Should I start writing my novel or first learn on short stories?

As a new writer, Is it okay to dive on my idea of a long story (a novel) or to first try short stories? I am very excited to start on my concept but am not sure if it is better to first try smaller projects to gain confidence.

Answer

There are different answers to this question. Mine may be off putting, but it's not meant to be. You're basically asking if you should start with the marathon. The short answer is that unless you are extremely unique and talented to the point of abnormalcy, your first book is going to be rough. It's probably going to be bad. But it's ultimately practice. You'll be good after four or five books. Which is to say, you're going to want to approach this with the right mindset.

First, try something manageable. Try to stick to one POV. Finish your book no matter what. Figure out what the healthy habits for you look like. Make sure that you are writing something fun. If you pick a shorter arc that will give you a novella, you'll be perhaps in a better position. (Google is your friend for word counts here).

You also are going to want to know the answers to these questions:

1. Are you an outliner or a pantser? Do you sit down and just write or do you plan it out? This will determine how much you need to do before you start.


2. What are you going to do to make space for this hobby in your life? I work a full time job. I just had my first kid. I had to give up a ton of stuff to make the time. I do not play many video games anymore.


3. What happens in the middle of your story? Most people have a good beginning or a good ending, sometimes both. Your middle needs to be good too. To get a good middle, you're going to want to figure out what your set pieces are. Set pieces are cool, fun things that you want to write about that you can use in a scene. They are also mile markers do that you can keep a good pace. If you are a pantser, do not outline these further as it may ruin your writing experience.

The biggest recommendation I have is that you listen to season 10 of the podcast Writing Excuses. It's supposed to be a master class for writing your first book. Also when you inevitably hit your low point, listen to the episode about writing for fun. It's a huge pick-me-up. Think of it as your second wind.

Yes, go write your first book. But pack your camping supplies first. You're in for a long haul.

Aside, I'm a hypocrite. I'm doing a large, complicated, 3 POV novel right now. But I think I've packed my pack right. But, I'm constantly stressed about the what ifs. You could go down my road, but it's a hard one.

Update: finished said book and an now with alpha readers. It's currently too long to publish and needs to be cut in half; but it was and will be good practice. While it's out with alpha I'm starting up a new project. It was the book I needed to write at the time, but I'm pretty sure it's going in the trunk. I would caution anyone starting a book with the intention of selling to heed the advice of staying a bit closer to the ideal word count for your genre.

adobe photoshop - Make a desaturated image transparent keeping only shadows & highlights

I've been trying to do this for a few days now and have not gotten the results I need. I'm not sure I'm using the correct terminology in the title, if not, please feel free to correct me, and I'll update it.

I want to go from this:

to this (i've sampled an area of the transparency to show the k value in case that helps). Notice the shadows/highlights are there, but nothing else:

This allows me to place a layer filled with a solid color below the transparent image. The result is a different color shirt, and shadows/highlights are seen:

layer filled with blue placed below the transparent shirt layer

layer filled with black placed below the transparent shirt layer

Does anyone have any ideas on how I might be able to accomplish this? I've been able to get close to the result, but my transparency is either not enough or too much. I lose much of the shadow/highlight detail. The starting image is of filetype JPG.

UPDATE:

I need the final result to be a PNG like this one:

This PNG looks like it has a white background but taking it into Photoshop or GIMP you'll see the shirt is transparent. I need to reverse engineer how this was done so it can be done to other pieces of clothing.

What is interesting about the above PNG is the Shadows, Highlights, and Midtones in the transparent part of the image can all be selected individually. Photoshop: Select->Color Range->Shadows, Highlights or Midtones. Image below to show what I mean:

Answer

When assigning white as alpha channel for transparency we will not be able to have opaque highlights, as these per definition will be white, hence fully transparent.

To have an alpha channel sparing both highlighted white areas, and black shadows we better choose a grey color for assigning alpha.

