Did Guru Padmasambhava say "When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the earth"?

Question: Did this person say this, as reported by Awaken.com?

"When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the earth." — Guru Padmasambhava of Tibet, 8th Century

They made a movie out of it.
Comment: There is very little information about real-life Padmasambhava. I'm pretty sure there are no writings remain.
Comment: Do you mean the historical Padmasambhava or the literature character?
Comment: Historical real-life Padmasambhava. It wouldn't be as surprising if a fictional character said it.
Answer: The earliest citation I can find for this prophecy is a 1976 letter to the editor of the New York Times, where it is grouped with two others.

Buddha predicted the spread of
Buddhism to the West with the words "Two thousand five hundred years
after my Parinirvana the Holy Dharma will spread to the Land of the
Red‐Faced People." Padma Sambhava, who brought Buddhism to Tibet from
India in the eighth century, predicted "When the Iron Bird flies and
horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants
across the world, and the Dharma will come to the Land of the
Red‐Faced Man."
In turn, there are American Indian prophecies foretelling the coming
of red‐robed wisemen from the East who would be their spiritual brothers.

At first glance this seems to be three ludicrous fabrications which the New York Times considered newsworthy. But wait! This version of the prophecy is based in real Tibetan manuscripts! A biography of the Tibetan saint Tsongkhapa explains:

Later biographies [of Tsongkhapa] report that during the digging for the laying of the foundation [for a temple], two notable objects were discovered. The first was a large conch. The second was a mask... The discovery of the two objects, especially the large conch, would evolve into a legend that purported to trace them to the time of none other than the Buddha himself. One version cites a passage said to exist in a Chinese translation of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, which relates the following story. Once the Buddha and his monks were sitting on the shore of Lake Manasarovar, observing their rainy-season retreat. At that time, the nāga king Anavatapa offered a large conch to the Buddha, who, in turn, gave it to Maudgalyāyana and instructed him to bury it in Tibet, the "land of the red-faced people." He then prophesied that in the future a monk "bearing the demeanor of a lotus" would spread his teachings there and use the conch to summon his congregation. "So," the Buddha concluded, "bury this and let it be guarded by a stone shaped like a monkey."
Thupten Jinpa, Tsongkhapa: A Buddha in the Land of Snows (Shambhala, 2019), pp.251-2

The citation for this gives two medieval manuscripts which are useless to non-experts, being in Tibetan. However, I see from Google Books that there is an older manuscript with the legend of the "land of the red-faced people": the 12th century Testament of dBa, which was first translated into a Western language in 1961. According to the 2020 book Historical Dictionary of Tibet,  "land of the red-faced people" was originally used in the Testament of dBa to refer to China, then was turned around in medieval biographies of Tsongkhapa and used for Tibet. (A scholar's blog confirms this.) And, it seems, after the 1970s it was again changed, now to refer to America.
This is the likely origin of the "saying of the Buddha" in the letter, and this letter's version of the Padmasambhava quote also has the phrase "Red‐Faced Man," which suggests to me the same origin for both.
The "American Indian prophecies" [sic] is even more suspicious. It seems to be associated with a 1974 visit by Chogyam Trungpa to the Hopi, and is later described as a "Hopi prophecy." In the 1960s and 70s there was a cottage industry of Hopi prophecies, most conspicuously the story of the "Rainbow Tribe".
This quotation is almost certainly false but based on the real legend of "Buddhism coming to the red-faced people" which appears in various Tibetan manuscripts to refer to China or Tibet.


EOS smart contracts and big data

Question: Imagine situation when I need to save a big data In smart contract (for example 1000 000 000 row of information - or just 1 TB). In case of ETH it's almost impossible because gas price goes to hell. How is the situation in EOS? I know that concept of gas doesn't exist here, but here we have RAM limit that depends on our stake, more stake more limit. but how much stake will be enough? Is it common sense to save that much data it EOS smart contract? what's the solution?
Answer: Same situation as in other blockchains: large data should not be stored on the blockchain. Keep in mind that besides block producers, all validation nodes / non-producing full nodes have to be able download the chain if they want, so hosting large data is not encouraged. Consequently, the costs for doing this are equally prohibitive.
If you want to store large data, the solution recommended by BlockOne at the moment is Demux:

Demux solves these problems by off-loading storage and queries to your preferred database (MongoDB, Postgres etc). As blockchain events happen, your chosen database is updated by Updater functions, which deterministically process an array of Action objects. The database can then be queried by your front-end DAPP through a suitable API (for example, REST or GraphQL), reducing the amount of direct interaction with the blockchain in order to retrieve data for your application. This also can help developers to limit the amount of data that needs to be stored in RAM, lowering applications' operating costs whilst also improving their architectural efficiency.

Otherwise, storing the hash of the file or integrating your application with IPFS is another recommended path, and BlockOne published a paper on an unreleased EOSIO storage solution that integrates with IPFS:

Abstract: EOS.IO Storage is a proposed decentralized file system designed to give everyone the ability to permanently store and host
  files accessible by any web browser. Unlike some other proposed
  alternatives, there would be no upfront fee or ongoing charge for
  storage or bandwidth on EOS.IO Storage aside from a completely
  refundable deposit. Users must hold tokens while they need storage and
  bandwidth and may sell tokens when storage and bandwidth is no longer
  required. Built on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and the
  EOS.IO software, EOS.IO Storage will be a service provided by block
  producers for those who hold tokens on a blockchain that adopts the
  EOS.IO software. The block producers would be incentivized to
  replicate and host these files, allowing anyone with an Internet
  browser to access them.
Comment: If you save data on IPFS, or centralized database, then what's the purpose of smart contract at all? Smart contract and blockchain comes in place so that you don't hide anything. My app would better be written in mysql, but the whole purpose is to show everyone that you don't hide it. :)
Comment: store on chain important data that users need on the chain, and off chain less critical data. if you have 1tb of data that *needs* to be on chain, consider that public blockchains may not be appropriate for your usecase
Comment: What about saving them in logs? People say for big data,  logs are the solution.
Comment: you can do that in theory, but you need to stake EOS for NET,  you can't query the log from the contract, and there is no guarantee anyone will be hosting that part of the log after a period of time as people will prune the chain. I don't think the log is meant to be a solution for big data at all
Comment: Can we have a little talk in private maybe telegram or skype ? I also got some ideas and I'd love to discuss it with you . let me know
Comment: I am interested as well. We could open a chat on stack exchange.
Comment: @GiorgiLagidze I created a public chatroom [here](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/82097/discussion-from-eos-smart-contracts-and-big-data?tab=general) but I'm not sure if there are reputation requirements
Answer: Storing data on blockchain is extremely expensive. It is also problem for network (data transfer) and other users (storage).
Instead you should consider storing data in one of dedicated solutions, centralized (AWS, Google...) or decentralized (IPFS, Sia...) and store on blockchain only information where to find data and signature to guarantee it's correctness.
Comment: If you save data on IPFS, or centralized database, then what's the purpose of smart contract at all? Smart contract and blockchain comes in place so that you don't hide anything. My app would better be written in mysql, but the whole purpose is to show everyone that you don't hide it. :)
Comment: IPFS is distributed, not decentralized.

EOS smart contracts and big data


Moving vertices in a way to preserve their relative position from eachother

Question: How can I move the vertices in the picture in a way that they "stretch" and keep their position relative to each other? I'm interested so that I would end up with a consistent geometry from left to right lets say. I could of course just remove the vertices and create a plane but I'm interested in knowing how to perform the transformation while preserving the grid shape.
Answer: It seems I have figure out one way to do it, and that is by using a lattice and a lattice modifier. By adding the lattice modifier to the scene, then selecting the object to modify > shift and select the lattice > ctrl +p > deform by lattice, this added a lattice modifier to the mesh and used the selected lattice object. By manipulating the object, the mesh is then manipulated while the vertex grid remains uniform.
You can see in this gif how this is done and looks like (https://gph.is/g/Z7G7JAP) The gif was too large to upload it here.
Another thing that could be usefull for anyone, would be proportional editing mode for this too.


How to allow "Bank Transfers"

Question: I am trying to install a new payment processor.  Right now, visitors to my site only have an option to give their credit card, but I also want them to have the option to do a "Bank Account Transfer."  How would I do this?
Answer: Unless William has addressed your "Bank Transfer" question, and you actually mean you want users to pay by entering their bank details, often known as ACH transfer.
You will need a merchant that allows that, an example post on this: https://civicrm.org/blogs/adixon/iats-next-generation-payment-processor-acheft
The link William provided indicate IATS and Vanco offer ACH,
Comment: If you are (or have) a developer or some funds, you may also be able to help extend the Stripe processor to accept ACH: https://github.com/drastik/com.drastikbydesign.stripe/issues/124
Answer: You can find information about setting up payment processors in the documentation: Payment Processors.
However, a 'bank account transfer' sounds like it would have to be a 'pay later' option. I presume that the user won't be able to do this as part of the transaction on your site but would have to separately go to their bank and make a transfer to your bank? If so, I would suggest that you enable the 'pay later' option and provide your bank details so that people can make the transfer into your account.

How to allow "Bank Transfers"


AWS IoT on Win 10 IoT

Question: I'm playing around with Win 10 IoT Core on my RPi 3 trying to connect to AWS IoT. To connect to AWS IoT as a device, you're supposed to use X.509 certificates but I can't find X.509 certificate support anywhere. I'm using M2Mqtt and I'm just not seeing anything for X.509 on a search in the Object Browser. Do I have to switch back to Raspbian if I want to do this or am I missing something?
Answer: I was looking into this as well, I also noticed there is no AWS SDK for C# for AWS IoT.
I think until there is .NET SDK, it is probably better to run on Raspbian.
Answer: Please follow this instruction, Then you will get certificates,

You can create one yourself (using the right tools, such as keytool),
You can ask a Certification Authority to issue you one (either directly or using a tool such as keytool to generate the request).

