Is "I am done doing my homework" grammatical?

Question: This sounds odd to me and I don't understand what "doing my homework" is in this sentence. I don't understand how the phrase "I am done" ( I assume "done is an adjective here, passive voice doesn't make sense to me) can be followed by this ing phrase. Sentences like "I finished doing my homework." are easily understood and the gerund could be replaced with a noun ("I finished my homework.")  This is a different kind of construction of course. But instead of "to be done doing" I would say "I have done my work" or if I want to keep the "doing" maybe "I am done with doing my homework." Otherwise I find it unintelligible.
Also similar constructions use prepositions too for example "I am tired of being alone" "I am fed up with being single" this one does not.
Answer: It's idiomatic.  Either of these two forms are commonly used:

Jimmy, what are you up to?
I'm doing my homework. mom.
...
Mom, I'm done doing my homework!

or

Mom, I'm done with my homework!

In the first case, "doing my homework" is the task.  In the second case, "homework" is the task.  It depends on whether you regard 'homework' as a concrete noun - a collection of papers to be worked with in some way - or as an abstract noun - an assignment to be accomplished.
Answer: Done and doing close together might be confusing, but each has a grammatical role in this sentence.

Done to express completion

I am done verb-ing

As you wrote, done here is an adjective indicating the completion of an activity.  You appear to understand this already, so I won't spend too much time explaining its meaning, but in terms of grammar the key is that done can take a following -ing clause as a complement.

Do as a light verb

doing my homework

In this clause, we have the light verb do, which adds very little meaning of its own.  Instead, the bulk of the meaning comes from the noun homework (which is semantically "heavy").
In English, we sometimes use light verbs with nouns like homework because they have no verb form: *homeworking is not an established English verb, so it's not an option. There are other times when both light (take a shower) and heavy verbs are possible (shower), but this is not one of them.
This is an -ing clause, so the adjective done can take it as a complement.   (These are called gerund-participial clauses by Huddleston and Pullum; they do not distinguish gerund clauses from participle clauses, and we don't need to do so here either.)

Put them together, and you get your sentence:

I'm done doing my homework.

Doing my homework is the activity, and done expresses completion of that activity, taking doing my homework as a complement.  It may be confusing to you at first to hear two different forms of do next to each other, but each has its place, and this is a perfectly natural English sentence.
Answer: "I'm done," or "I'm finished," means that you are completely exhausted, spent, and no longer able to continue in the task at hand.

Finally! I'm done with that.


Where can I find the Brother HL-2170W 64-bit printer driver?

Question: I'm looking to install drivers for my "Brother HL-2170W" network printer. I can't seem to find the correct driver on the Brother site. Any help would be appreciated. I'm running on Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS x86_64.
Comment: I don't have a detailed answer for you in the context of Ubuntu, never actually having dealt with its printing support (!), but on other systems with Brother brand printers, I've had excellent luck with the CUPS drivers (which should be available for Ubuntu).
Answer: This guy at: http://mikebeach.org/2010/06/ubuntu-and-brother-hl-2170w/
says there is a problem in 10.04 with a fault in the cups drivers, at least for the HL-2170W.
Text worked okay but printing graphics took a long time.  This was true for me.  I followed his advice precisely and now my pdf files are printing great.  I have only tested one page, probably should test a few more complex graphics but for now I'm a very happy camper.  So I wanted to share the wealth.
Lots of other people on the ubuntu forums seem to be complaining about slow printing so I suspect that it is not only the HL-2170W printer driver that is bad.  But step 8 in his instruction list will need to be changed, I think for printers other than HL-2170W.
Hope this helps.
Answer: I've (mostly) solved this problem, by doing something simple. I went into printer properties  and changed the "Device URI". I chose "LPD/LPR Host or Printer" and used my ip address instead of one of the network printers Ubuntu suggests.
This solves my general printing slowness as pages go to the printer immediately. The only exception is PDFs that still take a while to print.
Answer: I don't have any experience with this printer, but from what I've found it either "just works" when you plug it in using USB; if you'd like it to communicate over a network it needs to be configured and there is only software for Windows or Mac. This means you'll need to either use a Windows or Mac computer or VM to configure it, and then be able to use it from Ubuntu.
From UbuntuForums.org:

I have that printer. WHen hooked up with USB, it just works, however, the printer does not have a control panel built in and requires Windows or Mac based software to configure it for use with a wireless network. I used Windows XP in VirtualBox to configure it, the printer configuration in Ubuntu was able to see it on the wireless network and connected just as easily as it did via USB. Its a great printer, just sucks that you have to use windows to configure the network...

(source)
From another thread I found a link to a PPD file that can be used to install your printer, however those posters were using Ubuntu 8.04, although it could be worth trying.
Comment: I've got it configured through Ubuntu by installing the printer from the PPD file from Brother -> Brother-HL-2170W-pxlmono.ppd, for network printing.

Printing anything takes around 1-3 minutes, even for basic printing. I thought this was a driver issue and wanted to get the correct driver from Brother - which would hopefully solve the slow printing problem.
Answer: Without any specific knowledge of this printer -- does the printer support Postscript?
If so you can try a generic ps driver.


Downloading Ubuntu 15.04 on an Acer Chromebook C720 and Stuck at this screen

Question: I have an Acer Chromebook C720. I was kinda fed up with the Chrome OS so I decided to try downloading a different OS, and my friends told me that Ubuntu could be easily installed. I searched up the instructions, had no problem following them until after I finished the installation process, had it all installed, it opened a loading screen, and popped me to the Ubuntu 15.04 chrubuntu tty1 startup page. There I tried to login. The set of instructions I used told me to use user as my username as well as my password. As soon as I did that, I got a long block of text, but I haven't figured how to actually boot up the operating system and use my computer. It's giving me an option to type in a command, but even after searching the web, I haven't found anything that I can do. I still have the option to go back to the Chrome OS but I'd rather not. Any suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong?
Comment: It's a little unclear what you are describing here.  It sounds like you've installed ubuntu to the internal ssd , but you said chrubuntu.  Could you at least provide us with a screenshot ? You could post it to imgur, because you're reputation 1 user and cannot post images yet. In my experience,when I installed Ubuntu to the internal ssd, all I had to do is boot the machine, press a shortcut ( I think it was Ctrl + D  ) on the OS verification screen, and then it just boots to ubuntu. Does this sound any close ?
Answer: I've had this same issue as well. One of my colleagues noted that some of the text said there was a read only file that could not be written to, and also said that it might be that whatever user was not allowed to write to the Chrubuntu partition. Did you also happen to get strange questions in the installation process on driver packages that seemed to have been recently patched, or something along those lines? I don't quite remember what it said but I know the default answer was no.


How to view my custom game engines' features?

Question: I created several custom game engines but I forgot their features. Is there a way to look their features or not?
Answer: I don't know of any direct way. Though if you want to find out after the fact, I propose to develop a small game, all parts you added to your old engine will be available for you to select as feature. Of course for that you have to actively create a game, but you can write the available features down at this time and have the knowledge available for next time.
In addition:

Always put meaningful names there to identify different Engines.
Also: If you select: Create new Custom Engine, You see the items you selected previously (of course this only works for Engine you created last time).
Comment: explanation why -1? So I can modify where needed?
Comment: If you look at the question: *I forgot their features* and *Is there a way to look their features or not?* implies looking for them *after* creating the game, in a case where you did *not* note them down. Thus, saying "you should note them down first" is not a direct answer. Sometimes indirect answers are OK, sometimes they're not. Just saying it may be the reason for the downvote.
Comment: I didn't downvote but I have to admit you're not answering the question. I'd suggest making it clear you don't think there's a clear way to see previous engines' features *except* in cases 2 and 3 you give. I still find point 1 unhelpful in the context though.
Comment: I personally find point 1 the best. Because I can create a game (small game would suffice) and write down what is in any engine (no matter how old). Then I would know next time. 3 is only of limited use because you can find out only for last engine.
Comment: +1 for correct answer.  If you want to know what's in the engine, you either wrote it down or you make a new game with it.


Methods for obtaining user input on iPhone

Question: I'm working on an iPhone app and would like to have a simple text input box pop up when a user clicks my custom search button.  My problem is that I'm not sure what approaches are available for achieving this.  Googling results in search overload and I am presented with so many views that I'm not sure what is standard and what isn't.  The information I am requesting from the user is a single zip code so I would like to avoid creating a whole new view for this if possible.  I am still new to working in Xcode so please take it easy on me.
Edit: The dialog box that iTunes uses to ask for your password would be ideal.  What is that called?
Answer: Well, you could use a UIAlertView including a UITextView.
Honestly, I'm not sure Apple will like it, because UIAlertView should only prompt message to inform the user, but it's at least kinda cool ;)
You can find a tutorial on this website : http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2009/02/alert-view-with-prompt.html
Answer: Use
<code>[alert setAlertViewStyle:UIAlertViewStylePlainTextInput];
</code>
or
<code>[alert setAlertViewStyle:UIAlertViewStyleLoginAndPasswordInput];
</code>
Hope it helps! Best of luck


Path Integrals Page Peskin

Question: Hi this problem relates directly to path integrals but I imagine it is a maths trick that I am missing. One has an expression such as $$\int dx \exp\left[i\frac{(p)^{2}}{2}-iV(\frac{f}{4})\right] $$ it says simply expand the expression in powers of $(x-y)$ to get $$\int dx \left(i\frac{(y-x)^{2}}{2a}\right)\left[1-iaV(y)+...\right]\left[1+(x-y)\frac{\partial}{\partial y}+\frac{1}{2}(x-y)^{2}\frac{\partial^2}{\partial y^2}\right] $$ I thought it was some sort of Taylor expansion by I can't explain the change in exponential and I don't really understand the derivatives.
Can anyone explain why these are equal?
Comment: Please do not vandalize your posts that way.
Comment: Echoing @dmckee's comment, your latest edit (version 5) is less informative than version 4. E.g. now the P&S page number is missing.
Answer: The derivatives are the Taylor expansion of the propagator, which you have omitted. Notice that on page 278, the propagator under the integral is $U(x_a, x'; T-\epsilon)$, but in equation 9.5 it's $U(x_a,x_b;T-\epsilon)$.
The middle term is the expansion of $\exp[-i/\hbar \epsilon V((x+y)/2)]$, first in terms of powers of $\epsilon$, then in powers of $(x-y)$. Then since both are small, keep terms of first order in both only. this gives $1 - i \epsilon V(y)$. (Here your $a$ is Peskin and Schroeder's $\epsilon$).
Comment: Did you not read my post. The derivatives are not of $V$, they are of $U$. You didn't look at the equations in their entirety.