• 
  

  To show the effect more clearly I first made your original image darker, and increased contrast. You will need to both, adjust the source contrast, and choose a grey level which suits your needs best for better results.

  
  


• 
  
  

  Then I assigned an alpha channel to a 'grey' color (rather than white):

  
  

  

  
  

Now when we overlay this picture with e.g. a green background we can see, that both highlights, and shadows are maintained.

We can see, that when used on dark colors the white areas of the original image may still be too bright for the desired effect. This can be overcome when we choose a grey rather than a white source for creating our alpha channel template.

Below (top left) I used a grey bucket fill with 20% opacity on the white original. After assigning a transparancy alpha channel to grey (top right) we can overlay a colored background (left black, middle dark red, right ivory white) to achieve the bottom line effects.

Illustrator join anchor points separate paths

I have three objects/paths with a fill and a border.

Why are the end points of the border not consistent with the angles despite the path in outline mode showing the anchors are 'snapped' together?

How can I get a regular box with borders as shown? I've tried inside/center/outside but nothing seems to work. It seems so basic but so difficult at the same time.

Thanks.

forms - Selection of multiple items and then selected one as default

I'm trying to design a web interface in which users pick particular "items" and set one of them as default. The textbox for searching uses autocomplete to find the matching item. I've come up with the following design to allow the user to set the items as default as well as add new items.

Does this make sense from a usability perspective? Should the textbox be on top instead? Do the radio buttons make sense or should it be textual (i.e. "Set as default") or even a combination of both with a tooltip? Should this list scroll if it gets too large or just push other content down?

Additionally, this interface needs to support reordering/deleting items in the list. I was thinking of just dragging the items for reordering. For removing, I was thinking of showing an "X" or "Remove" when an item is hovered over.

If anyone has any better designs for this, I'd greatly appreciate any input.

Answer

I don't like seeing so many empty radio buttons, show them only on hover. and the selected radio button can be replaced by text 'default'. That way you don't have to explain to anyone what the checked radio button next to 'item 1' denotes. The first added item can be denoted as 'default' to start off.

I would use drag-drop to reorder, make sure you display the 'move' cursor when the user clicks on 'change order'.

If the 'add field' box is on top, then remember you must add the new item at the top (stack). So it becomes: Item 5 Item 1 Item 2

I prefer the field to be on top because the field remains at the same position relative to the header on adding more items.

modal dialog - Best way to do 'bulk edits' on a table

I am building a web application for managing a list of products (using jqgrid).

I need my users to be able to perform several 'bulk actions' on whichever products they select. I have copied Gmail (and others) in that as soon as one or more rows are selected, more options appear at the top of the grid (see mockup).

These bulk actions will be performed in one or more modal boxes.

What I can't decide is how best to split up the bulk edit options.

Do I:

a) have each bulk actions option as a separate modal; one for changing the category, another for changing the price, another for changing the type, etc.

b) Try to get all options into one screen (see iTunes example)

c) Some combination of the two - e.g. separate modals for categorizing products, changing branch availability, but lumping some other fields (like price, tax codes, min/max order numbers) into one modal.

I am leaning towards C, but then the next issue is how users can edit just one attribute (e.g. price), without changing another attribute which is on the same screen (e.g. tax code).

iTunes has attempted to tackle this problem in their info screen when multiple songs have been selected, but I don't feel they have done a good job of making this intuitive (i.e. it's not clear what the checkboxes are for, and if I leave blank fields blank will it remove info for all selected files?).

Does anyone have examples/thoughts on a different/better way?

UPDATE: I have decided to keep each kind of edit separate as much as possible (each with its own link/button, like in Gmail).

There are a couple of examples where two or more fields will need to be put together, e.g. 'price' and 'cost' (if the cost changes, 90% of the time the price will need to change too). In which case I will do something like this:

How do I recreate this color overlay layer effect in Photoshop?

I would like to use the overlay effect used on the screenshot(s) below.