AWS IoT on Win 10 IoT


Exporting attribute table from AGOL to CSV with domain descriptions instead of coded values

Question: Does anyone know how to export an atributte table in ArcGIS Online to CSV format keeping the description of the domains instead of the codes? Is there any option or configuration where I should look at?
Answer: For ArcMap:
How To: Export a table to include domain descriptions and coded values
Geoprocessing menu > Environments > Fields drop-down > select "Transfer field domain descriptions"
See also the answer to similar question here:
Table attribute export to Excel with value issue
For Pro, this process is almost identical:
Analysis ribbon > Geoprocessing group > Environments > scroll down to Fields > select "Transfer field domain descriptions"
I tested this in Pro using CSV as my output format
More details can be found here:
Transfer field domain descriptions (Environment setting)
Cautionary tale: I found that several features had values that looked good "on paper" but apparently had been typed in or edited, as opposed to having been selected during editing from the possible values in the domain table provided in the pull-down list; for each of these features the field domain description in the export table was an empty string!  I had to go back and fix each of these in the attribute table to obtain a correct export file.


Non-keplerian orbit features of orbits in uniform mass distribution

Question: For the first Kepler's law the orbit of a planet is an ellipse, with the Sun in one of the foci, but I've read that in the case of an homogeneous sphere distribution, orbits can be elliptic, but the azimutal period is twice the radial period, meaning that the gravity source is at the center of the ellipse and pericenter and apocenter distances match the semiminor and semimajor axes respectively. How can the latter be found?
Comment: Link added to the question.
Answer: This sounds like a homework problem so I'll give you most of it but you'll have to work out the details yourself.
Newton's shell theorem tells us that for any spherical mass distribution, the potential at a distance $r_0$ from the center is the same as if all the mass within the shell of radius $r_0$ were at $r=0$, and all the mass outside of the shell didn't exist at all (it cancels):
$$m(r_0) = \int_0^{r_0}4 \pi r^2\rho(r)dr$$
and if we let $\rho(r)$ to be constant (the sphere is of uniform density):
$$m(r_0) =  4 \pi \rho \int_0^{r_0}r^2 dr = \frac{4}{3} \pi \rho r_0^3$$
The gravitational potential for a point mass is
$$V(r) = \frac{Gm}{r}$$
Put them together and you have
$$V(r) = \frac{4 \pi G \rho r^3}{3r} = \frac{4}{3} \pi \rho G r^2$$
and a parabolic $~r^2$ potential is called a harmonic oscillator potential. Motion in this potential (one or many dimensions) is simple harmonic motion. That's because the potential is proportional to $r^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2$ and the restoring force is proportional to $\nabla r^2 / 2 = x \mathbf{\hat{x}} + y \mathbf{\hat{y}} + z \mathbf{\hat{z}}$. Oscillations have the same restoring force in all directions, so the periods $\omega_x, \omega_y, \omega_z$ will be the same.
Yes, these will be ellipses and since $r = \sqrt{x^2 + y^2 + z^2}$ the value of $r$ will reach a maximum twice during each orbit.
If for example $\mathbf{r}(t) = \cos(\omega t)\mathbf{\hat{x}} + \frac{1}{2}\sin(\omega t)\mathbf{\hat{z}}$ then you will see that $r(t)$ has two maxima and two minima per cycle.

<code>import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

wt = np.linspace(0, 2*np.pi, 1001)

x, z = np.cos(wt), 0.5*np.sin(wt)
r = np.sqrt(x**2 + z**2)

plt.figure()
plt.plot(wt, x)
plt.plot(wt, z)
plt.plot(wt, r)
plt.show()
</code>
Comment: Thank you. From your answer I understand that I can say that, since $U \propto r^2$ and motion is a simple harmonic motion, if I have, for example, an elliptic trajectory in two dimensions, I'll have oscillations along $x$ and $y$ around a common center (the center of the ellipse, and center of gravity) and that's why, if I have an ellipse of semimajor axis $a$ and semiminor axis $b$, pericenter and apocenter distances matches $a$ and $b$.
Comment: While in the case of keplerian potential, which provide a force that goes as $1/r^2$, Kepler's first law says that the center of gravity is in one of the ellipse foci, so the smaller and longer distance from center of gravity are both on the same axis.
Comment: @Martein yes you can say that I think. For consistency only you should say Keplerian orbits come from $1/r$ *potentials* (rather than saying $1/r^2$ forces).


Is it illegal to remove rocks from a riverbed in the UK

Question: I would like to take just a few rocks from a local river bed to use in my aquarium.  Is this legal?
Comment: In the US it is illegal. If the riverbed is in a protected park then the rocks are protected like plants. If the riverbed is on private property it is legal with the property owners permission.
Comment: Voted to close as off topic - I'm not convinced decorating your aquarium should be on topic for TGO :-)
Comment: @Graham Perhaps the purpose isn't greatly on topic, but I'd say the act (of removing them) probably does come as on topic.
Answer: I could find no authoritative source, but I would imagine taking a "few rocks" wouldn't cause a problem - unless you're taking it from a protected area or area of scientific interest of course.
My reasoning is that I would imagine the situation is similar for UK beaches - technically taking stones, sand etc. is illegal but if your 5 year old son decides there's a couple of stones he likes and wants to take home, no-one is going to care one bit. Rock up with a couple of land rovers / trailers and fill them up with shingle, the situation will be very different!
Answer: IANAL, but...
The riverbed is owned by the landowner (although the water isn't), so removing rocks (or any other item) from the riverbed is the same as removing them from anywhere else on the land.
In other words, it's probably theft, so NOT legal. If you're concerned about it, ask the landowner's permission.
Also note that the CROW act is pretty restrictive about what you can do in rivers and lakes even when they're on access land. No boating or bathing... : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_Access_Campaign


Can the timbre of a marimba be changed?

Question: I was wondering can the timbre of a marimba be changed? Maybe by changing the length of the resonators? Thanks for all of your help.
Comment: Not sure if this is what you're asking but it's fairly common in jazz for marimba/vibraphone players to mute using their hand. In most cases the timbre is changed through use of different mallets. Hard for a bright tone, soft for a more warm tone, and everything within that spectrum
Answer: Yes, anything that changes the fundamental resonance / auto-feedback (auto like automatic door and auto like in autobiography) shall change the timbre.  Timbre is basically a phenomena of which harmonics are engaged and at what strength.
When you hit an A you are actually hitting (predominantly) the A at 438Hz or 432Hz or 440Hz whatever your tuning may be, but you are also gently invoking 876Hz/864Hz/880Hz (an A one octave up) as well as notes in between and beyond.  Which means that anything that affects the harmonic engagement of the instrument shall change the sound quality/flavor/taste/color.
Most obvious: you can replace the actual marimba blocks with a different material.  Increasing the length of the resonators will actually change the pitch but not the timbre, a shorter cylinder makes a higher tone wave, a longer one makes a bassier tone.
Changing the shapes of the top-laying blocks (forgive my ignorance of the marimba terminology.. google says they are called Tone bars) shall change the timbre but unless the shape is fairly "pure" (rectangle or cylinder) you will experience resonance loss and the sound will be different but not as full or as robust as possible.
Anyway, your focus for changing the timbre can be: modify the tone bars in interesting ways, or modify the resonators (like with sticky tack or something that can stick inside the pipe).
If you want more insight into how harmonics make the timbre (how the auto-feedback of any instrument gives its sound its distinct flavor) I highly recommend you get a spectrogram program and run a marimba wav file or mp3 through it and watch the different harmonizing frequencies light up.
Glad to hear you are thinking creatively!
Comment: Thanks, I also heard that changing the diameter and the material of the mallet (what is used to hti the marimba with) changes the timbre
Comment: @frf that is very true.  The marimba tone bars are not enough by themselves to make a nice sound, the mallets+tone bars are the "instrument" so changing the resonant properties of the mallet will also affect the tone, which is really cool!  Thanks for pointing that out.

Can the timbre of a marimba be changed?


Is there a statically-typed language that works on both the JVM and CLR?

Question: I am writing code that I want to eventually execute on the PC, Xbox, and Android platforms, and if possible also Mac and Linux. Instead of rewriting it for each platform, I'd like to write it once in a language that will work on all of those platforms. I've considered Fantom, but apparently it doesn't work on Android, and it has limited support for static typing and generics, and I've heard that Scala is going to work on the CLR, but it currently doesn't support CLR generics, which prevents it from being used with XNA. I don't want to use a dynamically typed language because dynamic typing runs slower (particularly important on smartphones) and is harder to debug.
Answer: Why do you need to target JVM? If this need is solely to handle Android then probably take a look at MonoTouch which is a .NET stack for popular mobile platforms being developed by Xamarin (those folks who were behind Mono when it was developed back then at Novell).  Mono itself is a way to target Mac and other POSIX platforms using X Window System for graphical interaction (what you called "Linux").
You should be aware though that you still might need to re-write GUI parts for various platforms anyway: first, the approach to interfaces used on touchscreen devices differs rather strongly from that on "desktop" devices, and secnd, while MonoTouch will probably provide for unified UI on the platforms it targets (Android, iOS, WinPhone) desktop Windows, Mac and X-based platforms have their own preferred GUI stacks available through .NET or Mono—WPF or Winforms on Windows, MonoMac on Mac OS X (using Cocoa) and Gtk# on POSIX platforms using X.  Mono seems to provide unified GUI stack for all these desktop platforms since it does support Winforms but the overall look-and-feel might be suboptimal on platforms other than Windows so you'll have to look.
But at least the core program logic will not need be ported to each platform.
P.S.
Also note that most modern JVM-based software stacks I managed to look at on various occasions supported CLR via IKVM which kind of "wraps" CLR pretending it's JVM in the eyes of Java code.
Answer: Yes, Scala, while typically used on the JVM. also has some CLR support. Clojure isn't statically-typed, but I believe it also does (or did) support both the JVM and CLR.


Is there a hack to bring out your "true" voice?

