Is it necessary to study Abhidhamma?

Question: From a purely Theravada perspective, how much important is it to read and know Abhidhamma? Is the knowledge of Sutta Pitaka enough to realize nirvana?
Comment: Highly important. The preface of the Abhidhamma commentary explains it. At least one has to know Abhidhamma fundamentals from a modern manual.
Answer: 1st Q:

Is the knowledge of Sutta Pitaka enough to realize nirvana?

For some people even the gist is enough

Then Sariputta the wanderer spoke
thus to the Ven. Assaji:
Speak a little or a lot,  but tell me just the gist. The gist is what
I want.   What use is a lot of verbosity? Then Ven. Assaji gave this
Dhamma exposition to Sariputta the Wanderer:
Whatever phenomena arise from cause:      their cause         & their
cessation. Such is the teaching of the Tathagata,     the Great
Contemplative.
Then to Sariputta the wanderer, as he heard this Dhamma
exposition, there arose the dustless, stainless Dhamma eye: "Whatever
is subject to origination is all subject to cessation."
Even if just this is the Dhamma, you have penetrated  to the
Sorrowless (asoka) State  unseen, overlooked (by us) for many myriads
of aeons. Upatissa-pasine: Upatissa's (Sariputta's) Question

For some a discourse is enough, for some two discourses and for others thousands won't do.
Some people are just too dull

An6.87. Kamma Obstructions
"Endowed with these six qualities, a person is incapable of alighting
on the lawfulness, the rightness of skillful mental qualities even
when listening to the true Dhamma. Which six?
"He has killed his mother; he has killed his father; he has killed an
arahant; he has, with corrupt intent, caused the blood of a Tathagata
to flow; he has caused a split in the Sangha; or he is a person of
dull discernment, slow & dull-witted.

Whereas others are too invested in thinking otherwise

But this generation delights in attachment, is excited by attachment,
enjoys attachment. For a generation delighting in attachment, excited
by attachment, enjoying attachment, this/that conditionality and
dependent co-arising are hard to see. This state, too, is hard to see:
the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all
acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding. Ayacana Sutta: The Request

"No wonder you don't understand, Vaccha, no wonder you're confused. For this principle is deep, hard to see, hard to understand, peaceful, sublime, beyond the scope of logic, subtle, comprehensible to the astute. It's hard for you to understand, since you have a different view, creed, preference, practice, and tradition.With Vacchagotta on Fire

People are generally afraid of non-existence and are delighting in existence, which prevents them from understanding how to give up the wrong views in regards to existence & non existence

(8) "Bhikkhus, of the speculative views held by outsiders, this is the foremost, namely: 'I might not be and it might not be mine; I shall not be, and it will not be mine.' For it can be expected that one who holds such a view will not be unrepelled by existence and will not be repelled by the cessation of existence. 10.29. Kosala (1)

"The world in general, Kaccaayana, inclines to two views, to existence[2] or to non-existence.[3] But for him who, with the highest wisdom, sees the uprising of the world as it really is,[4] 'non-existence of the world' does not apply, and for him who, with highest wisdom, sees the passing away of the world as it really is, 'existence of the world' does not apply. SN 12.15 Kaccayanagotta Sutta: To Kaccayana Gotta (on Right View)

Of course meditation is the way to overcome this but people don't generally want to go

9.414.With the Householder Tapussa
"Sir, Ānanda, we are laypeople who enjoy sensual pleasures. We like
sensual pleasures, we love them and take joy in them. But renunciation
seems like an abyss. I have heard that in this teaching and training
there are very young mendicants whose minds are eager for
renunciation; they're confident, settled, and decided about it. They
see it as peaceful. Renunciation is the dividing line between the
multitude and the mendicants in this teaching and training."
"Householder, we should see the Buddha about this matter. Come, let's
go to the Buddha and inform him about this. As he answers, so we'll
remember it."
"Yes, sir," replied Tapussa. Then Ānanda together with Tapussa went to
the Buddha, bowed, and sat down to one side. Ānanda told him what had
happened.
"That's so true, Ānanda! That's so true! Before my awakening—when I
was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I too
thought, 'Renunciation is good! Seclusion is good!' But my mind wasn't
eager for renunciation; it wasn't confident, settled, and decided
about it. I didn't see it as peaceful. Then I thought, 'What is the
cause, what is the reason why my mind isn't eager for renunciation,
and not confident, settled, and decided about it? Why don't I see it
as peaceful?' Then I thought, 'I haven't seen the drawbacks of sensual
pleasures, and so I haven't cultivated that. I haven't realized the
benefits of renunciation, and so I haven't developed that. That's why
my mind isn't eager for renunciation, and not confident, settled, and
decided about it. And it's why I don't see it as peaceful.'

2nd Q:

From a purely Theravada perspective, how much important is it to read and know Abhidhamma?

I am not an expert on Theravadin Abhidhamma, merely familiar with it, and would want to compare it to the Sarvastivadin Abhidhamma before i can give a real educated answer but i'll share my thoughts.
It is my impression so far that it's main utility & value is two-fold:

Cross-referencing with Sutta, that might be a great way to study both in tandem.

