?
EDIT
OK, my original argument doesn't work. Anyway: I'm still feeling uncomfortable with the idea. My reasoning is that the whole idea of an inherent mechanism for compensating people for taking risk within a random process nevertheless (!) seems to be build on shaky ground. If it was true it would also be true for shorting the instrument since you are also taking risk there. But in this more or less symmetrical situation one side seems to be privileged. And the more privileged one side is the more disadvantaged the other side must be. It all doesn't make sense...
I think the only compensation that makes sense in the long run is $r$.
Please feel free to comment and/or give some references on similar ideas. Thank you again.
EDIT2
After a longer quiet period on that issue see this follow-up question and answers:
Why should there be an equity risk premium?
Answer
If you're long the underlying and short the futures contract, then you have no risk and earn the risk-free rate. You get into the position at $S_0$ and will be able to get out of the position at $F_0$ at time $T$. By a no arbitrage argument it must be that $F_0 = S_0 \exp(r T)$. I imagine Hull has a pretty good exposition on this.
The risk premium is because of uncertainty, and in this case there's no uncertainty. But imagine that everyone knows that 1/2 the time I will not deliver the underlying at $T$. Then you'll likely only agree to $F_0 < \frac{1}{2} S_0 \exp(r T)$ and if everyone knows that I 1/2 the time I won't deliver, then arbitrage won't restore $F_0 = S_0 \exp(r T)$.
I'm writing a first person novel and main character has highly controversial views, many of which the majority of people would probably consider immoral. Would a character with controversial attitudes be a no-no for a reader? Or maybe a publisher?
Of course, it maybe possible that his attitudes instead will be received with interest or maybe even awe, but I'm not sure on this. In either way, I still think such a novel deserves a shot.
In summary, I'm afraid of a bad reception. I don't want to change the character much, he is like Zarathustra was for Nietzsche: A mouthpiece for my own beliefs and attitudes. What techniques could improve the likely reception, to make the novel and the main character more attractive? How can I prevent confirmation bias and other biases in the readers in such cases? What kind of structure should a writer use for this purpose?
Answer
A work of fiction that exists only to promote a particular point of view is not actually fiction, but rather a polemic. Some of these have been successful and influential, from Plato to Rand, but they tend to have a different audience than fiction, and are read primarily for their ideas rather than their artistic value. Your best bet, in this case, may be to position your work primarily as a piece of philosophy. You may indeed have only limited interest from publishers and readers because of the nature of your ideas, but some make take you seriously because of the honesty of your approach.
On the other hand, if you want to make this a real, living, work of fiction, then having a character be your mouthpiece is a bad idea. People will find it preachy, and reject your book as a creepy form of propaganda. Instead, you'll need to build a book the same way anyone else does, with fully developed characters, plots and settings, and let your philosophy just be part of the background material that informs everything else. As a writer with strong viewpoints, it's nearly impossible to believe your philosophy won't find its way into your writing, even if you aren't forcing it in.
Among my favorite books are those that espouse political philosophies I don't share (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) or center around characters whose moral choices or commitments I disagree with (Lolita, Boys of Life) or that contain controversial moral claims I find questionable or specious (Dhalgren), yet what makes them work for me is that the writer has allowed the book to live for itself. You don't have to agree with them to engage with them. On the other hand, nothing turns me off faster or harder than a book or a movie that self-righteously demands I agree with something I find immoral, or that hagriographies an immoral person as a hero to emulate. In fact, I don't like such works even when I agree with them.
Say I want to calculate a correlation matrix for 50 stocks using 3-year historical daily data. And there are some stocks that were recently listed for one year.
This is not technically challenging because the correlation function in R can optionally ignore missing data when calculating pair-wise correlation. But honestly it worried me after deep thought: all the correlations for the short listed stock will bias to the regime it live in.
For example, a stock that exists only in last few months will inevitably have higher correlation than the stocks that have full 3-year history. And I think it will cause bias and annoying problems in the following applications using this correlation matrix.
So, my question is: how do I adjust my correlation matrix whose elements are generated from different market regimes? I feel a dilemma. In order to assure that the whole matrix live in the same regime, it seems that either I need to use least possible samples, or I have to throw that stock away. But either way looks a waste to me.
I know the correlations for that stock got to be lower, but how much lower? Is there an approach or formula derived from solid arguments?
I did some research and surprisingly found that all public research on correlation matrix assuming adequateness of data. How can it be possible in practice?! A mystery for me to see this seemingly common problem has not been publicly addressed.
Answer
Quant Guy's list is really impressive! However, I am not sure they will readily solve your specific problem? I think there is one missing piece.