Question: I've just approved my typeset manuscript and re-reading the book, I'm aware that it sounds very far away from my internal voice. Whilst it has all of the elements in practice, the colour and fluency feel strained. Is there a practice or hack that anyone uses to help bring the final product closer to the original dream?
Comment: Step one is to make sure your analysis is correct, and not simply your inner critic automatically assuming what you wrote is bad. Get a friend (preferably a brutally honest one) to read the manuscript, and see if they agree with your assessment. If they do, then come back to the question. If not, then you have nothing to worry about.
Comment: This would be a hard one for a friend to critique as he is asking about his own internal voice.  While internal voice may translate to the way we vocalize words, for me, my internal voice is significantly different from my spoken voice. This would make it hard for a friend to be able to judge internal voice without reading other samples where his internal voice is strong.  I am not sure what you mean by true voice though.  Are you wanting the book to sound like your thoughts? Or are you looking for the voice to mimic the personality of the MC/Narrator?
Comment: Maybe, but writing those words will change you. Your true voice, who you really are in your essence is a moving target. It's not a matter of lowering expectations. It's more of a change in perspective/paradigm. In order to verify your true voice, you need to know who you are. This is quite non-trivial. Ramakrishna had his students repeatedly ask themselves, who am I? I can assure you that it has very little to do with the first few answers most people come up with. Watch yourself thinking. Who is thinking, and who is watching you think?
Comment: If you read portions of it to your self out loud, does it sound like you? You can record it and listen to the playback. This is not a technical issue. It's an affective/introspective one. Who are you? What is your true intent? Are you being honest with yourself and your readers? These are things to journal about and meditate upon. I don't believe anyone can answer these questions but you. If you want better answers, I would suggest finding a spiritual (not necessarily religious) discipline that feels right for you and sticking with it for at least a year or two. This will build self awareness.
Comment: I've tried to read it out loud and it certainly doesn't sound like me. Perhaps Thomas is right - I need to manage my expectations. It seems like settling though. My instinct says that maybe another million words and I'll be closer to the voice I'd like to write.
Answer: It should sound very far away from your internal voice. Your internal voice is the voice you use to talk to yourself and it has all kinds of advantages that your public voice cannot share, since you know yourself better, and have a complete stock of shared experiences with yourself, that no member of the public can ever share with you.
The art of learning to write is not the development of your internal voice, but the development of your public voice. Our first poor stumbling efforts to express ourselves are simply our internal voice coming out. Listen to a three year old talk, and you will realize that they lack any sense that the experience of the person they are talking to is any different from their own. One of the greatest breakthrough in the development of our language ability is when we recognize that grandpa was not there when I saw the ducks at the park and so I have to tell him about it so he will know what it was like.
Your development as a writer is a matter of refining your public voice, the voice in which you can communicate effectively to people who were not there, who did not see what you saw, did not feel what you felt. This must necessarily be very far from your internal voice, the voice in which you remind yourself what it was like and what you felt and what you imagined.
When we say that a writer has found their voice, therefore, we do not mean (or at any rate should not mean, if we understand the process) that they have found their inner voice, but that they have found their public voice, the voice in which the public can hear them loud and clear.
I don't know if you have made the full journey from private voice to public voice yet, but you should understand that the development of an effective public voice is essential to your success as a writer. The last thing you should do is to try to return to you inner voice. Rather, strive to perfect an effective public voice.
Comment: This a wonderful answer, one I haven't heard before but makes sense.
Comment: Exactly. This highlights the difference between storytelling and just writing. Writing itself is quite mechanical and pretty much anyone can do it. Entertaining and captivating an audience is a totally different matter.
Answer: Before jumping to a conclusion about your work, certain things which are not mentioned here need to be considered. Sometimes the writing process can take you out of or beyond what you think of as your "self", and that might not be a bad thing. Give it time to settle and read it again. Such things like the use of a persona, or point of view may affect this.
Having said that, it may well be that you have a sense of the style and effect you want and found the manuscript didn't live up to that. In that case, I would recommend re-reading the parts you liked least (surely some came off better to you than others) and seeing if you can revise them or even excise them. Also look at the work overall and see what it is that bothers you. This is something only you can really assess.
Finally, show it to someone else and see what they think of it. Hopefully that someone will be willing to tell you if something about it strikes them as not quite right or weak in any way. An objective reader (meaning, not you) will notice things you didn't and I've found that extremely valuable.
From my experience (which may not be universal), finding a "voice" requires much writing, maybe over years. I do not think finding the "you" of the soul or life-force is the same as finding your writing voice. The latter can only be done by writing, although finding that voice could possibly help the former. Only by observing your work over time can you get that sense. However, writing something you like is different. I've loved things I wrote before I actually discovered my writing "voice." Or at least something recognizable about it. But it's always a work in progress.
Remember, you might be doing better than you think you are. Or be a good self-critic. Asking the question itself I view as a good sign.
Answer: I have often written in a voice that is not my authentic voice. At work and in academia there's a place for that.  A manuscript you are not comfortable with is a sure sign that something is amiss.  If you think it's your voice, you can try rewriting a bit with the filter turned off, the way you would in journal or something else intended for no one's eyes but your own.  You can then compare the two and see which direction you want to take or if there's a hybrid approach that will work for you.
Answer: Personally, I tend to write much of my prose in theater form first. In that way, I can put the characters on paper exactly as I hear them in my head. Then I add the prose structure and start editing. In the end it will be quite a different product, but it is the closest way I've found to transcribe my inner voice to paper.


Can someone explain the Option Chain of AMD for me?

Question: http://www.google.com/finance/option_chain?q=NYSE:AMD
Specifically, the $10 strike. What does the $1.99 put mean?
Answer: When you buy a put option, you're buying the right to sell stock at the "strike" price. To understand why you have to pay separately for that, consider the other side of the transaction. If I agree to trade stock for money at above market rates, I need to make up the difference somewhere or face bankruptcy.
That risk of loss is what the option price is about. You might assume that means the market expects the price of AMD to fall to 8.01 from it's current price of 8.06 by the option expiration date. But that would also mean call options below the market price is worthless. But that's not quite true; people who price options need to factor in volatility, since things change with time. The price MIGHT fall, and traders need to account for that risk. So 1.99 roughly represents the probability of AMD rising to 10. There's probably some technical analysis one can do to the chain, but I don't see any abnormality of AMD here.
Answer: The buyer pays $1.99/share for the option of selling a share of AMD to the seller for $10 which is currently $1.94 higher than the price of $8.06/share.  If you bought the put and immediately exercised it, you would come out of the deal losing $.05/share.
Answer: The current price is $8.05. If you want the right to sell it to someone (put it to the buyer) for $10, you have to pay $2. Since you're looking at an expiration that's so close, the "in the money" value is nearly the same as what it trades for. The JAN 2013 sells for nearly $3.


Is it OK for a servlet to forward to the same JSP that submitted the request?

Question: This is a general question about best practices. I have a JSP with a search form on it. The form submits to a servlet, which queries the database and returns search results. I would like to display the results below the form, and have the form still populated with the original search terms. I know I could do this with an Ajax call, but I want to know if it is a good idea for the servlet to forward the results to the same JSP that made the request, so the JSP can display the form, and then display the results below it. Is there a better design? Thank you for your help.
Answer: There is nothing wrong with this design. You just have to remember that JSP is used in two scenarios: on first run, when you shouldn't display anything extra and on search result, when extra list should be rendered.
If you want slightly cleaner approach, extract your common layout and form into a separate
JSP file, that will never be accessed directly. Then have two JSPs including the extracted one. First doing only this and second - also rendering search result below included JSP.
Answer: Better design in terms of what?
There's nothing disallowing a forward to the same JSP a request was made from.
It means that there will be JSP logic to show results or not, that's all–a single conditional at worst.
It's not necessary for you to show the same JSP, and there might be compelling reasons not to, but they'd be more UX/organizational issues than technical.


How can I send file to phone with bluetooth using 32feet and OBEX?

Question: I tried to send file to my mobile phone via bluetooth. I used dll form 32feet.com (that was InTheHand). I able to scan available bluetooth devices that can communicate but I can't send file to that device. I tried to connect with DeviceName but that occur following error "Bad request". And I also tried with device address but that also occur another error "InternalServerError". How can I fix it. I used ObexWebRequest and ObexWebResponse to request and get response. Thank.
Answer: What version of 32feet.NET are you using? I'm the maintainer of the library and we stopped using BadRequest and InternalServerError a long time ago (2008).  If you use a newer version you'll get an exception which includes information about why the operation failed.
Also you need to use the DeviceAddress -- device name lookup isn't done. In the newer version you can use a ObexWebRequest constructor that takes a device address rather than a URL.
Answer: This also seems to depend on the phone being used. I followed this guy's example code.
It worked perfectly with a Nokia 5230 but when I tried it with a Sony Xperia U, I got the "Bad Request" response code.


Is there BSD jail or Linux container functionality in Windows?

Question: I'd like to be able to work with a poorly-behaving application without using a VM (becuse it requires a whole extra license). Does Windows have something like BSD's jails or Linux's containers?
Comment: http://serverfault.com/questions/161507/is-there-a-windows-equivalent-to-chroot
Answer: I think you are looking for something called a "virtual sandbox" program like Sandboxie or Avast Pro version and Internet Security version come with a sandboxing feature.
Answer: You might want to try WinJail:

WinJail is full implementation of chroot, with additional features
  like "copy-on-write" mechanism applied to chroot'ed files, additional
  registry based chroot, and more.
Answer: I think "Remote Desktop Services" (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/ee236407 ) is what you are looking for but I think it exceeds your budget :)
Comment: Remote Desktop sessions are not sandboxed in any significant way.  There is support for mixing RD with virtualization, but the OP specifically doesn't want to virtualize.
Comment: well, "behaves poorly" is a lose requirement as well. a pseudo-virtualized container might as well require a "whole extra license" (for windows? for the software? for the software coz it runs on a terminal server?) because you might run multiple instances in parallel etc etc.
Answer: Another possibility is turbo.net. It allows to run applications in their own sandbox, preventing it from containing you're system with files, registry entries etc.
If you need if for a your application, you probably want to start with a 'clean' machine. Like

turbo run --mount=C:\FolderWithUntrustyApp clean C:\FolderWithUntrustyApp\untrusty.exe

You also run the installer in it.

turbo run --mount=C:\FolderWithUntrustyApp clean C:\FolderWithUntrustyApp\installer-untrusty.exe

Note: It's not designed to contain things like viruses and advanced malware, which exploit kernel bugs or


Why does Rachmaninoff Symphony 2 mvmt. 3 sound so similar to Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet love theme?