Path Integrals Page Peskin


Equilateral triangle inscribed in a square

Question: A square is drawn on a piece of paper. How can you draw an equilateral triangle such that its vertices lie on the boundary of this square?
Comment: Not too difficult but rather pretty!
Answer:
 Choose a point on the boundary and rotate the square around this point by 60° cw and ccw. The intersection points with the original square are the vertices of the triangle:

Explanation:

 The new intersection points (those that are not the pivot point) are 60° rotations of each other wrt to the pivot point because they are the same intersection of two shapes that are simultaneously rotated, namely, blue and black square into black and red square.
Comment: It's not clear what physical actions you're supposed to take with the piece of paper to do this. We can't rotate the paper 60 degrees and look at the intersection, because there won't be two intersecting squares. There'll just be one rotated square. Plus, it's not clear how we would make sure the rotation is 60 degrees. Even if we assume we have a protractor or something, it's going to slip and shift if we rotate the paper under it.
Comment: Very nice. This is better than my solution. By the way, you can use this to find the exact location of each vertex of the triangle.
Comment: @user2357112supportsMonica Finding and rotating by a 60° angle as well as intersecting basic shapes are standard operations in the majority of contexts that come to mind (straight edge and compass, origami, analytic geometry). Given that it seems eminently justifiable to gloss over these implementation details in both the question and the answer. One may even argue that this generality adds to their appeal.
Comment: @user2357112supportsMonica the best tool for this is a second sheet of paper.


Any solution to convert .yuv file to h264 file on Mac?

Question: I want to develop an app for mac which can record the current screen.But now I have trouble on not knowing how to encode .yuv file I got from CGImage.Somebody told me to encode with x264 or ffmpeg,I am not sure if these are the right choice for OS X development.If anyone has any experience in doing this,I really appreciate that you could tell me.Thanks.
Answer: x264 is a great library and I highly recommend it. On mac you also have the option to use the built in encoder. Part of AVFramwork I believe. It should uses less power and CPU then x264, but produce slightly larger files.
Answer: x264 is probably one of the best encoders out there for your job. You can get it here.
For a more detail usage of all the commands, such as quality setting and fps, you can find it here.


What cable do I need for 2560 x 1440 resolution on my Mac Air mid 2013? My LG Monitor has HDMI input only

Question: I have an LG monitor with only HDMI outlets. My cable is HDMI to my MacAir mini port. Max resolutionis 1920. Is there an adaptor I can purchase that will bring my monitor up to 2560 x 1440? Thank you!
Comment: What monitor is it?
Answer: You need an HDMI cable that conforms to the HDMI 1.3 (minimum) specification.  When looking for this adapter, be sure to specify "4K" so that it brings up relevant results.  The Plugable Active Mini DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 Adapter will work for your application.
That doesn't guarantee that you will display 2560x1440.  Your monitor must support it as well.
Reviewing the specs of the MacBook Air, it will support resolutions on an external monitor of up to 2560x1600 so you will have no problem here.


Remove/Rename Home tab Drupal 7

Question: I was wondering if it is possible to either remove or rename the "Home" tab Drupal puts in by default. The site is being used as a store/shopping cart and for it's purposes does not need a convention "Home" tab.
Comment: Do you mean the Home link provided by the menu tabs in the Bartik theme? Just go to /admin/structure/menu/manage/main-menu and delete it
Comment: Thanks Clive that was just what I needed as I am indeed using the Bartik theme. I am relatively new to Drupal and am still figuring out the location of all the features. Big help and thanks for the quick response!
Comment: Hello. Could you provide screenshot? Or theme name? My Drupal does not have home tab at all, all it shows is "home" in breadcrumbs, and I did nothing to remove tabs. So, first we need to know what created tabs for you, then we might be able to tell you how to modify them.
Answer: Go to /admin/structure/menu/manage/main-menu and it can be deleted from there.
Answer: this worked for me in drupal 6 got to
Home » Administer » Site configuration
tick this "Hide the breadcrumb if the breadcrumb only contains the link to the front page".
Answer: FYI drupal 8:
Home » Administration » Structure » Menus
and then select List Links, to change the name

Remove/Rename Home tab Drupal 7


Mgento what is this code doing?

Question: return $result ?: [];
what is the explanation of this code in details please.
Comment: see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5972516/best-way-to-give-a-variable-a-default-value-simulate-perl
Answer: The explanation to this code is really simple. But to understand it, you have to know about ternary operator first. Check the below example.
(condition) ? (if true, do this) : (otherwise, do this)
In your statement return $result ?: [];
$result is your condition which is either true or false (in this case return is checking if $result returns something or not)
If $result returns true (meaning it has a value) then do nothing because there is no condition after ? as you can see in return $result ?: [];
But if $result returns false (meaning it don't have any value) then assign an empty array [] to it which is shown by the do this section after the :
In conclusion, if the $result has a value then that value is being returned but if it does not have any value then an empty array will be returned. I hope this helps!
Answer: This is the Ternary Operator,
this code check $result having the value or not,if it has value return $result Else return empty array.

Mgento what is this code doing?


How to efficiently organize different game zones with different functionality?

Question: For now I have a list of basic data class like position in game world, dimensions, type and stuff like that, but since I am starting to implement their functionality it seems kind of a bad pattern, I need each zone to have totally different data and behaviour, use different UIs etc, is there a pattern to realize that other that just making one totally different class for each zone?
Comment: Do you know anything about the state machine pattern?
Comment: A zone is a limited piece of the game world with some particular functionality, for example a zone where units gain health over time, or a crafting factory where you can build new units, that's the problem, there are quite different things they can do.
Comment: Can you give a specific example?
Comment: I gave it the post above...
Answer: You can use something like a component based, inheritance or composition architecture. You have plenty of options here, and it really boils down to your own style and the requirements of your game.
For a quick implementation, I would probably a simple form of component based architecture. Probably making the components and systems using inheritance. This would allow me to create systems and components that share some functionality, like modifying the attributes of the unit inside their bounds, or creating new units, or whatever's needed. Then when making the zones, I can mix and match components to build whatever kind of zone I want.
Zones would then be defined with the list of components you want them to have. For example adding a "Modify health" component and an "Every X seconds" component would provide your heal-over-time functionality. Or adding a "Modify health" component (with a negative value) and a "Single use" component would create something like a landmine.
I think this will give a good mixture of the two architectures and be flexible enough to provide a lot of options for zones.


Is there a "virtual guitar" app that can bend strings?

Question: When a lick or melody comes to mind one the few times I'm away from a guitar, I use a virtual piano app to play with it and check how it sounds. But now I got an idea with a bend. How can i listen to it or play around with it without a guitar?
Comment: There are plenty of virtual guitar apps, but this isn't the place to ask about them. You might try searching the app store for your favorite device.
Comment: not an answer to your question, but you could away just sing it and record it, and then play it on the guitar when you get home
Comment: @Todd, I've searched a lot and haven't been able to find one that can bend the pitch. Maybe that part of the question wasn't so clear. I understand this isn't a place to ask for software recommendations, please read my question as: how can i play/test a melody with bends on the metro?
Comment: There are lots of options for portable, bus-powered controllers with bend controls. Also, tons of synth apps for all platforms have virtual pitch bend wheels, so you don't even need an external controller.
Answer: Most piano-like synths have a pitch bend wheel (or simply "pitch wheel") or touchpad with similar control.
Any virtual MIDI app with track envelope capability ought to be able to attach a pitch shift to an envelope.
So look for apps/applications that allow envelopes or state that they have pitch bend capability.


Accessing freenode without ports

Question: I'm at a computer where most ports are blocked. Is there still a way to access freenode to ask about programming questions through some webinterface?
Answer: Have you tried http://webchat.freenode.net/ ?
From what process explorer shows, it does not look like firefox uses any IRC specific ports but HTTPS.
For other IRC networks, you could give http://www.mibbit.com/chat/ a try. I couldn't get it to connect to freenode because mibbit seems to be explicitly blocked there.
Answer: It's slightly more advanced, but if you install your own copy of the ZNC IRC bouncer (http://znc.in) or find someone else to host it for you (there are other bouncers out there as well), you can connect to the bouncer instead and it then proxies IRC traffic to you. I run znc on Linux but there is a Windows port out there too a friend has run. If you listen on port 80 or 443 you're more likely to get through, but sometimes just a non-IRC port is good enough since many places explicitly block the IRC ports Svish mentioned due to potential botnet activity (or time-wasting).
This of course requires your own computer where you can control inbound traffic (to listen on port 80 or 443) and run znc continually. But it can do some nice things like allowing you to connect from an unlimited number of clients simultaneously, using one nickname and being in all the same channels. It can also save a buffer while you're disconnected from znc so when you connect (from any client) you get a reply of the last "x" lines (whatever you specify) and can catch up. It can also log chats, and it's great for connecting from mobile phones like the iPhone especially because of the buffer (since the iPhone would lose history every time you switched apps otherwise).
So...a little more complex of an answer, but if you're a heavy IRC user it's probably worth the hassle of getting it set up and configured because it's quite powerful. Znc can let you connect to it in unencrypted and SSL encrypted modes depending on how you set it up (the connection to the IRC server is separate).
If you use ZNC and an iPhone, you can compile the Colloquy plugin for ZNC and then ZNC will also let you set up Push notifications to your iPhone for mentions of your username (by default) or other watch words (configurable through messaging *colloquy on the ZNC server). This requires using the Colloquy iPhone app as well.
Answer: Tried any of the alternative ports?

