Is Thales's claim that everything starts with water/wetness, in ontological meaning, in agreement with his claim that: "Everything is full of gods"?

Question: Thales claimed water as his arche, but Aristotle says that he also said that "Everything is full of gods". Are those two claims in agreement?
Comment: And "Thales' reported claims that the lodestone (with its magnetic properties) and amber (which when rubbed exhibits powers of attraction through static electricity) have souls and that all things are full of gods. Aristotle surmises that Thales identified soul (that which makes a thing alive and thus capable of motion) with something in the whole universe, and so supposed that everything was full of gods—water, or soul, being a divine natural principle."
Comment: Given that both claims are unsubstantiated nonsense, why do you suppose they are incompatible?
Comment: Thales' statement is not "ontology"; it is about *physis* (nature). See [The Milesians](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/presocratics/#Mil): "In his account of his predecessors' searches for "causes and principles" of the natural world and natural phenomena, Aristotle says that Thales of Miletus was the first to engage in such inquiry."
Answer: One interpretation of the fragment you refer to (11 A 7 in Diels-Kranz numbering):

Some say that [soul] is mixed in the whole universe. Perhaps that is why Thales thought that everything was full of gods.

can be in the lines that something divine permeates the whole nature, which is in turn a logical consequence once you have discovered a unifying principle for it (water in this case), as Thales did. Note however that it is marked with an A, which means that it is a testimony, and not an explicit fragment (which are scarce for the Miletus presocratics). There are only testimonies of Thales' thinking, therefore we may only speculate about the exact content of it.
Nietszche's view on this on Early Greek Philosophy is also similar to the above interpretation:

Greek philosophy seems to begin with a preposterous fancy, with the proposition that water is the origin and mother-womb of all things. Is it really necessary to stop there and become serious? Yes, and for three reasons: Firstly, because the proposition does enunciate something about the origin of things; secondly, because it does so without figure and fable; thirdly and lastly, because in it is contained, although only in the chrysalis state, the idea: Everything is one [...] Thus Thales saw the Unity of the "Existent," and when he wanted to communicate this idea he talked of water.

EDIT: See also this question and this one, and answers therein, for more insight on Thales' thought interpretation and the problem of sources.
Comment: Welcome to SE. Your answer is interesting but could be much better. You need to think more carefully about your use of quotations and why a reference or a link to the ideas you are talking about will not suffice. It is also important to make sure that your quotation is relevant to the question. You don't begin to answer is until the last paragraph. It would have been better to spend more time on that.
Answer: Water is the arche. Everything is full of gods.
They're consistent if only for the reason that they're not logically connected i.e. the truth/falsity one doesn't imply the truth/falsity of the other. It's like saying John Smith is English and quadrilaterals have four sides It would've been super-interesting if these two were somehow linked logically. Are they? I dunno.
Comment: [Kirk and Raven](https://philpapers.org/rec/KIRTPP-5) agree with you: "*Whether he associated this life-force with water, the origin and perhaps the essential constituent of the world, we are not told.*". Even though I like more Nietzsche's poetical view on it, they seem to be a critic authority with regard to classics.
Comment: @irecorsan, interesting.
Answer: Water, when poured into a vase, takes the shape of the vase; when poured into a hollow statue, it takes the shape of a statue. Then it's easy to go from here to think water is the arche of everything: in being infinitely malleable into all forms. Simply because Thales is reported to think water is the arche does not mean he thought actual water is the arche, but more likely something that is akin to water. First thinker on something usually does not have the language to express everything that he's meant, but usually borrows some analogous term. I suspect that's why the arche was also thought of as air and the boundless. The boundless is probably the most abstract term here.
However, in the above discussion a shaping hand is needed - to shape the vase, the statue, the form - and this is probably why Thales asserted that it was the gods that provided the shaping hand. The same goes for Pythagoras and then Plato. All of this is ontology as it reflects on the basic constituents of the world.


To what extent is it sensible to use filter and sort options together?

Question: Working on an e-commerce shopping site, I am observing that the users first sort and then refine their results. Will providing both the options confuse the user?
Comment: Could you please expand on your question.  Preferably with some examples. You won't be able to attach images yet, but if you upload them to imgur.com and insert the link, someone will attach them for you.
Comment: @JohnGB Rep of 81 is plenty for attaching images. [New User Restrictions are lifted at 10 rep](http://ux.stackexchange.com/privileges/new-user)
Comment: sorting and filtering are two mutually exclusive features. Confusion can be avoided if user interface is more intuitive.
Comment: Andy - your question isn't very answerable currently, it's far too broad. Please have a read of the [ask] page for advice on how to construct useful answerable questions and update this post accordingly.
Comment: @rags: Mutually exclusive? How do you figure that?
Comment: Both are required
Answer: While I agree with the commenters that your question is overly broad, in the general case the answer is no, providing both options will not confuse your users. In fact, what you are describing is an interface pattern called faceted search and it is one of the most common patterns on the web.
Amazon uses it:

Zappos uses it:

Once you recognize this pattern, you will see it everywhere.
Note the convention to place filters directly to the left of the results. Both Zappos and Amazon respect this convention. Note also that they each handle sorting quite differently. Zappos uses a row of tabs with different sorting options and Amazon uses a diminutive "Sort by" dropdown. I don't know that either is strictly better, but I prefer Amazon's treatment because means that users who are accustomed to sorting will be able to make use of the feature and the diminutive design means that it will get out of the way for users who don't commonly sort. Since you are concerned about confusing your users, you may find this works better (but you should test!).
In general, using conventional interface patterns is a good idea. When you have a problem that may fit an established pattern, I find it's best to try that pattern first and then fix anything that isn't working. For reference, the canonical book on interface patterns is Designing Interfaces by Jennifer Tidwell. It's coming along in age, but unless you're doing mobile, you'll find most of the established patterns still in place. If you are developing a mobile interface that, of course, changes where you go to look for established patterns.
Answer: The short answer
It is absolutely sensible to use filter and sort options together because, for users, they are similar: tools for parsing search results. In my opinion they don't distinguish as clearly as developers do the differences between these two controls.
The long answer
I strongly recommend you an article writen by Greg Nudelman in UX matters magazine: The Mystery of Filtering by Sorting. It gives interesting insights into this subject and backs them up with evidence gathered in user testing sessions.

After observing this phenomenon numerous times, it became clear to me that this was not merely a matter of a simple confusion of terms between filtering and sorting. Instead, it revealed a strong mental model of filtering by sorting that blurred the difference between these two modes of search results' refinement.


Best WordPress Cloud Hosting Provider that allows installation of ffmpeg 4.0

Question: I all. I have a couple of wordpress sites hosted with cloudways. I've generally enjoyed the service for the last 5 years with only a few hiccups, more so when i first started using them. Sites run lightning fast, my social network however, built on wordpress needed lots and lots of attention and at one stage open heart surgery. But generally everything is fine. Cloudways used to offer autoscalling based on usage, but then stopped this about a year ago. Another real bug bear I have is that ffmpeg is only available upto 2.0 on all server, no matter which provider you choose. Here;s the issue, I already pay about $100 a month for two digital cloud servers. Cloudways now said that the only way for me to be able to use ffmpeg 4.0 (the standard now) is to upgrade my account and pay them an extra extra $100 a month in order for them to install ffmpeg 4.0 in my server. Yes you heard that correctly!!! not so cheap now. I really need ffmpeg 4.0 operating in one of my servers, and I am certainly not going to spend an extra $100 a month to get it. After all the hard work put into settting up my server, and sites, I now learn that cloudways isnt as cheap as some people may think. Any suggestions out there? DO i bite the bullet and more again, is there another way, so plugin maybe that can achieve the same without cloudways knowing, if I access ssh the system will not let me install the package myself. any advice? or if not where to next?
See full conversation below
————————
Zeeshan Kareem
Cloud Engineer
Zeeshan Kareem 20:58
Hello! Welcome to Cloudways! Please let us know how may I help you today?
21:01
what happened to Kyup
https://community.cloudways.com/t/introducing-autoscaling-container-hosting-by-cloudways-kyup/55
I wanted to test it out
Zeeshan Kareem 21:03
Dean, I am sorry curently we don't provide KYUP server, Currently we provide only 5 provider
In order to select the upstream provider you can follow this link.
https://support.cloudways.com/which-infrastructure-provider-do-i-have-to-choose/
20:59
I already have two servers with you. But i was interested in the ability to up and down scale automatically
with demand
and with no downtime
siteground offer this capability: https://www.siteground.co.uk/cloud-hosting.htm
they are cheaper to start with but overall are more expansive in the long run
depending on how big a site gets
Zeeshan Kareem 21:07
I am sorry curently we don't provide auto scaling facility. You can suggest new features or other service improvements in our feedback page: http://feedback.cloudways.com/
21:07
ok so I guess its something you did do, but then cancelled?
https://www.cloudways.com/blog/deploy-web-apps-on-kyup-cloud/
Zeeshan Kareem 21:08
yes in the past, we provide KYUP server currently we don't provide KYUP
21:08
ok, you need to update your blogs
Zeeshan Kareem 21:09
Thank you for highlighting I have forwarded this to my team
21:10
just one more question, i maybe forced to move one of my servers to siteground just becuase you are unable to provide the updated ffmpeg 4.0. and the only way for me to get that is to upgrade and pay you guys an extra $100 in support fees a month. I just want to clarify that I have got this right for the record?
is this correct?
Read
Zeeshan Kareem 21:13
Let me confirm
So yes or no? do I need to pay an extra $100 a month to be able to use the upgraded FFmpeg 4.0?
Zeeshan Kareem 21:21
Dean, for the customization on the server you need to take the advance support
Dean Jones 21:15
which is $100 extra a month?
Read
Zeeshan Kareem 21:21
Yes
Dean Jones 21:15
thanks for confirming
Answer: You can try Siteground. It offers free FFmpeg support on all hosting solutions. FastComet also offers free FFmpeg support. You can find their detailed comparison right here.