'Interrogation' for the purpose of conformity, preventing people from saying wrong things.
Answer: Abhidhamma is inside of a person who fulfilled perfection of wholesome, Parami. A person who seeing the fastest-of-trillion-thousand-arising-and-vanishing-mind-moments-per-second  is a person who understood abhidhamma.
It's hard for a foolish one who has no perfection of wholesome and wisdom. But it Tipitaka there are many people who have fulfilled perfection of wholesome, so it looks like easy to enlighten in Tipitaka when one just read, not memorize Tipitaka Pali.
So, the question is something like making an unequal person to be equal such as  "Is it important for  Albert Einstein to learn physic to understand the Theory of relativity" and "Is it important for a normal person to learn physic to understand the Theory of relativity".
Remember whether one important reason to meditate Jhana is because of the hardness of the insight meditation. The practitioner's wholesome need to be perfect enough, by Jhana, to study the hardest part of wisdom, the insight meditation. It is not only Abhidhamma, but it is seeing Abhidhamma in the past lives and the next lives until enlightenment like the Buddha did in his enlightening night.
Science is hard because of it's detail, the Dhamma is hard because it included all sciences as a little part of the whole Dhamma, Abhidhamma.
However, practice Jhana before study Abhidhamma. And it is very important to study Abhidhamma whith Jana-Mastery who memorized entired Tipitaka. The practitioner don't know who is Jhana-mastery without meditate by himself.
Answer: The traditional Theravada view is that the Abhidhamma was taught by the Buddha himself and traditionalists view it as "advanced Dhamma".
But modern academic scholarship and monk-scholars like Ven. Bodhi and Ven. Analayo (from this answer) say that Abhidhamma means "about the Dhamma" or "analysis of the Dhamma" and it's basically a body of work that evolved over the centuries based on discussions by monks of the sangha, and serves to provide additional explanation on the Dhamma taught by the Buddha himself.
On the other hand, the Buddha stated that he has taught everything necessary for liberation, for example, in the Simsapa Sutta. There's no absolute need for sutta commentaries and the Abhidhamma.
However, traditional sutta commentaries and the Abhidhamma are useful for improving our understanding of the Dhamma as taught by the Buddha. The traditional sutta commentaries provide context for the suttas (for e.g. the Dhammapada stories), or explain some cryptic statements (for e.g. this question).
The Abhidhamma provides meta-explanations or study guides on the sutta contents for e.g. explaining perception (saññā) as being related to memory, the enumeration of various mind states like wholesome mind states, unwholesome mind states etc. It also formalizes the concept of mind-moments and the linking of mind-moments.
So, in conclusion, the Abhidhamma should be treated as an optional study guide on the suttas.
Also, as explained in this answer, the main suttas are mostly common between different schools, but the Abhidhamma or Abhidharma, being a later work, is highly divergent between different schools.
Comment: This is a good reference to complement this answer; https://budsas.net/ebud/ebsut065.htm
Comment: It's a good analysis and worth reading, i'll excerpt "I.B. Horner says that the term abhidhamma occurs not more than ten times in the first two pitakas (the Suttapitaka and the Vinayapitaka), three of these being in the Vinaya.' (Book of Discipline III, p xi). She says that the word abhidhamma (apart from its use in interpolated material) should be 'taken as referring to some material or method in existence prior to the compilation of this [Abhidhamma] Pitaka, and out of which it [the Abhidhamma Pitaka] was gradually elaborated and eventually formed.'
Answer: If you enjoy beating your head against a brick wall, then abhidhamma might be for you.
Abhidhamma came a hundred years or so after the Buddha died.
If the Buddha thought it was important and worthwhile to teach the general public, he would have done so.
If proponents of Abhidhamma are trying to tell you the Buddha secretly taught it to only his advanced students, you should be suspicious.
In the suttas, the Buddha said there was no secret teachings he was hiding.
Answer: From a purely Theravada perspective, how much important is it to read and know Abhidhamma? Is the knowledge of Sutta Pitaka enough to realize nirvana?
With all due consideration,
In order to accurately understand the response, one needs to clarify what is understood by knowledge. If it refers to reading, reciting, or discussing any text, discourse or instruction, no such conditioned type of knowledge will ever lead to liberation from suffering, or Nibbana. Only if it refers to the unconditional knowledge of truth, which can stem only from the practical application of any instruction, thus truly knowing said instruction to be accurate or not, then the essence of knowledge from a purely old school Theravadin perspective is to acknowledge that, truthfully, "this is suffering", "this is the origin of suffering", "this is the eradication of suffering", "this is the path that progresses towards the eradication of suffering".
Bearing this in mind, a thorough and exhaustive study of the Sutta Pitaka is more than enough for understanding the four noble expressions of the truth about suffering and for applying them in order to progress towards the unconditioned and perfectly liberated state of Nibbana. What could prove even more useful for such an endeavor is the reading of at least the key elements of the doctrine in the original Pali, so as not to be confused by the several and at times imprecise variations of translations.
One who might have read the entire Sutta Pitaka and who might have taken up Pali courses for precisely this purpose could tell that especially for the key notions of the doctrine, it is very rarely possible to translate them word by word. For now, only reading them in Pali and using as a filter the direct practical application of the perfectly enlightened one's teachings can help one understand their occurrence in the different expositions and the relationship between different terms that make up the core of the doctrine.
All-in-all, reading any text or commentary that revolves around the developing of mindfulness or the noble eightfold path can prove useful for a more thorough understanding of the terminology, mainly in the original dialect. But, just as reading about food does not quench hunger, nor does talking about water quench thirst, although it is useful to gain a theoretical understanding of the instructions for the attainment of Nibbana, in order for them to quench suffering, practical application is crucial.
Respectfully
Answer: Non of the Arahats, non of those gained path, fruit in the past, present, future, did study, study, would study literary Abhidhamma to gain path and fruits.
Yet, non of those who seeked, seek, are up to seek fruits and path by means of study literary Abhidhamma, as the very means for it, have, do, or will gain path, fruit. Why is that? Because the path requires right view as base and the understanding of the practice, both hard to trace in literaly Abhidhamma, where such as path and Vimutti can hardly be found.
Why is that: because literary Abhidhamma suggests "a" stand, views, beside of required right view. Abhidhamma's arising has it's causes, gained by doing the right path, doing.
May one, falling out of the stated, correct the stated if wrong.
Answer: You asked "Is the knowledge of Sutta Pitaka enough to realize nirvana?" The problem here is that Pali canon contains two layers of suttas. An Early version closer to Buddha and a later version compiled by abhidhammikas. Latter is infused with ideas of the elders and their methods of meditation that contradict the original teachings. Hence, contradictions exist in the Pali canon, which might confuse the naive reader. If you have the time to read "Studies in Abhidhamma literature and the origins of Buddhist phiilosophical systems" by Erich Frauwallner then you will be in a better place to approach the Pali canon, and create a pathway to Nibbana.
Sincerely,
Answer: If the Abhidhamma, such as the Paṭiccasamuppādavibhaṅga & Saccavibhaṅga, is actually read, it openly offers a different explanation to the Suttas. This appears obviously why many well-read Buddhists ignore the Abhidhamma.
Answer: Short answer on Abhidhamma is no. Not only is it not necessary, it is advisable to be avoided and it has no practical application. All it can offer is a form of pseudo-intellectual entertainment.
Short answer on Sutta Pitaka is yes. A few select chapters represent the essence of the teaching of the Enlightened One. When put to practice, they bring about the eradication of suffering.
Answer: From a purely Theravada perspective,

Basic Abhidhamma is necessary to interpret Suttas. It is the primary usage.
If one didn't learn the basic Abhdhamma, he would interpret the
Suttas in the wrong way and it would lead to wrong views.
The analysis of Abhidhamma doesn't allow any wrong view to arise.
If one doesn't learn basic Abhidhamma, he will most probably trap in a subtle "permanent entity" or "comfortable entity" or "self entity" in the world.
The well-analyzed nature of Abhidhamma keep the student away from
such dangers. This is the major advantage.