All freenode servers listen on ports 6665, 6666, 6667, 7000(SSL Only), 7070 (SSL Only), 8000, 8001 and 8002. -- Freenode
Comment: Thanks, port 7070(SSL Only) worked for me.
Answer: A port is absolutely needed to connect to a service over the network. Without a port you cannot make a connection, it's how the TCP/IP suite of protocols work.
One way around it is to use a web chat, since port 80 and 443 for HTTP(S) traffic will probably work, but you won't be able to use a standalone client if the appropriate ports are blocked.

Accessing freenode without ports


Steps per mm of extruder are incorrect after rebuilding

Question: I have got a problem that after upgrading my printer to an aluminum frame my extruder went from around 400 steps per mm at 16 micro steps (which did match the manufacturer's recommendation perfectly) to a bit over 1000 steps per mm at 16 micro steps.
This is a problem for me, since the limited amount of steps per second lower my maximum retraction speed.
What I tried since the rebuild:

Replace and adjust the current of the stepper driver - no change, even with another type of driver on different micro steps, of course with other values, but also about 2.5 times too high;

Connecting another motor with another cable - the other motor with nothing attached to it drove the same angle as my extruder stepper.

Could it be that the ATmega2560 on my MKS gen 1.4 board got damaged? Or did I change something in the firmware, which does have this effect?
I am using Marlin 1.8.5 and a E3D Titan 1:3 geared extruder and I am using the same setup as before! E3D claims to have 437 steps per mm on a 200 steps/revolution Nema 17 stepper and 16 micro steps. This value was working perfectly fine before.
Update:
With an Arduino Nano I measured the amount of steps my board sends at 418.5 steps/mm (programmed in EEPROM and in firmware) on a specific amount of extrusion length
G92 E0 -> G1 F100 E30

and I got
5220 steps for 30mm extrusion (reproducible).

It should be
418.5 steps/mm*30mm = 12555 steps.

Where,
(12555/5220) * 418.5 steps/mm = 1007 steps/mm

to have the effect of 418.5 steps/mm
...which is, oddly, the exact number that I got by marking filament, extruding, measuring and calculating.
Comment: There you are, when you change the extruder, you should re-calibrate the extrusion length. Let me guess, the gear uses a 1:2.5 gear ratio :)
Comment: You should put that information (geared extruder) into your question, rather than in a comment.
Comment: If you have changed the extruder drive, the one that press and feed the filament your steps per mm could change.
Comment: That's totally right, but i forgot to mention, i got a geared extruder and there are no spare parts that i could have mixed up
Comment: I did edit my question. The ratio of the e3d titan extruder is 1:3 and it hat the ~400 steps per mm before
Answer: Ok, thanks everyone for at least taking time to read or thinking about this.
The Problem is an absolute mess and there are two possible reasons:
-> the octoprint eeprom editor is broken
-> the ATMega2560's eeprom is broken. as far as i know companies buy used atmegas to cheapen the price and the >100k writes on my chip has been reached
I will try to figure out the exact problem, if i find time in the next days.
My current setup is just deactivate eeprom and i'm good to go. Even wiping eeprom with a small arduino sketch will get the error to return.
Now i will be able to sleep again :D
Comment: Good that you post the possible culprits so that others may learn from it that even the electronics that you don't expect to fail may fail. This reminds me of the old days of a failing co-processor due to a print board crack failing to produce consistent log() function results (once in every thousand it failed to produce the correct value) try to trouble shoot that! It took days to find out.
Answer: After a rebuild, and certainly after changing to another extruder (e.g. replacing it by a geared extruder like you supposedly did as taken from the comments above before the edit, which now clearly is not the case) or setup e.g. other stepper drivers, you should always calibrate the extruder.
To calibrate you e.g. disconnect the hot end nozzle and command to extrude 100 mm. Be sure to make marks and measure the extruded distance. Divide the latter value by 100 to divide this result by the steps per mm value in the configuration file. So, if you measured 102 mm and commanded 100 for 400 steps, the new would be 400/(102/100) = 392. There is a lot to find on this matter on the internet. All can be done with G-codes that can be entered through a terminal connected over the USB port. E.g. applications as Pronterface, Repetier-Host, OctoPrint, etc. all have a terminal interface to the printer if connected over USB.
You could find more detailed instructions e.g. here, or this video.
Comment: I didn't change the extruder or stepper driver at all! That is what bugs me. And recalibrating works of course in regards of extrusion, but ~1000 steps per mm limits my maximum retraction velocity to 2500mm/min (theoretical: (max steps per second on mega2560 based borads) 45000steps/s / 1000steps per mm = 2700 mm/min). Over 2500mm/min the motor loses steps and submits bad sounds
Comment: @Bastian__ That is very strange indeed, I'll take a look at it later. Good you made it now clear in the question, as it was not clear! At first, it looked as if you changed to a new extruder in the conversion process.


Who do you talk to in Class G airspace (UK)?

Question: I'm currently in my early days of learning about aviation, and have just started learning how to use a VFR chart. One thing that I have noticed is that the class D airspaces generally have frequencies to contact the controller for that airspace. Outside of CAS however, there is nothing. Do you just tune the FIS frequency? I understand that the airspace isn't really controlled, but can you still ask for Traffic Service etc?
Answer: You want CAP 774: UK Flight Information Services.  That document lists the air traffic services provided to aircraft in class G in the UK.
The services listed are:
Basic Service:

A Basic Service is an ATS provided for the purpose of giving advice
and information useful for the safe and efficient conduct of flights.
This may include weather information, changes of serviceability of
facilities, conditions at aerodromes, general airspace activity
information, and any other information likely to affect safety. The
avoidance of other traffic is solely the pilot's responsibility.

Traffic Service:

A Traffic Service is a surveillance based ATS, where in addition to
the provisions of a Basic Service, the controller provides specific
surveillance- derived traffic information to assist the pilot in
avoiding other traffic. Controllers may provide headings and/or levels
for the purposes of positioning and/or sequencing; however, the
controller is not required to achieve deconfliction minima, and the
pilot remains responsible for collision avoidance.

Deconfliction Service:

A Deconfliction Service is a surveillance based ATS where, in addition
to the provisions of a Basic Service, the controller provides specific
surveillance- derived traffic information and issues headings and/or
levels aimed at achieving planned deconfliction minima, or for
positioning and/ or sequencing. However, the avoidance of other
traffic is ultimately the pilot's responsibility.

Procedural Service:

A Procedural Service is an ATS where, in addition to the provisions of
a Basic Service, the controller provides restrictions, instructions,
and approach clearances, which if complied with, shall achieve
deconfliction minima against other aircraft participating in the
Procedural Service. Neither traffic information nor deconfliction
advice can be passed with respect to unknown traffic

These aren't always available and you don't have to use them.  A Basic Service will let an ATS provider know you are there & I've had warnings about unusual activity (police helos, helimeds or fast jets letting down in class G) but I pretty much expect to be ignored.  Traffic services are great but are often withdrawn at busy times (when you most need them) due to controller overload!
Even if I'm not recieving a service, I'll usually listen in to the local frequencies just for situational awareness.  Also, if you're passing close to an ATZ, it's good practice to let them know where you are and where you're going.
Answer: Class G is uncontrolled free airspace. You don't have to talk to anyone if you don't want to.
If there is a nearby radar facility then you could call them and ask for a service if you like but it's not mandatory.
In my opinion the ability to just go flying without talking to anyone or filing anything is one of the advantages of the way UK airspace is organised.
Comment: Re "In my opinion the ability to just go flying without talking to anyone or filing anything is one of the advantages of the way UK airspace is organised.".   +1 on that, especially in relation to *cloud flying*!  Might come in handy, especially in the context of glider flying.


Can't call GRASS commands with Python on QGIS 2.18

Question: I'm trying to run a grass command (v.split.length) using the processing library in pygis. The script is as follows:
import processing

layer = r'path\to\shp.shp'
extent = QgsVectorLayer( layer, '', 'ogr' ).extent()
xmin = extent.xMinimum()
xmax = extent.xMaximum()
ymin = extent.yMinimum()
ymax = extent.yMaximum()

res = processing.runalg("grass:v.split.length",layer,1000, "%f , %f, %f, %f "% (xmin , xmax , ymin , ymax), -1,0, 0, r'path\to\out_shp\out_shp.shp')

When I execute the script I get the following message box:
GRASS folder is not configured. Please configure it before running GRASS algorithms.

I am running QGIS 2.18.22 with GRASS 7. What I have noticed in the processing options is as follows:

The Grass7 folder appears to be defined but Grass folder is not. Further more inside my QGIS installation this is what I can see
C:\Users\aboufira>cd C:\Program Files\QGIS 2.18\apps\grass

C:\Program Files\QGIS 2.18\apps\grass>dir
 Volume in drive C is OS
 Volume Serial Number is 944A-AABE

 Directory of C:\Program Files\QGIS 2.18\apps\grass

07-Aug-18  15:49    <DIR>          .
07-Aug-18  15:49    <DIR>          ..
07-Aug-18  15:49    <DIR>          grass-7.4.1
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               3 Dir(s)  31,910,600,704 bytes free

There are two possible solutions:

install the regular version of GRASS and add the folder to apps path such that when I open the providers menu I can see the path appear under regular GRASS
Find a way to call the grass 7 algorithms from the Python console. It seems that processing.runalg by default attempts to run the regular GRASS algorithms

Which of these options is the more straightforward one and how do I implement it? If there is an alternate option I am also open to that.
Answer: Call the GRASS 7 scripts by simply using grass7 in the command instead of grass.
E.g.:
res = processing.runalg("grass7:v.split.length",layer,1000, "%f , %f, %f, %f "% (xmin , xmax , ymin , ymax), -1,0, 0, r'path\to\out_shp\out_shp.shp')