Using the res:// protocol with System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser

Question: I'm trying to use a resource (html file) located in a dll. With WinForms WebBrowser, when I navigate to the file, nothing happens, while with included AxSHDocVw.dll and SHDocVw.dll and AxWebBrowser, it works. Is the WinForms WebBrowser control somehow restricted or something? Can I make it to run res://?
Comment: What's the exact URL you're trying to use?
Answer: See my post here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15672462/1413201.
The basic gist is there are two types of resources in code files.  You need to include a C style resource script to use the res protocol.  Navigation errors are probably turned off in the WebBrowser control and therefore you don't see an error.
You can use the res protocol with IE to test if the resource is actually in the file and a C style resource editor just to double double check.
Answer: What I would assume, is that for security reasons, WinForms' WebBrowser control doesn't handle res:// links. It would make it very easy for someone to access resources which are contained within your DLLs which you may not want accessed.
If you want to implement the functionality yourself, then I'd recommend looking at the Assembly class and its use. It shouldn't be hard to parse a res:/// into your DLL path, load the assembly, search for the given resource and return that for the WebBrowser control.


80s - 90s Movie about school siege

Question: I saw this film in my childhood.
Some group of terrorist enter the school (boys' school i guess) and capture the school. the boss of the group has watch in which he will use that to trigger the bomb and explode the school in case if they lose control of the school. One of the captive student managed to change the chip (or some other electronic thing which control the trigger) in the watch and fixed it in one remote controlled toy plane. In the climax while fighting with the students the boss turn on the trigger to explode the whole school but the toy plane will start.
This is the only sequence i remember about the movie.
sorry for my bad english.
Comment: Google - "movie boy school siege" and your answer is in the top 4. It only got to 4 because the question was scanned and now resides position #1. We have to start encouraging people to really look up their own answers.
Comment: Unfortunately, the majority of "Identify this movie" questions fall under http://www.lmgtfy.com
Answer: Toy Soldiers from 1991 with Sean Astin and Wil Wheaton about a group of rebellious boys fighting terrorists that took over their boarding school:

Billy Tepper is the leader of a group of rebellious boys at The Regis School. He has already been expelled from three prominent private schools. His best friend, Joey Trotta, is the son of the Head of the New York Mafia; Billy, all their friends and many other kids at the school have equally influential and prominent, if more law-abiding, parents. When Luis Cali's father is put in jail, he heads for the Regis School to put the son of the judge in charge of the case under hostage, only to find he has been removed. However, once he realises who the parents of the rest are, he decides the entire student body of the Regis School would be an even better bargaining chip.

They manage to switch the chip that triggers the terrorists' explosives with the one that's in a toy plane. Here's the trailer:
Comment: Yeah, I think it was mandatory viewing in the early 90s. ;)
Comment: Yep, I knew that one from the description as well. :D In fact reading the title alone I knew it was Toy Soldiers or Substitute Teacher.
Comment: Aww damn, just wanted to answer it. Love that movie, seen it a million times.
Answer: I'm pretty sure you're looking for Toy Soldiers (1991).

Never mind that none of the film's ordinary, easygoing schoolboys
  behave at all like the scions of prominent families, or that the long
  arm of coincidence gets a real workout during the course of the story.
  In fact, "Toy Soldiers" is a crisp, suspenseful thriller well tailored
  to the tastes of teen-age audiences, who will doubtless appreciate
  such touches as the equivalent microchips found in one student's
  radio-controlled airplane and the chief terrorist's detonator, which
  is rigged to blow up the entire school.
Answer: Could also be Masterminds 1997 with Patrick Stewart.

Trapped in a school which a gang of criminals has siezed control, a young troublemaker fights a cat and mouse battle from inside.

That was the first one that came to my mind.  Good movie, if I remember right.  I saw it once a long time ago.
Comment: You should provide a link or some other evidence this movie could be what the OP is asking about.

80s - 90s Movie about school siege


Safety in Liposomal Amphotericin B

Question: From reading about Amphotericin B antifungal, I understand it is quite a toxic medicine for kidney, but I am not able to find any details as to how Liposomal version of same medication is so safe, in end are not we eating same chemical, how doe s liposomal version become less toxic?
Answer: This is an interesting question.  Initially, the mechanism for the reduced toxicity (1992) was unknown, as stated in the abstract of a well-cited paper.  A paper from Oxford Radcliffe hospital in 1998 said that 15.5% of all their spending on antimicrobial agents was on these new, expensive drugs, available in many formulations, and argued the evidence supporting their use was scanty with a key study available only as an abstract.  A review in 2013 seems more favorable, but I haven't looked at the full text - by that time, one of the products with reactions at the injection site had been withdrawn, and the costs were coming down.  At the level of the individual, these stories are poignant.
The paper from Oxford Radcliffe wrote of one formulation "It has been suggested that the large particle size of ABLC (1.6–11 μm) leads to its rapid clearance by reticuloendothelial cells, resulting in lower plasma levels."  This idea has been pursued in numerous other papers (example), but I lack the expertise to evaluate it against other potential explanations.

Safety in Liposomal Amphotericin B


Is it possible to break any given matter down into protons, neutrons, and electrons and then reorganize those particles into any other form of matter?

Question: I was reading about this somewhere but can't find the site now. It was talking about using 3d printers in the future that can intake any matter (dirt, garbage, etc..) and deconstruct it on the atomic level down to just electrons, protons, and neutrons and then use those left over subatomic particles to create anything by rearranging those particles into the needed formation for whatever it is you want to make. This would surely have a huge impact on the way we live since you'd be able to use your own human waste for example to make anything you'd want as long as there were enough particles. But is this theoretically possible?
Comment: The universe started with hydrogen and some helium and has made everything else out of it, so yes, it is.  Unfortunately in order to do this on large scales for heavy elements you really need supernovae, which are not very practical objects in engineering terms.
Answer: Let's start with the molecular case. Dissociating atoms in molecules into free atoms is possible by heating them enough so that all the bonds break; this bond dissociation energy is less than about 1 MJ per mole of a particular bond in the substance. Then in principle they can be reassembled into other molecules with the same atoms  and one regains their enthalpy of formation. The challenge here is separating out the different atoms from each other (for example using a plasma mass spectrometer) which has an unavoidable thermodynamic cost that is the negative of the Gibbs Free Energy of mixing (for a 50% mixture this is about 5 kJ/mole). Plus, of course, actually doing the assembly operation using suitable atomically precise manufacturing.
On paper, the energy cost would just be the difference between the dissociation energy and enthalpy of formation, plus the separation energy cost minus the mixing enthalpy. Ideally all of this is adiabatic processes gently nudged towards the desired outcome with a minimum of entropy increase. In practice this will be a lot more since these processes are not done perfectly: there are huge swings in energy and temperature, and these cause entropy increases that have to be "washed away" using waste heat. The above "heat to disassembly, separate, cool and reassemble" approach will likely have an energy cost comparable to the involved energies a few times over.
The nuclear case is exactly the same. You can photodissociate $^{56}$Fe into 13 alpha particles and 3 neutrons by hitting the nucleus with 124MeV photons; by heating matter nuclei to $10^{10}$ K it can hence be converted into free nucleons and alpha particles that can then in principle be separated, cooled, and fused into other isotopes with a total energy cost/gain depending on differences in binding energy. The thermodynamics looks the same: you will have to pay a minimum cost around 5 kJ/mole of nucleons just to separate the types and most likely pay a huge cost for the whole process.
If you have the wrong number of nucleons you could go even higher to the Hagedorn temperature $2\times 10^{12}$ K where baryonic matter "melts" and get newly minted particles out of the quark plasma, but this will likely waste a lot of it as uncatchable particles like neutrinos or anti-leptons left after pion decay (when you get antimatter as a waste product it is a hint that you are doing something wrong!)
The moral is that matter is interconvertible. But rearranging it in the "obvious" way is very entropy and energy-intensive. Smart manufacturing finds the least energetic transitions where every step is close to thermodynamically reversible. Typically that means keeping bigger parts as intact as possible and only change what needs to be changed: most nano-manufacturing will likely involve recycleable standard parts, with the most energy-intensive process being making those standard parts (that are then packaged as feedstock). Of course, to a user it might still look pretty magical. But the device will still have a power cord, a hefty cooling fan, a feedstock input... and likely regularly annoy us with "out of thulium error" and "graphene jam" error messages.
Answer: Yes, this is theoretically possible. In fact, it has already been done for certain transmutations. But even when turning lead into gold, at present the cost of the process (at least that process) is prohibitive.


How to map joined tables to a list with LINQ?

Question: When you setup linq, it maps all your tables to objects, I get that.
Now what happens when your linq query is inner joining with another table?
I read on here that it returns an anonymous object?
What if I have an object that maps to the columns in the inner join of 2 tables, how do I map?
Just looping through the collection as if it was a datareader and init my object and add it to a List?
Answer: Its not an anon type, below, I have the generated property for "PrinterTrays", in my case I have 1:M relationship between Printer and PrinterTray
<code>[Association(Name="Printer_PrinterTray", Storage="_PrinterTrays", ThisKey="PrinterID", OtherKey="PrinterID")]
public EntitySet<PrinterTray> PrinterTrays
{
    get
    {
        return this._PrinterTrays;
    }
    set
    {
        this._PrinterTrays.Assign(value);
    }
}
</code>
I'm assuming you're talking about joins that have proper pk / fk / constraints on them.
Really tho, with the power of linq and delayed execution, you can do some really awesome stuff by piping your data into your own data types or anon types to be serialized for say json.
you need to watch these videos on linq to sql and these videos on linqpad


mysql email stored and used for recovery

Question: I want to make a table.  My users give me their email address, this is then stored in the database.  Should they ever require their login details to be resent to them, they can enter this email address, it will be checked in the system to see if it exists, if it does, an email will be sent to them with their login details.
What database structure is best for this?
What is the best way to store the emails that is not visible to everyone who hacks into the database?  bearing in mind I will only check another value against the database and never require the actual email address stored as output?
Answer: If you just need to check if the e-mail is in the system, you should probably store a hash of some sort (MD5 or SHA, both of which MySQL supports natively) instead of the actual e-mail address.  A hash is a one-way encryption, which means you can't retrieve the e-mail address from the converted hash text, but you can recreate the hash from the e-mail address.
There's a good discussion of how to store SHA1 strings in MySQL here:
Storing SHA1 hash values in MySQL
If your table looks something like this:
userid: INT
emailhash: CHAR(40)

You could check if the e-mail address exists with a query like this:
SELECT userid FROM tablename WHERE SHA1([e-mail address from user]) = emailhash;

If it returns a result, then you know the userid that matches the e-mail address and you can send an e-mail to the e-mail address you collected from the user.  (Remember, you won't be able to retrieve the e-mail address from your database.)
There are more notes on MySQL's encryption algorithms here:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/encryption-functions.html
Comment: Yes - see my answer.  Emails are public things.  People knowing them isn't bad - although they can do semi-bad things with them.  Passwords are private things.  People knowing them is bad.
Comment: Thanks, this is exactly what I needed.  I was just thinking, is it usually ok to store text email addresses in a database?  I mean is it secure enough usually?
Comment: Weird.  My name is Evan too and I was pretty confused there for a sec.  Anyway, I agree with my namesake that it's generally not a bad thing to store unencrypted e-mails in your database unless you're working in healthcare or some other sensitive field.
Answer: Also, you should not resend their password, as you should never have it in clear text anyway.
Either send a new password, (and leave the old one functioning until the new is used, to prevent somebody from changing anothers password) or send a link with a hash to reset the password.
Answer:
What database structure is best for this?

