word choice - Describing facial expression

Edit: The link provided by @broken headphones has helped resolve my する/している problem (I think). I have one problem remaining though. Given @Sonny365TANAKA's answer that 彼女は長い髪の毛です is not grammatical, if 田中さんは神妙な顔だ is grammatical then what is the difference? Translating directly to English, why can I say "Tanaka is a meek face" but I cannot say "She is long hair". Both describe a person's features and both sound strange to me.

End edit

田中さんは神妙な顔だ。
田中さんは神妙な顔をしている。
Tanaka has a meek face.

Describing facial expressions confuses me. Firstly because of the use of "is" rather than "has" i.e. literal translation of the first sentence is "Tanaka is a meek face". I can live with that.

Is there any difference in meaning/nuance between these two sentences. How do I interpret している? Is it "is making", "has made", or simply "is/has".

Does the way I phrase it change depending on whether I'm talking about the current state of the face or an enduring feature. e.g.

Tanaka has a meek face (and it is always like that. It's just his character)
Tanaka has a meek face (because he's just done something shameful)

Am I right that these issues occur with other aspects of describing a person? For example I saw these two sentences in some example translations:

彼女は長い髪の毛です

私の髪は長い

My instinct tells me that the second one is incorrect even though that is how you would expect to translate it.

meat - honey's dissolving/preserving flesh

Seemingly, there's an idea that honey dissolves flesh (which thereby turns into honey. I don't have a primary source for this, but there is an ibn Ezra story about it). How does this fit in with the Bavli, Bava Basra 3:2, which says that honey preserves flesh? Dissolve would seem to be the opposite of preserve in this context.

(Note: I'm not asking about what modern science says about the issue. I'm asking only about how the two Jewish-sourced statements relate to one another.)

Answer

Maybe indeed honey will penetrate into organic material and dissolve it, but only some distance. With a small creature like a bee, then, that's enough to include its entire body; with a human corpse, the bulk of it will still remain intact.

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The issue is discussed in Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 84:12 and commentaries there. The Mechaber writes that "honey tends to preserve things immersed in it"; Shach (:37) observes that this is true only if the creature is whole, but that if it is dissected, then on the contrary the honey will dissolve it. The case at hand seems to have involved bees' legs that were in the honey (see Beur Hagra there :37), not the entire insect.

matlab - What are the best algorithms for document image thresholding in this example?

I'm trying to implement various binarization algorithms to the image shown:

Here's the code:

clc;
clear;
x=imread('n2.jpg');     %load original image

% Now we resize the images so that computational work becomes easier later onwards for us.

size(x);
x=imresize(x,[500 800]);

figure;
imshow(x);
title('original image');

z=rgb2hsv(x);       %extract the value part of hsv plane
v=z(:,:,3);
v=imadjust(v);

%now we find the mean and standard deviation required for niblack and %sauvola algorithms

m = mean(v(:))

s=std(v(:))
k=-.4;
value=m+ k*s;
temp=v;

% implementing niblack thresholding algorithm:

for p=1:1:500
    for q=1:1:800
        pixel=temp(p,q);
        if(pixel>value)

            temp(p,q)=1;
        else
            temp(p,q)=0;
        end
    end
end
figure;
imshow(temp);
title('result by niblack');
k=kittlerMet(g);

figure;
imshow(k);
title('result by kittlerMet');

% implementing sauvola thresholding algorithm:

val2=m*(1+.1*((s/128)-1));
t2=v;
for p=1:1:500
for q=1:1:800
    pixel=t2(p,q);

    if(pixel>value)
        t2(p,q)=1;
    else
        t2(p,q)=0;
    end
end

end

figure;
imshow(t2);

title('result by sauvola');

The results I obtained are as shown:

As you can see the resultant images are degraded at the darker spots.Could someone please suggest how to optimize my result??

Velocity of electrons ejected from Cl atom

When neutral $\ce{Cl}$ atoms are bombarded by high energy photons, causing ejection of electrons, which subshells' ejected electrons will have highest velocity?

I chose $1s$ because I thought more energy is needed to ejected those electrons so they might have higher velocity. My second choice $3s$ is right, but I can't explain why.

Answer

It would be the $3s$ shell because less energy is required to bump it off course. Due to electron repulsion and the shielding effect, the $e-$ in the $3s$ is more prone to get dislodged. And of course because of this, it will have a higher velocity when it gets bumped off. Another concept to note: $e-$ will have more energy at higher energy levels.

A reason why it wouldn't be the $1s$ shell is because due to the strong pull on the $1s$ electron. Since it is on the first energy level, it is strongly held by the nucleus. Even it were to get dislodged it would move very slow because of the strong pull by the nucleus.

kanji - How is 名 pronounced in computer terms?