Pronunciation for אלוהים הוא אלוהים שלי

Question: I got this from translating 'G-d is my G-d' on Google Translate. However I don't know how to pronounce the Hebrew. Can somebody give me the pronunciation on this and is there a Hebrew name that means the same thing.
Comment: Eliahu (Elijah) He is my G-d.  Try not to learn too much Hebrew from Google translate.
Comment: @YDK, +1,000,000 on your comment!
Answer: It is pronounced elohim hu elohim sheli, but it sounds strange and tautological in Hebrew. There are Hebrew names that mean approximately the same thing, like Yoel (Joel in English) and Eliyahu (Elijah). Yoel literally means "Ya [a divine name] is El [a divine name]", while eliyahu might be translated "Yahu [a divine name] is my god".
Perhaps what you are looking for is something like what Moses tells the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4:39, that "adonai hu ha'elohim": "The LORD [the divine, four-lettered name] is God."
Comment: At the end of the day, though, I can't think of a name more equivalent in meaning, for purposes of the question, than Eliyahu.
Comment: In case anybody is wondering, I say that *eliyahu* only might be translated as "Yahu is my god" because, in actual fact, the *yud* is a petrified case ending and not a first-person suffix. While people might interpret it today as "Yahu is my god", it originally meant, "Yahu is El". Not relevant to my answer, I don't think, but interesting.
Comment: I don't understand your comment. I believe (though I could be mistaken) the word El means G-d (it is _treated_ as a Divine name, but it means the same thing as Elohim, in the sense that it means the-all-powerful-being-fit-to-be-worshipped. Second, the _waw_ at the end of Eliyahu is also a case ending (hence the abbreviated form appearing as Eliyah, likely the source of the transliteration of Elijah). And it's not like case endings have no meaning, either. They imply gender and assign properties to the word (in this case its parts). I posit that Eliyahu _does_, in fact, mean Y"K is my G-d. ...
Comment: ... or at the very least, it means Y"K is G-d.
Comment: An interesting issue, and I see a lot of scope here for difference of opinion. Personally, I don't consider El and Elohim to be synonymous in the earlier literature. There were lots of different names for God (or lots of different gods, if you prefer). Some people (and some places) have names with El, some with Yah(u), some with Hadad, and some with Baal. Part of the genius of Israelite monotheism was in its syncretism: Yah *is* El; El *is* Baal; etc. In standard grammars of Biblical Hebrew, this is how those names are translated, despite it not being how they are later understood.
Comment: I used to think אליהו meant the same as אליהוא (from Iyov)
Answer: Pronunciation transcribed using letters in another alphabet is always ambiguous. The existing (good) answer, by Shimon bM, writes elohim hu elohim sheli, but, then, you don't know whether that initial e is pronounced as in e-mail or as in end or as in fiance. The right way to transcribe pronunciation is using a phonetic alphabet, either the International Phonetic Alphabet or some other; the IPA is the most 'official' standard. Even using such a phonetic alphabet, there's still ambiguity, because every symbol represents a range of sounds, but the ambiguity is far less.
So here goes (in IPA).
In a modern Israeli accent, אלוהים הוא אלוהים שלי (actually, properly, אלהים הוא אלהים שלי), is /ɛloˈhim ˈhu ɛloˈhim ʃɛˈliː/. (Modern Israeli Hebrew doesn't really have distinct /e/ and /ɛ/, so what I transcribed as /ɛ/ others might transcribe as /e/.)
In my own (Americanized Ashkenazi) accent, it's /ɛlowˈhɪm ˈhuw ɛlowˈhɪm ʃɛˈlij/.
Some might say /ɛlojˈhɪm ˈhiː ɛlojˈhɪm ʃɛˈliː/.
Comment: also, many [modern Israelis pronounce](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Hebrew_phonology) ה closer to [/ʔ/](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%94) than to /h/, so it can be anywhere from what this answer states through /ɛloˈʔim ˈʔu ɛloˈʔim ʃɛˈliː/ or even dropped entirely, like: /ɛloˈ.im ˈ.u ɛloˈ.im ʃɛˈliː/, though that is not necessarily "proper".
Comment: @CharlesKoppelman, yeah, good point. Or really, I think, [/∅/](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_%28linguistics%29).

Pronunciation for אלוהים הוא אלוהים שלי


Will unattended-upgrades automatically fix shellshock (cve-2014-6271)?

Question: I've got unattended-upgrades on ubuntu-12.04.5 set to automatically install security updates. Is that going to take care of shellshock (cve-2014-6271)?
Comment: I can't answer that directly which is why this is a comment, but I will say that if your server is in a position where its vulnerabilities are likely to be exposed to attackers then you should verify that the patch is installed and schedule an emergency maintenance window to install it by hand urgently if it is not, rather than relying on automatic maintenance schedules either way.
Comment: Thanks RobM. I've already installed, as far as I can tell, the first patch, but from what I've read it's not a complete fix. The paranoid engineer in me wants something automatic that will more or less guarantee this gets patched whether I do or not (even though I fully plan on being on top of this). Also, I'm new to unattended-upgrades, and want to wrap my head around it's degree of reliability / universality.
Answer: If you run this:
env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"

It should not say "vulnerable".  ( See also https://superuser.com/a/816780 )
I'm not sure how "unnattended upgrades" works. I just tried setting it up on my server and was wondering the same thing. So I ran this:
sudo unattended-upgrade

which seemed to run too quickly to be updating anything. I ran this:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades

to set something up. Again it didn't seem to be running updates.
...and sure enough, the above test still said "vulnerable". For me, I then just did a full update of all packages ( apt-get update && apt-get -y upgrade ) and... no longer vulnerable.
Maybe this means the answer is "no" ...which begs the question why not?!


What can i use an oscilloscope for in terms of networking

Question: as someone who is just getting their feet wet in networking (going for a+ cert currently and would like to go further,) ive noticed that oscilloscopes can be used to monitor... seemingly any wavelength. as someone who may possibly buy one in the future, once i know more about them, what are the possible uses in networking?
Comment: People who setup and install and maintain ethernet and related networks don't usually need oscilloscopes. High end oscilloscopes can be used for validating signals coming from USB and ethernet phy's. But that is not something you would need to do.
Comment: @Sparky256 It might be confusing to the OP if you use the term "network" to mean something different than it meant when he used it. He clearly isn't talking about the kinds of networks that a network analyzer analyzes.
Comment: Networks are used for communication. All communication is voltage and current pulses/waveforms. Oscilloscopes let you view these waveforms. Expensive oscilloscopes may even do some comms decoding.
Comment: Oscilloscopes are time-domain devices that will only indicate a signal is or is not what you want. To analyze a network you need an expensive ($30,000) network analyzer (frequency domain)that sources wide-band RF then shows what frequencies your device passes through. Then there are very expensive packet analyzers for USB, Ethernet, etc.
Answer: The short answer is that for the kind of work you're talking about, an oscilloscope probably isn't a particularly useful piece of equipment.
An oscilloscope can be useful for things like designing/testing/measuring the design of a network adapter, to assure against doing things like running (what are supposed to be) separate lines too close to each other so they interfere with each other.
If you're reasonably certain the network adapters you're dealing with work correctly, and you're interesting primarily in looking at the network from a viewpoint of how the software is using the network, you probably want to consider a packet analyzer or a protocol analyzer.
For quite a bit of mainstream network diagnosis, you can use a free packet capture/analysis tool like WireShark. The main specialized hardware you might consider in this case would be an AirPcap WiFi adapter, which lets you capture and analyze packets between some other computer and an access point. There are also some special network capture drivers (e.g., Acrylic WiFi) that are supposed to accomplish roughly the same thing (but I can't vouch for them personally--I've never had occasion to use them).
Comment: WireShark works great. The data comes pouring in fast. Do NOT use a packet analyzer if online with a bank or other federal institution, as they can detect packet sniffers and may block your PC from accessing their site. Somehow they can read your MAC address, not just your IP address.


What will happen if I, as a count, give a vassal a county?

Question: What will happen if I, as a count, give a vassal a county?
Will I lose the county like a duke who gives an extra duchy?
Comment: I am going to assume you meant "duchy".
Answer: While Paul Marshall is correct, he doesn't answer the implied question, so:
Yes - like giving away a second duchy as a duke - the county you give away will become independent. The reason being you can only have vassals who have a lower rank than yours.
If you want to keep the county within your realm, you will need to create or usurp a duchy title first.
Answer: If you give someone a title, you don't have that particular title anymore.  If it's your last title of that level, then your rank goes down to whatever title you have left.
For example, you're a Duke with one duchy, one county, and one city.  You give the duchy away, and now you're a Count (your largest remaining title).  You give the county away, and now you're a Mayor (because all that's left is your city).
If you're a Count, and you own two counties, then giving away one of them will not remove your title of Count.


Is "Peeping Tom" unique in that is has history?

Question: I had discovered that the term "Peeping Tom" comes from the story of Lady Godiva as being the only person who dared look at her as she rode naked through the streets. I then tried to find other words with similar historical significance but I only found defenestration. Defenestration was the term referring to the defenestrations of Prague that sparked two separate wars with two separate defenestrations. I am not sure if defenestration fits what I am looking for but I could not find other words with similar historical significance. Are these words unique?
Comment: Welcome to EL&U. A web search on *eponym* should be enough to get you started; there are many thousands of words and phrases which refer to a particular story (factual or not), from *Adam's apple* to *Zoot suit riot*.
Comment: If you find an explanation for 'the real McCoy' claiming to be authentic, make sure it's the genuine article.
Comment: Etymological explanations for things like "the real McCoy" tend to be fanciful just-so stories.  Count me as a doubting Thomas.
Answer: If you google on "historical allusion", you will find a lot of words with similar historical significance, e.g.:

you, too Brutus!
Potato chips are my diet's Achilles heel.
He was a Good Samaritan yesterday when he helped the lady start her
car.
John Travolta in "Grease" was most girl's Apollo.
The club decided to boycott any cosmetics company that
tested products on animals. (Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott was
an English land agent in Ireland. In 1880, in the midst of
controversy over the "Irish Land Question", he and his family were
ostracized by the community).
Comment: Perhaps I live in the pretentious part of town, but I've always heard *et tu, Brute?* rather than *you too, Brutus?*
Comment: @Anonym - "Et tu, Brute"  or "Tu quoque, [mi] fili" are supposed to be Caesar last words (both in Latin). Some other sources mention the greek sentence  "καὶ σὺ τέκνον. *English or American people mostly use "Et tu, Brute" because of  its occurrence in William Shakespeare's play* Julius Caesar. *However, I personally use "Tu quoque, fili"*
Comment: @Graffito. _'Boycott'_ is the perfect example. +1
Answer: Many terms in English have a well-known history.
We are not allowed to create lists so I'll offer just one example.