I've tried experimenting with several Blending modes but keep missing the mark. I'm sure this has a very easy answer but I'm having trouble recreating the effect on my own.

Here are a few more images for further context:

Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer

Create a new layer and fill it with any color you want. Move this layer below the image you want to manipulate and set the layer Blend Mode of the image layer to Multiply. You can then modify the opacity of the image layer if you want, but it isn't necessary.

It may also help to desaturate or grayscale the image layer.

Why do users erase all the password when they hit one wrong key, instead of just the last wrong character?

We login to applications almost every day. The password is stored in our fingers, as an automated process (if they have used it long enough). When users realize they have entered a wrong character (before hitting login-button) they erase the whole password, and retype the entire password – instead of just the last wrong character. Question is why?

^{download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups}

Answer

I would say that it is due to two reasons.

The first one you mention yourself, it's an automated process. It's easier to perform an automated process from the beginning to the end rather than breaking in somewhere in the middle and trying to complete it. In other words, it may take a user less time to write the entire password than the last third of it, because that's not a muscle pattern in the same way as the entire password is, the cognitive load for that task is increased immensely.

The other reason I would say is in the masking of the password. When the user realizes that she probably slipped on the keyboard and stops writing, she stops in the automated process. It's hard to backtrack in an automated process where it went wrong. Did she stop right after the typo, or did she write a character after the typo? Looking at the masked text will not say much.

Issues like these simply makes it easier to rewrite the entire password rather than trying to mend a broken one.

information architecture - Has there been an implementation of a tag hierarchy with graph edge relations?

When organizing information it is common to use either a hierarchy or tags. An element in a hierarchy is ordered within a predefined category and relates to other elements as above, below or at the same level. The only direct link between elements in an hierarchy is its immediate superior and the elements subordinates.

Tags on the other hand are non-hierarchical keywords assigned to an element. There are no links between tags, and elements can have tags on different hierarchical level which in a strict hierarchy would not be possible.

Paul Heymann and Hector Garcia-Molina wrote a technical report in 2006 on the tag hierarchy topic with the title "Collaborative Creation of Communal Hierarchical Taxonomies in Social Tagging Systems". They came to the conclusion that it is possible to have relations among tags in several hierarchies, linked by top level connections and noisy edges (see image from their paper):

^{Fig 1: Latent Hierachical Taxonomy. Haymann and Garcia-Molina 2006}

At first glance this is a graph representation, which could very well be used on tags in any tagging system. It would place tags in a strict hierarchy (when appropriate) and provide noisy edges or top level connections when linking relational between different hierarchies.

From my point of view it could be used to improve navigation not only using the standard hierarchical navigation and/or tags, but also use a tag hierarchy. It would place tags within a context, which from a usability perspective could improve users ability to find information.

But from what I know, the implementation of this or similar model have not yet been done. Have there been an implementation of a tag hierarchy with graph edge relations?

Answer

My company's product uses several entities that work like tags and form graph-ish tree structures, much like your example shows. (The product isn't public, so I can't get too detailed, sorry.)

From a UX perspective, the main win that we've found is that the system is very flexible and can often describe more complex subject matter than a flat tag list or a simpler tag tree, which in the problem space we are in is valuable.

The con's with a system this sophisticated, however, are substantial. (In fact, I am constantly trying to figure out how we can get rid of the complexity b/c of user confusion.) Users understand flat lists automatically, trees with some effort, and graphy-tree-thingies with much more effort.

A few key points:

That said, if you control the data structure for the user, and the user never needs to understand how it works in order to use it, you might be helping them out more than hindering. On the other end of things, if you expect it to be user managed, expect big trouble.

I often find that when you find taxonomy getting complicated, you are better off funneling users towards search, sort, and/or filter.

creative writing - What is the purpose of showing

If I have a hard time dissecting showing directly, then I just simply ask about the end result: What showing wishes to create in the readers?

tools - Why are Apple Macs used so much in the graphic design industry?