Look for the beginning of the Dhammasangani Atthakata for reference.
Comment: Citation please.
Comment: Look for the beginning of the Dhammasangani Atthakata for reference.

Is it necessary to study Abhidhamma?


How do you find the detailed status of emails on Civimail bounce processing?

Question: Is there a report somewhere that will tell me how many bounces have occurred of a particular type for an email? So for example, I want to see if firstname.lastname@example.com has 2 "Syntax" type bounces, so if one more comes in this email will be put on-hold (because the threshold for this type is set to 3 by default). Or if not a report, some pointers toward a DB query that would get at the same data would be very helpful. ATM this process seems a bit of a black box, since I can't see what it is doing or why.
Answer: The Bounce Report https://dmaster.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/report/instance/30?reset=1&output=criteria lets you add Bounce Reason in the columns and as a Filter. Perhaps that is what you are after. Otherwise I expect SearchKit now provides a more tweakable approach
Answer: I noticed this was missing and added something to fill the gap in 5.65, but I now notice it is broken. Something must have gone wrong in the process — I will look into it and fix it.
If you click the little list icon beside the on hold date on the contact summary, you are supposed to get a list of the bounces for that email.


Photon energy and power

Question: My question has to do with the solar spectrum. I understand sunlight is composed of light of different wavelegnths, and these wavelegnths have different energies associated with them. I also understand we can integrate across all wavelengths to get the total irradiance (power) in (watts/m2). But what happens if we just use one wavelength of light, say light at 600nm. How would I be able to get the "power" at that wavelength using data from AM1.5Global spectrum?
Comment: What ideas do you have? If you can get the total power by integrating across all the wavelengths, how would you get the power contributed by a small range of wavelengths?
Comment: It doesn't really make sense to ask about the power at a single wavelength.  The spectrum at one wavelength is infinitesimally narrow, and thus has zero power.   Look at the units on the $y$-axis of the spectrum.  What you really want is the power in a narrow band around 600 nm.  The size of the narrow band depends on the application and equipment available.
Answer: Disclaimer: I make no claims to expertise in anything other than basic calculus.
I searched integrate across all wavelengths so I could get some equations to fiddle around with. From here:

The total power per unit area from a blackbody radiator can be obtained by integrating the Planck radiation formula over all wavelengths. The radiated power per unit area as a function of wavelength is $$\frac{dP}{d\lambda}\frac{1}{dA}=\frac{2\pi hc^2}{\lambda^5(e^{hc/\lambda kT}-1)}$$ so the integrated power is $$\frac{P}{A} = 2\pi h c^2\int_0^\infty\frac{d\lambda}{\lambda^5(e^{hc/kT}-1)}$$

This makes sense (ish) I'm not gonna claim I fully understand the Planck radiation formula, but I can make assumptions on how to use it. Assuming that that first equation somehow takes a wavelength ($\lambda$) and turns it into a radiated power per unit area ($\frac{dP}{dA}$) for that wavelength of light. The second equation, therefore, basically takes the sum over all wavelengths of light. Looks good so far.
You want a specific set of wavelengths, though. Say, from 380nm to 750nm (the visible spectrum.) Since you're using actual data, an integral like $$2\pi h c^2\int_{\lambda_1}^{\lambda_2}\frac{d\lambda}{\lambda^5(e^{hc/kT}-1)}$$ won't be computable. What you need is discreet integration, so to speak. If you assumed that the set $\{\lambda_n|0\leq n\leq m\}$ represents all $m$ wavelengths in your data, then you could rewrite the integral as a big sigma, or $$\sum_{n=0}^{m}\frac{ 2\pi h c^2}{(\lambda_n)^5(e^{hc/kT}-1)}$$
Again, I'm no expert in blackbody radiation, so please take my answer with a grain of salt.

Photon energy and power


Tabs within a content type

Question: I have a question about tabs. I'm using a content type hotel with all the information about a hotel for example, hotel residence, location, food, spa, sports ... At this moment this is just one big list of text. I was trying to make tabs for it because this is I think the solution. I was trying it with the module quick tabs but there I have to use nodes or views to make the tabs so i don't know what to do know because it's impossible to put every element (location, food,...) from every hotel (40) in a view.
Do you guys have any ideas?
Thanks for your help.
Answer: Sounds like you want to use the Field Group module.
This module allows you to group a number of fields on a content type together. You can then choose from a number of different display options for that group, including tabs.
Answer: I needed something similar for an estate agent style site and made Build mode tabs to allow you to use custom build modes (view modes in D7) as custom tabs. This worked well for me because I wanted some of the same fields shown on different tabs. It's only D6 but I'd be happy to port it if there was interest.
Answer: If I understand what you are trying to do ... views can certainly handle all the hotels etc.  To do so:

Create taxonomy vocabularies that cover each category of information you want, such as location, food, amenities etc.
Create a new article content type with fields (requires Chaos Tools enabled) attached to each vocabulary.  This permits you to create tags for each category stored in a field of the content type.
Create a view definition and configure a view page in it to filter on specific fields.  Give it a path name such as hotel/%/general Set the menu type to default tabs (parent exists) and give the tab a name.  THe % is a wildcard and is used for contextual filtering.  This allows dynamic responses by views to the URL name you place in the % position.
Create another view page in the same view definition and configure its filters differently. Give it a path such as hotel/%/ and define its menu as menu tab (parent exists).