Question: I get that they were both meant to convey love, but to me it sounds too similar to be a coincidence that Rach and Tchaik both hear love as the same (especially that rising line in the violins). Why is this the sound of love? Did Rachmaninoff have Tchaikovsky in mind when he wrote his second symphony? Any analysis of the music would be lovely.
Comment: They all had each other in mind. Not just the Russians, all composers had all composers. Some echo other composers work more than others.
Answer: Tchaikovsky's influence was deeply intertwined with Rachmaninoff's life. They were contemporaries in Moscow; Tchaikovsky was already a renowned composer at the time (Romeo and Juliet was written 2 years before Rachmaninoff's birth), and attended one of Rachmaninoff's performances at the Moscow Conservatory when he was 19. It seems inevitable that he would reference Tchaikovsky, perhaps even in specific quote or tribute.
With regard to the specific pieces, I would recommend doing some research on your own. Find spots between the two that sound similar, and try to pinpoint the similarities. Are they melodic? See if you can sound out the melodies that both pieces share. Is it a question of dynamics, instrumentation? Challenge yourself to describe how Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff express love, or another emotion, and you'll find it easier to compare/contrast with the ways other composers do it, even in contemporary music.


IMCE stops uploading image in the middle of uploading

Question: I have a very strange case. I am using IMCE 6.x-2.2. and when my editors try to upload a new image, it stops uploading in the middle of the process and gives message: "A file with the specified name already exists.".
now when i check on the server, i found that it has uploaded part of the image only (image cropped).
this happens always on google chrome and sometimes on Firefox!!
any idea is highly appreciated
Answer: I cannot find the string "A file with the specified name already exists" anywhere in the source of IMCE 6.x-2.2.
Looks like the same issue was noted here on Drupal.org and was not part of IMCE
I would recommend updating to the newest version of IMCE in the 6 series to see if this fixes the issue. (Currently 6.x-2.3)


Generally can I fit 650b wheels on a modern CX frame?

Question: I know this depends a lot on the model and the shape of the stays and fork, but on the average CX disc frame would it be possible to use 650b wheels with thicker tires, for a more comfortable offroad (gravel) experience?
Comment: @KeithWM the trick is that 650b plus a wider tire gives roughly the same outer diameter as 700c with a narrower tire. The geometry is maintained and you get a more comfortable ride. You just need the clearance, and brakes to work. You also need a wide 650b tire. A 47mm 650b tire will be the same outer diameter as a 700x28c combo.
Comment: @KeithWM - This used to be a common conversion 60 years ago.  It is gaining popularity again as disc brakes  and more frame clearance again make this an easy conversion and there are again wheel and tire options available in this size.  It will be (or already is) the next "bit thing" for gravel/adventure riding over the coming years. (And yest a few brave souls have been doing this long before it became mainstream again).
Comment: It's generally best to use the size of wheel the bike was designed for and add thicker tyres to those. Play with tyre pressures to find a comfortable ride.
Comment: CX usually have a lot of top clearance for mud. You are only going to pick up like 1 - 2 mm of side clearance.  You are going to lose ground clearance and change the geometry.   Not something I recommend.
Answer: Wheel size swaps in bicycles are generally not possible, but this particular  rim and tire size swap is possible with disc brake equipped bikes, if you have the lateral tire clearance.
700c rims are 622mm in diameter at the bead seat. 650b rims are 584mm. The difference in radius - what has to be made up by a bigger tire - is 19mm. Assuming tire width is approximately tire height, going from a 28mm tire to a 42mm tire makes up most of that difference (42mm-28mm=14mm).
As an aside, changing rim diameter without a change in tire size is not recommended. Frames are designed around a certain wheel size and fitting a smaller rim size wheel negatively effects steering geometry and crank-ground clearance.
See this Sheldon Brown article.
Comment: As long as the outer diameter is comparable (e.g., 650bx47mm will have the same outer diameter as 700cx28mm) your geometry is maintained. The rotational inertia will also be similar, further normalizing the handling. A wide tire on 700c (e.g., 700x42) will actually slow down the handling considerably compared to a narrower tire (pneumatic trail and rotational inertia). The reason these types of conversions are rare is braking and wheel availability.  Disc brakes solve this issue and 650b wheels are again becoming plentiful.  Be prepared for 650x47 to be the next "thing" in the mags for gravel.


Unable to create Master-Detail relationship where AccountContactRelation is the master

Question: Im creating a master-detail field on a custom object I just created and I was wondering why this standard object (AccountContactRelation) does not appear when I want to select it as the Master...
Thx and sorry for my english in advance
Answer: AccountContactRelation standard object cannot be in Master-Detail relation. Same goes for any other junction object in Salesforce.

A junction object can't be on the master side of another master-detail relationship.

More to read about relations in SF: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=sf.relationships_considerations.htm&type=5
Comment: Thanks a lot for your fast response and sorry if it was too obvious but I couldnt find any reason on the documentation :D
Comment: @Gatosaurio Have added the link to documentation and cited text from it, you can search for it on docs page and read more about it :)
Comment: Thanks again for being so helpful!! :)


How do I convert an annual inflation rate into a monthly rate? - More data version

Question: I know there was already some similar question, so far I didn't find satisfying answer.
I try to calculate EU zone month-to-month inflation based on figures from EuroStat.
They provide monthly inflation year-on-year. I'll try to get calculation on my own, but I'm no math genius.
Comment: What exactly do you mean with approximation? I think looking month over month is well defined by what I suggested.
Comment: What's wrong with just using the change on current month from precious month if you want month over month?
Comment: I didn't consider this solution, but now I see another question. How good is this approximation?
Comment: Do you want to know the inflation that occured in the last month, or the last 12 months of inflation, stated as a monthly rate.?
Answer: To convert from yearly inflation to monthly inflation, take the twelvth root of the yearly number (expressed as a multiplier).
Example: Yearly inflation of 5% means the multiplier is 1.05. Twelvth root of that is about 1.004, so equivalent monthly inflation is about 0.4%. Of course in reality some months may be higher and others lower, but that's what it would be if they were all the same.
(This is sorta obvious if you think about the fact that 12 months of the monthly inflation has to multiply out to the yearly inflation. So monthly multiply to 12th power would be yearly. The above just runs the equation the other way.)
Note that the same approach works for converting between monthly and yearly interest. And can be extended; if you want daily, replace 12 with 365 (modulo leap years, but that's probably close enough).
Answer: For each month:

Add 1 to each annualized inflation rate,
Take the 12th root (in Excel, where the 2023-01 annualized inflation rate is 10%: A1 -> 10%, B1 =1+A1, C1 = POWER(B1, 1/12)).  One row for each month.  B2 would be 9.9%.

Then multiply all of the monthly rates.  In Excel: =PRODUCT(C1:C1x), where "x" is the number of months.


When will the Kalki avatar be born?

Question: Kalki avataar is the avatar of lord Vishnu. It is said that Kalki Avatar will born in Kaliyug.
Is there any specific date or time which describes Kalki's birth?
Comment: According to the scriptures kalki is the final avatar of Lord Vishnu of this Chatur youga cycle and he will appear at the end of this Kaliyuga whhich is about 432,000 years away. By that time Dharma on earth will have declined upto like 99% and there will be evil ness most of everywhere on earth.
Comment: [Related] [What is the story of Kalki (tenth avatar of God Vishnu)?](http://hinduism.stackexchange.com/q/579/93)
Comment: Lord Vishnu's tenth avatar Kalki will be born during 21st century when the whole world will spread with crimes. During that time,the world war-3 will also happen. His guru will be the great sage Parashurama who is still meditating in this Kali Yuga. One day he will destroy all crimes of the world and he will also kill the evil people like terrorists,kidnappers etc. He will have a sword in his hand and he will sit on a powerful horse. He will have such powers that can kill every humans,animals,birds etc.
Answer: Wikipedia quotes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalki
South Indian astrologers have analyzed Puranas extensively to try and foretell the time of birth of Kalki. The signs described in the Kalki Purana are as follows:
The moon will be in Dhanishtha nakshatra, Aquarius, suggesting he will be wealthy, acclaimed and swift in action and thought.
The sun will be in Swati, the nakshatra of the sword.
Jupiter will be in Purva Ashadha nakshatra, Sagittarius.
The Ascendant Lord will be in Purva Ashadha nakshatra, also Sagittarius, suggesting invincibility and early victory.
Saturn will be exalted in Libra, predicting a balance between justice and the sword.
Ketu, lord of horse-headed Ashwini, will be exalted in Scorpio, suggesting he will descend atop a great white steed.
His arrival is stipulated at a time when the earth is engulfed in crisis because of a tyrannical and powerful ruler. Kalki Bhagwan is said to be mounted on a strikingly beautiful White Horse, and is most often picturised in the foreground of a dark sky. This symbolises his coming at a time when darkness (evil) is the order of the day, and he is the saviour to rid the world of its sufferings. This is similar to the Parashuram avatar, where Lord Vishnu killed the atrocious Kshatriya rulers.
The Kalki Avatar is the most eagerly awaited one, more so because it will signify the cleansing of the world from all its sorrows that have been accumulated for many millennia. He is to arrive at the end of Kalyug, the dark age, and will mark the beginning of the Sat Yug. According to calculations, there are still many years left for that to happen (The Kalyug extends for a period of 432000 years, and it has just started - 5000 years ago). When we have such advanced military technology today, it will be interesting to see (though we may not, unless we do not manage to attain salvation by then, and are still caught in the rebirth cycle) what kind of weapons Kalki Avatar utilises.
It is also said that Kalki avtar will come, when all the three rivers Saraswati, Yamuna and Ganga return to heavens ( dried).
The earliest reference to the Kalki Avatar is found in the India's great epic, the Mahabharat. Rishi Markandeya tells Yudhishtir, the seniormost Pandava, that Kalki will be born to Brahmin parents. He would excel in academics, sports and warfare, and thus become a very intelligent and powerful young man.
Kalki Puranam tells that he will stay for some time in Simhala Dwipa (Sri Lanka) and then return to India. Very minute details about his wife and children are mentioned. There are portions which have a literal connotation and there are also portions which have a symbolic connotation. The symbolic method was given by God so that the false ones who claim themselves as God will get caught when they try to fit themselves into his role. This method was reserved for another purpose also. It was done to prevent the Vedas from being destroyed by the atheists. Kalki Puranam also tells about all the deeds that Kalki Maha Avatar will accomplish. They tell us how he will confront 'Kali Purushan' directly and annihilate him. They also tell how he will ascend to heaven after his divine purpose is accomplished.
It also mentions that he will be born in Sambala Gramam. So Sambala Gramam must be near Tamirabarani according to these texts and not in North India as is popularly believed.
Bhagawatham, Canto II, Chapter 5: Text 39-40 as follows: "Very few people are found to follow and worship Narayana in Kali-Yuga. Simple and insignificant people are found worshipping Lord Narayana in "DRAVIDA-DESHAM" (TAMIL NADU) in a place where River TAMIRAPARNEE will be flowing (TIRUNELVELI)".
This is a very clear cut prophecy. So it can be understood that the final KALKI MAHA AVATAR will have his abode on the outskirts of River Tamiraparnee, which is in Tamil Nadu.
The astronomical positions of the stars and planets now is not the same as it was in the antediluvian world when the Pole Star was right on top of Mount Meru. Kanchi Peedam asserts this most categorically. As the world is now tilted at an angle of twenty three and half degrees the configuration of the stars and planets at the time of birth of Kalki Maha Avatar will not be the same as stated in the texts when a different configuration was applicable.
Source.
Comment: That is quite nicely explained. Is the name name Kali-yug synonymous with kalki itself? do they have any relation?
Comment: Kaliyug is started after the death of Lord Krishna, on other hand , kalyug started.
Comment: "The Kalyug extends for a period of 432000 years, and it has just started - 5000 years ago" This was introduced by AryaBhatta, and he artificially inflated the numbers by multiplying by a factor of 360. The KalaChakra calculations (supported by Tantrik Masters, and Master Astrologers) which come from Jyotiṣa/Astronomy/"Astrology" clearly indicate that the complete Yuga cycle is 25,860 years long, which is the time it takes for the Vernal Equinox to move from Ashwini to Revati to Uttara Bhadrapada to ...... back to Ashwini.
Answer: Kalki is supposed to be born in the Kritayuga (Satyuga) which would be commenced after a Kaliyuga. At the end of Kaliyuga most of the humanity will be destroyed and will start afresh. Here is that story from Vana Parva, during which Rishi Markendeya explains it to Yudhishtira.