Why is it that graphic designers more often use an Apple Mac? I am studying graphic design and I am hoping to do some freelance work in my spare time. I have a unit in my studies to discover why Macs are used so much in the graphic design industry.

I also want to purchase a MacBook Pro to start off with, but my brother (a PC user) is adamant that I am wasting my money and that I'm only buying it for show, as he says:

"Macs are just expensive because they're stylish."

I want to give him a number of valid reasons as to why it will help me in the graphic design industry. As he studies games design and he is adamant that a PC can do just the same as a Mac.

editing - How can I edit my own, very old work?

I have about a hundred pages of a novel I wrote in high school, I like the concept behind the writing but I'm finding it extremely difficult to go back and read/edit it again. I last edited the document in 2007.

The work received lots of praise at the time but, as I look back and read it myself, it's embarrassing. At the same time I'm attached and want to finish it. I'm concerned with how much work editing it all would be and that makes me afraid I will never finish it.

I'm thinking of three ways of handling this:

• Throw the old copy in the trash and completely rewrite it. I hesitate to do this because the amount of work was already intimidating; if I do this I think I might abandon the project.


• Read and edit page by page, fixing all the little things I don't like. This feels logical but I don't know if it's the best approach.


• Read the whole thing over once like a new reader before I start considering edits.

fiction - Legality over using a REAL museum and REAL artifacts in a fictional - HEIST novel

I have a question regarding the legality of using a real museum and real artifacts in my Heist book which is almost ready for publication. Initially, it will be self-published via the amazon kindle route.

The book involves a criminal gang who steal well-known artefacts from a UK museum. I have contacted the museums press office and explained the premises, and asked them if they would grant permission, or point me in the direction of someone who can. But unfortunately it appears from their non-response they don't want to play ball.

Having read dozens of very successful fictional novels which involve the theft of real artifacts and antiquities, from both museums and private collections around the world. I'm wondering how the authors get permission, or if indeed they do need permission to base a novel around places and objects that are clearly in the public domain. Maybe it's their publishers who do this, or their agents?

I would be extremely grateful to hear from anyone on the Stack-Exchange who has experience with this kind of issue.

Many thanks in advance. Jon

color theory - How can the "dress" optical illusion be accurately reproduced on other images?

By now pretty sure the entire world is familiar with the "dress" optical illusion as it will one day be known. My question is how can this illusion be reproduced on other images?

For those living in the social media dark ages, here is the image:

In general terms, some people have to refocus in order to see the correct colors of Black and Blue. It is possible to re-"tune" your eyes and see the Gold and White but very difficult. For the most part once you see it Black and Blue you can't go the other way.

Again though - the question is how can this illusion be reproduced in order to use it in various designs?

Answer

Since you asked about color theory, I assume you are already aware of color theory and know a little of how it relates to shadows and highlights. If not, take a look at this article which does an excellent job of explaining how to create objects with shadows when painting.

We can use this information as a tool for creating similar images as this dress. However, it is worth pointing out that the reason why it is so easy for our minds to misperceive this image is because this is a grainy, poor quality jpeg and the lighting is considerably complex.

In fact, part of the reason why this effect is occurring is because this image was taken on a mediocre camera (almost certainly on a cell phone), snapped quickly (causing a bit of blur), and likely scaled-down in quality so that it would be easy to upload to a social media site.

The bottom-line is that for the ocular portion of the nervous system to make a good judgement of a scene, it needs quality "data" coming in. If our brains receive poor data, then it can easily make poor perceptual judgements.

Regarding this image, the lighting is as such that many tend to first notice the really BRIGHT source of light, coming from the window. In our minds, we then assume "Ok, bright light outside, ergo... I must be looking at the shadow-side of this dress."

Being armed with our knowledge of blue-toned shadows and using complementary colors for shadowing, we can now understand why we may perceive that this is a white dress (that is being toned down to a bluish tone for shadowing) and that the gold lace is also being cast in a bluish tone because it is also in a shadow.