"to turn a blind eye"
To knowingly refuse to acknowledge something which you know to be
  real.
Origin
Admiral Horatio Nelson is supposed to have said this when wilfully
  disobeying a signal to withdraw during a naval engagement.
The Phrase Finder

You may also be interested in an etymology dictionary, for example Online Etymology Dictionary
Comment: I am familiar with the Online Etymology Dictionary but did not simply want the history of the word. There are some words that the dictionary gives a story or anecdote as its origin and many more that are just given the timeline, transitions, and transformations of the word. Your example of "to turn a blind eye" is the kind of thing I am looking for but preferably not a phrase. Thank you very much for the help.


Distribution of rounded normally distributed values

Question: Suppose I draw some values from $X_i \sim {\mathcal{N}( \mu, \, \sigma^2 )} $ and then round them to the nearest integer.
Are those rounded values then Binomial distributed?
Comment: no, because binomial distribution is valued on a finite number of integers
Comment: But is it a reasonable approximation?
Answer: Rounding to integers can seriously degrade the data for some purposes, especially if the population variance is small. The effect of rounding on sample means and variances is often minimal, so t methods may not be seriously affected.
You say
the original data are normal, so you would not likely use rank-based tests, but they are seriously affected by rounding because of the potential for creating ties.
Analyses on paired data can be especially sensitive to rounding, even using t methods.
If differences
are small and have small variances, you can 'round away' a significant difference by rounding to integers (instead of say tenths).
One way to check the damage from rounding is to look at the proportion of ties
in the rounded data.
Only in very unusual circumstances would rounded normal
data be anything like binomial data which take integer values from $0$ up to
some $n.$ (Try to imagine the binomial model, what would be a 'trial', what
would be a 'success'?)

Here is a quick experiment. I generate 100 observations from $\mathsf{Norm}(\mu=20,\, \sigma=2)$ and round to integers, then check for ties. The original data
are generated to many decimal places and ties are extremely rare (none in my experiment). But after rounding to integers, there remain only ten uniquely
different values among the 100 observations. However, sample means and SDs
are not much changed by rounding to integers. (See the R output below.) By contrast, rounding to two places leaves 91
uniquely different values (not shown).
<code>x = rnorm(100, 20, 2);  length(unique(x))
## 100  # 100 uniquely different observations
rx = round(x);  length(unique(rx))
## 10   # only 10 uniquely different obs after rounding
mean(x); sd(x)
## 19.95831    # sample mean before rounding
## 2.084899    # sample SD before
mean(rx); sd(rx)
## 19.94       # sample Mean after rounding
@@ 2.088061    # sample SD after
</code>
Note: Predicting ties in rounded data is somewhat like the famous birthday
problem, except that different values have different probabilities of producing ties ('matches'). In the case with $\mu = 20$ and $\sigma = 2,$ one might reasonably expect
most values to be in the interval $(14, 26).$ That leaves only 13 integer values to
which one might round.
Comment: Is it mathematically correct to write this "rounded" distribution as:
$ X_i \sim \left \lfloor {\mathcal{N}( \mu, \, \sigma^2 )}  \right \rceil$ ?
Comment: I know of no standard notation for normal data rounded to integers. Yours seems fine, but would have to be explained. Until your method became standard, I would say "$N(\mu,\sigma^2)$ rounded to integers."


How to locate household for event participant

Question: We organize a yearly week where children come to our community center to play and have fun. All children are entered and linked to their household, which is also where we put all contact-information for the parents such as phone numbers and e-mail address.
We would like to send an e-mail to the parents of last year's participants, inviting them to sign up their children for this year's event but I can't figure out how to do that with the available search options.
Is this something that I can only fix with a custom search?
Answer: Have you used the "relationship" section of the Advanced Search in conjunction with the "event" section to find the related households of participating individuals?
Comment: After fiddling with this I managed to get it to work; just too bad that the saving of smart groups from Advanced Search is broken in 4.7.9.
Eventually I ended up creating a smart group with the search builder that has all the children in it that attended our event in the past year and are not too old to attend this year. Next I did an Advanced Search for households where the members are in the previously created smart group.


Baking baguettes

Question: I try to bake baguette. But my oven just on bottom element on bake position. Is that reason why I ruined my baguettes? Please advise me the right way to baking bread.
Comment: Can you describe the results, and how the result different from what you were expecting?  Also, did you sufficiently pre-heat the oven, did you have any form of thermal mass in there (bricks, cast iron pans, etc.) to store & radiate heat, and did you add any water for steam generation?
Comment: Many people have ovens with just the bottom element heating up during baking and their breads come out fine. If your baguettes are ruined it's not because of the design of the oven. Baguettes are one of the most difficult breads to bake so they can be ruined for myriad reasons.
Comment: We also need more information on how they are ruined -- burned, underbaked, didn't rise, something else? :)
Answer: Since you mention your oven has only a bottom heating element and you have ruined baguettes when baking them, I'll take a guess that your problem is that the bottoms of the loaves are too dark, but also suggest some general baguette baking guidelines.
First, if the bottoms of your loaves are in fact too dark, bake them in a higher position in the oven, moving the baking rack if necessary.
A baking temperature of 400F/200C works well; heated fully before inserting the bread.
The oven should be steamy for the first 15 minutes or so of baking. If your oven does not have steam injectors, this can be accomplished by adding 1/2 cup or 150ml of water into the oven (I generally just splash it on the bottom after sliding in the bread) then opening the door for 30 seconds after about 15 minutes.
A baking stone (or improvised alternative such as bricks) that has been pre-heated and onto which the baking pan is placed, will help keep the heat more even, however I've found this to affect the results only very slightly.
Please provide more details about how the baguette has been ruined and we may be able to give you a better answer.

Baking baguettes


What is the max sd card size for the LG optimus dynamic

Question: What is the maximum size of sdcard that LG optimus dynamic supports?
Answer: LG on its website here has featured the specifications for your device, and the relevant one is:

microSD™ Memory Slot                             Supports up to 32 GB memory card**

Now you can buy the micro-SD card of size up to 32GB.
Answer: As per This it supports Micro sdcard upto 32GB.


Why were my questions about two books by Cornelius Ryan on war not answered?

Question: I posted questions about two books that are written by Cornelius Ryan, but they were not answered or commented upon. The questions appear as "recently deleted questions", because now they have been deleted. Are the questions not worthy enough to expect an answer? The books are The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far. I would like to know why my questions were deleted and not answered. In response to a question of mine, you answered that questions about books of war are answered on this site.
Answer: You posted your questions on the meta site: The War book "THE LONGEST DAY" written by CORNELIUS RYAN and A non-fiction book by Cornelius Ryan-"A bridge too far". As you have been informed many times in comments, this meta site (literature.meta.stackexchange.com) is for questions about Literature Stack Exchange: e.g. for asking which types of questions are on-topic here, which tags should be used, how site policies should be defined, etc.
If you have questions about books or works of literature, they should be posted on the main site (literature.stackexchange.com). So far you have posted nothing there about any books by Cornelius Ryan.
If you continue posting questions on the wrong site, they will continue to be closed and deleted.
Comment: I know that the purposes of the two sites are completely different.BUT when the main site won't take my question but the meta site would, what is to be done? I have "comment everywhere privilege".The books were subjects of discussion for many years in our house. I*emphasized text* am ready to delete the questions if you permit me.
Comment: @user37920 "what is to be done?" Please see the [help centre page on question bans](https://literature.stackexchange.com/help/question-bans) to answer that question. If you continue posting off-topic questions on meta, they will continue being deleted and eventually you will be question-blocked on meta too. No need for you to delete those questions, as they are already deleted.


Why is the possibility of the universe having a centre around which everything orbits not considered feasible?

Question: I'm sure there is some kind of reason as to why this isn't considered as a legitimate theory but upon giving it though it seemed to make sense to me. I figure if all gravitational orbits are essentially spiralling in to the thing they are orbiting then the closer a galaxy is to the centre the faster it moves to this centre, explaining red shift. This would also explain blue shift of certain galaxies assuming they are further from the centre than we are. I have read articles about how the universe apparently doesn't have a centre thus disproving this but I find this hard to comprehend and accept, if nothing else I would appreciate if someone could explain this concept to me.
Answer: Because when we look around, we see that things are, on large scales, the same in all directions.  This would be true in such a model only if we were at the centre of this system.  That seems ludicrously unlikely: what are the chances that we are lucky enough to be at the one place in the universe where everything looks the same in all directions?  So instead we assume that our position is nothing special, and that the universe looks the same on large scales wherever you happen to be.  This immediately rules out such a model.
(More sophisticated observation of the large-scale dynamics of the universe also rules out such a model, but this assumption of non-specialness of our location is an important principle, I think.)
Comment: Thank you, I understand completely now, not sure what I was thinking regarding red shift being observed in all directions relative to us, makes perfect sense now, thank you.
Answer: Our universe looks not only isotropic (the same in all directions) but also homogeneous (the same at each x, y, z at any one time). The fact that our position is not unique is not a principle, it is determined to be so from astrophysical and cosmological observations. Of course, the meaning is that these are so for cosmological distances, i.e., in the large, for instance at distances of 100 Mpsec or more; local inhomogeneities or anisotropic so like solar systems and galaxies or Galaxy clusters need to be averaged over those longer distances to see the homogeneity and isotropy in the large. Seeing in different directions we can do directly. For homogeneity it is a little indirectly (more sophisticated in @tfb's words, as I interpret it), in that what we see from here, or what we'd see from a typical Galaxy 1 billion light years away, looks the same, only different because the other Galaxy is a billion years younger, so we have to adjust.
If you assume homogeneity and isotropy for the universe, you get the Friedman-Lamaitre-Robertson-Walker cosmological models, which expand the spatial part of spacetime, and only have the 3 possible spatial geometries (positive, zero, or negative curvatures). All 3 expand, but one keep on expanding faster, one slows down, and one just goes on going just barely. They are called open, closed and flat universes. In all those cases there is no center, no special place, and all galaxies see the same redshifts for galaxies at equivalent distances, i.e., they all see the same expansion, only scaled by how old they are (the further away we see the younger the galaxies, in the large.
The cosmological model that best matches the numbers on expansion and so on, and also the measurements of the microwave black body background, is called the Lambda-CDM model. You've seen it probably already, where that includes the dark energy (lambda), cold dark matter, and tHe observable mass and energy of the universe, and at this point the numbers favor a flat (spatial sections) universe.
It is hard to visualize, but plenty of those online you can try. In all cases you see that no single point is unique.
Also by the way, again that homogeneity and isotropy is not a principle, it is 'observed' in the way explained. That has led to a theory as to why out of what might have been a very random beginning after the Big Bang things could get to look so uniform. The theory is called Inflation, or the Inflationary universe. That might explain it, it is the best we have, but there still could be some other explanation. There's data to support it but not exactly a full confirmation. There some gravitational radiation that would be explained by it, and people are looking, but not yet detected (the black hole gravitational waves detected have a different source. Need bigger detectors for the Inflation-sourced gravitational waves. There's otherthing they are looking for also. But if found, that would actually explain why we are so homogeneous and isotropic.


