meaning - What does "customized website" mean?

Does, "customized website", mean:

1) a website with unique design and features

Yes.

2) a website that I can change, for example, add new page without writing a code.

No. That would be a customizable website. Not every customized web site remains customizeable after deployment. We happen to be customising this one as we type. But that changes the content. Not the design. We're also doing it after it was deployed.

Before being deployed EL&U had some customizations made. Among other tweaks it was given a different title, logo, and background color. Even the voting controls were changed. These were customizations. But as far as I know not a single line of code was changed. Just configuration.

The paragraph is asking for two customizations: the dashboard and the database. It is also asking that the site be easily customizable "to control my web[sic.] myself". This last feature already exists in other websites.

cus·tom·ize

ˈkəstəˌmīz
verb
past tense: customized; past participle: customized

modify (something) to suit a particular individual or task.

"the suit can be customized for every skydiving need"

google.com

If we were talking about clothing it would be simpler. Buy off the rack, get what they have. Go to a tailor, get a custom fit suit. The problem with websites is there is a whole confusing range between these extremes. The quoted paragraph is attempting to nail down where on that range the website will fall.

I can make, very cheaply, a site that says nothing but "Hello world". Having done it once I could offer it again even cheaper. But would anyone want that?

At the other end of the spectrum is a fully maintained actively developed website that can have it's design changed on a whim.

In between are the websites that allow content to change but are not actively developed so no code get's changed. These are deployed cookie cutter style: A shopping cart site. A blog. A stackexchange. The code is always the same but the content is different.

Slightly better are sites designed specifically for the customers unique needs. A custom site goes beyond content variations (my answer here is an example of content). A custom site respects the customers individual needs whatever they are.

Every choice to be different than anything that existed before costs time and money. Which is why the paragraph keeps asking what exactly they're getting for their money.

story identification - Children's book about a talking alien baby (who lives on the moon?)

I have been looking for this book for a long while. I remember being charmed by it when I was 8 - so 2000. In England, UK if it helps. The cover was a turquoise green colour. Some plot points I can recall:

• Either set on the moon, or heavily featured the moon


• Main character was a young woman named Tipperary (the song 'The Way to Tipperary' featured heavily in the story, her mother used to sing it as a lullaby)


• She had adopted a baby boy (at least, I don't think he was biologically hers) who was either an alien or an advanced human - he was very intelligent and could talk clearly, but still an infant


• His catchphrase was 'holy moly' and this was also his nickname


• Tipperary had a bad relationship with her mother because of the baby


• Tipperary had an ex who was obnoxious and who showed up and kick-started the plot (can't remember details)


• Tipperary, the baby, and possibly a dog, lived in a campervan and travelled around a lot, possibly on the moon


• I am so sure the phrase 'holy moly' featured in the title but I'm not finding anything on Google...

Despite remembering weird little details, I can't find any info on this book! Please help if you can, I'd love to read it again, it had such a delightful tone and I'm sure there were more in the series.

Outcome of relationship at the end of 'Blue Valentine'

Since it's my all time favorite movie, I've done a lot of research on this one. As per your question, movie ends when Dean walks away crying from Cindy and Frankie. And the ending of the movie is left to viewers opinion. It's an open end.

In the end, Cindy cursed Dean that she wants a fucking divorce and Dean tries to convince her and tells her that he doesn't want Frankie to grow up in a broken home and Cindy tells that she needs space but she doesn't persists that she wants a divorce.

So, based on the scene I mentioned, as an optimist, I thought Cindy and Dean would get back together.

Now, I'll tell you why Derek Cianfrance (director of this movie) wanted to make Blue Valentine and what he has in his mind. In an interview, Derek was asked whether his parents were divorced and he answered:

Yeah, when I was 20 they split up. It was so confusing to me that I decided to confront it with a film and just started writing it. I had various co-writers over the years, including Joey Curtis and Cami Delavigne, and they are also children of divorce, so we tried to confront our fears and confusion together. And then when finally Ryan and Michelle became a part of it they too are children of divorce, and they eventually became what I considered to be co-writers on the film.

By the above answer, it is obvious that he wanted to make a movie about the problems in marriages and how it ends with a divorce.

