In a past quest I have awarded a Gem of Brighness as part of a treasure to my PCs. Now in the near future they may encounter some creatures with petrifying gaze, like a Basilisk or a Medusa.  The Gem of Brightness can blind those creatures; will this neutralize their petrifying gaze?
Does casting blindness on a Medusa (or other gaze using creature) stop their gaze attack?
Sometimes when I'm making a sauce or soup that needs to be a bit spicy, I have no troubles spicing how I want to.  But if the dinner party is a bit late, or I made the sauce in advance to really draw out all the flavors of the spices, vegetables and meat, sometimes I end up with a way too spicy/hot dish.  You can always pour a bit water and try to dilute it a bit, but that also takes away all of the good flavor. So is there some trick that I'm missing I can use, when this happens to me (other than being more careful or using the spices later)? Looking for intro to Conformal Bootstrap Multiple bibliographies (reference lists) using embedded bibliography database I would like to have multiple bibliographies (reference lists) as described in   ().   However, I'd like to use with a single .tex file, which would contain the bibliography database embedded, as in  ...   Now, I want to use letter documentclass, for which the bibliography needs to be defined ()   So what I end up is with this example (code below, compiled with just pdflatex, no bibtex(which I'd like to avoid in this case)):     ... obviously, something works (multibib recognized primary and secondary cites, assigning them number "1" as start) -- however I don't get two, separate primary and secondary list of references; would that be possible in this context? (doesn't have to be with multibib, but I'd like to avoid a separate .bib file and a bibtex call)  EDIT: I'd also like separate cite keys (i.e. rendered as [a1] and [b1]; not yet sure if multibib can do that; edit: no it cant,  says "You can also edit the .bbl files created by BibTEX and add 'a', 'b',. . . to the labels, but your changes will be overwritten by subsequent BibTEX runs." and recommends \cite[a]{key}) - how possible would that be?  &nbsp;  The code is this:   \documentclass{letter}  % Environment thebibliography undefined when using letter: http://www.latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&amp;t=3359 \makeatletter \setlength \labelsep {.5em} \newcommand\newblock{\hskip   .11em\@plus.33em\@minus.07em} \let\@openbib@code\@empty \newcommand\refname{References} \newcommand\section{\@startsection   {section}{1}{\z@}%   {-3.5ex \@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%   {2.3ex \@plus.2ex}%   {\normalfont\Large\bfseries}} \newenvironment{thebibliography}[1] {\section*{\refname}%   \@mkboth{\MakeUppercase\refname}{\MakeUppercase\refname}%   \list{\@biblabel{\@arabic\c@enumiv}}%   {\settowidth\labelwidth{\@biblabel{#1}}%     \leftmargin\labelwidth \advance\leftmargin\labelsep \@openbib@code     \usecounter{enumiv}%     \let\p@enumiv\@empty \renewcommand\theenumiv{\@arabic\c@enumiv}}%   \sloppy \clubpenalty4000 \@clubpenalty \clubpenalty   \widowpenalty4000%   \sfcode`\.\@m} {\def\@noitemerr {\@latex@warning{Empty       `thebibliography' environment}}%       \endlist} \makeatother  \usepackage{multibib} \newcites{pri}{Primary sources} \newcites{sec}{Secondary sources}  \begin{document}   \begin{letter}{Addressee} Blah, blah - content...  Primary cite: \citepri{lamport94} ...  Secondary cite: \citesec{lamport94} ...   \begin{thebibliography}{9}  \bibitem{lamport94}   Leslie Lamport,   \emph{\LaTeX: A Document Preparation System}.   Addison Wesley, Massachusetts,   2nd Edition,   1994.  \bibitem{lamport95}   Leslie Lamport,   \emph{\LaTeX: A Document Preparation System}.   Addison Wesley, Massachusetts,   2nd Edition,   1995.  \end{thebibliography}  \end{letter}   \end{document} My last name is not the same on ticket as on passport; rest of details are same I've been trying to change the language of my LaTeX document by replacing \usepackage[swedish]{babel} with \usepackage[english]{babel} but I only get this message:  ! Package babel Error: You haven't loaded the option swedish yet.   I've read in an other question at this forum that compiling enough would solve the problem, but that doesn't work for me. Does anyone know what I should do? In the book "Jurassic Park" does the Lysine Contingency actually get explained? I was watching the movie recently and noticed that one of the characters (very) briefly mentions a safety they built into the system should any of the dinosaurs escape. They called it the Lysine Contingency saying that all the dinos have been genetically modified to depend heavily on lysine in their diet, so if any of them escape they wouldn't be able to survive without the food supplements that the park gives them.   