Can I remove this outlet and fill it?

Question: I have this exterior outlet connected to a conduit that i want to remove. I've tested the outlet with an outlet tester and it says it's cold. I don't really want to try to remove the entire conduit as it goes underneath a slab/ patio. I was gonna just saw it off and then fill the conduit with silicone caulking. Is there anything else I should take into consideration?
Comment: Are there wires? Where do they go to?
Comment: If the wires serving this outlet are in good shape, if they are present in a breaker panel and *capable* of delivering power, you should decommission this in a way that isn't permanent.  You may want power here for some reason in future, and running underground conduit is hard work.  Even if the wires are in bad shape, you could hopefully use them to pull new wires.
Answer: You need to find the other end of the conduit and determine what breaker entergizes the outlet. It could still be live with a faulty outlet that doesn't register voltage. The conduit could start in another outlet or light fixture outside,in the house or in the panel. Check the panel door for breaker numbers for outside outlets.
Once you determine where it's fed from, disconnect the wires and recheck the outlet box you want to remove. If unenergized, you can go ahead with your plan.
Comment: Open up the other outlet and watch while someone tugs on the wire at the outlet you want to decommission.
Comment: The outlet is about 25 feet from the house.  The slab in the pic is between the house and the conduit so I assume the conduit runs under the slab towards the house.  Short of digging a trench perpendicular to the assumed conduit, is there any other way of locating where the conduit might run?  Also, breaker panel is ~5 years old and doesn't list anything about exterior outlets.  There is one other ext outlet attached to side of house (works) in line with this old one, one might think they are connected?
Comment: Or blow air (compressor, backwards shopvac) into the decom conduit and look/listen.
Comment: I'd suggest using a metal detector to trace the conduit.  But to answer your base question, if you're sure you want to permanently remove this outlet, the line feeding to this outlet needs to be found and the line disconnected and made such that it can never be connected again, since the far end you've removed is no longer viable.

Can I remove this outlet and fill it?


After rejection magento extension version

Question: I have created package extension for magento.My extension was rejected and also uploaded my_extension_name with version 1.0.0. Now I have solved all issue created proper guideline.Should I have upload again new higher version(e.g. 1.1.0) or older version 1.0.0 in for upload package in magento website ?
Comment: Hi, is your extesnion is live as i facing issues while testing the extesnion on my local machine before submitting

https://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/217669/how-to-use-create-extension-package-in-magento-1-9?noredirect=1&lq=1
Answer: You can upload extension with the same version. You don't need to change the version.


PyBluez pairing bluetooth device

Question: How do I initiate pairing of a bluetooth device with PyBluez in Python? I see ways to discover, but not pair.
Answer: PyBluez does not support cross-platform pairing management. This is because some operating systems, like Windows, require super-user level permissions to programatically pair devices.
On most operating systems, when PyBluez attempts to connect to the socket using the connect method, the operating system will try to pair (often asking the user for permission).
However, you can make your own super user tools or improve PyBluez to do the same.
For example, you can make your own command line tools using .NET for Windows to pair and unpair devices, then run these from Python. An implementation of some command line pairing tools can be found here for Windows:
http://bluetoothinstaller.com/bluetooth-command-line-tools/

PyBluez pairing bluetooth device


What does the in-game score in Age of Empires II mean?

Question: It consists of two numbers, how do I interpret these?
Answer: The first number is you personal score at that moment. The second number is the average score of the team you are in at that moment. If you are not in a team then these numbers will be the same, which makes it quite pointless to show it twice in my opinion.
This only works for teams that where made before the game starts. If you and your new ally for instance both set each other to ally it will update, meaning it will not show the average score between you and your ally.
For information about how the scores are made up: Age of Empires 2 Score system?
Comment: I assume they are also useful for gauging how well/badly you are doing? At the moment I am practising my early game and I use the ingame score to make sure I am not running behind, is this the best way or are there better indicators?
Comment: You could scout the enemies alot or make the entire map visible at all times so you can see how they are doing. But if neither of those work for you then the score is probably the best thing to use. Do note that an enemy with a low score could have many units, but barely any buildings. Huns don't need houses, so their score might be lower because of that.
Answer: Points are given for creating a unit (based on how many resources it costs) and losing the unit will have those gained points deducted. Same goes for killing units and buildings (based on their resource cost).
You also get points for gathering resources and exploring the map. Also looking at the summary page can sum it up well.
Comment: You get 1 point for every 100 resources you have. If you use a cheat you get 1000 of a resource and your score goes up by 10.
Answer: Note that if you look at the scores the computer cheats on hardest levels.    Also by looking at the scores you can see if opponents have a smooth society or going on attack.   For instance I might have a much higher score than opponent but then he castles.   Well knowing that my town is doing better I can infer he is about to attack, or he is about to lose really bad in a longer game.


How can I synchronize my progress on two different devices?

Question: I'm playing Skyforce both on my phone and on my tablet (mostly on my phone because it has a pen) but my progress isn't being synchronized. The game always is in an older state on the tablet. Is this a known problem of Skyforce or Google Play or is there a way to synchronize them?
Comment: I work on Google Play Games, and the snapshot tables on the phone are empty, so they aren't using our feature. But even if they were, it's up to the game developer to decide what to store. Anyway, whatever they are using, is home grown or another service. There are some comments around the web that the cloud save they are using transfers progress, but not stars. http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=288639&page=12
Comment: As far as I know skyforce isn't using the snapshot feature of Google play games, but instead using their own saved games logic. Infinite dreams would need to implement some sort of cross device saving features. I had this problem with regular Skyforce, which is why I only play reloaded on a single device.
Comment: Do you know of any sources which mention this? If you know could you please point them out in an answer.
Comment: Thanks Matt. I can vote and select your answer if you write it as an answer.
Answer: This is not an issue with the Google Play Games cloud save feature, but Infinite Dream's implementation of cloud save (if it's even an issue, since this is probably working as Infinite Dreams intended). Regardless of the technology that Infinite Dreams is using to store cloud saves, it's up to the developer to decide what data is stored in the cloud save, and it looks like they chose to sync ship upgrades, but not stars (http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=288639&page=12).


Best wi-fi dongle for routing

Question: I want to make a TOR router from my B+.
If you have a experience in it, what is the best usb dongle for it?
I have a lot of problem with my old RTL8191SU, so I need a replacement.
Comment: Welcome -- but shopping questions are [explicitly off-topic](http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) (I believe so that we don't open things up to spam advertising).  However, a question such as, "How can I determine whether a specific wifi adapter will work or not?" would be okay.
Comment: I think chipset is very important. I use RTL8188CUS based wifi dongle. Good enough for my applications.
Comment: http://elinux.org/RPi_USB_Wi-Fi_Adapters
Answer: I recommend the Pi Hut's USB Wi-Fi Adapter, I have used it myself and it works fine with the B+. No set up is required it is literally plug and play. Here is a link to it:
http://thepihut.com/products/usb-wifi-adapter-for-the-raspberry-pi
I believe you can also get versions which support Bluetooth as well.
What is also important is you supply the Pi with adequate power, as USB Wi-Fi adapters can be power hungry.

Best wi-fi dongle for routing


How can I make a switch accessible via the internet, that allows users to turn on or off a python script?

Question: I have a python script running on a home laptop that runs Ubuntu 13.10. I want to give 2 or 3 people the ability to start or kill that script, but no other privileges. I don't want to give them access to the script itself, since the code is sensitive. Is there an easy way to do that?
Answer: GNU/Linux has sudo command that permits user to become root or run some files that need root privileges. You should define your users at /etc/sudoers  file. Of course you need to block some command, please read man sudoers , to can customize it.
Comment: You spelled `/etc/sudoers` wrong (swap the 'o' and 'u'). Also, it's highly recommended you use the `visudo` command instead of directly editing the `/etc/sudoers` file, due to the importance of what you're editing.
Comment: It's not mentioned in the text, but the title of the question mentions "via the internet".
Answer: There are a thousand and one ways to do this.
One way you might consider is from a BasicAuth protected Apache server with PHP.  PHP could exec the python script for you and also shell execute a kill on the same script.
PHP exec() - http://php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php
This is not the most robust, secure or best way to accomplish what you're wanting, but it technically fits the requirements and is simple to set up.  It is pretty much guaranteed to make any administrator's hair stand on end.
If you want to use your python script longterm on a less than casual project you might consider porting it to be used with mod_python, recreate it for use in a web service, etc.
Answer: The easiest way would probably be to set up a simple webserver with a single webpage and a link to start/stop the script.
Or if your users are at ease with SSH clients, you could try to set an SSH jail (see e.g. this question).