... And when those terrible times will be over, the creation will begin anew. And men will again be created and distributed into the four orders beginning with Brahmanas. And about that time, in order that men may increase, Providence, according to its pleasure, will once more become propitious. And then when the Sun, the Moon, and Vrihaspati will, with the constellation Pushya 1, enter the same sign, the Krita age will begin again. And the clouds will commence to shower seasonably, and the stars and stellar conjunctions will become auspicious. And the planets, duly revolving in their orbits, will become exceedingly propitious. And all around, there will be prosperity and abundance and health and peace. And commissioned by Time, a Brahmana of the name of Kalki will take his birth. And he will glorify Vishnu and possess great energy, great intelligence, and great prowess. And he will take his birth in a town of the name of Sambhala in an auspicious Brahmana family. And vehicles and weapons, and warriors and arms, and coats of mail will be at his disposal as soon as he will think of them. And he will be the king of kings, and ever victorious with the strength of virtue. And he will restore order and peace in this world crowded with creatures and contradictory in its course. And that blazing Brahmana of mighty intellect, having appeared, will destroy all things. And he will be the Destroyer of all, and will inaugurate a new Yuga. And surrounded by the Brahmanas, that Brahmana will exterminate all the mlecchas wherever those low and despicable persons may take refuge."

Also refer:

When will the Kalyug end? Are there symbols written in scripture
What are the four legs of Dharma?
Comment: @Tezz Kalki will be born during Sandhyamsa period of Kali and Satya.
Comment: Oh nice finding... I always supposed Kalki will be born in Kaliyuga...
Comment: It does not say a Krita Yuga followed by a Kali Yuga.  It's just referring to the fact that Kalki's birth marks the end of the Kali Yuga and the beginning of the Satya Yuga.
Comment: The chapter does not say that all the evil people will die before the birth of Kalki.  But the main problem with your answer is that you say "the Kritayuga (Satyuga) which is followed by a Kaliyug".  That makes it sound as if the Kali Yuga comes after the Satya Yuga.  Did you mean to say "which follows" rather than "which is followed by"?
Comment: @gansub, that's the purpose of the answer. There are many contradictory theory around Kalki and hence it should be taken with grain of salt. BTW, another way of interpreting is that, Kalki will born after *kaliyuga* and restore the order; this times will incidentally be the next *satyuga*. :-)
Answer: Kalki; the last incernation of Lord Vishnu will come when kaliyug will running at it's end the situations will be completely changed. People will stop to follow Vedas and everyone will engage in crime

Srimand bhagwatam 12:2:12-16

When the bodies of all living entities are in decay from the contamination of Kali-yuga, when the dutifulness of the members of all status-orientations is lost, when the Vedic path for all man has changed into a predominantly atheistic sense of duty, when the kings mainly consist of thieves and the people in their various occupations are lying criminals of useless violence [against specially animals], when the societal classes as good as all are engaged in profit-minded labor, cows have the same value as goats, the hermitages hardly can be distinguished from materialistic households, family bonds do not reach beyond the ties of marriage, when the plants and herbs are mostly small sized and all trees are like s'amî trees, when there is always lightning in the clouds and the homes are ruled by loneliness [voidism, impersonalism, see Pranâti], when Kali-yuga is running at its end and the people behave like asses, the Supreme Lord will descend in the mode of pure goodness to defend the dharma.

Kalki avatar will bring the end of evil people and period Kaliyug

Srimad Bhagwatam 12:2:17

The spiritual master of all the moving and nonmoving living beings, Lord Vishnu, the Supreme Personality and Controller of All, takes birth for the protection of the religion and to put an end to the karma of the saintly souls.

As per the shastras, kaliyug was started in 3102 BC. Kaliyug is 4,32,000 years long. 5121 years are passed.
**4,32,000-5121=426879 years
After 426879 years, kalki avatar will come.
Comment: Is it something common in India to leave out the zero? 4.320.000 is the number regularly used.
Comment: @Wikash what do you want to say.
Comment: Well did you mean 4.320.000 years? Did you accidentally leave out the zero?
Comment: In Indian no. System, we write it like this.

When will the Kalki avatar be born?


Can someone explain the use of foor->bar when calling a function?

Question: Is it different from foo.bar calling a function from a specific instance? I've seen it around on tutorials but it's never explained and it's too general a term to show up on google.
Comment: `foo.bar` is invoking a method on an object, while `foo->bar` is de-referencing a pointer to an object, then invoking that method.
Comment: What happened when you tried replacing one with the other?
Answer: Operator operator-> can only be used on a pointer type (in that case foo->bar is equivalent to (*ptr).bar) or a type that overloads operator-> (in that case the semantic depends on the overload itself).
An example with a pointer type might be:
struct some {
    int x;
};

some a{10};
some* a_ptr = &x;

a.x = 10;
a_ptr->x = 10;

An example for an overloaded type could be:
std::unique_ptr<some> a_ptr = std::make_unique<some>(10);
a_ptr->x = 10;

Answer: foo->bar is short for (*foo).bar. (Unless foo is of some class type for which -> does something else).
Answer: foo->bar is used when foo is pointing to a certain data type
foo.bar is used when foo is an object of a class


Why i cant see ''Bake data'' on my blender 2.83?

Question: I am trying to make a fluid simulation but after all the settings done i dont see ''Bake data'' option in my physics panel.
Answer: Scroll to the bottom inside the domain settings to the Cache menu, switch the type to "Modular". In version 2.83, the default cache type was changed to "Replay". This just means that the simulation will take action when you press the play button.


IE 7 CTRL + click opens a new window - how to suppress it?

Question: Is it possible to suppress the default IE 7 functionality when CTRL+click on link opens a new window? if so, how?
Thanks!
Comment: All I'll say is that you need a very good reason for redefining actions that users' expect to work in a certain way.
Comment: It does in IE8; this is also the default behavior in Firefox and Chrome - shift-click opens a new window, ctrl-click opens a new tab.  Probably the same in others too.
Comment: You need to be more detailed in your request.  Your actual problem is much more scoped than this.
Answer: There is no way to suppress a Ctrl + Click on a link with no child elements in Internet Explorer -- the onclick event doesn't fire at all for link clicks if the Ctrl key is held down.  It seems that Microsoft don't want you to change this functionality out of fear that you might confuse the user.
I searched for some sort of official confirmation/explanation before posting this answer, but unfortunately this limitation is not listed in the documentation on MSDN and Google wasn't helpful.  Nevertheless, it remains true, try it yourself:
Hello

You will find that a Ctrl + click on the link will not throw the alert box.  According to pinkgothic, assigning a child element to the link will work around the problem.  For example:
Hello

This works because the click is triggered for the  element first, before propagating to the  element.
Comment: Agreed! Unfortunately I have no means to check that; I just stumbled across your answer while trying to debug a site that was mysteriously not working with `ctrl`+click in IE :) and I managed to get it fixed (our case was a simple `display:none` triggered `onclick`), so I figured I'd share my fix. Your answer was a great help! ^_^
Comment: yeah i figured already....i will go with the out of the box behaviour for the tree control and call it a day
Comment: Interestingly enough, `Hello` with a ctrl+click works fine (at least in IE9). Apparently it 'only' matters where the event bubbles up from. A `` is enough to throw it off.
Comment: @pinkgothic: That sounds promising if it works in older versions of IE too.
Comment: The trick with the `` element suggested by @pinkgothic works great. Thanks for this!
Answer: The jQuery event.preventDefault() method or similar can override default behavior on pages that you have control over.
It is generally bad practice to alter the behaviour of a user's browser without really good reason as the browser and its behaviour is "their's".
Comment: i am planning to do in for nodes in a tree. they are supp. to be clickable but not open links. I am not going to do this for traditional links.
Answer: had the same problem as the op and solved it by giving the anchor href attribute an '#' and an additional data-href attribute with the corresponding link location.
The downside you need a click handler to follow the link, also right clicking "open in new window" wont work with this approach.
eg: In AnchorTag, Use href and data-ref as:

And in javascript, use
$("#logout").click(function(e) {
    if(e.ctrlKey)
e.preventDefault();
window.location = $(e.target).attr("data-href");
});

Answer: wrap your link text inside an span. like this:
click here!