For those of us who misinterpreted this scene, we may have to stare at this image for a minute for our minds catch that there is a lot of light-bleeding from light glaring on the lens of the camera.

This means that instead of seeing a dress in a shadow, we are actually seeing it in a room that also has a very-bright light shining on the dress. Our minds then go:

"Oh! This isn't a dimly lit, white/gold dress, it's a well lit black/blue dress! Let me slooooooowly re-adjust our perception so that MAYBE we won't think we're complete idiots..."

We are fooled because both the Black/Gold and White/Blue color-pairs in this image are both close to the center of the complementary color gradients for each color. Since we are close to that center-point of the complementary color scale, and the image quality sucks, our minds simply don't know how to correctly process this image.

How do we use this to our advantage?

I can't give a straight-forward answer because using this information effectively requires a considerable amount of artistic capability in setting up a scene. Though I'm no artist, I can offer some tips.

First, I'd setup a scene with an immediate focal point that isn't the object that you want to use as your "confused" focal point. In the case of our image, this is the very-bright light coming from the window. Make this the first perceived focal point by your viewer and make it, dare I say it, rather garish.

Next, device a scene where an object rests in a place that one would assume is a shadow. As I mentioned, our minds tend to think this dress is in a dark room. If the room is dark, we are seeing shadowed-tones. Create this same effect by using complementary, shadowy colors, but be sure to use colors that are all very close to that grayish-blue tone that is somewhere in the middle of all high-to-low light complementary color scales.

Next, recreate a "light bleeding" effect like the one we see on this image from the light that was shining on the lens of the camera. In fact, this bleeding effect is almost certainly necessary. I can't see how else one could fool the mind without it. It is this light-bleed that makes our minds miss that the object-of-focus is actually well lit, rather than poorly lit. This is a necessary mechanism if we want to fool the mind, and have your viewers question what they are perceiving.

If you can follow these rules, and with a bit of practice, I think you could recreate a similar effect within a digital image, or possibly even a painting. I would mock-up an example of this type of image but this is extremely difficult to replicate. As Scott posted above, the cylinder with the shadows on the checkerboard show a good example of how our minds alter real color, so that we can get a better understanding of what an object really looks like, regardless of lighting, in a three-dimensional world.

However, your end-goal is to create a scene that the eye can't easily correct and, in fact, will misperceive! This will require a certain level of artistic creativity and a lot of experimentation.

Anyway, if you are an artist and hope to recreate this type of illusion in your work, then good luck! I'd love to see someone play off of this psychological effect in art. It's fun to observe and, for a second, makes most of us question our sanity when we are strikingly made aware that the world is often not as we immediately perceive.

adobe photoshop - Techniques for cutting out hair accurately

I use the Pen Tool for 90% of the situations where I need to cut someone or something from a photo but sometimes it gets tricky, especially when it comes to hair.

Let's take the following image for example:

• Pen Tool - don't even think about it, it would take years to do an accurate cut so you usually do a more bulky cut.


• Magic Wand & Quick Selection Tool - in some cases these can work, especially if you know your way around with Tolerance and Refine Edge


• Blending modes are very useful in some situations also

When confronted with such an image I usually do use one of the tools from above + get something like 10 color samples from the hair, create a new brush that I adjust from photoshop's brush engine and start drawing hair.

From everything I've tried, redrawing hairs gave me the best results so far.

Q: Is there a better way to get an accurate selection when cutting hair? Or, how can I improve what I've got so far?

PS: Just wanted to add that a situation where the background behind the subject is in a single color like in the sample I offered is rare, therefore an answer based entirely on same color selection won't help that much.

Answer

First off, plugins and simpler methods are available. This is if you want to get higher quality results. It is largely the same as ACEkin's answer except going into details and with visuals.