LDAP & RPC Causing A/D Issues

Question: Having an issue with authentication on my network. Running Windows Server 2008 R2
Layout:
Network is a non internet connected network using DCs running DNS/AD/File Sharing. NO DHCP all addresses are Static. DNS is pointing to DC1 & DC2.
Working
File sharing is working as if you do a \DC to it will show shares as well as shares on the rest of the network.
Problem
When connected to the network machines say "unidentified network" not the domain. Secondly when I try to add machines to the domain it says it cannot reach the domain. Also users cannot login to it as it says no login servers exist.
Ran a DCDIAG on the DC1 itself and got
Got error while checking LDAP and RPC connectivity

All ports for LDAP and RPC are allowed and the firewall is off.
While running DCDIAG /TEST:DC I got this.
NO LDAP CONNECTIVITY
Warning Adpapter
Invalid DNS Server
No host records (A) or (AAA) were found on this DC
NO DNS RPC connectivity

PTR Record query for the *** failed on the DNS Server
Name resolution is not functional

I have been working on this all week and it is driving me crazy. Do I need to backup my entire A/D and redo it or am I missing something I don't understand here. I can't add machines to the domain and network accounts will not login and all machines say they are on an "unidentified network".
At this point I have only the DC on and 1 computer. The DC says it is connected to the Domain but the computer say it isn't. I can Remote to the DC by name. Not sure what to do at this point.
UPDATE:1
After adding a system account and service account to the security groups for file replication and one for certificate access which allows the machines to see the domain. CURRENTLY STILL GETTING LDAP and RPC connectivity issue which is preventing the machines from joining the domain. Login servers seem to be working atm but still cannot add machines to the domain. Is there a way to rebuild or reconnect LDAP?
Comment: Does the server have multiple network adapters?
Comment: @RyanRies yes but I am only using 1. All others are disabled.
Answer: LDAP zone msdcs_domian.com.com was missing from zone. When drive crashed and windows did a checkdisk it must have rebuilt the file with the missing msdcs.
Comment: I suggest to elaborate more your answer (best if you explain, _why_ is it).

LDAP & RPC Causing A/D Issues


Attach a gear to dc motor pole

Question: I don't know if this is the best place, but it seems the best out of the exchanges. How do you attach a plastic (or metal) gear to the little pole/nub that sticks out of a dc hobby motor? I have come up with 3 ideas: gluing, it doesn't seem like it would hold well; soldering, maybe but what about plastic gears; and making the hole on the gear slightly smaller so there is enough friction to hold it well, the most likely solution. Has anyone tried these or any other?
Answer: With really small hobby motors, the usual scheme is to go for an 'interference fit', which is basically the 3rd option you mentioned. Even when the shaft is completely round and smooth, this works b/c the power and torques are so low. You will find this done in inexpensive toys, for example.
Answer: a grub screw? - file one side of the motor shaft a little flat, drill and tap a hole in the hub of a metal gear, cut off the end of a bolt with the right thread, then cut a slot in one end so you can turn it with screwdriver
Comment: Hmmm. I wish I could accept both answers. I have one motor that is big enough where I can do the above solution, but I also have one that is too small to do that and will have to follow the below answer. Thanks.

Attach a gear to dc motor pole


Is it possible/practical to use a Linux server to authenticate Windows devices?

Question: I am from a small concern and we are currently looking into getting a server purely for authentication and saving user data's. I do not want to push software to the devices or anything like that. I simply want to force the devices to input a username/password before they can use it (to keep track of who is using what for security purposes and thier user datas have to be in the server.
So : Is it possible/practical to use a Linux server to authenticate Windows devices?
Answer: As you already added the Samba tag, it is possible to use Samba as a domain controller to authenticate Windows clients and provide space for the users to save their files. I already used such setups in small businesses. Whether that fits a "small concern" depends on your specific needs.
Edit
For authentication, you create a Windows domain on the Samba server and make your devices members of this domain. Now every domain user can login on any of the devices. Samba supports different backends, but you probably want to use the LDAP backend to manage the Samba users. You can use the same LDAP tree to manage the Linux users, you just need a few additional attributes.
Comment: Yes for file sharing purpose we can use samba. but how to authenticate windows users from linux server?
Comment: Windows clients behave like they would with a Windows Domain Controller. You have to supply a user and password, and the server, in this case Samba, will verify the password.
Comment: Is LDAP is enough for authentication? or  I have to use PAM authentication ?
Comment: You can use PAM to use LDAP for authentication. Or PAM to use SSSD to use LDAP for authentication. SSHD should be present on RHEL and is quiet easy to use.


He will save His people from their sins. Jewish people?

Question: Matthew 1:21

And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins."

Why does he save His people only?
Comment: This verse says he will save his people, but nothing in this verse implies that he won't save other people too! Why would you think it does?
Answer: God can only save those who have answered the call of the gospel of Christ.
>"For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit."  (1 Cor. 12:13, KJV)
Jesus' sacrifice was not just for one nation, but for all nations of people.  That is what the Feast of Nations - or the Feast of Tabernacles - signified.  It was the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isa. 2:1, that people of all nations would flow into the house of the Lord.
So, the answer is determined by knowing who His people are, and they are all those from every nation that have answered the call and been immersed into Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.  That includes the Jews, the house of Cornelius of the Italian band, the Ethiopian eunuch, the Roman jailer with Paul - anyone who will be immersed for the forgiveness of their sins into Christ.

"27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."  (Gal. 3:27 - 29, KJV)

If we are immersed / baptized into Christ Jesus, and if we are then counted for Abraham's seed/ descendants, then all who are in Christ - no matter from which geographical nationality on this earth - are the true Israel of God, the true house of the Lord, and are His people.
He cannot save anyone who has not been baptized into Christ, because He will only forgive the sins of those who have.  All those who have rejected Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of the world are outside of the covenant relationship, and they will face the judgment of their sins (Matt. 22:11-13).
It has nothing to do with the blood line, and everything to do with the faith line of the faith of Abraham (Gen. 17:19-21, Rom. 4:3-16).
So,then who are His people?  His people are all those of every nation who have answered the call of the gospel of Christ (Acts. 22:12-16).
Answer: Yes, He will save His people from their sins, as promised in Psalm 130:8, which parallelism indicates that He is the same one, the same Lord mentioned in this psalm, because from political oppression and occupation even a human liberator can be envisaged, but for liberation from oppression and tyranny of sins neither man, nor angel, but God only is fit.
But what are those sins? Only body-related sins like inclinations to adultery,  lust, gluttony etc.? Or also psychological sins like anger, envy, jealousy? But are those two categories enough for encompassing the notion of "sin"? Does not cognition and ideas apply to this category? Yes, of course also cognition and ideas, the world-view, the theological visions etc.
Now, the Lord Jesus Christ will liberate the Jews from their cognitive sin of regarding themselves higher than other nations and not seeing in representatives of other nations their brethren and sistern. Indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ debunks this egotistic and theologico-chauvinistic conviction of Jewish teachers by many teachings and actions of His, just remember Him speaking with a representative of not only non-Jew, but even the arch enemy of Jews, a Samaritan woman, or Him healing a Phoenician woman, or Him speaking about instances of prophets to come not to Jews but to representatives of other nations due to them being more eager and receptive to the prophetic presence and words (cf. Luke 4:27), for saying of which He so enraged the Jews present in that synagogue that they attempted to kill Him (Luke 4:29).
So, if this epistemological sin will be cleansed from Jews by the Lord Jesus Christ, then they will understand that His mission is universal and He heals all sins: a) body-related, b) psychological and c) epistemological/cognitive not only in Jews but in all humans worldwide.
Answer: Jews or Israelites were the chosen people for God's revelation, covenant and promises (Romans 9-11) however the whole nations belong to God. Being saved from sins implies repentance from ungodliness and turning to godliness. Such people are called his chosen, his children or people. It was never exclusive to the chosen Israelites. The Bible teaches that religion does not save anyone. James 2, Romans 2. And the wall that separated the nations from the covenant of God has been broken through the new covenant of faith in Christ, see Eph 2.

Acts 10:34-35 ESV So Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone
who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
1 Tim 4:10 NASB For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men,
especially of believers.
Answer: I agree with Gina's excellent answer. Here, I'll supplement a little.
Matthew 1:

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

Joseph would have understood the term "his people" as the Jewish people. Matthew was a Jew. He showed how Jesus fulfilled the Jewish prophecies,
Matthew 2:

6 "'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.'"

So, it made perfect sense that the angel spoke to Joseph that way. However, we also know that that was not the whole story.
Luke, the Gentile, told us more in Luke 2:

8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.

Jesus was for all the people, Jews and Gentiles.
Not every Jew would be saved, Matthew 12:

46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. 47Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you."
48 He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" 49Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. 50For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

Not every Gentile would be saved either,
John 1:

11
He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

Why does he save His people only?
The angel spoke to Joseph in terms of "his people" to show that Jesus fulfilled the OT Messianic prophecy. However, the meaning of this term was broader than what Joseph had understood.


Sony Vaio RAM Upgrade

Question: I have a SONY VAIO VGN-NS325J laptop with 3GB RAM. Can I just add a 4GB and have 7GB? Or do I have to have 2 of the same RAM sticks? I have not tried anything yet.
Comment: Try it and see if it works.  Some motherboards are finiky about different RAM sticks and others are not.  it shouldn't hurt anything to try.  But, just because you install it and it doesn't cause a problem doesn't mean it is using it.  Go to Control Panel >> System and see how much installed memory is listed.
Comment: I would check the specification on the laptop.  Sony makes this information known in the specification.  It all depends on the motherboard they used.
Comment: Note that you would only get the benefit of having more than 4GB of memory if you had a 64-bit system.
Answer: You'll have to find out what type of RAM your laptop supports before trying to install another stick of RAM. If you download CPU-Z and click on the Memory tab it'll tell you the type of RAM your laptop is using, its DRAM Frequency (You'll have to multiply it by 2 to get the actually frequency as DDR stands for Dual Data Rate) and the RAM timings.
The bit you need to be concerned with is the type of RAM (e.g. DDR2, DDR3, etc). You'll have to get the supported type. If you buy a 4GB stick of the same type with the same Timings and DRAM Frequency you should be fine. If the frequency and/or timings are different, you may run into problems, leading you to having to go into your BIOS settings and tinkering with the RAM settings. I'm sure you don't want to do this, so it's better if you purchase RAM with properties that match.
Answer: Your laptop has two memory slots which can contain a maximum of 4 GB each. You probably have one 2GB and one 1 GB card. Your cheapest option would be to replace the 1 GB with 4 GB.
You can use one of the memory providers' websites to scan your computer and show upgrade options. For example Crucial.
Note that you must be running a 64bit operating system to use more than 4 GB.