Answer: Add script to the anchor and return false

And it is valid to use anchors in a treeview because it makes the treeview more accessible.
Answer: Using jquery you can handle the ctrl+click functionality for yourself and return false, for example
$("a").click(function(event){
if(event.metaKey || event.ctrlKey){
 //handle over here

return false;
}

});

this works across all browsers including mac


Apache/Passenger reverse proxy to Passenger standalone not working

Question: I want to run rails 3 and rails 2.3.8 apps on the same machine.  I currently have Passenger setup with Ruby 1.9.2 for my rails 3 apps and that is working fine with Apache.  I found the following at the Phusion website and am trying out the reverse proxy :
http://blog.phusion.nl/2010/09/21/phusion-passenger-running-multiple-ruby-versions/
My Apache vhost file for this app looks like:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName gtt
DocumentRoot /home/purvez/www/gtt/public
RailsEnv development
PassengerEnabled off
ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:3000
ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:3000
</VirtualHost>

I can correctly access the app using passenger standalone using:
127.0.0.1:3000/start

but when I try to access it as :
http://gtt/start
I get a message saying:
No route matches [GET] "/start"
The Apache 'other_vhosts_access.log' however shows this entry:
testapp:80 127.0.0.1 - - [20/Oct/2011:15:27:58 +0100] "GET /start HTTP/1.1" 404 737 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1"

As you can see it is trying to call testapp:80 rather than gtt:80.  I have both these in my /etc/hosts file and in fact gtt is BEFORE testapp!
What am I doing wrong here and how to put it right?
Edit
I am mega embarrassed! I had not enabled the site on Ubuntu and hence it was looking at the only available site i.e. testapp.
However having corrected the problem I'm still getting a 500 Error.  The 'other_vhosts_access.log' entry shows:
gtt:80 127.0.0.1 - - [20/Oct/2011:18:07:30 +0100] "GET /start HTTP/1.1" 500 599 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1"

It's almost like the proxy to Passenger standalone is not happening and that Apache is trying to get start itself.  Certainly the passenger.3000.log (i.e. standalone Passenger log) is showing no activity at all!
So having made a monumental blunder and wasted everyone's time initially I'm still in the same boat in that it looks like the Proxy is not happening!!
Anyone got any ideas?
Comment: Do you have a "NameVirtualHost *:80" rule in your Apache config?  This is what tells Apache to use the ServerName instead of the first matching VirtualHost.
Comment: There is a NameVirtualHost *:80 entry in ports.conf as follows: NameVirtualHost *:80
Listen 80  Would that make a difference?
Comment: I believe that is correct.  You may want to retag your post with Apache as well, as it appears that this isn't a Rails specific issue, but rather an issue with how Apache is routing the traffic.
Comment: @Tom good point.  I have the same post on the Phusion Passenger forum but I'll include it on the Apache one too.  Thanks
Comment: Hi nexar, if this question has been solved please mark it as resolved!
Answer: (Posted on behalf of the question author).
Solved! I had enabled the proxy_module but I also needed to enable the proxy_http module. That finally solved the problem. Phew!!


PhoneGap integration

Question: I have a native app in Objective C for the iPhone. Can I integrate Phonegap to my existing native application?
Is there any option to convert my existing iPhone code to phonegap?
Thanks.
Answer: Phonegap requires HTML5, CSS and JavaScript in order for it to compile into a working application package.
It's definitely not backwards compatible with Objective C. You can however create a plugin for added functionality using Objective-c which can be used alongside the HTML, CSS and Javascript.
Comment: Why -1 this ? It's an honest answer.
Answer: There is no way to convert a native application to a PhoneGap application, BUT it is definitely possible to integrate PhoneGap into a native application. I was asking this question about a year ago and found this link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120506173552/https://phonegap.com/2010/04/21/introducing-iphone-cleavage/
This link shows how you can go about integrating PhoneGap into a native application. The code presented here is a bit old and is based on a fairly old verion of PhoneGap (version 0.9.5, I believe), but it will work up until version 1.0.0.RC2. Version 1.1.0 of PhoneGap, made some breaking changes with regard to this code, so it would have to be updated to work with version 1.1.0 and higher. I know this because I have just finished updating my integration of PhoneGap to work with the latest version (1.4.1).
I have also read that the latest version of PhoneGap includes functionality for integrating into a native application by making use of PGViewController. Install the latest version of PhoneGap and then read the document "How to use PhoneGap as a component.pdf". This functionality has now been code named "Cleaver" (somewhat more professional sounding than "Cleavage"! haha)
So, bottom line... yes, you can integrate PhoneGap into an Objective-C application. In fact, I even have PhoneGap integrated into a native application written in MonoTouch and it works great!
Answer: Beginning with Cordova 1.4, you can integrate Cordova as a component in your iOS applications
See: http://docs.phonegap.com/en/1.9.0/guide_cordova-webview_ios.md.html#Embedding%20Cordova%20WebView%20on%20iOS

PhoneGap integration


Multi layer back propagation Neural network for classification

Question: Can someone explain me, how to classify a data like MNIST with MLBP-Neural network if I make more than one output (e.g 8), I mean if I just use one output I can easily classify the data, but if I use more than one, which output should I choose ?
Comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winner-take-all
Comment: Please, add information/reference link on that *MNIST data*, so as to make your post self-contained. Thanks.
Answer: Suppose that you need to classify something in K classes, where K > 2. In this case the most often setup I use is one hot encoding. You will have K output columns, and in the training set you will set all values to 0, except the one which has the category index, which could have value 1. Thus, for each training data set instance you will have all outputs with values 0 or 1, all outputs sum to 1 for each instance.
This looks like a probability, which reminds me of a technique used often to connect some outputs which are modeled as probability. This is called softmax function, more details on Wikipedia. This will allow you to put some constraints on the output values (it is basically a logistic function generalization) so that the output values will be modeled as probabilities.
Finally, with or without softmax you can use the output as a discriminant function to select the proper category.
Another final thought would be to avoid to encode you variables in a connected way. For example you can have the binary representation of the category index. This would induce to the learner an artificial connection between some outputs which are arbitrary. The one hot encoding has the advantage that is neutral to how labels are indexed.
Answer: The algorithm that is used in this case is called one-vs-all classifier or multiclass classifier.
In your case you have to take one class, e. g. number 1 , mark it as positive and combine the rest seven classes in one negative class. The neural network will output the probability of this case being class number 1 vs the rest of the classes.
Afterwords, you have to assign as positive another class, e.g. number 2, assign all other classes as one big negative class and get the predicted probability from the network again.
After repeating this procedure for all eight classes, assign each case to the the class that had the maximum probability from all the classes outputted from the neural network.


Orthonormal basis for continuous wavelet transformation

Question: Wavelet basis are constructed applying translations and dilatations in appropriate functions called mother wavelets. For discrete wavelet transformations, for example, one can create an orthonormal basis using the transformations
$$\Psi_{jk}(x) = 2^{-j/2}\Psi(2^j x +k),$$
where $\Psi$ is some mother wavelet function and $j,k\in\mathbb{Z}$. There is some way to construct an orthonormal basis for a continuous wavelet transformation like that one below
$$\Psi_{\tau s}(x) = \tau^{1/2}\Psi\left(\frac{x+s}{\tau}\right),$$
where $\tau$ and $s$ are real parameters and $\Psi$ is supported in $\mathbb{R}$?
Answer: Observe that $\tau\mapsto \Psi_{\tau s}$ is continuous with respect to the usual metrics on $\mathbb{R}$ and $L^{2}(\mathbb{R})$. Then if $\{\Psi_{\tau s}\}_{\tau\in\mathbb{R}}$ were an orthonormal collection, we would have $0=\langle \Psi_{\tau s},\Psi_{\tau' s}\rangle\rightarrow \langle \Psi_{\tau s},\Psi_{\tau s}\rangle=1$ as $\tau'\rightarrow\tau,$ which is clearly impossible.
Clearly the collection $\{\Psi_{\tau s}\}_{\tau,s\in\mathbb{R}}$ may be sufficient to represent all of $L^{2}(\mathbb{R})$ with linear combinations thereof, but this representation will have many more functions than is necessary, unlike in a basis, where we have in some sense a minimal representation.


WDS OS DEPLOYMENT WINDOWS 11

Question: I am trying to deploy windows 10 or 11 through MDT/WDS.
Now I have done all the steps needed, the problem is
When I create a vm in hyper v gen 1 everything is running fine as soon as I would like it to run in gen 2 am getting the following ERROR attached is a screenshots.
I set up the dhcp with options 66 and 67 the pxe is working it loads the wim and starts to run but shortly after it starts it stops and few seconds later it gets that message attached.
Any ideas here why this is happening?.
Screenshot
Comment: Your post isn't clear. You can't change a VM from Gen 1 to Gen 2 without reinstalling the OS.
Answer: It is not possible to convert from a Gen 1 VM to a Gen 2 VM while still retaining a supported configuration.
MS's official stance is that you have to rebuild the VM from scratch.
This is because the Gen 1 VM uses BIOS to boot and Gen 2 uses UEFI to boot and the requirements change greatly. E.g. Disk partitioning layout needs to change from MBR to GPT, HAL needs rebuilt, etc...
Microsoft also is dropping support from deploying images from WDS, you can now only PXE boot Windows PE images from it.
MDT is still supported but on its last legs.
Thanks!