If properly configured, you would have a view that responds to hotel/% and displays the default filtered pages and two tabs, one for a default and the other for your other tab.  IF you are new to DRupal, some of this may not make sense.  I suggest you watch the video series "Taming the Beast"at nodeone.se to get a handle on what views does and then come back to Drupal.stackexchange, I am sure there will be more questions :)
Comment: I believe the path cannot start with %, so you would need paths such as hotels/%/facilities.
Comment: Hello @JoeS. I was trying to fix the problem with your solution but I wasn't able to do it. I have figured out another solution. I made a block from 2 elements with the CCK module and afterwards I used the blocks to show in the quick tab module.
Comment: if i understand everything well. I have to create a new CT with taxonomy linked to the fields (taxonomy (location) = field(location) When i'm setting up my view i can add the taxonomy into my filter (=to only display that field)
At this moment I have for example hotel1/facilities, hotel2/facilities, hotel3/facilities... With the % wildcard the view can be used as for example %/facilities, %/wildcard, ... .am I right
Comment: hotels/hotel1 would be an actual article page that contains information on hotel1. Setting a field with terms such as location, amenities, etc. creates a flag for the article and view pages (in a view definition) that can be set to filter for articles with that flag. You would then create a contextual filter to see which hotel is in the URL % position and the view will only show the specified hotels amenitities or location info article.
Comment: I am concerned that this may be a bit confusing if your not familiar with views.  Watch the videos and it will be a lot clearer.
Comment: On this site, if you think an answer is good, give it an up arrow.  If you accept it as the correct answer, give it a check mark.

Tabs within a content type


Why does the frequency of a wave remain constant?

Question: They say the frequency of a wave is its fundamental character, thus remain constant throughout its propagation regardless the medium through which it travels. Could anyone explain why frequency of wave is fundamental character but its wavelength isn't?
Comment: The frequency of a wave does not stay constant in general. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_optics.
Hence the premise of the question is already wrong.
Comment: Possible duplicates: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/22385/2451 , https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/21336/ and links therein.
Answer: The frequency must remain constant to avoid a discontinuity at the boundary.
The easiest way to see this is to consider 2 ropes of different linear densities - e.g. a thin rope and a thick rope - joined in series.
If you shake one end at a frequency f, then (transverse) waves will travel along the joined ropes. The waves travel slower along the thicker rope than the thin rope.
At the junction between the ropes (and to either side of the junction) the frequency must still be f - it  wasn't the rope would have to split due to adjacent points having different frequencies.
The same is true for any wave - you can't have a sudden jump in the electric field of an EM wave for example - the electric field can only vary continuously, with no discontinuities.
As a consequence of  remaining constant, wavelength and speed change proportionately (e.g. if speed doubles, wavelength doubles).
Comment: This is true when considering macroscopic observations, but "jumps" or "splits" are the norm at the quantum scale.
Answer: The assumptions under the statement are that A. the oscillation count in a wave is conserved and B. the passage of time is universal and uniform. Since the frequency of a wave is the count of oscillations measured within a given time interval by a stationary observer, it remains the same anywhere the wave can reach. On the other hand, the wavelength is how far a wave travels from one oscillation to the next thus depends on how fast the wave is traveling in the medium. There are cases we can find either A or B is violated, for example, in a nonlinear medium or a gravitational field, respectively.
Answer: A good intuitive way to think about this is to think about how a wave propagates. In general, a wave is what happens whenever you have a "hand-off" effect in the sense of that if you disturb some medium at one point, then it disturbs the adjacent - and only the adjacent - points in some other way, and then those, receiving that disturbance, go on to disturb their adjacent points, and so forth.
So imagine a string to be divided into a large number of small, evenly-sized pieces that are connected to each other and so can't move independently. Now start wiggling the piece at one end (the other is pegged and tensioned appropriately, of course). That piece of string, because it's firmly held by your hand, has no choice but to move up and down at the same rate as your hand, and so it moves up and down at the same frequency. Now consider the next piece of string a little bit over from that - the first one not held by your hand. Because it's connected to the first piece which is being moved up and down by your hand at the same frequency as your hand, that first piece will act as a "hand" of sorts upon it and move it up and down at its frequency which, in turn, is that of your hand. That is, we have
$$\mbox{Frequency of Motion of Piece 1} = \mbox{Frequency of Motion of Hand}$$
$$\mbox{Frequency of Motion of Piece 2} = \mbox{Frequency of Motion of Piece 1}$$
and we can continue this way, all the way down the string, and by transitivity we thus must have that all pieces of the string are moving with the same frequency. This applies even if they are made of different materials, because that doesn't change the reasoning which is that the frequency of any segment only depends on that of those immediately nearby it which, in turn, we have connected in a chain back to that of your hand.
Answer: You can visualize the situation like this. Lets say there is a source and an observer. They are not moving relative to each other. The source is emitting 10 peaks of wave per second (i.e. frequency is 10 Hz) and observer is observing 8 (only) peaks per time. i.e. due to medium property the frequency is changed. In this scenario 10 peaks enter the medium per second and 8 leave. where are the two peaks gone?
The wave propagation states that peak will remain peak and valley will remain valley during propagation. Hence this scenario contradict with basic nature of the wave and may be thats why the frequency is constant.
Change in wavelength may be visualized as compression/rarefaction of pule trains/wave which seems entirely physical.
Please forgive me if the language is bit non-technical.
Hope this helps
Regards,
Comment: Very instructive analogy
Answer: a different way to look at it is conservation of energy, since the intensity of wave depends upon its frequency (at given velocity and wavwlenght), so the frequency mustnt change when the medium changes cause no energy is being added or removed....
Answer: When source and receiver are moving away or towards each other, the observed frequency changes. This effect is called a "doppler shift".
The frequency becomes lower ("red shift) when the source moves away. The frequency becomes higher ("blue shift") when the source moves towards the observer.
So yes, one can change the frequency of light. With light this effect is noticible by looking at stars.
The same phenomenon can be observed / heard when an emergency car, with sirens on, is passing by.
Comment: I think that the question was about the actual, not observed frequency.