Use a table where email is a varchar.  You should use utf8 so that people can use funky characters in their email and it is handled correctly.

What is the best way to store the emails that is not visible to everyone who hacks into the database?

You can hash the values using md5 and a 'salt' - a salt is just some extra stuff (in this case a string) to add a little more randomness to the results.  This way if someone knows the hash and an original email address, they can't simply figure out the hashing function you used.
Then, if you want to see if an email address already exists - take the one provided, add the salt, do the hash, check if that value is in the db.
If you do this, you know how long the hash is so you can make it a char with the correct length.  This will make indexes/queries faster.
That said, there is little reason to do this for email addresses.  Passwords should always be stored hashed.  An email address is a public thing though it it's not "bad" if someone else knows it.  It is "bad" if someone knows a person's password.
A bit more info though, you should do as much as possible to prevent people from hacking your database.  If they can hack your database, they may also be able to hack your code.  If they do that, they can see your hash function and salt.


Half bidirectional transmission shaft gear box solve

Question: I'm wondering how to accomplish some kind of gear box that would reverse only the direction of one side of the two shafts on it, like in the picture below.
Answer: You just gave me a great idea, i think.
Check it out.

Whats inside the dotted line 1 moves together with the main shaft, in a way that when the shaft goes down the bevels in 1 are connected to the side shafts making them move together in the same direction and when the shaft goes up bevel 2 connects to the side shafts making them rotate in opposite directions, this will gave me the effect i wanted.
Comment: Yes, I understand the construction that you brought here. I am very glad if I could help you, and you have learned some important starting points for your work.
Answer: This is a very interesting challenge! I'm not sure that such a mechanism actually exists. Also, I'm not sure if this is a purely mechanical device (perhaps it should have controlled electronic components). But I would take the following as one of the possible options:

Mode 1: in this mode, the main transmission shaft is connected to the subsequent ones through a pair of CVT or bevel gears. When the main shaft rotates counterclockwise (or clockwise), the two following shafts rotate in opposite directions.
Mode 2: A hypothetical "spring-loaded" shaft with an auxiliary CVT or bevel gear hidden within the body of the main transmission shaft. The second CVT or bevel gear is "pressed" to the body of one of the subsequent shafts. And in the body of another auxiliary shaft, another shaft is hidden. In mode two, the auxiliary CVT or bevel gears must be connected, as well as two auxiliary shafts. In this mode, the main shaft transfers rotation to the "augmented" subsequent shafts and they begin to rotate in the same direction.
There are, of course, many questions about such a design. But I decided to do this exercise. Perhaps my answer will be useful to you. I also do not rule out that there is a much simpler gearbox!


When is it useful to wait for the resubmission of a revised manuscript?

Question: I recently attended a conference and witnessed an interesting discussion between a PhD and his supervisor. The supervisor recommended his student to "wait with the re-submission until the very last day". Context: they received a tough review report and may not address the raised concerns. The supervisor claimed that many reviewers would be unavailable during Christmas and that they might be lucky to be assigned a new reviewer. Does that make any sense? In my view, journals would just wait until he is back. Could you think of situations where it is advisable to wait with the re-submission of a revised manuscript ?
Comment: "_they might be lucky to be assigned a new reviewer_" What if they are unlucky to be assigned an even tougher reviewer ? (Some people are so bored during holidays)
Comment: Does "when the revised version isn't ready" count?
Comment: dear Nobody, this is not my personal opinion. I am just curious and used this scenario as a recent background for my question.
Comment: I know. I was talking about the supervisor's recommendation.
Answer: As Nobody writes, waiting in this particular situation can go either way. Maybe you get assigned new reviewers, who may be (a) even tougher than the old ones, or (b) are not necessarily tougher, but raise issues orthogonal to the original reviewers, which adds to your work in the next revision (and hopefully makes your paper even better). Maybe the original reviewers do have a lot of time over the Christmas holidays and can go over your revision with a fine-toothed comb. Maybe they are extra grumpy (time with family can do that).

Could you think of situations where it is advisable to wait with the re-submission of a revised manuscript?

Rarely. A very few examples:

You may be waiting for additional data, which is not strictly necessary for your revision, but "nice to have".

Similar to the supervisor's recommendation, but it's the editor whose term of office you know is coming to an end, and you have reason to assume that their successor will be easier to work with (e.g., if you have an explicit conflict with the editor).
Comment: *if you have an explicit conflict with the editor* Presumably in this case it's a better idea to request the editor recuse.
Answer: For most journals this would waste time for nothing, because they'll wait for the original reviewers, even if they have to wait months.
The exception is if you're dealing with an MDPI journal, which based on your question history is quite possible. In this case, if the reviewer is too busy (not a guarantee by any means) the most probable result is the journal asks the academic editor to check the revision. It's possible they'll be able to make a decision (if the comments you got were minor); it's also possible they'll decide to wait anyway in which case you get the same result as in the first paragraph.
You are very unlikely to get a new reviewer no matter which publisher is involved. A new reviewer means restarting the process from zero, and is very time-consuming.
Comment: I think it is not exactly rare that a reviewer isn't available for reviewing the revised manuscript. A new reviewer doesn't automatically mean "restarting the process from zero". When I was the new reviewer, I usually was provided with the previous reviews and the authors' replies and changes. This might depend on the field, the publisher, and the editor.
Comment: @Roland it's rare in my experience that a reviewer isn't available for the revised manuscript - absent something dramatic (e.g. death), the reviewer will usually be available if you are willing to wait. It seems to me like your experience was unusual. Was it because the previous reviews are divergent, and you were effectively the arbitrator? An answer to a previous question of mine https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/115257/ also says "as a referee, I believe that I have never been shown another referee report", so it's surprising you can see the other reports.
Comment: In my field, editors are not willing to wait long. The time for the second review round usually is about two weeks and almost never exceeds a month.


How did Laketown's apple barrels get to the Wood-Elves' community?

Question: I know how the empty barrels were returned to Laketown, but not how  the Wood-Elves obtained them. According to Tolkien, how did the apple barrels make it to the house of the Wood-Elves?
Comment: So your question is how the barrels were physically transported from Laketown?
Comment: Yes. How they physically arrived.
Answer: They were rowed upstream, or carried on barges:

From Lake-town the barrels were brought up the Forest River. Often they were just tied together like big rafts and poled or rowed up the stream; sometimes they were loaded on to flat boats.

(The Hobbit, Chapter 9, "Barrels out of Bond")
Answer: There was constant trade between Thranduil's people and the huge lands to east.
Generally Esgaroth formed a convenient, independent middle-man for many races with mercantile links out through Rhun and Harad and as far south as Umbar and beyond.  You could almost think of them as the Dutch at the time of the VoC - small in number but sitting on one of the most important trading links of the world.


Is there a way to recover files after an OS X app crashes?

Question: I think some unix programs will keep a temp file somewhere deep within the guts of the system, and after a program crashes you can go hunt around for them and possibly recover something. (a) i remember seeing this in linux but don't remember any more details (b) is there some equivalent in OS X? A colleague just lost 2 hours of work in after effects after a crash.
Answer: Almost certainly not. While it's possible that After Effects could auto-save a copy periodically, it would either have been obvious or it would offer to restore it when you first opened After Effects after the crash. For instance, TextEdit will auto-save a modified file periodically with "(autosaved)" appended to the filename, but this is removed if you quit TextEdit normally or save the file.
Unfortunately, I fear this will just have to be a learning experience for your colleague about the importance of saving regularly, and making judicious copies (or even better, automatic backups) of those saves to allow undoing beyond the last save point if the program doesn't support that.


How many soldiers does Roose Bolton have in Winterfell

Question: In Season 5 Episode 10 (Mother's Mercy) of Game of Thrones, we see the Boltons attack Stannis' army. It seems that the Bolton's army is FAR larger than Stannis'. Is this true? Do we know how many soldiers Stannis and the Boltons had at this time?
Comment: If you're seeking answers from the book which is quite different by now from the series here's what we know:
-Ramsay Bolton sent a letter to Jon Snow informing him Stannis is defeated and killed in battle. This is not confirmed by the end of the book.
-Ramsay's army is composed of northern lords that started fighting among each other due to the work of the king beyond the wall disguised as a singer within winterfell and his forces are depleting fast
-Stannis forces are also depleted and the numbers are growing low.
Comment: It's not confirmed, but I suspect that the Bolton army in that scene includes Stannis's former sellswords who switched sides after deserting him. I was surprised they didn't confirm this - it'd have been a nice dramatic touch, adding to the Greek-tragedy-style theme of Stannis's ambition and determined ruthlessness bringing about his downfall. It'd also explain how the Boltons had so many horses.
Comment: PS:all i wrote is from memory, I don't have the source material in my hands right now.
Comment: Doesn't Ramsay say 5000?
Answer: As of season 2 there are 20,000 northmen in the Riverlands.
After all the fighting, backstabbing (e.g. Red Wedding), blackmails etc. it is guesswork. Also most of the men Roose has aren't actually loyal per se.
From the book:

Winterfell is held by Lord Roose Bolton and his legitimized bastard son, Ramsay. His force, aside from the strength of House Bolton, consists of a few thousand of Houses Frey, Ryswell, Dustin, Cerwyn, Hornwood, Manderly, and the other half of House Umber under Hother "Whoresbane" Umber.