For usernames, etc., you usually see like ユーザ名 or something similar. Or like on my Skype, it says Skype名. How is the 名 pronounced in these situations? I've never been able to conclusively find this anywhere. My instinct tells me it's な because these seem like compounds nouns (like 星空【ほしぞら】, etc.) that use kun-yomi.

Answer

It is read as めい. “ユーザ名” is read as ユーザめい, “Skype 名” is スカイプめい.

I do not know the reason for that, but if I make a guess, this may be because gairaigo in a compound word is treated in a similar way to Sino-Japanese words.

halacha - Masada - heroic martyrdom or immoral murder/suicide?

Was the mass coordinated mutual killing at Masada (for lack of a better term) an act of heroic martyrdom or immoral murder and suicide?

While it is unknown for certain what exactly transpired, according to the only recorded history of it, nearly 1000 Jews withstood the Roman occupation of Judea, and attempted to fight back, by retreating to Masada and setting up a military outpost and refuge there, until they were ultimately trapped on the mountaintop. In the end, 10 men were selected to kill all the others, and one of them was selected to kill the 9 remaining men and ultimately kill himself at the end of it all.

On the one hand, they were likely trying to prevent torture, murder, rape and pillage from befalling themselves at the hands of the Romans.

On the other hand, who could say for certain that the Romans would have done that to them? Furthermore, if they had negotiated a peaceful surrender (especially if they hadn't first engaged in attacks but truly acted as though their retreat to Masada was for purposes of refuge from the war rather than a military strategy) they likely would have been taken as captives and perhaps enslaved but not specifically tortured or killed.

Much ink has been spilled on the subject of martyrdom (LeHavdil from the oceans of blood that has been spilled in actual martyrdom). What can be inferred, from that literature, regarding the specific case of Masada (assuming the story as generally understood, as summarized above, is what actually transpired)?

Answer

Hirhurim quotes R' J.B. Soleveitchik regarding an earlier event similar to Masada where Josephus' army committed suicide rather than surrender. Josephus, however, survived, surrendered and became a Roman citizen:

I would not say that Josephus lacked the courage to commit suicide. From a halakhic point of view, Josephus may not have been permitted to do so. The Midrash clearly says (Bereshit Rabba 34:13) that committing suicide is an act of murder. The case of King Saul causing himself to be killed is explained by some as an exception to this prohibition because Saul realized that the enemy would kill him imminently in any event. Therefore, if Josephus realized that he was not in imminent danger of being killed by the Romans, he would not have been halakhically permitted to kill himself. Nonetheless, one could argue that even though halakha may not have required Josephus to commit suicide, under halakha, one may commit suicide to avoid surrendering to the enemy. If so, such discretion would have been available to Josephus as well. In summary, I am not certain that Josephus committed an act of betrayal. He may have been acting in accordance with the prohibition against suicide.

It is interesting that Josephus is not mentioned at all in the Gemara, although Rashi does refer to him (Bava Batra 3b, s.v., hekhi). Our sages make no mention of the incident despite their extensive discussion of the events of the Second Temple period. It is hard to know what the attitude of our sages was, but I suspect that while they disapproved of what Josephus did, they felt that they did not have the right to condemn him. As a result, they ignored him. The Gemara would have mentioned him if it considered him a traitor.

usage - Is it offensive to say あなた?

My teacher says that we should avoid あなた, like わたし, which could be taken off. Following this, I try to refer to the second person by the name: 加藤さんの趣味は何ですか. But there are situations where we forget the name. How can we say "You" without being rude, or using あなた? I give some examples, but they could be wrong:

A: 久しぶり。元気してた？

B: 久しぶりだね～元気だよ。あなたは？　(is it better to say: そっちは？?)

A: あなたの名前は？　(is it a little rude? should I hide あなたの?)

A: あなたの作ったケーキがおいしかったよ。
B: 本当？あなたのケーキのほうがおいしかったと思うけど。

店員：あなたは何を探しますか？

A: あなたはむてき！

Answer

This is what デジタル大辞泉 says about あなた:

1. 対等または目下の者に対して、丁寧に、または親しみをこめていう。



2. 妻が夫に対して、軽い敬意や親しみをこめてい。

In definition (1), it's said that あなた is used for second person who is equivalent or subordinate/inferior/junior while being polite or intimate/familiar. Definition (2) states that it can also be used between spouses to intimately call each other.

So, あなた itself is not offensive if used appropriately while taking your relationship with the other person into consideration. You have to be careful if you want to use it with strangers because it would seem that you are assuming the other parties as equivalent or inferior to you, or that you are trying to be familiar with them. Since the Japanese culture encourages being reserved towards outgroups and strangers, you better be sure if you really want to use あなた, otherwise stick to using names (e.g. 田中さん), professions (e.g. 先生) and indirections (e.g. そちら) to refer to the other person.