Why doesn't the story end right there? Does the Michael Crichton book actually explain this in depth? A hard problem on exponential integration Suppose $a : [0 , 1] \to \Bbb R$ is an infinitely smooth function. For $\lambda\ge1$, define $$F(\lambda) := \lambda \int_0^1 e^{\lambda t} a(t) \, dt.$$ If $\sup_{\lambda\ge1}|F(\lambda)|\lt\infty$, then $a$ is the identically zero function. Below are the some results I have derived:   Derivatives of any order of $a$ vanishes at $t = 1.$ For any $\delta\lt1$, $a(t)$ has a zero in the open interval $(\delta , 1).$  The same is true for all the derivatives of $a(t)$. This tells us that the $n^\text{th}$ derivative of $a$ has infinitely many distinct zeros for all natural $n$. If $a$ is analytic, then I can show that $a(t)\equiv 0.$ If $a(t)\ge0$ on $[0 , 1]$, then it is obvious that $a\equiv 0.$   I would appreciate any hint.  Actually $(1)$ and $(3)$ follows from $(2)$. For $(2)$, suppose that $a(1)\gt0$ (the case that $a(1)\lt0$ can be argued in the same way as the following), then there exists $\delta\lt1$ such that $a(t)$ is strictly positive on $I = [1-\delta , 1]$. Then write $F(\lambda) = \lambda\int_0^{1-\delta}e^{\lambda t}a(t)dt + \lambda\int_{1-\delta}^1e^{\lambda t}a(t)dt$. Now there exists $c\gt0$ such that $a(t)&gt;c$ on $I$ since $I$ is compact, so that the second term is bounded below by $c (e^{\lambda}-e^{\lambda(1-\delta)})$. But the first term is only $O(e^{\lambda(1-\delta)})$, so this contradicts the fact that $F(\lambda)$ is bounded. Morever, using the same idea and integration by parts, one can see that $n^{th}$ derivative of $a$ must vanish at $1$. How do I make a textbox that only accepts numbers? Prove if nonempty $K \subset\mathbb{R}$ is compact, then both sup $K$ and inf $K$ exist and are elements of $K$. Prove if nonempty $K \subset \mathbb{R}$ is compact, then both sup $K$ and inf $K$ exist and are elements of $K$.   I manage to prove the existence of sup $K$ by using the Axiom of Completeness. But I failed to prove that $\sup K \in K$. Can anyone guide me ? What was the origin of Star Trek's Borg? I was surprised to discover my dictionary had this entry for dilemma:     a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, esp. equally undesirable ones   The notion of dilemma meaning two or more flies against what I was taught about the word. The very idea of a  is specifically based on the number two.  Has my dictionary merely updated its definition to encapsulate the many people who use dilemma for more than two equal choices? Or was someone in my youth being unnecessarily pedantic? Why do we use the simple past but not the present or future in the following expressions:  Don't you think it's time we went a little further Don't you think it's time we ate Don't you think it's time we went home Are there any disadvantages to always using nvarchar(MAX)? Note: This is not the same as , which is about the moderator tool. I am talking about the flag history page that is accessible through the user profile at .  I tend to have a pretty good hit rate for flags, well above 90% helpful on several sites. I also semi-regularly review the flag history page, both to see the status of any outstanding flags as well as see how flags I raised have been handled. Particularly, whenever a flag of mine is declined, I look over the post I raised the flag against with this new information in mind, to try to determine if I should change my flagging behavior in some way to better match the specific site's scope.  However, comment flags are difficult in this regard. Most often, there is only a binary status: helpful or declined. Helpful comment flags nearly always lead to the comment being deleted, so that obviously could present a bit of a problem, but that's not really relevant because a helpful flag means you should just keep doing what you've been doing. Declined comment flags, on the other hand, usually mean the comment is kept. It's the declined comment flags that I want to learn more about. But there's no way to!  All the flag says is which post it was on, how I flagged a comment, that I was the one to raise the flag (which frankly is rather useless information when you are already looking at your own flags summary), when the flag was raised and whether it's pending, helpful or declined. In a very few cases the moderator handling the flag may leave a helpful return comment.  This can get even more confusing if I raise multiple flags in quick succession against comments on the same question including any answers to it, because they basically all get bundled together.  