Although Roose has the larger host, and his soldiers are far better armed and trained than the clansmen that make up a large part of Stannis's army, the loyalties of some of his forces are highly questionable, particularly the Manderlys, Whoresbane Umber, and the Hornwoods. Roose suspects that only the Freys, Dustins, and his own men would be truly loyal to him if word gets out that Bran and Rickon Stark are still alive.
Winterfell is overcrowded with forces, low on supplies, and on edge due to a series of murders with no confirmed suspects.
Cut that in half as not all of the North declared for Roose, and you are down to 10,000.
Out of those we know that:

After the murder of Little Walder Frey and the near battle inside Winterfell between the Freys and Manderlys, Roose Bolton, fearing another battle inside the castle between his own forces, sends out Hosteen Frey and Aenys Frey along with the 2,000 Freys to engage Stannis's host.
The Freys' presence increases tensions with the northerners as many had lost kin at the Red Wedding. Roose also sends out the forces of Lord Wyman Manderly as he does not trust the Manderly forces. Ramsay Bolton follows not far behind, with a force of his own Dreadfort men. The absence of near 3,000 men in Winterfell also means that Roose also has an easier time managing food supplies to his forces.

So 10,000 - 3000 = 7000 men. Of those maybe 2-3000 are Bolton men.
This is part speculation, part facts from the book. So this differs greatly from the show where Stannis is defeated in front of Winterfell.


Probability two people arrive at the same time?

Question: Two people arrive at a train station at a random time between 12pm and 1pm. They arrive independently of each other and their arrival times are uniformly distributed. What is the probability they arrive at exactly the same time? I am trying to use a graphical approach, and just have straight line (y=x). Wouldn't this yield a probability of zero, since the area of a line is 0?
Comment: yes, you're right.
Answer: Let's start with simple case with discrete time. If you have two discrete random variables $X$ and $Y$ that that are iid and follow discrete uniform distributions with $k$ possible categories (arrival times from $0$ to $k-1$), then probability of $X=x$ is $1/k$ and the same for $Y$. Since $X$ and $Y$ are independent, then $\Pr(X=t \cap Y=t) = \Pr(X=t)\times\Pr(Y=t) = 1/k^2$.
With continuous variables things get more complicated (and I assume that if you are talking about time you think of continuous time). For continuous random variable $X$ probability of $X=x$ for any $x$ is equal to zero (that is why we use pdf's instead of pmf's). So for continuous line from $a$ to $b$ point $x$ occupies infinitesimal space. If you align two such lines $X$, $Y$ than the probability of $X=t$ and $Y=t$ occurring simultaneously goes to zero as probability of each of the events alone is zero. With a single variable we were talking about a line and with two variables we can think of it as of square, with $\Pr(X=x \cap Y=y)$ being a single point inside such square.
What you could do is to compute probability of two arrivals occurring within some time interval (say $\pm \varepsilon$), by using cumulative distribution functions
$$ \Pr(t-\varepsilon \le X \le t+\varepsilon \cap t-\varepsilon \le Y \le t+\varepsilon) \\
= \left( F_X(t+\varepsilon) - F_X(t-\varepsilon) \right) \times \left( F_Y(t+\varepsilon) - F_Y(t-\varepsilon) \right)$$
What translates to talking about area of smaller square within bigger square.


How can I add some style to title of side bar block?

Question: I want to add some style to my drupal 8 Sidebar menu, I want to create something like below image with Font awesome and css:
Answer:
First add position: relative as a style to the containing element (most likely the nav element.
Add a pseudo element after the h2 element, which you probably want to have your specificity include the class of the nav element.
Style the pseudo element with position: absolute; right: 0;
Tweak the styles of the h2 and h2:after blocks to suit your needs.
Answer: You can do this thing entirely using the CSS and FontAwesome module, I have just tried in my trial site and posting the image of block title as below, I guess you are looking for the same.

The CSS code I have used is as below,
#block-yourblockID {
    .block-title {
      font-size: 20px;
      margin: 0 0 0 0;
      padding: 0 0 0 70px !important;
      background: #0166c3;
      color: #fff;
      }

  .block-title:after {
     font-family: FontAwesome;
     content: "\f100";
     float: right;
     background: #0156a2;
     padding: 0 5px 0 5px;
     color: #fff;
     } }

Now, for your title and its content you can adjust padding and margin for your fit. Also you can adjust the padding and margin of block to fit the entire title same as block width.


How can I embed comments plugin to my own website?

Question: I am looking for a way to embed WordPress comment form to watch.php in order to allow user to comment on a specific video. Can you tell me how?
Comment: What kind of problems do you have? Did you try to include `` at all in that `template`? See the Codex for [more info](https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/comments_template/#source-code). A little research is appreciated before even asking some! Btw are you misusing wordpress.com or is that a mistaken `tag`?
Comment: Comments can be done on some object. Video should be post-type or attachment.
Answer: Take a look at rendering a comment_form. You can render it anywhere in your page template and there are lots of ways to customize it.
$comments_args = array (
    // change the title of send button
    'label_submit'        => 'Send',
    // change the title of the reply section
    'title_reply'         => 'Leave Your Comment',
    // remove "Text or HTML to be displayed after the set of comment fields"
    'comment_notes_after' => '',
    // redefine your own textarea (the comment body)
    'comment_field'       => '
' . _x( 'Comment', 'noun' ) . '
<textarea id="comment" name="comment" aria-required="true"></textarea>
',
);

comment_form( $comments_args );

Answer: If the video is embedded in a normal post, you just switch on the option leave comments below your posts when editing or writing a post.
You don't see that ? On the right of your edit post on top of the page, you can click on show/hide options. Check Comments.


Context module not triggering Delta snapshot

Question: I am using the Omega theme, and have the Delta and Context modules enabled. I created a Delta snapshot, and then created a Context to load that snapshot on the front page.
I created the context Condition -> path -> <front> and Reaction -> Delta -> Select Custom theme settings template. However, when I load the front page, the new snapshot doesn't load - it reverts back to the 'standard' Omega layout that I created.
I've tried deleting and recreating both context and snapshot, and clearing cache. I can't figure out what I'm missing.
Thanks for the help
Answer: ok...so I'm dumb. I guess this is for anyone else who is going too fast, like I was - I created the delta module for another theme. I didn't realize that the delta snapshots are per theme, which makes sense.


Why did Jesus - not baptize?. John 4:2

Question: John 4:2 (NASB)

2 (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were),
Answer: "Why didn't Jesus baptize with water" would be a better question.  The reason I clarify this is because there are about 14 things a person could be baptized in, in the new testament.  See these few verses:

1 Cor. 10:2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the
  sea;
Acts 11:16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say,
  'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy
  Spirit.'

All of this to say it is a mistake to assume water baptism each time we see the word in the New Testament.  Secondly, these questions must be asked, "What was the purpose of Jesus living, dying, and resurrecting?" and what is the purpose of being baptized in water?
Jesus' mission was to give His life as a ransom for the sins of humanity.  This is applied to one's account via faith and not water baptism.  Baptism in water was a way to publicly identity oneself with Jesus.  It's more akin to wearing a wedding ring.  Wearing a wedding ring does not make one married, it simply shows the world you belong to your spouse.  Water baptism doesn't make one redeemed, it simply shows the world you have believed in Jesus.  It's a way to identify with a message or a person.
When Jesus was baptized He was basically identifying with John's message.

2 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 11 "As for me, I
  baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me
  is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will
  baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in
  His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He
  will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff
  with unquenchable fire."
Answer: And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' John 1:33 New International Version (NIV)
While John baptized with water for repentance, this would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
Let us observe,
I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel." John 1:31 New International Version (NIV)
What do you mean you didn't know him?
Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins, and closely related by the circumstances of their birth; Jesus visited Jerusalem every year. Luke 2:41-43
And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' I have seen and I testify that this is God's Chosen One." John 1:33-34 New International Version (NIV)
John the Baptist did not know who the son of God was, but knew Jesus.

Why did Jesus - not baptize?. John 4:2


What does 传承跨越沧桑的壁垒 mean?

Question: 传承 impart and inherit
跨越 stride across; leap over
沧桑 vicissitude
的 poss.
壁垒 rampart; barrier
I came with 'passing the obstacles' but I'm not sure if it's right.
Answer: Here's an English translation from YouTube

and in text form:

Inheritance over the barriers of vicissitudes of life

Without directly translating every word specifically we could change this to something more user-friendly like:

An inheritance that transcends the barrier of time

You might even be able to fit "changes" in their as well to make it a little truer to the original Chinese.
Answer: It is very straight forward using Google Translate
传承 - impart and inherit
跨越 - leap across
沧桑的 - of vicissitudes
壁垒 - barrier
I would like to talk about the term 沧桑
沧桑 came from the idiom 沧海桑田

沧海 (vast sea)

桑田 (mulberry field)

Together, it means 'vast sea became a mulberry field'. It describes unimaginable changes that occurred over eons
沧桑:

on a geologic time scale refers to billions of year (vicissitudes through eons)

on a personal lifetime scale refers to a few years or a few tens of years - not longer than a typical human's life span (vicissitudes through life)

on a cultural heritage time scale refers to hundreds or thousands of years (vicissitudes through time)

"传承跨越沧桑的壁垒" =  "leap across the barrier of vicissitudes through time to impart and inherit"
Comment: Quote:- "沧海桑田" ---  "on a geologic time scale refers to billions of year (vicissitudes through eons)" Yes, since I came across this Idiom a long time ago, I've always been awed by its implication with regards to the "antediluvian" ancientness of the Chinese civilization. 沧海桑田 implies that sea-beds could transform into mulberry fields and vice versa given enough time, measured in aeons, with rise and fall of global sea levels. For the ancient Chinese to have noticed this, they must have observed Nature for 1000s of years. The Chinese civilization is therefore older that we imagined or told.
Comment: I can imagine ancient people would notice all the seashells found in high mountains implicated it might have been a seabed eons ago
Comment: If so, the Idiom would be 沧海高峰? :)
Comment: 沧海 contrasts 桑田 to indicate the huge changes in situations that render returning to the original state impossible, I believe "曾經沧海, 難為桑田" was the origin of 沧海桑田. I don't recall who wrote that then.
Comment: You are confusing 沧海桑田  with 曾经沧海难为水

What does 传承跨越沧桑的壁垒 mean?