Sony Vaio RAM Upgrade


sqlserver restoring database takes 15 minutes and going!

Question: I'm just restoring a small database(-5MB) but it is taking a lot of time?
Is it standard or darkness is a feature?
Comment: answer for other people:the best way to restore is deleting the database before restore.then it takes 5 secs.
Answer: Depends on where it's restoring from.  If you're taking it from tape, even the smallest file will need seek time, which depending on the tape drive could be a substantial multiple of the actual restore time needed.  A restore job may also require to index and/or catalog the restore media.
Comment: solved just few seconds ago.and it was restoring from the c:\program files\....\MSSQL\....bak
Answer: Takes way too long. Anything funny in the logs? 5 mb should take seconds - lets say a minute, maximum. That is MAXIMUM in HUGH letters. Unless you have a 300gb log file that needs processing after restoring the database.
Comment: it is still restoring.help!!!that is important data.
Comment: the log is about 700MB.but the database was cleared before the time i am trying to restore.
Comment: 700mb log on a 5mb database- can take some time, especially if... well... the disc subsystem is "workstation quality". You ahve tons of disc activity?
Answer: Try adding "with stats = 1" to your restore clause so you can see some movement.  My guess is the log file being created is the issue, you could switch the db recovery mode to simple mode and shrink the log down (don't tell Paul Randall) so it's less to allocate.


Uboot passes arguments to kernel!

Question: How can uboot pass command line argument to kernel? I did some googling and got to know that it uses the bootargs environment variable. There it was mentioned that setenv bootargs key=value. Since I am using bash and don't have setenv I did this using export bootargs="value". But it's  not affecting anything. I checked in /proc/cmdline the arguments remain the same.
Any idea what I am doing wrong?
Answer: You can use a uEnv.txt file in your boot partition to specify arguments for the boot. This is an example for Xilinx zynq-7000 devices from the yocto meta-zybo layer:
kernel_image=uImage
devicetree_image=zybo-zynq7.dtb
bootargs=console=ttyPS0,115200 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw rootwait earlyprintk
uenvcmd=echo Copying Linux from SD to RAM... && fatload mmc 0 0x3000000 ${kernel_image} && fatload mmc 0 0x2A00000 ${devicetree_image} && bootm 0x3000000 - 0x2A00000

It specifies the device tree to use (you don't need to do this if your is called device_tree.dtb ) followed by a set of arguments for the kernel.
You can find more information on the usage of uEnv.txt here
Answer: There are two ways to pass arguments to kernel:
 1. Compile them inside.
 2. Use bootloader
So first check if your arguments are not compiled into kernel.
Second setenv command you've found in not a bash command but boot loader command. It depends on how particular device made, but usually there is a partition in some internal storage (flash memory of your device, not on host) where bootloader reads parameters or file on filesystem and u-boot takes configuration from there.
Other way is to connect your device via cable and use device-specific way to get bootloader prompt and interactively change your settings.
It's not really trivial if you not familiar with your particular device boot scheme. Name your device, it may help to answer your question.
Answer: you can pass your boot files through uEnv.txt file, besides your files on SD card.
you need these files for boot: BOOT.bin (loads fsbl and uboot), bitstream.bit (your bitstream that loads to PL, uImage (compiled linux kernel), devicetree.dtb (address of drivers that linux reads it), uramdisk.image.gz (linux files after booting).
you can load these to your DDR by this commands:
bootargs=console=ttyPS0,115200 root=/dev/ram rw earlyprintk
load_image=fatload mmc 0 ${kernel_load_address} ${kernel_image} &&
fatload mmc 0 ${devicetree_load_address} ${devicetree_image} &&
fatload mmc 0 ${ramdisk_load_address} ${ramdisk_image} uenvcmd=run mmc_loadbit_fat &&
echo Copying Linux from SD to RAM... &&
run load_image &&
bootm ${kernel_load_address} ${ramdisk_load_address} ${devicetree_load_address}

also if you want to load other linux files from ext4 partition of SD, you can use this commands on uEnv.txt:
bootargs=console=ttyPS0,115200 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw earlyprintk rootfstype=ext4 rootwait devtmpfs.mount=0
load_image=fatload mmc 0 ${kernel_load_address} ${kernel_image} &&
fatload mmc 0 ${devicetree_load_address} ${devicetree_image} uenvcmd=run mmc_loadbit_fat &&
echo Copying Linux from SD to RAM... &&
mmcinfo &&  run load_image &&
bootm ${kernel_load_address} - ${devicetree_load_address}

Uboot passes arguments to kernel!


Converting TinkerKit to native Arduino pins

Question: Over the years, I have acquired many TinkerKit modules for my Arduino Uno. My only issue is that I need to find a way to code using the native syntax, and not the less-powerful TinkerKit variation. To do this, I need to know if TinkerKit maps its 3-pin connector to the Arduino Board's pins (ex: 1, 3, 5). If it does, what are the mappings?
Thanks in advance!
Answer: The TinkerKit Sensor Shield helps understand the mapping. There is also the TinkerKit Header File with symbol mapping.


Electronic Check

Question: We are using Authorize.net and on their site it says they accept electronic checks. How do I set up my Civi contribution page to accept both credit card and electronic check?
Comment: I see I have to create a separate payment processor for electronic check payments. I did that using Authorize.net credentials, but when I choose that option from my contribution page I just get the credit card entries, and not options to enter in check information. How do I get the check information to show up instead of the credit card entries?
Answer: There is an extension that sets up the eCheck processor for AuthorizeNet. Once installed you should be able setup a separate processor for echecks.
More info in the link in KatinG's answer. This can be installed directly through CiviCRM (Administer>System Settings>Extensions Add New). We had a site using it under 4.6 with WordPress with no issues.
Hope this helps.
Comment: Just edited answer with install information.
Comment: a link would make this answer more helpful
Comment: I added the extension, but when I placed it in my contribution page I am getting this error Fatal error: Call to undefined method CRM_Core_Payment_AuthorizeNet::setBackOffice() in /home/aflbs/www/www/wp-content/plugins/civicrm/civicrm/CRM/Core/Payment/ProcessorForm.php on line 70    Does anyone know what I can do to fix this so I do not get this error?
Comment: What version of CiviCRM are you using? There is a note on the extension page that says "WARNING: Does not work on 4.7.23+ because it overrides a core CiviCRM file".
Comment: Looking on GitHub it looks like the developer is not able to do any work on this extension.
Comment: I am using 4.7.22. So is the only answer to revert back to an older version of Civi? Or can someone help me get through that core payment error?
Answer: The default Authorize.net payment processor that ships with CiviCRM Core does not have the ability to handle e-cheques; try install:
https://civicrm.org/extensions/authorizenet-echecknet

do give it a good test - on a development/staging environment (with a copy of your site) - as it does not look like many people are using it; current usage: 8

Electronic Check


Windows Azure: Web Page, Mobile Service and SQL

Question: i am trying to develop a service using Windows Azure. The service consists in two parts:

An Android app that inserts some contents into a SQL database (using Azure Mobile Services)
A Web Site to show the SQL content.

The Andoird part is already done, the data is added into the SQL. The problem comes when I try to create the Web Site.
I followed some online tutorials like this, or this.
It works just fine with a "normal" database Table, but when I try to use one of the Tables used by the Mobile Service, I just cannot get it working..
I have tried: (I thought it has something to be with the Schema Name)

Setting a new user for the database with default_schema the one of the Mobile Service Database Tables
Changing the default schema of DbContext (Using the solution here)

Right now, when I try to see the site that should show the Table contents, I get an HTTP 505 error...
Can anyone help me? Has anyone an idea? It will be much appreciated...
Thanks!
PS: I don't know if this is important, but I created the Tables using the "Manage" Azure website, under my Mobile Service, and after I got it working, then tried to implement the Web Site
Comment: I don't know if anyone has a similar problem. But In case it helps anyone: The problem solved by itself. I don't really know how or why, but I started again from scratch writing Webpage and it worked eventually...
Answer: It looks like you already resolved it, but my guess is that you've got entity framework issues. Be sure you follow all the best practices like using Code First migration. If you're having issues with the SQL stuff, it's generally a problem of it not playing well together.


How do I make an entity move to the side?

Question: I'm trying to make an armour stand move one block to the side using a command, but that command just teleports it to the command block /tp @e{type=Armour_Stand,name=Player} ~ ~ ~-1 Is there a way to make it just move one block sideways?
Answer: You have to start by fixing your command, the target selector uses [ ] and NOT { }, and the armor stand is internally called armor_stand, or minecraft:armor_stand to be more precise, and NOT Armour_Stand:
/tp @e[type=minecraft:armor_stand,name=Player] ~ ~ ~-1

Now, as you already said, the armor stand teleports relative to the command block, this happens, because the command is executed as the command block, to fix this you would tell the command to execute as the armor stands instead:
/execute as @e[type=minecraft:armor_stand,name=Player] run tp ~ ~ ~-1

Now you run this command and... it still fails.
This happens, because the command now executes AS the armor stands, but still at the coordinates of the command block. To fix this you would also need to execute at the coordinatees of the armor stands:
/execute as @e[type=minecraft:armor_stand,name=Player] at @s run tp ~ ~ ~-1

Answer: You need to change the context so "~" represents the right location. You use "execute at" for that, like so:
/execute at @e{type=Armor_Stand,name=Player} run tp @e{type=Armor_Stand,name=Player} ~ ~ ~-1