Swift4: UIButton not working

Question: Within my app i'm trying to back a UIButton, i just want it to print "this is a test" When i press the button it does the classic button animation, however there is nothing printed in the console.
var tbutton: UIButton = {
    let button = UIButton(type: .system)
    button.frame = CGRect(x: 40.0, y:400.0, width: 300.0, height: 300.0)
    let image = UIImage(named: "backb")
    button.setBackgroundImage(image, for: .normal)
    button.addTarget(self, action: #selector(dothings), for: .touchUpInside)
    return button
}()

@objc func dothings(){
    print("this is a test")

}

I then add the button into view with:
view.addSubview(tbutton)

Is there a section of code i'm missing, or have i coded something wrong?
Comment: can you share the full code ? because your code is working fine when I have tested it
Comment: If you define the tbutton as a `lazy var` then it won't be created until to access it which should solve the problem (assuming you are adding it to the view somewhere like viewDidLoad).
Answer: You shouldn't initialize your button in that way.
Quoting the Apple documentation from Setting a Default Property Value with a Closure or Function:

If you use a closure to initialize a property, remember that the rest of the instance has not yet been initialized at the point that the closure is executed. This means that you cannot access any other property values from within your closure, even if those properties have default values. moreover:

You also cannot use the implicit self property, or call any of the instance's methods, hence the problem is here:
button.addTarget(self, action: #selector(dothings), for: .touchUpInside)
so to fix the issue you should move the button initialization (or move the addTarget) after your ViewController is fully initialized (eg: viewDidLoad).

Another way to fix the issue, assuming you are using such button only after viewDidLoad, is to define it as a lazy var:

A lazy stored property is a property whose initial value is not calculated until the first time it is used

Swift4: UIButton not working


Substitute "Pop the roof"?

Question: What phrase can I use instead of "pop the roof" to mean revitalizing, enhancing and expanding a building? I need to convey this idea without referencing a roof.
Comment: Where did you come across *pop the roof* with that meaning? I only know it as colloquial AmE for *open the bonnet/hood [of a **car**]* - which might feasibly be metaphorically extended to imply getting down into the engine compartment to install customized upgrades, but that would seem a rather odd usage to me.
Comment: @FumbleFingers:  You mean pop the *hood*.  I've never heard *pop the roof* in any context- house, automotive, or otherwise.
Comment: @cobaltduck: I did say the *normal* word is *bonnet/hood, AmE/BrE*. But what with *trunk, muffler, fender* (BrE *boot, exhaust, bumper*), I can easily get confused when it comes to AmE car parts.
Answer: The building is being renovated. Renovation or renovations are the common terms associated with redoing buildings in the construction and architectural industries...
Answer: Gentrify speaks to revitalizing a building, with improvements that increase the value.

the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents
Comment: @SuperBiasedMan I agree that the word carries more baggage than may be required here, only more context would tell. The term is commonly used in my region by real estate agents, properly or not, to indicate a house in an older neighborhood that has been renovated. The typical case is a house that has had all but one wall knocked down, and rebuilt from scratch, to something much larger than the previous dwelling.
Comment: Yes, but generally it's gentrify a neighborhood by renovating buildings. I have never heard of gentrifying a building per se....urban renewal and revitalization, in some contexts, that can include gentrification (getting rid of the poor people by evicting them and getting richer people to buy the properties).
Comment: To add to @Lambie's point, gentrifying/gentrification have a specific social implication about societies developping to accommodate richer people at the expense of poorer. This is likely not an intended implication.
Answer: You don't specify the reason for the building work, but if the intention is to resell, you can use the colloquial term flipping.
House flipping has become a hobby or even business in several parts of the U.S.  The goal of course is to sell the house for more than the cost of purchase plus cost of repairs, thereby earning yourself a profit.
Comment: flipping is about selling, it does not explain or clarify work done on a built structure...

Substitute "Pop the roof"?


How do I make a page appear like the "Your latest posts" from homepage display options?

Question: I want to have what would appear if I chose
"homepage display to: Your latest posts"
but on a page of my choosing and Not as the front page of my site.
Answer: I didn't get actually what you are asking about but as per i understand, i want to make you clear about setting homepage. I think you are confuse of it.

Basically, homepage setting is the place where you can set your page(home page) to a home page and a page(blog page) to blog page. When you select the homepage setting to Your latest post, instead of showing your front-page.php , home.php or index.php layout is displayed with your latest post.
If you select static and set homepage and blog page, your front page will displayed whatever is in front-page.php and whenever you go to that page, you will see your front page. And for blog page, home.php or index.php is displayed which shows your latest post even after going to page that you set for blog.
This is all about the template hierarchy of wordpress. If you want to know more,
[visit] https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/basics/template-hierarchy/
Answer: You'll need to do a bit of coding to make this work. One option: create a child theme (basically just a style.css file with comments in a specific format that let WordPress know it exists), then create a Page Template - a PHP file within your child theme that contains a custom query to display your latest posts like a default homepage would.


Can't connect to iCloud or iTunes on my iPad

Question: I cannot connect to iCloud or iTunes on my iPad anymore. I can connect to the Internet but not iCloud or iTunes. I've tried seeing if I need to update software by going into settings-general-update software but I just get an error saying "unable to check for update. An error occurred while checking for a software update" then another saying "there was an error connecting to iCloud verification failed". Can anyone help?
Answer: Control if you can open Settings -> iCloud. At the top there will be your name. Click it and enter your icloud password and reach to your account. Look if any area in payment method  waiting for your update there. (red)


Changing schools on short term F1

Question: I am visiting states on F1 for a short term course of four weeks. My F1 is valid only for 4 weeks for the duration of the course. After the completion of my course, am thinking to join a Masters course which starts after one month.
Will transferring SEVIS record to the new school be sufficient or do I need to go back to my country and apply for a new F1? I spoke to two schools regarding this, one said I need to get a new visa stating that my F1 is short and specific, and other said I can transfer the SEVIS record without any problem. Am confused
Comment: *the school said they spoke to someone in sevis office* -- this is quite vague. Afaik, there's no actual rule that says anything about "short and specific". To be polite and persistent, you could describe to them the actual rules you have found so far, and ask them what rule they are citing.
Answer: The law is that you can transfer between F-1 programs as long as the gap between programs is less than 5 months.  The spirit of the law is that you shouldn't abuse that process by, for example, attending a 4 week program and then remaining in the US while transferring to a program that starts 4 months later.
In your case, you are legally eligible to transfer.  The gap between your programs is less than 5 months, and you do not appear to be misleading anyone or abusing the process.
However, performing the transfer requires the cooperation of both schools. While the law is clear that the old school cannot refuse to transfer your F-1 record out, it is less clear whether the new school has any obligation to accept the transfer in. Probably the new school will accept the transfer if you are polite and persistent about it, but it's also possible they could continue to insist that you must get a new visa.