Icon badge based on number of UITableView cells/entries

Question: I'm working on a Todo style app using Core Data and UITableView. I want the app icon on the home screen to show a badge for the number of entries in the TableView, but I'm having an issue. When I add a new cell, it updates fine. The badge matches the number of cells in the TableView, but the number on the badge doesn't decrease when I delete a cell. Does anyone know what I could do to make the badge update when I delete a cell, not just add one? Help would be greatly appreciated.
This is my current code:
<code>NSInteger section = [self.tableView numberOfSections] - 1;
id <NSFetchedResultsSectionInfo> sectionInfo = [[self.fetchedResultsController sections]      objectAtIndex:section];
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] setApplicationIconBadgeNumber:[sectionInfo numberOfObjects]];
</code>
I have it in ViewWillAppear right under [super viewWillAppear:animated]; Is that the correct place to put it?
Thanks in advance for anyone that could help me out!
Answer: Create an array of the items in your section, then use that as the badge number.
<code>[[UIApplication sharedApplication] setApplicationIconBadgeNumber:[myArray count]];
</code>


What's the difference between a "GET" request and a "page refresh"?

Question: Is there any difference between doing a "GET" request (type URL and Enter) compared to simply refreshing (CtrlR) the page?
Answer: No, it is not simply a get request, because on a page that you've POSTed to (from a separate form), the browser will confirm with you that you want to refresh the page because it is a POST request.
As for your question, you'll need to provide specifics for debugging purposes.
Answer: It is simply telling the browser to repeat the page load, which implies repeating the GET or POST request. Some browsers will inform the server that 304 (not-modified) is an acceptable response, and the server can reply with a 304 HTTP response to inform the browser that it's cached contents are valid
Answer: Most browsers ignore the Expires header if we do a "page refresh", yet respect it if we do a "url visit".
However, different browsers have their own way of differentiating "refresh" and "url visit", the only way to be sure is to manually test each one of them.


How to turn off page numbering for just a page?

Question: I know that \pagenumbering{gobble} makes the page numbering off. But when I use, for example \pagenumbering{arabic} again, page numbering starts over from 1. How to make it start from an offset?
Comment: `\setcounter{page}{100}` is what you want?
Comment: Partha D's answer is the answer to the question in the title, but the text of your question appears to be asking a different question about changing the value of the counter rather than affecting a single page. Perhaps you could edit the question to clarify the actual problem?
Answer: You have to look at what \pagenumbering actually does in order to understand why (from the LaTeX kernel):
\def\pagenumbering#1{%
  \global\c@page \@ne % <---------------------------- 1
  \gdef\thepage{\csname @#1\endcsname \c@page}}% <--- 2

Note how \pagenumbering{<scheme>} does two things:

Globally (re)sets the page number counter \c@page to 1;
Globally (re)defines \thepage to be a representation of the page counter according to <type>. Here <scheme> is defined as a macro \@<scheme>. So, \pagenumbering{gobble} results in \@gobble.

Now that you know it (re)sets the page number back to 1, you have a couple of options:

Store the page number before setting it to gobble, and use that when you restore the numbering scheme.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[paper=a5paper]{geometry}% Just for this example
\usepackage{fancyhdr,lipsum}

\newcounter{savepage}

\begin{document}

\sloppy% Just for this example
\lipsum[1-20]

\setcounter{savepage}{\value{page}}% Store page number on page 6
\pagenumbering{gobble}% Remove page number
\lipsum[1-2]

\pagenumbering{arabic}% Restore page numbering
\setcounter{page}{\numexpr\value{savepage}+2}% Restore original numbering + offset (should be page 8)
\lipsum[3-20]

\end{document}

Just set the page number outright using \setcounter{page}{<number>} after restoring the numbering scheme (using \pagenumbering{arabic}, say). A similar technique is used as in (1) above.
Use a page style to change the appearance of the page number (or remove it), leaving the counter untouched.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[paper=a5paper]{geometry}% Just for this example
\usepackage{fancyhdr,lipsum}

\fancypagestyle{strangepage}{%
  \fancyhf{}% Remove header/footer
  \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}% Remove header rule
  \renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}% Remove footer rule (default)
  \fancyhead[C]{non-default header}% Header
  \fancyfoot[C]{no page number}% Footer
}

% Set default fancy header
\fancyhf{}% Clear header/footer
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}% Remove header rule
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}% Remove footer rule
\fancyhead[C]{default header}% Header
\fancyfoot[C]{\thepage}% Footer
\pagestyle{fancy}% Set page style

\begin{document}

\sloppy% Just for this example
\lipsum[1-20]

\thispagestyle{strangepage}% Change page style *just* for this page
\lipsum[1-20]

\end{document}

Comment: @lonesome: If you don't like the `\thispagestyle` approach, I did provide other options. Alternatively, can you provide details of what your concern is through a minimal example that replicates the problem?
Comment: There is a problem with your approach. It manipulated the page style and everything got bigger and so weird.
Comment: Well, What I want is to only remove numbering for a page and continue with the same numbering from next page. I used your first example and fonts got much bigger and not just for that page, but for every page.
Comment: @lonesome: It doesn't happen with my example, so I don't know what you might be doing differently.
Answer: What about \thispagestyle{empty} ?
That should print no page number (supposed to be 73, say) on the page where this command is placed, and continue numbering next page (74) as usual.


The best way to sandbox programs in OSX?

Question: I know that this question have been discussed before on AskDifferent, but none of the threads really satisfied me. For Windows you have a wonderful program called Sandboxie http://www.sandboxie.com/ that let you easily set up sandboxes with different rules and  privileges. What is the eaisest and most secure way of sandbox really malicious programs?
Comment: "most secure way of sandbox really malicious programs?" Run a virtual machine.
Answer:
easiest and most secure way

Please choose A or B, not both.

really malicious programs

Are we talking invasive virus software, like the stuff that came on Sony CDs?
Either a carefully-configured virtual machine, like VMware Fusion, or an isolated physical machine. By "isolated" I mean not used for anything else and not connected to any network. Make a fresh install of the OS, do what you need, but then never use the machine for anything else. I would assume that "really malicious" software would modify the recovery partition, bootloader, and even the firmware.
Answer: Prepare a version of OS X that  installs from a USB drive or a DVD-ROM.
 Set up a virtual machine for instance using Parallels or VirtualBox and run the malicious software inside the virtual machine.


What is the purpose of a microphone placed at rear view mirror?

Question: I just bought a used Chevy Impala 2005 and it has a microphone placed at the rear view mirror and its wire goes inside the hood. I don't know where it goes and I have no idea how to find its purpose.
What should I do to figure it out?
Comment: From what @tlhIngan says it sounds like it might be for the OnStar system. I've only seen it work once, the controls were integrated with the radio, and maybe the steering wheel. I'd guess it would be in the owner manual. Did you get one with the car?
Comment: Do try to find where the other end of that wire goes. There aren't any good places for it to go under the hood.
Comment: Welcome! Thanks for the question. I'd guess that this is a mic for a hands free phone system. Somewhere there will be either a Bluetooth or a cable connection for the phone (assuming I'm right).
Comment: @dlu How do I check if that works or not?
Answer: GM vehicles often came standard with OnStar, GM's roadside assistance system. 2005 may be a little early for factory-installed Bluetooth.
Comment: Because it's a 2005, you may need an adapter for modern cell networks --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStar#History
Comment: @SulavTimsina - Just press the blue OnStar button. If it works, it will join with the network and you'll hear the OnStar operator. Just tell them you are testing your system, thank them for their time, and press the blue button again. They will thank you and by this you'll know if the microphone is working, which it more than likely will be.  tlhingan is correct about the adapter ... the vehicle needs the newer digital equipment in order to work.
Comment: How do I check if that works or not?
Comment: OnStar is a subscription-based service. I'd check with a GM dealership or with OnStar themselves.
Comment: @Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 There is **no blue button** there. There is only a mic placed just above the mirror; looks like it didn't come originally with the car, may be its past owner has put it there. Thats why I am not being able to find about it.
Comment: @dlu  https://s13.postimg.org/py3feaxo7/mic.jpg Please view this image to see how exactly the mic looked like.
Answer: Impala active noise cancellation began in 2014 model year, so it's OnStar or an aftermarket phone system (which need not be BlueTooth).


How many External Hard Drives can I plug to Airport Extreme?

Question: I need to backup all my computer data. I'm thinking of buying 3 External Hard Drives and connect them to Airport Extreme. Can I do this?
Comment: Once you connect the drives, how will you back up onto them? And, how will you keep the backups updated? Will  you back up applications, prefs, system extensions? How will you deal with updating photo libraries and/or your documents folder? This is tough to do by simply dragging stuff from one place to another. You might be better off with a firewire drive directly connected to your computer and a tool like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. This method, over time, will update the clone to reflect your internal hard disk on your computer.
Answer: The constraint is be the number of ports available on your USB hub.
Any connected hard drives should appear in Mac OS X.
Use a self-powered usb hub and connect hard drives your hub. Only then will multiple external drives have enough power to run.
Also see store.apple.com for related questions.
Answer: As shown on the Apple website, the Airport Extreme has only one USB port:

However, you can use a USB hub to connect multiple devices to it.