Even in the case of a declined flag where the comment remains, there is no way to find your way back to the specific comment you flagged! Thus it is very difficult to recognize the error of your ways. Because comment flags (with few exceptions) are handled by diamond moderators only, the lack of feedback about which comment's flag was declined means it's easy to keep wasting the moderators' time without even intending to do so.  Hence my feature request: add a link to the specific comment that the specific flag was raised against, ideally only if that comment remains. javascript document.getElementsByClassName compatibility with IE java swing background image Using a transistor as a switch I am attaching a motor to an ATmega32 chip. I want to build an H-bridge but before doing that, I want to control the motor using the chip. I bought few NPN Transistors from RadioShack. I have 5V running though the breadboard. I attached Vcc to the Collector, Base to the Pin, and Emitter to the motor. And other wire of motor is hooked up to Ground. Unfortunately, the power coming out of the transistor is too low, the motor is barely moving (As opposed to when I hook up my motor straight to 5V). What is wrong? Do I need a different transistor or is my setup wrong? If it is the transistor, can you please recommend the right one, I am not too good at those. Foreword  This question was inspired by initial mistakes in . I wanted to explore the strange circle with $A&gt;\pi r^2$ and got lost into geometrical jungle.  A  is usually described by it's height $h$, radius of the base $a$ and radius of the sphere $r$. Besides we have a relation $a^2+(r-h)^2=r^2$ so the cap actually only has two degrees of freedom.  When considering a case of circle on a sphere (like the Earth), it's the surface of a spherical cap, but we can't see the height or other classic parameters of this spherical cap. Instead we encounter parameters like area $A$, perimeter $C$ and diameter $d$. I will try to write formulae for these: $$A=2\pi rh$$ $$C=2\pi a$$ $$d=2r\theta$$  Where $\theta$ is introduced with $\sin\theta=\frac{a}{r}$ or $\cos\theta=(1-\frac{h}{r})$.  As the cap only has two degrees of freedom, it should be a good problem with unique solution if only two values are known.  A-C Problem  The simple example: $A$ and $C$ are given. I show this only as example before the other tasks.  We can easily find $a=\frac{C}{2\pi}$ and then solve:  $$A=2\pi rh = 2\pi r (r-\sqrt{r^2-a^2})$$  to obtain  $$r=\frac{A}{2\sqrt{\pi(A-\pi a^2)}}$$  Parameters $a$ and $r$ are now known and it is straightforward to find $h$, $d$, $\theta$ and anything else.  C-d Problem  $C$ and $d$ are given.  First step once again is easy: $a=\frac{C}{2\pi}$. The knowing of $a$ suggests that we might prefer the $\theta$ definition with the sine. We obtain: $$d=2r\theta=2r\arcsin\frac{a}{r}$$  That's where I got stuck. Is there an easy way to solve this? Is there a hard way to solve this?  I tried solving numerically with Wolfram Mathematica and it went into complex numbers. When solving the geometrically equivalent $\sin\frac{d}{2r}=\frac{a}{r}$ I got some roots, but the search seemed very unstable and not finding the root closest to initial value. Besides it was finding a lot of different roots while I am pretty sure that there should only be one $r$ for each pair of $d$ and $a$. What would be the right formulation to solve this problem numerically?  A-d problem  $A$ and $d$ are given. This seems the hardest one. We obtain a system of equations:  $$A=2\pi r h$$ $$d=2r\arccos\left(1-\frac{h}{r}\right)$$  (The first equation suggested solving the problem in $h$ and $r$).  Is this system solvable analytically? Or numerically? My experiments with Wolfram Mathematica never converged.   Of course, I could express $h$ or $r$ from the first equation and leave only the second in one of these forms: $$d = 2r\arccos\left(1-\frac{A}{2\pi r^2}\right)$$ $$d = \frac{A}{\pi h}\arccos\left(1-\frac{2\pi h^2}{A}\right)$$  But I have no idea how to solve these either. When reviewing flags, either from the queue or from the flagged post, I often want to know what the flagger could have done in addition to, or instead of, flagging for mod attention.  Does he have the rep to downvote?  To comment?  To vote to delete?  Knowing this doesn't necessarily affect how I handle the flag, but if there's a possible teaching moment there I use the flag response to point it out.  But I can't find this out unless I click through to the user's profile (unless I already know this user, of course).  Would it be possible to get the flagger's reputation in a tooltip, like what's already done for comments? When should I use exposure compensation? When should I use exposure compensation, rather than ISO, shutter speed or aperture?