Changing schools on short term F1


Automated tools fot testing Software Architecture

Question: Are there any tools (paid or open-source) to validate web applications' software architecture (.NET technology) to measure aspects like cohesion and coupling?
Answer: NDepend is the .NET equivalent of JDepend.
You can find more info about the metrics here.
Answer: Selenium
Selenium is one of the most popular automation tool. It is a free and open-source device with a few instructional exercises and a functioning local area.
Watir
Watir represents Web Application Testing In Ruby. It is a free and open-source program automation tool. It upholds ruby language as it were.
Katalon Studio
Katalon Studio is a free automation tool utilizing which we can robotize sites, APIs – SOAP and Rest just as portable applications.
QTP or UFT
Quick Test Professional(QTP) is a paid useful test automation tool  given by Hewlett Packard. It upholds prearranging in VB script and can computerize both web and windows applications.
TestComplete
TestComplete is a paid GUI automation tool given by Smartbear. It upholds both record and playback also as scripting and can automated Web, Mobile, and Desktop applications.
Comment: Welcome to SQA Stack Exchange. You might want to review the accepted answer and the original question - they are asking for tools to analyze the structure of the code they're testing, not tools for UI automation.


How do I test my LMS against SCORM 2004 3rd Edition?

Question: I have developed an LMS based on ASP.NET 3.5 and C# after working for 4 years. Now I don't know how can I test it against SCORM 2004 3rd Edition to see if it is conformant or not. I read the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Conformance Requirements book and also SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Conformance Test Suite readme file but couldn't understand how do I test my LMS.
Answer: ADL provides a free conformance test suite that you can test your LMS against. You can download it from their site at http://www.adlnet.gov/capabilities/scorm/scorm-2004-3rd#tab-resources.
Unless you made an intentional effort to make it SCORM conformant, it is not going to pass the tests. For the basics on how to get started with SCORM read SCORM Explained at http://scorm.com/scorm-explained/.
Comment: Mike Rustici, I have downloaded the Conformance Test Suite and LMS Test Content Packages, too. What should I do now?


Edit Mode Wireframe + Translucent View?

Question: I'm trying to texture a model I made with a texture pallet I imported into the Compositing View with Smart UV Unwrap, but when I'm in Edit Mode, the entire model is in a sort of mid-way-to Wireframe View in which everything is grey but still see-through and selectable through. When I key Z to toggle to wireframe, the grayness goes away and my model is simply shown in regular wireframe. From YouTube tutorials, I see no one with this issue. Please help!
Comment: Can you add a screenshot to clarify?
Answer: I assume you're talking about something like the following.

This is enabled by the Limit Selection to Visible button at the bottom of the 3D Viewport (). Clicking it will toggle the transparency.

Edit Mode Wireframe + Translucent View?


What is the usage of "is, am, and are" and "do and does" in terms of closed question?

Question: When we want to ask the yes-no question, we will use verbs like "is, am, and are" or "do and does", and we put it in the head of the sentence.
And the question is, what is the difference between them? Is it interchangeable? If not, when should we use "is am, and are" instead of "do and does"?
And is the usage of these words dependent on the main verb (transitive or intransitive)?
Comment: Do you know the difference between "am/is/are" and "do/does" in statements like these: "*I **am** a carpenter*", "*My name **is** Frank*", "*I **do** 20 push-ups every morning*", "*She **does** her work well*" ? It's the same in yes/no questions.
Comment: (Note that regardless of whether it's [BE] or [DO], we reverse the normal **subject + verb** sequence when framing a question.)
Comment: Yes/No questions starting with [BE] are mostly of the form [BE] [**subject**] [**adjective**], such as *Are you hungry? Is it safe? Am I too late?* So [BE] (in whichever form matches [**subject**]) ***is*** the "main verb", since it's the ***only*** verb. We use "do-support" a lot in English today in contexts where the thing being asked is whether or not the *actual* "**main verb**" being queried applies to the specified subject, as in ***Do** you **think** she is pretty?* Centuries ago back in Shakespeare's day (before we had do-support), that would have been ***Think** you she is pretty?*
Answer: Two parts to your question:

Declarative sentences in English usually have a subject and then a verb. When you ask a question in English, you typically reverse the order and have a verb and then a subject. So regardless of what verb you use (are, does, etc.), your question will take this construct. It doesn't have anything to do with the specific verbs you mentioned.

There is no change in meaning for is/am/are and do/does in a question versus some other kind of statement. So perhaps you should review their meaning, because there's nothing special about how they are used.

For example:

John is cold.
Is John cold?

I am polite.
Am I polite?

Jane does her homework every night.
Does Jane do her homework every night?


Gear oil or engine oil for friction surfaces in rebuild?

Question: I have an engine that i need rebuilt. I need assembly lube but nowhere close sells it and waiting for it to ship here is not much of an option. Should i use normal 15w-40 engine oil that the engine is rated for on my surfaces or should i use a thin coating of 140 gear oil. The gear oil is thicker but i am concerned it would remain in the engine long term(like it does in diff gears) or clog up the tiny intakes on rod bearings and such.
Answer: If you plan to rebuild the engine, then run it straight away, I would go with engine oil.
My plan was to always spin the engine on the starter to build oil pressure without the plugs in, then fit and start the engine.
For an engine that will sit before use, I would use a graphite lube that would not disperse and I always found very effective.
Comment: Even though there is a specialty lube product, I have always used MolySlipG with molybdenum disulfide.
Answer: Also you should pull the fuse to disable the fuel injectors as washing your bores and onward, eg cat converter, with gas is not helpful, removes oil, burns in cat etc fuse for the fuel.pump should do the trick.
Comment: Engine oil with a bit of hi qual moly grease / lube on big n small end sounds good to me.


How to make loop perimeter using Control Bevel operation

Question: I have selected a loop area on my object and I'm doing the control bevel operation to divide up the mesh. But its creating a loop which goes within the mesh on its -Z direction making like bevelled edge. What I;m trying to achieve is like the sample C. Is saw a tutorial with a Blender user having Hard OPS add-on, and he got what I have in Sample C, (which I did in photoshop just for the purpose of showing what result I'd like to achieve).
Comment: Please consider . A loop cut of less z height, followed by a scale of the old vertices excluding z, followed by a scale of the new vertices up to z.
Answer: You can do this with the Face Inset tool.
Select the outer faces. Press I to activate Inset.
Un-check Boundary
Set the tool to Offset Even
To select the newly created faces use Select Outer
Then just adjust the thickness.