(I also wouldn't be surprised if Apple eventually creates a Thunderbolt-compatible version of the Airport Extreme — and Thunderbolt devices can be daisy-chained, so you might be able to connect more than one hard drive at a time.)
For a single hard drive, you might also like the Time Capsule which has an integrated hard drive.
For a more flexible and heavy-duty solution for multiple drives, you could use something like Drobo.
Comment: It's possible to use a USB hub to connect more than one device via USB.
Answer: Yes you can - Apple's web site says "multiple printers, multiple hard drives" and mentions using them with a USB hub.
Don't expect fancy NAS or RAID features though, you will just be able to share the existing partitions.
Answer: The problem is how much power USB on the Airport Extreme supplies.
If you had one external drive, then 2.5 inch drives will be fine with the power they get, 3.5 inch drives usually are not. I had one drive that came with a special USB cable with two connectors, one for data + power, the other to get a bit more power. That won't work obviously.
For multiple drives, you need a hub. For multiple drives without their own power supply, you will need a POWERED USB hub, that is a USB hub with its own power plug. Be careful when you order one, because some people sell their unpowered hubs as "USB POWERED", which means it tries to get its power from the Airport Extreme USB port. That's not going to work.
If you buy 3.5 inch drives that usually come with their own power supply, they might be fine with an unpowered hub, but I wouldn't take the risk and get a powered hub.


How to disable ctrl + scroll zoom in Lubuntu or openbox

Question: If are you in Google Chrome, Firefox or a software that have the zoom functionality, when you press CTRL + SCROLL UP/DOWN` or TOUCHPAD SCROLL the page increase/decrease the zoom how to disable it?
Answer: In your ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml or rc.xml at:
 <mouse>
    ....
    <context name="Frame">
     .......

set this:

<mousebind button="C-Up" action="Click" >
        <action name="Focus"/>
</mousebind>
<mousebind button="C-Down" action="Click" >
        <action name="Focus"/>
</mousebind>

Type openbox --reconfigure in terminal to check the changes, if the changes has broken it will validate.

It's all.
Comment: That will work but in the same login you will need to apply openbox --reconfigure. To apply the settings in the same login.  Which is the same for any changes to the openbox config file. I think this is a good thing as if there is error with the xml it will not apply and end up with totally broken window management.
Comment: Not works anymore on google chrome 51.0.2704.79 (64-bit)
Answer: Use block-scroll-mod-x11. That will disable zooming only, if you press a modifier key after scrolling has started.


node-mysql query attempts to replace my question marks with parameters against my will

Question: I'm trying to run a simple query with node-mysql like this:
client.query("UPDATE mytable SET emote='wtf?' WHERE id=5");

And I get the error

Error: too few parameters given

Because it found a question mark and expects parameters. How the heck do I tell it to ignore the question mark!? Escaping it with \ doesn't work. Passing ['?'] as a parameter is completely out of the question - what if I don't know the amount of question marks the query contains?
Currently I'm using a workaround that counts the amount of question marks in the query and passes that amount of question marks as parameters. But what if I were to actually need the parameters for what they were meant to do? I shiver at the thought.
So to summarize - How do I tell client.query() to ignore question marks?
Answer: Use this:
client.query('UPDATE mytable SET emote=? WHERE id=5', ['wtf?']);

Edit:

Passing ['?'] as a parameter is completely out of the question - what
  if I don't know the amount of question marks the query contains?

I skipped over this. Why would you not know how many question marks the query contains? Why would you have an unknown query with question marks?
Comment: The query is being readied beforehand (not in node), so the amount of question marks in the query is completely variable.
Answer: it's an unsolved bug: #118: Client.prototype.format shouldn't treat "?" as placeholder inside string literals
Answer: When I try to recreate your scenario, the repeat use of single quotes causes a problem:
client.query('UPDATE mytable SET emote='wtf?' WHERE id=5');

Specifically I see "SyntaxError: Unexpected identifier" when I try to launch the Node instance.
However, I'm able to run an equivalent query just fine, when I switch the outer quotes to double quotes, like so:
mysql.query("SELECT * FROM stories WHERE title='Test?'");

For comparison, this is the parameterized version of my query:
mysql.query('SELECT * FROM stories WHERE title=?',[req.params.title]);

Comment: That was a typo in my question, sorry. Fixed now


Is zeolite effective for controlling room odor?

Question: This site (https://www.refreshinglyfree.com/Online-Catalog/Zeolite-Odor-and-Moisture-Control-Products) says so, but I'm not entirely convinced.
Answer: For an odor absorbing material to have a realistic effect, air will need to pass over/through the odor filtering media. Zeolite does remove certain odors, but not as well as activated carbon. You should be able to find both zeolite and activated carbon air filters for furnaces at a hardware store. If you don't have a furnace, or it is a summer-time issue, then perhaps you could construct an air filter by duct-taping a filter to the back side of a box fan. Cut a 12" hole in the filter directly behind the motor so that the motor doesn't overheat.
Also, cyclodextrins (like hydroxypropyl beta cyclodextrin found in Febreeze) can trap odors.


Effect of Reorganizing and Rebuilding an index

Question: What are the effects of Index Rebuilding and Reorganizing on clustered and non-clustered indexes. How does these 2 operations affect the logical storage and physical storage of data in Hard disk?
Comment: Hi @Jigar - welcome to [dba.se] !  Please take the [tour] and read the [help] for details about how to use the site, and how to ask good questions.  As it is, this question is likely too broad for this site.
Answer: The MSDN page says this about reorganizing and rebuilding indexes:

The SQL Server Database Engine automatically maintains indexes whenever insert, update, or delete operations are made to the underlying data. Over time these modifications can cause the information in the index to become scattered in the database (fragmented). Fragmentation exists when indexes have pages in which the logical ordering, based on the key value, does not match the physical ordering inside the data file. Heavily fragmented indexes can degrade query performance and cause your application to respond slowly.
You can remedy index fragmentation by reorganizing or rebuilding an index. For partitioned indexes built on a partition scheme, you can use either of these methods on a complete index or a single partition of an index. Rebuilding an index drops and re-creates the index. This removes fragmentation, reclaims disk space by compacting the pages based on the specified or existing fill factor setting, and reorders the index rows in contiguous pages. When ALL is specified, all indexes on the table are dropped and rebuilt in a single transaction. Reorganizing an index uses minimal system resources. It defragments the leaf level of clustered and nonclustered indexes on tables and views by physically reordering the leaf-level pages to match the logical, left to right, order of the leaf nodes. Reorganizing also compacts the index pages. Compaction is based on the existing fill factor value.

Doe that cover your question?
Comment: Only thing I would add to this is with regards to ONLINE rebuilds. New index is rebuilt alongside old index, so the index effectively doubles in size for the rebuilding process. Thats my understanding anyway.
Comment: hi Max, actually i want to know the pros and cons of the above 2 mentioned operations on indexes. Since index are of 2 types, the concerned effects must be varying. So i am looking for a little help in better understanding the concepts.


Percentage of mutations caused by radiation?

Question: Consider a gamete in a typical human being. In the interest of being specific, let us say that we're talking about a typical ovum in a typical middle class woman living in a developed nation. What percentage, on the average, of the mutations in the genome of that ovum will have been caused by electromagnetic radiation?
Comment: May we also assume the person lives at sea level?  The sun will, by far, be the greatest source of radiation in an average person's life (in practically any location).  Elevation is likely to be a key variable in how much radiation she receives (doubles every 6k ft). Radon-222 probably deservers an honorable mention, but no matter what the radiation source, the answer is going to be a very, very low percentage.
Comment: @AtlLED, yes absolutely, and that is a very good point.
Answer: You might use the frequency of thymine-thymine dimers to extrapolate the rate of UV induced damage. This has been studied but I couldn't find a paper in human cell lines. It appears different cell lines have different susceptibilities to thymine-thymine dimers. The majority of DNA mutation in healthy people comes from endogenous sources, not radiation. Recombination during fertilization may also contribute significantly to changes in DNA sequence. Wikipedia nicely breaks down some of the different sources of mutation.
Manifestations of mutations from endogenous sources is measurable as our bodies become genetically more chimeric with time. Regions of our bodies become deferentially susceptible to disease due in largest part to errors in DNA repair and replication, unrelated to electromagnetic insult.
Damage due to UV radiation, like the creation of a thymine-thymine dimer, can be repaired readily by base excision and replacement. While DNA is dividing, it is cut many times to allow the molecule to unwind. Single strand breaks resulting from DNA damage have robust mechanisms for repair. For example, when a thymine-thymine dimer is excised or single strand break is otherwise introduced, enzymatic recognition makes identification of a template for repair possible. It is also very unlikely in a single strand break that another break will occur in the same location, decreasing the mutation effect of UV.
Double strand breaks and errors in DNA replication are intrinsically more permanent as a substituted base is chemically indistinguishable from any other of the same type. Much of the new genetic information introduced into any mammalian genome comes from endogenous sources, not the environment.

Error rate of human DNA polymerase
Deamination is a major contributor to mutation rate
Comment: The only problem with this, is that the germline should absolutely not be exposed to UV radiation.  One of the big things mammals got right was the whole "mama" thing.  In fact, the mother not getting enough UV exposure for vitamin production is more likely to be a problem.
Comment: Good point. Now I want to know the correlation between different products of DNA damage and energy of insulting light. Maybe the success of internal fertilization for animals with small litter sizes is related to protection from UV.


Mount storage from Fiber Channel SAN on Oracle Linux

Question: I have a scenario where my shared storage is available at SAN (Storage Area Network). The SAN is available through Fiber Channel. I am installing some oracle product and want to use storage from SAN only. The problem I am facing regarding 'mount' of location from SAN to my Linux machine. Attached the screenshot.
Answer: Before mounting the SAN storage on your virtual machine, you'll need to present the storage to the VM(s). There are two ways to do it:
A. present the entire 1250 GiB LUN as a single device to a single VM or to a cooperating cluster of VMs.
or
B. initialize the LUN as Oracle VM storage repository, then use that repository in creating any number virtual disks for any number of VMs.