Please note that imputing missing data is a very broad topic. There are many recipes to impute missings but that's for their specific 'assumptions' and purposes. They do not necessarily intend to well address your specific problem: the regime change.
To best address your specific problem, you have to quantitatively define the market regime as a part of your adjusting formula. Otherwise, it wouldn't logically make sense that your model is aware of and able to react to it properly.
In Stambaugh's '97 research (which I think is the most relevant reference Qaunt Guy listed), Stambaugh's formula actually used B = V21*V11^(-1), i.e. Beta, to make adjustment. I have to say that not soon after, the history has taught us how vulnerable the beta is for several times, especially in a rapidly changing market environment (but I guess the application of Beta was still novel and not that fragile in the epoch of '90s?).
Now let's define market regime quantitatively. In common sense, average correlation is a pretty neat regime indicator. Simple and intuitive, easy to employ in a proprietary model (and I feel that's why Ledoit-Wolf's model is that popular :)). But yes, as Branson pointed out in Ian's answer, there is possibility that we will get very undesirable results.
One of the potential solutions is to map the intuitive indicator to proper space/dimension for operations, and then transform it back. This is a very useful technique that is commonly employed in machine learning. Correlation lives in a very constrained space [-1,1] and this greatly restricts what we can do about it. (Please don't think covariance will be less constrained. When you put them together in a matrix, trust me, it will be as constrained as correlation. Correlation is actually easier to work with to see possible problems)
Now, how about mapping correlation to an equally intuitive (at least to me) but less constrained space,
Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) = Correlation^2 / (1 - Correlation^2)
** Correlation = sqrt(snr/(1+snr))
and refine my regime indicator as the median of SNR. (*I rarely use average in financial applications)
I don't know how people feel about SNR, but I feel very comfortable with a background in EE. In communication system, SNR is exactly the regime (environment) indicator that characterizes a channel. I feel a significant analogy here.
The remaining work will be straightforward. I will use the ratio of my regime indicators as a multiplier to adjust young asset's pairwise SNRs against other assets. Then map the final adjustment back to correlations.
You will at least gain the following benefits using this approach:
Last but not least, this is a collaboratory idea with one of my most brilliant colleagues and close friend, Manish Agarwal.
I've read suggestions that contextual menu items be arranged in a circle around the mouse cursor when the menu is activated, since Fitz's Law suggests that each target would be easier to hit.
However, I've never seen this in practice. (I can think of a few simple reasons: text is hard to fit in the space afforded by a wedge-shaped target, it's not a standard pattern and is perceived to be too confusing, etc.)
Are the potential benefits just not worth the trade-off? Are there examples that work that I'm unaware of?
Answer
I have seen radial menus few times. I have tested a Firefox addon that arranged contextual menu in a circle. Also it was used in some computer games (Temple of Elemental Evil comes to mind when I think about it). It somehow didn't work.
I think radial contextual menus can work in specific situations (low number of options, items can be represented as icons without a text, etc.). But generally they're not really a good idea.
Which one is the better option and why?
Delete with Confirmation [The action cannot be undone]
or
Delete with one click [And provide option to Undo]
Answer
The site Good-UI argues for Undo: Try Undos instead of prompting for confirmation.
Imagine that you just pressed an action button or link. Undos respect the initial human intent by allowing the action to happen smoothly first and foremost. Prompts on the other hand suggest to the user that he or she does not know what they are doing by questioning their intent at all times. I would assume that most of the time human actions are intended and only in small situations are they accidental. The inefficiency and ugliness of prompts is visible when users have to perform actions repeatedly and are prompted numerously over and over - a dehumanizing experience. Consider making your users feel more in control by enabling the ability to undo actions and not asking for confirmation where possible.
I would tend to agree. Respect the user's ability to rationally think through and perform the action they intended. But give them the opportunity to pull back if necessary.
This isn't to say that confirmation dialogs are never appropriate. It depends on the situation. The inability for the system to retract an action is, of course, one reason to use a confirmation.
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
Doesn't work as well as:
Here are some other examples of where an "Undo" action is used in place of a confirmation.
Gmail has a Labs feature that allows you to undo a send action on an email.
In reality the system simply delays the actual send action and allows the user to retract the request before the send really happens. But to the user this doesn't really matter -- Gmail's ability to magically recall (in short history) an e-mail I accidentally sent is all I need to know.
When you delete a file in OSX, most of the time you don't get a dialog box asking you if you are sure. You actually take a "Move to Trash" action. In this instance you can undo the action by restoring the file from the trash (just like the physical world metaphor this action is modeled after).
This changes when you attempt to delete a file from a network drive, or other location where OSX can't move the file the trash can. In this case you do get a confirmation window telling in, very plainly, that if you continue you will never see the file again.