I'll be using this photo from Photo by Ariana Prestes on Unsplash.com:

Note: I'm going to be doing the body in a separate layer so I'll be ignoring it for most of this tutorial until the final few steps

Select the Channel with the most contrast in the fine outer hairs. I think Green is the best option:

I'm going to duplicate that channel and rename it to Hair Mask. This will be what I work on until otherwise stated.

Important: If your hair is light on a dark background then you need to invert some of this as far as when to Dodge/Burn and when to use Black/White.

Now to start Apply Image. Multiply or Overlay are good options, sometimes you can even Apply Image twice. Here I applied the Hair Mask to itself with the overlay and lowered the opacity in the settings a bit to not lose the really fine hairs:

I actually did Apply Image Overlay a second pass with a lower Opacity pushing the contrast a bit more. This isn't undoing the first one, its doing it a second time:

Then go into Curves (Ctrl/Cmd+M) and adjust the White and Black point sliders.

Setup some Guides so I could periodically show original vs current at 100%. Here's the first look after just doing Apply Image, Apply Image, Curves:

Now you can like ACEkin said use Brush set to Overlay. I prefer starting with Dodge and Burn though. Burn set to Shadow and I used Exposure of 12 then went over the hairs as carefully as possible. The more careful and time you take the better the results will be. This was maybe 3 minutes, not long at all:

Then at this point go ahead and switch to Brush, Black and fill in the inside. If you want you can first do Black set to Overlay and make another pass at the edges. Again, more time you take the better the results:

Alright, now use Dodge on the spaces between the hairs. Brush set to Overlay White is another option, again I prefer Dodge and Burn. I did Dodge Exposure 12 on Highlights.

Then fill the rest with White.

And let's see where we're at in the 100% view:

With your completed mask selected go back to RGB channel and then layers and apply the mask. I did the body with a separate layer as I mentioned earlier so now I've applied that as well.

Then just refine your mask using the Refine Edge command be sure to use Decontaminate Color

Now the background I picked doesn't really match the lighting and picture, but that's alright. Its not about whether the picture looks real, just about the mask. Could almost always take more time, this is by no means perfect, but here it is which is pretty good for the point of teaching the technique:

And our 100% crop this time looking at the original vs the finished:

I didn't really think about the crop area when choosing a background image to drop in. Since its hard to see that particular area, here's with absolutely no changes to my mask, just got rid of that background for a plain white background for the comparison instead:

Not bad for a Mask from a JPG.

forms - Close Button vs Cancel Button

Possible Duplicate:
Save/Cancel/Close button behavior question

I am developing a web application. I have a pop-up with a text field. I am trying to decide how the users can close the pop-up. I currently have two ideas, but am not sure which one is better as I cannot find any research for this.

Users will be using this pop-up text field often as it is one of the main ways of interacting with our project. The pop-up is about 200px wide, 75px tall.

Idea One: Have a cancel button next to the submit button at the bottom of the pop-up.

Idea Two: Have an 'X' button on the top right of the pop-up signifying close the pop-up.

color theory - Highlights and Shadows with Equal Weight

I'm creating isometric buildings in Inkscape. Each building has a base color. To account for lighting, the top of each building has a highlight, the left side has the base color, and the right side has a shadow.

My problem is that whenever I try to pick darker and lighter versions of the base color, one of them always has more contrast with the base color and thus more visual weight. Here's what I mean:

On the left, I create lighting with 20% opacity overlays of black and white. On the right, I simply adjusted the lightness slider on HSL by 20 points (out of 255) in each direction.

The shadow on the yellow example on the left has much more contrast than the highlight. Below it, the highlight on the bluish example has much more contrast. The right side is much better, but I'm wondering what the best way to do things is.

In other words, how can I best make shadows and highlights have equal contrast/ visual weight?

Answer

In paitning there is an old trick to make gradients.

In general you do not use white to make a light red, because you have pink, that looks like contaminated with white. Instead you use a bit of yellow first and then send it to white:

This happens to all colors in the color wheel, turn them a bit into the lighter section and then into white:

The same when you darken a bit yellow or light colors:

This is one reason your second column looks better. The first one is just contaminated with gray. Dark gray and light gray.