As you can see, option B is more flexible, but option A may offer more performance and may be simpler to implement if you just need a big chunk of storage to a single VM.
If you choose option A, you'll need to go to the settings of the VM that needs the storage, on the Disks tab, pick an empty slot, switch the slot from "Empty" to "Physical Disk", then select the LUN to be presented for the VM.
Then you can login to the VM and perform the necessary initialization steps, just like with any other new disk: you may want to partition the disk and/or initialize it with pvcreate for use with LVM. If you use LVM, then you can either create a new VG or add the new PV to an existing VG, and then create or extend logical volumes as needed. Once the partition(s) or new LV(s) are ready, the next step is to create filesystem(s) on them. Only after that you can mount them.
If you choose option B, there's a bit more work within the OVM Manager: you should first go to the Repositories tab, and set up the SAN LUN as an OVM repository. Then you can go to the settings of the VM that needs the storage, on the Disks tab, then pick an empty slot, switch its type to "Virtual Disk", click on the green + icon to create a new virtual disk, specify the repository, size and name for the new virtual disk, and whether the virtual disk should be "shared" or not, i.e. whether it should be usable by more than one VM simultaneously or not. Once you've done this, the new virtual disk gets presented to the VM: the next step is to log into the VM and initialize it for use, just like with option A.


Reference for article that introduces and motivates different notions of subdifferentials

Question: I saw a tutorial/expository journal article a while ago that focused on introducing intuitively different notions of subdifferentials appropriate for general nonlinear optimization. I forgot the journal and title. Any suggestions?
Comment: [this](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=subdifferentials+appropriate+for+general+nonlinear+optimization&btnG=) will give you a (long) list of articles on the topic; you might find the one you have memories of...
Answer: Section 1.3 of Chapter Nonsmooth Optimization by V. F. Demyanov in the book Nonlinear Optimization discusses in some detail the Dini, Hadamard, Shor, Clarke, and Michel–Penot notions of the subdifferential (in addition to the most common notion of the subdifferential, for convex functions, given in Section 1.2.2 of the chapter). Remark 1.3.1 on p. 72 of that chapter contains a number of references to "[m]any other subdifferentials".
Comment: thank you for the reference.
Answer: I found the article: J. Li, A. M. -C. So and W. -K. Ma, "Understanding Notions of Stationarity in Nonsmooth Optimization: A Guided Tour of Various Constructions of Subdifferential for Nonsmooth Functions," in IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vol. 37, no. 5, pp. 18-31, Sept. 2020, doi: 10.1109/MSP.2020.3003845., and the corresponding arxiv preprint.
It reviews subdifferentials for convex functions, then uses them as the basis of providing a list of desiderata for generalized subdifferentials. Then it moves on to subdifferentials for locally Lipschitz functions-- the Bouligand and then Clarke subdifferentials. Then it moves on to Frechet subdifferentials, the limiting subdifferential, and the relationships between these and the Clarke subdifferential. Finally it uses these notions to discuss stationarity.
The upside of this article for me is that it liberally peppers examples of applications of these notions to signal processing applications throughout, so the coverage and development of these subdifferentials is not as abstract as elsewhere in the more mathematical literature.


Arena in Malloc Function

Question: I am using malloc_stats() to print malloc related statistics in which I am finding "Arena 0" for some programs and "Arena 0 and Arena 1" for some other programs.
What do these arenas represent?
Answer: The heap code resides inside the glibc component, and is packaged in the libc.so.x shared library. The current implementation of the heap uses multiple independent sub-heaps called arenas. Each arena has its own mutex for concurrency protection. Thus if there are sufficient arenas within a process' heap, and a mechanism to distribute the threads' heap accesses evenly between them, then the potential for contention for the mutexes should be minimal. It turns out that this works well for allocations. In malloc(), a test is made to see if the mutex for current target arena for the current thread is free (trylock). If so then the arena is now locked and the allocation proceeds. If the mutex is busy then each remaining arena is tried in turn and used if the mutex is not busy. In the event that no arena can be locked without blocking,  a fresh new arena is created. This arena by definition is not already locked, so the allocation can now proceed without blocking. Lastly, the ID of the arena last used by a thread is retained in thread local storage, and subsequently used as the first arena to try when malloc() is next called by that thread. Therefore all calls to malloc() will proceed without blocking.
Answer: See link text. It looks like heap is a collection of arenas ("sub-heaps") to handle memory allocation between several threads, thus reducing contention.
Answer: In certain malloc implementations,  an "arena" is a pool of memory from which individual allocations are made. The algorithms to determine which arena is used will differ between implementations, so it's not possible for us to explain why you see a difference. One common factor is allocation size.
Comment: Can you explain with what happens when using malloc implementation of GNU C library?
Answer: Everything is there: http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Statistics-of-Malloc.html

int arena
  This is the total size of memory allocated with sbrk by malloc, in bytes.

Arena in Malloc Function


Android-Unable to add support library to a project

Question: I am new to android apps. I am trying to add support library to a project. I have right clicked my 'project', then I had gone to 'android tools' and then 'add support library'.
I had checked other posts and have enabled android sdk manager to be run as a 'administrator'.
I had already through android sdk have installed android support library. Is it because of this reason, I am unable to add the support library to the project. If so if we install through android sdk once we need not install for individual projects.
<code>[2013-09-08 15:52:32 - SDK Manager]   URL not found: C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\temp\support_r18.zip (Access is denied)
</code>
Comment: Raj, when you installed the SDK did you encounter any errors? The support library (or libraries) should be in `$SDK_LOCATION/extras/android/support/vX/android-support-vX.jar`
Answer: Just run eclipse on administrator mode. This work to me.


Is there an anticommutator relation for orbital angular momentum?

Question: So I know that there are commutator relations for $L$ such as $[L_x,L_y] = i\hbar L_z$, but is there a relation for the anticommutator? For example, $L_xL_y + L_yL_x$?
Answer: Strictly speaking anticommutators are not defined in a Lie algebra. The axioms only define the commutators. Clearly since we are used to represent the commutator as
$$
[A,B] = AB - BA\,,
$$
this might seem silly because, you know, why can't we just flip the sign? But the formal definition doesn't need $A$ and $B$ to be matrices and doesn't say what $AB$ is. It just defines an object that satisfies antisymmetry, bilinearity and the Jacoby identity.
Nevertheless it's possible to extend a Lie algebra to a Universal enveloping algebra which contains formal polynomials of the generators ($A\otimes B \otimes \cdots $ ) and in such an algebra the commutator is represented as one would expect ($A \otimes B - B \otimes A$). Needless to say, if you use matrices all this comes for free and $\otimes$ is just the row by column product.
In this universal enveloping algebra then the anticommutator would be obviously defined as
$$
\{A,B\} \equiv A \otimes B + B \otimes A\,.
$$
All this detour just to say that it doesn't come from the algebra but it depends on the representation (indeed one of the elements of the universal enveloping algebra in $\mathfrak{su}(2)$ is the Casimir $$L^2 \equiv L_x\otimes L_x + L_y\otimes L_y + L_z\otimes L_z$$ which is even used to label representations).
In the fundamental representation of $\mathfrak{su}(2)$ the generators are Pauli matrices and we know
$$
\{L_i,L_j\} = \frac{1}{2}\delta_{ij}\mathbb{1}\,.
$$
More generally we might expect other tensors to appear in the right hand side. So the final answer would be
$$
\{L_i,L_j\} = a(R)\delta_{ij}\mathbb{1} + M(R)_{ij}\,,
$$
where $R$ denotes the representation considered, $a(R)$ is just a number and $M(R)$ satisfies
$$
\mathrm{Tr}[M(R)_{ij}] = \sum_i M(R)_{ii} = \mathrm{Tr}[M(R)_{ij}L_k] = M_{ij}-M_{ji} = 0\,.
$$
I took part of this from the answers to this question, you might want to check those! One thing that I should add if you are considering reading that thread is that in there they consider $\mathfrak{su}(N)$ for arbitrary $N$, the neat fact about $\mathfrak{su}(2)$ is that the so-called cubic casimir $d_{ijk} = \mathrm{Tr}[\{L_i,L_j\}L_k]$ actually vanishes, meaning that the extra piece is only the one orthogonal to the generators (that is the $M(R)$ piece)
Comment: But then this begs the question: why should angular momentum operators be related to a Lie algebraic structure?
Comment: Because rotations in 3 dimensions form a group and this group is a Lie group. Lie algebras emerge naturally from Lie groups (hence the name).
Comment: You should include (and maybe expand a bit) this in your answer as it's quite essential to understanding why should Lie algebras be relevant to this question.
Comment: Worth emphasizing: if something depends on the representation, physically this means it depends on the total angular momentum, e.g., the anticommutators will be different for spin-1/2 vs. spin-1 particles.
Answer: Well, given any anticommutator,
$$ \{A, B\} = AB + BA = AB - BA + 2BA = [A, B] + 2BA.$$
Thus any anticommutator relation can be written in terms of a commutator relation, with an extra term dangling off the back. But that extra term doesn't represent anything of value, so I don't see how it would be useful.
Personally, I've never come across anticommutators before, so I may be very wrong.
Comment: what does "won't contribute" mean in this context?  contribute to what?
Comment: It means that they don't represent anything of value, or that they don't add some extra meaning. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Answer: The anticommutator does not appear much in elementary quantum mechanics: for instance, whereas commuting operators have common eigenvectors, anticommuting operators do not.
Anticommutators do occur quite naturally in the demonstration of Robertson's uncertainly relations.  In fact, if one wishes to go from a lower bound to a strict equality to find states that satisfy
$$
\Delta A\Delta B = \frac{1}{2}\vert\langle [\hat A,\hat B]\rangle\vert
\tag{1}
$$
rather than the more common inequality, one needs to set the average value of the anticommutator to $0$, i.e. $\langle \Delta A\Delta B+\Delta B\Delta A\rangle=0$
with $\Delta A=\hat A-\langle A\rangle$ etc.  It is interesting to note here that, even if the right hand side of the uncertainty relation depends on the commutator,  ones needs results on the anticommutator to get the "=" sign.
States that satisty the strict equality $\Delta A\Delta B = \frac{1}{2}\vert\langle [\hat A,\hat B]\rangle\vert$ are called intelligent and were studied in