WDS OS DEPLOYMENT WINDOWS 11


Is XACML still under maintenance

Question: Currently i'm working in a on-line payment company, i need to implement a access control system. I used XACML for experimental purpose 2 years ago, and used it in a management system(based on Balana's XACML implementation). I noticed XACML Version 3 specification hasn't been updated since Jan 2013, i wonder whether this specification is still under maintenance. If not, does anyone know any alternative?
Answer: What David says is correct. In addition, the OASIS XACML Technical Committee (TC) has just voted to hold a public review of Errata for XACML 3.0. The review should start within a few days. The corrections are minor, but it does show we are maintaining the documents and getting input from the field.
Although no one is currently working on them, there are several unfinished Profiles I would like to see completed. One is to extend the JSON format for XACML to cover the policy language. It currently only covers only the decision request protocol. Another is the ALFA policy language which is a more user friendly, JSON-like language originally developed by Axiomatics, and endorsed by the TC.
For people who want to use XACML, in addition to several excellent commercial products, there are at least two other open source implementations in addition the the WS02 - Balana one mentioned above. Forgerock has one and there is another originally developed in house at ATT. The later one was contributed to the Apache Incubator, but failed to gain traction and was mothballed. However the original code is still freely available under Apache license.
Finally I should mention that I have proposed various ways to integrate XACML with token-based authorization schemes such as OAuth. However this has not gone past the research stage.
Comment: I can't agree more about the ALFA language, considering the original XML is hard to write and read
Comment: Hal, Edmond Scientific is doing cool work on OAuth to XACML. See here http://edmondsci.com/edmond-scientific-awarded-patent-for-nextgen-identity-and-authorization-solution/
Answer: Yes, XACML is still very much active. The standard, in version 3, is mature and right now no one is working on XACML 4.0. Given XACML 3.0 is a standard, there won't be changes made to 3.0. Either we go to 3.1 or 4.0. There are enhancements we are thinking of for a 4.0 version but this is not the focus for now.
The focus is on profiles, both technical profiles (such as the JSON profile of XACML) and business profiles (such as the Export Control profile of XACML).
Disclaimer: I work for Axiomatics, the leading XACML implementation. I am also a member of the XACML Technical Committee.
We see more and more requests for Attribute Based Access Control and XACML in the marketplace especially in financial and healthcare
Comment: Thanks for the reply. XACML is awesome, is there any stand-alone open source implementation you think is great? As far as I know, WSO2's balana(based on Sun's version), and JBOSS's PicketLink(implementing XACML 2)
Comment: You can find a list open source implementations on the XACML  [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XACML#XACML_Implementations). So there is also AuthzForce (I am one of the maintainer) and Apache OpenAZ.
Comment: Hi is there a reference or maybe some more details on XACML 4.0?

Is XACML still under maintenance


What if time and quantum corrections were created because the idea of "god" was damaged?

Question: Assuming the idea of "God" exists. In its most perfect form, should physics not be without the various quantum phenomena with a renormalizable gravitational theory? Perhaps the idea of imperfections that quantum mechanics brings are a manifestation of something affecting a singular but perfect being that led to the big bang. Thus, we go from complete order (God) to a level of disorder that is increasing as maybe "God" is dying?
Comment: Your post is not intelligible. I guess you mean to assume that "*god exists*" rather than "*the idea [itself] 'of god' exists*". Regardless, in Physics there is no assumption about a god. Hence introducing it here so lightheartedly results in too many gaps. What do you mean by imperfections? The limited accuracy of measurement implies nothing about the perfection of the measured system. What led to the big bang? some manifestation [and of what]? or the "perfect being"? Lastly, you might want to provide a link to the paper you mention.
Comment: Once you assume God exists, anything is possible.  Once you assume God doesn't exist, then you are limited by human observations and analysis for information about the universe.
Comment: I'm a massive fan of original ideas, but this question (I think) asks for imagination and opinion as opposed to material from the literature. Is there any reading you've done which might ground your question in existing work?
Comment: Unfortunately, there is no such literature. Although a paper "Gods as topological insulators" may be relevant.
Answer: This is one formulation of perhaps the most well-known and intractable problem in theology, the "Problem of Evil." The basic concept is "how could a good and perfect (and all-powerful) God create anything less than perfect?"  Normally, that's couched in terms of moral imperfections, but it's the same underlying argument in terms of physical imperfections as well.
It's only a problem for conceptions of God as perfect and all-powerful, which are not universal. In particular, it's a problem for Platonism/neo-Platonism. The two solutions Plato provided is that the world we experience is just an illusion, and that it was created not by the supreme deity, but by a "demiurge" or imperfect lesser deity. These solutions, however, are somewhat less than satisfying, since they don't explain how illusions or a demiurge could come to be.
In Christianity, the classic explanation of imperfection in the world is "Original Sin," and the idea that human beings' imperfect choices are tied to the greater good of free will. In Zoroastrianism, and in some variants of Christianity, evil is blamed on an evil deity, or the devil (who thus must be conceptualized as powerful enough to vie with God). In some versions of Islam, similar to Plato, what appears as imperfection is considered to be just a misunderstanding or ignorance of the perfection of God's plan. In the same way, what you see as the quantum imperfections of the universe might only be your ignorance failing to recognize perfection when you see it.
In summary, you've hit upon a venerable problem.  Your take on it is unusual, but not unique--I've encountered it before, but not in any sources I am able to confidently identify. With that said, philosophers including Hegel and most famously Nietzsche have previously discussed the concept of a non-immortal deity.
Comment: The implicit theology of the Cosmere saga (Brandon Sanderson) imports talk of a god being broken into "shards," from some Jewish arcana, with the "shards" manifesting as spiritual deficits in the world (or something along that line). Those are the two narratives that strike the same chord, for me, as the OP...
Answer: If an actual God were lurking within physics, then physics as a scientific and mathematical discipline would cease to exist because that god could then enable or prevent anything on a whim, and so a mathematically predictive and consistent description of the world would not be possible.
The fact that a quantum gravity model based on the formalisms of quantum field theory hasn't been found yet (despite decades of dedicated searching) does not require an explanation along the lines of "because god". It simply suggests that there is a key concept that is missing in the models constructed so far. Our job is to search for that concept; giving up and handing it all over to god is the ultimate cop-out.
In this context it is well to remember that just 3000 years ago, humans thought they could make it rain by dancing and that god could be pleased (whatever that might mean) by burning a piece of meat on a mountaintop. Time has shown that in both those cases, several key concepts were missing.
Answer:
What if time and quantum corrections were created because the idea of "god" was damaged?

Presuming "idea of god" exists like a form in Plato's realm of forms, such creation of time and quantum corrections would exist as evidence that not all forms (presuming more than one has existed) exist as immune to damage.

Thus, we go from complete order (God) to a level of disorder that is increasing as maybe "God" is dying?

If God exists as the realm of forms (and a form can be damaged), I could see the reasoning for such an argument.
It doesn't seem likely the realm of forms exists, but I've often speculated that reality exists as a superorganism. Relate that to information systems theory, claim that all of it works together as an organism, and you have "God."


private key missing in certificate downloaded from itunes

Question: I am beginner of iPhone. I have no idea of upload app in itunes. I have make certificate and provisioning profile but when i downloaded certificate at that time no with private key.. so, give any suggestion which is apply in my app.
Answer: You can do 2 things:
1. Create a new certificate identity via the apple devloper portal In this case you'll need to log into the apple developer portal and use the assistant, as part of this you will need to create and upload a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) which will also create the public and private keys on the machine. Apple sign the request and voila, a signed public/private certificate pair : guide
2. Export the private key from the machine originally used to create the Certificate This case is when your signing with an identity previously created, probably on an old machine or if (as in my case) your developing for a client that has their ID's already created. If you can't access the machine originally used to create the certificate identity you'll have to create a new identity as per the guide/assistant.
To do this, you will need to export your private key (a .p12 file), or public/private key pair via Keychain Access, and install the private key or key pair to the machine your developing on: guide


Applying to a graduate program in molecular and cell biology

Question: I'm a medical school graduate student. However, I wish to apply for a PhD program in molecular and cell biology, I'm interested in understanding the interactions within and between cells at molecular level. However, it seems that at many programs, courses on physics and mathematics are required. I didn't take any mathematical or physical courses. Is it possible to take these courses without having to go through the whole bachelor's curriculum? If this is possible, how could I do this?
Comment: I think the answer would depend on your location, which you have not made available for us, and your local educational system, unless you plan to take those course at some other location.
Answer: In the US it is not uncommon for universities to allow students to take individual courses without seeking a degree. This is especially true of some of the larger introductory type courses that are required for getting into grad school. It is probably worth contacting the schools you are interested in applying and telling them you have not taken all the prerequisite courses and if there is something that can be arranged.
Answer: Most of PhD projects in molecular and cell biology concentrate on experimental work and you will need to read a lot about other experimental works, results and conclusions, etc.
You may also need to read about structures and interactions but this will be similar to human anatomy and physiology you have already tried.
This is unlikely to be a problem for a medical graduate. I would say, go on.