To keep the object flat keep the depth at Zero.
Answer: I haven't used OPS add-on, but you can do it with some extra steps.
1- get to your example B by using bebbel as you would normally do.
2- place your 3d cursor at the same height of the upper faces, either with left click (if you select with right click) or after selecting one of said faces and using the shift+s -> cursor to selected.

3- Set your pivot point to cursor with "."

4- finally scale, constraint to z and press 0, this should flatten your bebbel towards the upper faces.

there might be faster ways to do it, but I hope this method works for your case.


Datasets of detailed statistics from MMORPGs

Question: Are there any datasets of MMORPG statistics? I mean detailed "snapshots" of a virtual world that contain parameters of the game, current status of players (items owned, performed actions), internal economy—things typically mentioned by "economics of video games"?
Answer: Great question! There are several MMORPG games that provide this type of data, and APIs to others from which you can extract the data.  Check out the following:

World of Warcraft APIs on Github with everything from pets to professions extending over players, guilds, and regions
League of Legends API (includes game data and assets, champions, items, runes, masteries, summoner spells, and profile icons)
Eve Online data access explained (market and universe data at a regional level)
GuildWars 2 API covering recipes, items, and commerce
And another 179 game APIs via the Programmable Web

Several of these require registering but seem to be free. Some, like Eve Online, restrict secondary commercial use, but encourage developers, researchers, and others to use the data for co-development or non-commercial use.
Comment: Thanks, Anton. Very interested in what you'll do with it!
Comment: Research on institutions, Jeanne. Virtual worlds have nice properties for studying the real world. I'll update this page if anything comes out.


Set fonts per document

Question: Like many people, I have hundreds of fonts installed in my library.  Is there any way to set fonts available on a per document basis for Adobe apps (or any other apps for that matter)?
Answer: i think it is not possible with pre-installed software on both OS: Mac OS X and MS Windows, but with a third party application like:

Suitcase (Win) / Suitcase Fusion (Mac)
Font Explorer X
there are more Applications, auto on/off fonts is possible with, can be found on the web …
Answer: Font managers like the two Chris mentions are really the key to this problem. They come with their own quirks and problems, but they do help.
TypeDNA is an inexpensive tool ($50 for a license for two machines). It allows you to deactivate any fonts that aren't required by the system, browse your library, make groups of fonts and activate fonts permanently or temporarily, individually or in groups. It comes with plug-ins for InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop that allow you to access its functionality from within the applications. It can also suggest headline fonts to go with a particular text face, or vice versa, and allows filtering by font weight, width, slope (italics, for example) and "Optical size" (essentially, x-height in relation to ascender height).
Suitcase and Font Explorer similarly allow browsing, activating, deactivating and grouping fonts. Their plug-ins will automatically activate fonts used in a particular document if they aren't currently activated, but have a history of being a bit problematic with InDesign, so I'd suggest trying before you buy.
The upside of font managers is that they allow you to keep the majority of your font library inactive until you need them. The downside is that you then have an extra layer of software and an extra step to go through to find and use a font in a document.
In Indesign and Illustrator specifically, if you create a folder called "Document fonts" in the same folder as your document and place copies of your fonts there, InDesign and Illustrator will activate and use them whenever you open the document. This folder is created and populated automatically when you export an InDesign or Illustrator Package.
All of the CC 2014 design apps allow you to sync and activate Typekit fonts when you open a document if they aren't already active on your system. How font managers cope with Typekit is an open question. None of them recognize Typekit-activated fonts so far.
Comment: thanks - not sure if i'm missing the point but my issue is not activating fonts per document, but rather, deactivating all the unneeded ones.  I'd like it so that when I open an indd for instance, that only the 4 or 5 fonts I amusing show up in the menu.  Is there a way to link a set of fonts with font manager to a specific document so that when it loads the font manager will select a given set?
Comment: Think it through. Deactivating "everything else" would make document loading unbearably slow on most systems. How would the software know that you are still iterating and haven't finalized font choices yet? What happens when the customer wants to switch fonts? How does it deal with new documents? Deactivate what you don't need; activate only when needed. See my next-to-last paragraph regarding font activation per document.
Comment: thanks - i've never used Typekit so I guess i don't understand the implications "sync and activate" would have on a given document and whether it overrides system activated fonts or not
Comment: Active fonts, whether activated in the OS or via a font manager, will stay active. Fonts that aren't already activated can be made temporarily active for a document that uses them if a) the font manager supports the application or b) the application itself has the font available in a "document fonts" folder. The best way to understand how these things work is to try them out.
Answer: I'm going to second Suitcase Fusion (which is also available for Windows now). A lot has already been said so I'll just say that I've never had any problems running it alongside InDesign. I forget it's even there sometimes (as these days I tend to stick to a few sets of fonts that I always have active).
Yes it's an extra program layer, but Adobe would never put as much time into font management as these guys have.

Set fonts per document


Can we determine what happened in every event of the past?

Question: All movement in our universe produces heat from collisions with molecules (correct me if I'm wrong). If you had a super-powerful heat sensor/detector, could you use it to detect where heat is and use that information to determine what happened in any event in the past?
Comment: No. Absolutely not. The past is almost as dark as the future.
Answer: In classical mechanics, yes. But in the world of the quantum, no. This is because we cannot know anything with absolute certainty and because things are based off of probability in quantum mechanics. Also, not all particles interact with others to produce heat. Many neutrinos are passing brought you right now.
Comment: No even in classical physics because of sensitive dependence and the fact that there are not perfect instruments.
Answer: if you knew the exact amount of thermal energy that every particle in the universe possessed, it would still not be enough to predict the past.
the unified field theory seeks to find an equation that will sum up the universe by unifying all of the fundamental forces (fields) into one field (possibly a multidimensional vector), just like we have unified the electric field with the magnetic field into electromagnetism. from such an equation it would be possible to determine with exactness the events of the past and future (assuming that there are no fully random events in the universe like schrodinger's cat). however, an answer to an equation is only as accurate as the variables put in to the equation, so in order to predict the past and future with 100% accuracy, we would need to know the exact value of the velocity, thermal energy, potential energy due to the fundamental forces etc... (every variable) of each fundamental particle in the universe (just one variable such as thermal energy is not enough). furthermore, if these values are just a little bit out, the inaccuracy of the result that allows us to determine the past or future will grow as you try to predict further into the past or future (think of it this way, if i throw a ball, i can predict where it will land with high accuracy but i can only predict where the ball will be in 100 years with very low accuracy.
because getting all the exact data for this unified equation is impossible, we cannot with 100% certainty predict the past or future, especially not just using heat.