I am not sure what is the "best" way. It does not matter at all, because it is a perceptual relative problem. So do not worry too much.

Probably just limit a bit your palette so you do not have too many choices, but a general palette to choose from.

The old answer with additional info

Our vision is logarithmic. This is that the progression of light perceived is not linear.

Take a look at this bar:

It has a linear gradient, and I put a small bar in the left and right extremes.

We can barely see the red bar on the left side, but the white is clear.

The approach then should be visual, not by coding arithmetic values.

One option

Is that you make a linear gradient and after you modify it with a gamma function. Try round numbers, like Gamma 1.5, 1.8 or 2.0

Gamma 1.5

Gamma 1.8

A conclusion

The first step is to have your monitor calibrated.

After this, you probably will find that you can use, for example, 15% on one side and 20% on the other side. No one will qualify your work measuring the exact values of the proportions of the color.

But this will change according to each color.

You can not expect to have the same range of "light yellows" than "light purples" so do not go for a mathematic approach but a perceptual one.

website design - Helvetica Neue Equivalent on Google Fonts?

Does anybody know a font on Google Fonts that is very similar to Helvetica Neue?

Answer

That's the thing about Helvetica, there isn't really anything quite like it. We are talking about one of the (if not the) most beautiful font in existence.

You could settle for Open Sans or Source Sans Pro but it won't be the same. But you probably already know that as there are only 121 fonts to choose from.

short rate - Extensions of CIR

I could need some advice on extensions of the CIR model.

The standard CIR reads

$dr(t)=\kappa(\theta-r(t))dt + \sigma \sqrt{r(t)} dW(t)$.

A possible extension, if we would like the short-rate to also include negative values, could be a displaced version, so that $r(t)+\alpha$, where $\alpha>0$, follows a CIR model.

Further, to fit the initial term structure one could also consider the CIR++ (can be seen in Brigo et al) which is that

$r(t)=x(t)+\phi(t)$,

where $x$ is CIR and $\phi(t)$ is deterministic and chosen to fit the initial term structure.

My question is if it would make sense to consider a displaced CIR++, that is that $r(t)+\alpha=x(t)+\phi(t)$. My immediate thought is that the $\alpha$ does not provide any additional value for the model, and that the $\phi$-function already makes it possible for the short-rate to be negative?

typography - Should underline clash with text descenders?

CSS3’s text-decoration module includes a text-underline-position property, which specifies whether the underline should be positioned below the whole text:

          

or just below baseline, letting it clash with text descenders:

          

Okay, we all know how underline should only be used as a last resort, but… if you are going to use it, what is the most common way of doing it? What are the pros and cons of each underline style?

Answer

What is most common?

Well, some typographers will say that underlining should probably be avoided all together, and that underlining is only appropriate for use on typewriters or on hyperlinks on the web. However, I would add that creativity is about seeing opportunities to break rules in creative ways so how much you let this guide you is up to you.

On the web, having it just below the baseline, overlapping descenders, is most common. But this is only because this has always been the default rendering for major browsers up to this point.

On typewriters, underlining overlaps descenders, but slightly differently: it falls part way between your two examples (example). If you look at the baseline of the descender, such as the bottom loop of g or the bottom serif of p (in a serif font), that is where the underline lies. So it "joins up with" the bottom of the descenders.

Pros and cons

The benefit to having the underline overlap with your descenders is that it doesn't affect your line spacing (or "leading") at all - you do not have to increase the gap between lines to accommodate the underline.

The benefit to having it completely clear of your descenders is readability, if that is important. But you would have the drawback of needing to increase spacing between lines. If your situation allows for lots of line spacing anyway, then by all means go for it.

If you're using the web, then underlining is heavily associated with hyperlinks. So, any use of underlining at all should be avoided for text that is not part of a link. Signify what you want to signify in other ways - using bold, italics or ALL CAPS instead.