Aragone, C., et al. "Intelligent spin states." Journal of Physics A: Mathematical, Nuclear and General 7.15 (1974): L149,
Aragone, C., E. Chalbaud, and S. Salamo. "On intelligent spin states." Journal of Mathematical Physics 17.11 (1976): 1963-1971.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be open-access copies of these papers.
As alluded to in another answer, there is a deep relation between Lie algebras and commutators, but not anticommutators.  In particular, the tools of representation theory can be used for various purposes when the observables close under commutation on a Lie algebra.  The case of angular momentum follows because the operators $\hat L_x, \hat L_y, \hat L_z$ are infinitesimal generators of rotations, and the group of rotations is a Lie group.
Note that, in the special case of Pauli matrices, there is a neat relation for anticommutators: $\{\sigma_a,\sigma_b\}=2\delta_{ab}$ but this is quite specialized and such a clean relation does not hold for larger angular momentum matrices.


units of magnetizing force

Question: In electromagnetic field theory, we talk about "magnetizing force". Units of magnetizing force is A/m (Amperes per meter). It's obvious that units of force is Newton. So, is amperes per meter equal to Newton?
Answer: Amps per metre is Magnetic field or Magnetic field strength. Amps are actually the current flow x number of turns resulting in the more preferable: -
H = (ampere turns) per metre
Sometimes H is described as magnetizing force.
See this table linked in the deleted answer that I sneakily copied: -

Magneto motive force is ampere turns and neither have the units of newton.

units of magnetizing force


Minecraft Nether Portal Glitch

Question: So I built a nether portal from my house and went to the nether. When I entered back I spawned in an entirely new portal about 300 blocks from my house in an inconvenient location. How can I fix this?
Answer: This is not a glitch, it is by design.
Every time you enter a portal, Minecraft will search for a corresponding portal in the other dimension.  It starts this search at an exact point based on the calculation below, and works outwards.  If it finds an active portal within about 128 blocks, then it will send you there.  If it finds more than one in range, it will send you to the closest one to the correct exact point.
Naturally generated portals are almost never at exactly the right point, and will need to be moved.
The calculation is done every time you enter the portal.  Many players believe that a portal is 'linked' to another - this is incorrect!  There is no such thing as a linked portal.
So, to get the exact point, where the destination portal should be, it is a simple calculation, based on the fact that 1 block of travel in the Nether is the same as 8 blocks of travel in the Overworld.  This means you can travel great distances in the Overworld, by travelling a much shorter distance in the Nether, and using portals.
This means that to calculate the exact position to place you portal you should:

Overworld to Nether: Divide the X and Z co-ordinates by 8 (and round to the nearest number)
Nether to Overworld: Multiply the X and Z co-ordinates by 8.

Note that the Y co-ordinate should remain the same!
So, for example, if you have an overworld portal at -600 65 750 then your portal in the Nether should be at 75 65 94.
When you first enter a newly built portal, it may generate a new portal on the other side for you, or just throw you out of an existing one - either way, you should then move/build the portal to the correct location to ensure you always come out in the right place.
Answer: sometimes its because of positions and blocks around....i try to avoid this bug by building my portal some blocks away from my house in a big space one block above ground..for that space i burned so many trees and dig lots of dirt :)..and i also was afraid that creatures come out of portal so i put fences around it :)

Minecraft Nether Portal Glitch


I have an editable SWF with Refferal protection, how would I remove that

Question: Im using JPEXS to edit an SWF I obtained of MutilateADoll2 that is Site locked (referrer) to the kongregate website, is it possible to.... per say... Remove that referral lock and gain access to use the swf offline (via embed)
Comment: You realize you're asking game developers how to take and use the work of other game developers, without their permission and in a way they've apparently gone to some lengths to say they're not OK with you doing? While I want to assume you have the best of intentions here, I hope you can understand why we might be reluctant to show you how to counter our fellow game developers' express wishes this way, in a public forum where any unscrupulous actor could use the information for nefarious ends. ;)
Comment: I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about stealing a game
Comment: @TaylorSpark If you have questions about personal use of games, then https://gaming.stackexchange.com would be the correct Stack Exchange. But I doubt that they will help you either.
Comment: Sorry for giving the wrong impression, I extract games to use them FOR ME PERSONALLY to use offline. I DON'T want to ruin the developers work. I just wanted to know if there was a way to remove the site lock so I could convert it to exe, then be able to play it offline, I know I already have the steam version, (full version + exe) but I want to be able to embed it to my raspberry pi server so I can use it anywhere and download it without wifi (I got that all covered, I just dont know how to remove the Sitelock)
Comment: I heard the sitelock was like a `_as3_ not > _as3_ nop` thing but i couldnt find the as3 not thing in the main.as
Comment: I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about the development of games as defined in the help center.
Answer: As described in the comments above, even given that your intentions are perfectly noble, this is a publicly visible site. If we told you how to defeat a game developer's protections on their game here, any bad actor could come along and use that information to rip off our fellow developers' hard work.
So, I hope you'll understand that many users of this site would find it unethical to post an answer about how to defeat this type of protection.
So, instead of "how can I remove this protection", I'd recommend we approach this question from the direction of "how can I obtain a version of this game that works offline?"
Here, the best approach we can offer you is to contact the game's original developer, eg. via their Twitter account, and ask if they would be willing to share a non-protected version with you / grant you a licence to use their work in the way that you describe.


Can I develop for Android Tablets without an actual tablet device?

Question: I bought the Augen Gentouch78 to start dabbing in development for Android tablets, but this device is gravely excruciating to use (and I'm returning it). Is there a way to configure the emulator to tablet specs (namely Samsung Galaxy Tab)??
Answer: You could create an AVD with similar hardware and Android 2.2. The main difference is the resolution (which is 600x1024), so you can try configuring your AVD this way:

Just keep in mind the AVD limitations; for instance, they don't support multitouch.
Answer: Install the GALAXY Tab addon by Samsung, it adds a API-8 Galaxy Tab target to the options list in the AVD creation screen.
The Honeycomb tablet require a API level 11 or 12 on WXGA skin.


Layer 7 QoS Management

Question: I have currently run a medium size SOHO network that can have up to 25-50 users and I am looking to implement a QoS system to better utilize the bandwidth. I currently am using pfSense however, both of its main QoS/Traffic Shaping options leave much to be desired and lacks layer 7 identification. While there are some professional solutions out there that can get the job done in a more all-in-one next generation firewall package, I am searching for something more budget friendly. This network is a free to use community gaming network and all equipment + service fees are coming out of my pocket.
After doing some research I found the Cisco Meraki cloud managed servers but years being a security practitioner has left me with a long standing hatred for cloud managed anything. While I fine with the device needing to connect to download layer 7 application identification information I truly hate anything cloud accessible.
My question being, is there any effective budget friendly QoS solutions that can help with traffic shaping between my internal network and the internet? My end goal is to be able to ensure gaming applications have minimal latency, setting guaranteed bandwidth for web browsing and other low bandwidth applications and lastly enforcing a fair use policy (Evenly distributed bandwidth) for larger usage applications like downloads and streaming.
Answer: For reals, I'd just use a Meraki. The Meraki MX64 model seems appropriate.
I know you have a "hatred" for cloud-managed solutions, but the Meraki product line does do the job at a fair price.

Super convenient...

Layer 7 QoS Management


Pick projection from another layer while using project tool (ArcGIS Model Builder)

Question: I am using ArcGIS 10.8.2. I built a model but have a problem.
I want to project my layer with picking projection from another layer in model.
Any good idea for that?
Comment: What is the problem? Are you getting any error doing the projection?
Comment: i want to use project tool and i want to take projection from an other layer. i do not konw how to do. @Padmanabha tried to explain with this: https://imgur.com/a/uNLg8ol
Answer: You cannot feed into the Project tool's out_coor_system parameter a layer, it is expecting a coordinate system, this is clearly indicated in the Syntax section in the help file.
I think the Project tool is one of those quirky tools that must have all it's parameters set before it can validate, so you can't set up a model with a place holder for that parameter, it needs to be defined before you can validate it.
Assuming the projection you want to project into never changes then you can import it from the layer.
Below I import a projection from a layer that is Equidistant Conic to set the Output coordinate system parameter in the Project tool.


Protecting a Laptop in a Surge-Ridden Area

Question: I am traveling to Nepal with a laptop, where power frequently surges and wanes (brownouts).
What do I need to protect the laptop?  A surge protector? Voltage regulator?
Answer: Most laptop power supplies cope with a wide range of input voltages and coupled with the battery itself, effectively gives you a UPS. If you are expecting surges, though, a surge protector is a good idea.
The biggest risk, however, will be theft and so I'd recommend insurance, a decent cable lock, keep all valuable data, photos etc. on encrypted USB sticks that you keep with you or locked in a hotel safe (where applicable) at all times.
Comment: @digitxp. Hi, I have no objections to minor & technical edits to my posts, but please don't add links to commercial software that I haven't specifically endorsed or mentioned. Thanks.
Comment: Acknowledged, my apologies.
Comment: "Most laptop power supplies cope with a wide range of input voltages"? Says who? Is there good evidence to back up your statement that modern laptops are protected by the kind of power surges experience in Nepal, as the OP is asking about.
Comment: Furthermore, it will say right on the laptop charger: Only connect to a grounded outlet. Outlets in southeast Asia are rarely grounded, despite having 3 prongs.
Answer: I would also make a complete image of the hard drive before leaving and then wipe the drive and restore the image when you get home.
You don't want any trojans, viruses, etc from connecting to foreign networks getting introduced to your network when you get home.
Answer: Make sure you back up any changes that take place between the image you make before you leave and your computer when you get home!