The color of the most sulfides of p- and d-block elements

Question: My teacher said that many of the sulfides of d-block and p-block are black. Why?
Comment: In my opinion nobody knows why $\ce{FeS, CoS, NiS, CuS, Ag_2S, PbS}$ are black.
Comment: https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/32019/why-are-hgo-and-cds-compounds-colourful
Comment: There, there, colors of complexes and inorganic compounds seem to be well studied and there was lots of posts about them already. Still, it's not like this knowledge is particularly useful or common, even among chemists...
Comment: Fro example https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/98915/black-green-nickel-oxide-supplemental
Answer: The band gap between conduction band and the valence band plays a role in color of these compounds. The good example is $\ce{SnS2}$, which is bronze color (Image $\bf{A}$; $\ce{SnS2}$ is used in decorative coating where it is known as mosaic gold) and have a band gap of $\pu{2.18-2.44 eV}$ (Image $\bf{B}$; Ref.1). When an electron in the conduction band falls down to the valence band, it loses energy and the lost energy is emitted as a photon ($h\nu$). This photon has an energy equal to the band gap (Image $\bf{C}$). In mathematics, it is: $E_\mathrm{gap} = h\nu$. The crystals of $\ce{SnS2}$ and its calculated band gap is shown below:

The compounds is colored when the band gap is between $1.8$ and $\pu{3.0 eV}$ (visible range). The compounds with larger band gaps $(\gt \pu{3.0 eV})$ are either white or transparent crystals.  Those with smaller band gaps $(\lt \pu{1.8 eV})$ give  black color crystals. For example, the band gap of $\ce{ZnS}$ is $\pu{3.54 eV}$, the color of which is white. Meantime, the color of $\ce{CdS}$ (Pigment name: Cadmium yellow) is yellow because its band gap is $\pu{2.45 eV}$. On the other hand, the colors of $\ce{CdSe}$ and $\ce{CdTe}$, which have the same structure of $\ce{CdS}$, are black because their band gaps are $\pu{1.74 eV}$ and $\pu{1.49 eV}$, respectively. Also, the color of $\ce{PbS}$ is black because its band gap is $\pu{0.37 eV}$.
For some crystals, the band gap change with temperature (Ref.1). Hence, for those, the color depend on temperature.
References:

Lee A. Burton, Thomas J. Whittles, David Hesp, Wojciech M. Linhart, Jonathan M. Skelton, Bo Hou, Richard F. Webster, Graeme O'Dowd, Christian Reece, David Cherns, David J. Fermin, Tim D. Veal, Vin R. Dhanak, Aron Walsh, "Electronic and optical properties of single crystal SnS2: an earth-abundant disulfide photocatalyst," J. Mater. Chem. A 2016, 4, 1312-1318 (https://doi.org/10.1039/C5TA08214E).
Comment: @ Mathew. So a compound is black if the band gap is smaller than 1.8 eV. OK. So the real question is : why is the band gap smaller than 1.8 eV in FeS, CoS, NiS, CuS, Ag2S and PbS ? And why not in ZnS ?
Comment: More effective nuclear charge on Zn lowers the conduction band of ZnS, maybe?
Answer: I would leave a comment, but the basics of the answer are as follows. It's hard to give an answer that's complete because the chemistry is very diverse for the different compounds.
What you're basically seeing is the transition corresponding to breaking the metal-sulfur bond (i.e. the bonding orbital/antibonding orbital) or electrons moving between the metal and sulfur. The colours tend to be black for sulfides because sulfur orbitals are relatively high energy (compared e.g. to oxides) and form weak bonds so the energy of the transitions is small.
A complete answer would require more detail about the band structures of the relevant compounds. Some of the oxides are also black.


I forgot my email address and password for my galaxy j7 how to bypass google verification

Question: How do I get I into my account when I forgot email and password. My 4/ year old messed up my phone plz help
Comment: Has anyone ever emailed you on that address?
Answer: Well you forgot a heck of a thing man ,  there are recovery option have u tried that ?  Might be there are chances to recover email password if you have given any alternate email or phone no.
Other thing you can do is just factory reset or hard reset your device to by pass the verification or to remove it.
This link will help you By pass google verification
Answer: I fixed a friends phone in the same state as yours. He also had a samsung device (galaxy core prime or whatever). I managed to fix it by using this tutorial. Hope it helps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhaOIrobRRk


cPanel login from WordPress

Question: Do I need a cPanel login username and password to go to cPanel from WordPress or only WordPress login is enough to go to cPanel through cPanel Manager (from WORPIT)?
Answer: You can directly access the  database  of WordPress with plugin Portable phpmyadmin  and  Adminer. You only need to login to WordPress dashboard and you will be able to access this.

cPanel login from WordPress


The process could not bulk copy ... and Invalid object name errors

Question: I have set up a transactional replication from Server A to Server B in the SQL server
Database did not exists on Server B and was created as part of the setup process - created as an empty one.
All the articles that were generated with the snapshot are in the source (Server A)
However, when checking syncronization Status, I see the error

When going to the Job History, I see the following error:

2024-01-03 20:59:40.781 Agent message code 20037. The process could not bulk copy into table '"dbo"."SomeTableNameDoNotKnowWhy"'.
2024-01-03 20:59:40.797 Category:NULL
Source:  Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 11.0
Number:  208
Message: Invalid object name 'dbo.SomeTableNameDoNotKnowWhy'.
2024-01-03 20:59:40.797 Category:NULL

It could be different table, and also it does not occur always.
But, anything it is, it causes the database on the server B remain empty when it occurs.
The replication set up, I am creating, I need it to be automated, that is the whole set up is triggered with the power shell scripts imitating the process that would have been taken if doing it with Sql Server Management Studio GUI.
Please, help me to understand the issues that lead to this, so I can address solution within the program.
Comment: Did this error occur during a new snapshot?
Answer: Create the table "SomeTableNameDoNotKnowWhy" schema on the Server B and start the snapshot agent.  The error says the object name is invalid.


How to let user upload a raster in google earth engine

Question: I'm working on a Google Earth Engine app where we would like to allow the end user to upload a raster file for use in the calculations. Is there a good way to do this? We already know that a user can manipulate the geometry imports with the drawing tools, but is there a way to just upload a file and then pass the file to an algorithm for processing?
Answer: I have a round-about way of doing this. Not sure if there is anything simpler.
The steps include

On your earth engine app, include a link to an empty Google Drive (or any other cloud service buckets which has API integration with Google Cloud Platform)
Use Google drive API to mount your drive on a local/remote node. Use Google Earth Engine python API to access the inputted raster. Optionally process the input raster
Use Google cloud api to upload the raster/processed raster to Google cloud bucket
Use Earth Engine api to upload raster/processed raster from Google cloud bucket to Earth Engine Assets
Use Earth Engine api to display the new user inputted raster/processed raster in the api.

A working example of the above 5 steps is provided in this Colab notebook and displayed in this Earth Engine App.


Schnorr's identication protocol

Question: Schnorr's identification protocol is said to be a honest verifier zero knowledge protocol. Does it imply it will not work if the verifier is dishonest?
I'm wondering if this is the case, it would mean that a honest prover will always be denied authorization by the misbehaved verifier.
Answer: No, this is not the case. We can't guarantee an honest prover is verified by a dishonest verifier (they could always lie and say "no, you failed"), but they could very well be authorized by the dishonest verifier (in addition to lying and saying "you passed" for everyone, they could act like the honest verifier if it's to their advantage). A dishonest verifier can generally do anything, so it's impossible to say anything about whether the prover will be verified by them. In addition, the most likely sort of dishonest verifier (the one who seems to be following the protocol, such that a third party seeing the messages doesn't know they're dishonest) will always authenticate honest provers.
What "honest verifier" refers to is not the authentication bit; it's about zero-knowledge. We can't stop a dishonest verifier from refusing to authenticate an honest prover; however, we might be able to keep them from learning about the secret. For honest verifiers, who select the challenge at random, we can prove that the honest verifier cannot be learning anything about the secret. But this proof doesn't work with a verifier who selects the challenges very carefully; there's no known proof that they can't learn about the secret (other protocols have proofs that a cheating verifier can't learn anything, but Schnorr does not). That doesn't mean we know they can learn something; we don't know one way or the other.
Answer: In such a context, one would name a protocol participant honest if it follows the protocol. Honest Verifier means he picks his challenge at random, as specified, so simulated transcript will be indistinguishable from a real one. Any (meaning not honest) Verifier would calculate his challenge as a hash, so he will be unable to simulate any such transcript himself resulting in no zero knowledge property.

Schnorr's identication protocol


How to get get entity_id from order increment_id using REST?

Question: I want to have my entity_id of my order, so I can make a deeplink directly to it, from another application. According to this question: REST API: get order entity_id from order increment_id that should come in the order request from the REST.
However, when I make that call, I do get the entire order completely in my JSON result, except for the entity_id of the order itself.
How can I make Magento (2.3.7-p2) to return the order entity_id using the REST API?
Answer: I have tried to checked the same API & its already provided the ENTITY_ID in response.
Comment: You are right. My bad. I was requesting from the test server, and checking on live.


Scale changes when applying curve modifier

Question: very annoying as sometimes it happen and sometime it doesn't (first curve is fine) i just want the cube to stay the same exact scale it has originally... i also apply both scale + rotation on both ... what can be done to fix it ?
Answer: If you've scaled your curve and applied its scale, the radius of its vertices is no longer 1. So select your curve, go in Edit mode, select all the vertices, and W > Set Curve Radius (value 1 by default, that's what you want, but you can change it on the bottom of the T panel), or in the Tools panel of your 3D view (displayed with T on the left of the 3D view) go in Tools > Curve Tools > Set Curve Radius and choose a value of 1.
Comment: Just a slight correction: If the curve has varying radii (it doesn't, here, so it doesn't matter) then setting the _mean_ radius will do just that.. it won't set all the radii to 1. If you want to set all the radii to one value, you can do that in the Tool region, with _Curve Tools_ > _Set Curve Radius_.
Comment: oh yes you're right I'm going to edit
Comment: .. and showed me another way, too .. :)


Optimizing the finding of the widest string in an array of strings?

Question: Right now I have an array of std::strings, and have a function in my font to find how wide it is.
<code> for(std::vector<std::pair<std::string,bool>>::const_iterator it = items.begin();
  it != items.end(); ++it)
 {
  cSz = getFont().getTextWidth(it->first);
  if( cSz > h)
  {
   h = cSz;
  }
 }
 widestItem = h;
</code>
I was wondering if I was possibly overlooking a better way to do this since this is a very brute-force way to find it.
In my situation there wouldn't be much point in storing the width of each one and referring to that.
Thanks
Answer: If I were optimizing this I'd:

Make sure to use a profiler to find out that this is where significant time is going.
Maybe have a cache of (font, string) tuples. If you're repeatedly computing the width of the same strings, this will help. But it depends on your exact use case.
You can make your getTextWidth method very fast in the common case - you can have a flat array of 256 text-width units, and just dereference and sum up for each latin-1 character you've got. That'll be fast enough that you won't see the time spent on a modern CPU. Of course, you still have to implement non-Latin characters, and you may or may not want to do kerning, ligatures, and complex text layout (which is where this stuff can get expensive).
Answer: If string length is important you could store the length of it when adding the string to the vector, that way you wouldn't need to compute it every time (you could use a std::tuple of 3 items instead of std::pair if you have access to C++0x). If you change fonts often then that may not be suitable. Or you could store the length and recompute the lengths when changing fonts if the vector doesn't contain millions of items.
Optimization is hard when we don't have much information on the structure of the software and what you are doing apart from this small snippet.