In IMDb trivia, it mentioned;

Some have speculated that Dean and Cindy have ended their marriage. One of the photos during the end credits shows Dean and Cindy running backwards holding a sign with "Is This You?" on it, hinting the upcoming dissolution of their marriage.

In another source here states that;

Their love has gone missing, and Cianfrance leaves it up to the viewer to decide what happened to it. He empathizes with both characters and doesn't ignore the maddening reality that a relationship, like fruit or eyesight, can go can bad from nothing but the passage of time.

And Derek Cianfrance said;

"To me there's no one reason why Dean and Cindy split up," he said. "It's a million reasons, and then at the same time, it's just a feeling."

In the question, you asked, "does it mean anything else as you think?" and despite all the speculations above, I think, Dean and Cindy will get back together.

word usage - Equivocal meaning of "Have a backlog of (something)"

Based upon our conversation in comments:

Backlog conveys a sense of unfinished tasks that need to be completed. As Reg states below, it does carry a mildly negative connotation that can be modified situationally. I won't reiterate his excellent answer here.

If you are speaking of unused items or goods, you would use the term surplus.

Surplus means an amount or quantity greater than needed. Definition link here.

If you want to convey a sense that this is a negative, you would say: unwanted surplus.

If you'll excuse me, I have a backlog of unfinished reports to get to.

vs.

I have an unwanted surplus of goat cheese. It is going to rot before I can sell it!
or
I have an unexpected surplus of cash this year, I'm going to buy a Ferrari!

I think this fits the meaning you are looking for far better than backlog.

realism - Calvin Candie's "dimples in the skull" theory

In Django Unchained, Calvin Candie tells Django and Dr. Shultz a theory about the dimples in the skull of human beings. He says that due to the location of these very dimples which is different in case of Whites and African Americans, their behavior is different.

Is this theory, purely imaginary and used just for making a good story or does it hold any scientific weight?

One word for "the person from whom we learn to be disciplined"

disciplined has the meaning of

Showing a controlled form of behaviour or way of working

And I can't find anything more appropriate to teach at the same time behaviour and way of working than the one we call master.

• an owner of a slave or animal


• a person very skilled or famous in a discipline, as an art or science:

one of the great masters of modern art; a Zen master.

The owner part enphasis the disciplined behaviour you have to learn.

It is an alternative to the common one : teacher.

harry potter - Did Morfin Gaunt attend Hogwarts?

It seems fairly clear that Merope Gaunt did not attend Hogwarts; what magic she was able to perform was probably taught to her by her father before he gave up on her entirely, believing her to be almost a Squib. (Compare this question by Slytherincess, as well as her entry on the Harry Potter wiki, which also speculates that she was home-schooled.)

Things are less clear-cut when it comes to her brother, Morfin. He certainly shows enough magic ability to make Tom Riddle Sr break out in hives, and also enough to bang Bob Ogden to the ground with yellowish goo squirting from his nose and later on fire hexes at him and make him run for the hills and call for Ministry backup. So he was presumably taught more magic, for a longer period of time, than Merope was.

But where was he taught?

According to his wiki article, he was born some time between 1900 and 1907, so he would have been of schooling age from around 1911–1918 until 1918–1925. We know that Phineas Nigellus Black died in 1925 and was Headmaster of Hogwarts until his death, so it’s at least likely that Black was already Headmaster at the point when Morfin reached schooling age.

We need hardly doubt that Marvolo would not dream of sending his son to a Hogwarts led by Albus Dumbledore or—presumably—Armando Dippet; but Black, who shared Marvolo and Morfin’s views on Muggles and pure-blood supremacy, would probably be a different story.¹

Is there any canon evidence whether Marvolo sent Morfin off to Hogwarts or home-schooled him?

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^{1 Assuming Hogwarts, even under the Headmastership of Phineas Black, would have him, that is—Black may have been quite a nasty piece of work in many ways, and the most unpopular Headmaster Hogwarts ever had, but even he may have balked at the prospect of letting someone as obviously mentally unhinged and sadistically, psychopathically violent as Morfin Gaunt enter the school. Even an unpopular Headmaster presumably doesn’t want students murdering each other left, right, and centre.}