Possibility of Man-in-the-Middle on X3DH

Question: I'm reading about the security of the Signal protocol (used in WhatsApp) and in particular, the X3DH part used to establish authentication, all papers seem to gloss over Man in the Middle attacks.  Is it possible or not to MitM between users and the server?  Seems easy on the server.
Comment: After the user verified the other end or before?
Comment: I'm surprised they don't address it directly.  A DH MitM is a basic attack if you can't verify the other party somehow.  Both X3DH and the Signal doc from WhatsApp seem to gloss over it.  Also, some "proof" I found seems more interested in analyzing the "double ratchet" part (since I guess it sounds sexy to them) than analyzing boring old DH.  I just want someone to say "A man in the middle attack is possible on the server or between a user and server, therefore, to ensure secure communications both parties MUST confirm their public keys out of band."  Otherwise you have to trust the server.
Answer: This is "covered" by section 4.1 of the X3DH spec:

Before or after an X3DH key agreement, the parties may compare their identity public keys $IK_A$ and $IK_B$ through some authenticated channel. For example, they may compare public key fingerprints manually, or by scanning a QR code. Methods for doing this are outside the scope of this document.

Signal and WhatsApp both support verifying identities through QR codes, and provide a warning (optional in WhatsApp) if the other party's identity public key changes. That would stop MITM attacks, or make them detectable, though in practice almost no one does the verification.
Also note that the connection between the app and server is TLS-protected, so any MITM attack would need to be carried out by compromising the server itself.
Comment: The question is not addressed directly in the X3DH spec.  It seems they believe that MitM is possible because in two places they say "you may check" and later they say "you don't have cryptographic assurance without checking".  Also, TLS is not used.  I don't know where you see that.  My point is that if I can't/don't check, the MitM could be on the SignalServer (or somewhere else) and that person can read all of your messages.  If that is the case, it isn't even clear why the X3DH thing is needed.  Just use regular Elliptic Curve DH one time.  If I have to compare public keys anyway.
Comment: Note verifying is easy, one doesn't need to be side by side; jjust read some part of the numbers over the call.
Comment: I'm asking because I am curious if this can be applied to an automated situation where the parties do not have the ability to confirm out of band with each other.  Therefore, if the X3DH doesn't add some "magic" over traditional DH, and a MitM is possible, I would just want to know to figure out if there is some other way to detect them.
Comment: @CryptoCurious as pointed out in the quote I've included, authentication is outside the scope of X3DH. TLS is used to protect client/server comms by Signal and WhatsApp, which you've mentioned in your question. The point of X3DH is not to solve the MITM problem, but to add asynchronous support, improve deniability and protection against key compromise. BTW a question on what are the improvements of X3DH over (ephemeral) DH would be a great one which I would also be interested in.


How do I pick a surface mount LED?

Question: I need a red and a yello LED indicator in my battery operated project. I am looking at specs on Digikey and they list brightness as mcd, viewing angle and test current. Viewing angle I know, but how do I figure how much current and the related mcd so they will be bright enough and still use as little current as possible?
Comment: In reference designs I have bought I have been annoyed by distracting LED's that are too bright and squinted at others not being able to tell if they are on or not. To actually say how bright, I would say easily discernible at 1-2 feet in an indoor environment.
Comment: Brightness depends on the application.
Answer: Very subjective.
Modern LED may be typically rated at
eg 30 cd at 15 degrees at 20 mA.
1 mA usually noticeable but not bright
 5 mA nice and bright
 20 mA eye wateringly bright. almost painful.
Larger viewing angles decrease brightness with square of angle ratios.
Trying it and seeing is liable to be useful.

lumen = candela  x 2π x (1 - cos(A/2))
Or
candela = lumen / (2π x (1 - cos(A/2) ) )
Where A is the full cone angle of the source.
A modern LCD screen is typically 300 lm/m^2 at the surface.
Have a look towards bottom of Wikipedia candela page - and ask questions.
Comment: I read the candela wiki and maybe the best thing is to get surf boards and solder up a variety of smd LEDs and get some subjective experience. The wiki said the average LED is 50mcd, which is helpful. Your answer was too.
Comment: By "20 MA" surely you meant 0.02 A, not 20,000,000 A? :-P
Answer:
Blockquote Viewing angle I know, but how do I figure how much current and the related mcd so they will be bright enough and still use as little current as possible?

The authoritative information is the manufacturer's datasheet.
For example Digikey's part number; 67-1714-2-ND's; datasheet lists the following:

which gives you in addition to your mcd and viewing angle, the necessary forward voltage and steady current. If you supply the forward voltage and steady current listed in the datasheet you can expect the mcd listed in the datasheet,
Note: Digikey give a workable but incorrect steady current for the LED. I would trust the datasheet and not the Digikey search page for the correct values.
Of course you can always reduce the forward voltage and steady current until you get the desired brightness.
I do not think you can count 50 mcd as any kind of "average" value given the varaiety of LEDs produced today.
Comment: Thanks for the input. I ended up soldering up a 50mcd red and a 150mcd yellow. The red actually seemed much brighter at 10mA. I eventually found a 1.5k resistor on each gave the adequate brightness I was looking for at 3.3v. Wow, that is a lot less current at 2.2mA.

How do I pick a surface mount LED?


Will Halo: Spartan Strike Achievements on the iOS version increase my gamerscore on my Xbox Live Account?

Question: I know of at least one iOS game that unlocked achievements on my Xbox Live account and it was called Wordament. I'm wondering if I play the new Halo: Spartan Strike game on iOS will it unlock achievements in my Xbox Live account like Wordament did? Or will it just be iOS achievements and not added to my overall Xbox Live gaming score? I don't own the game yet. I'm trying to figure out which platform to buy it on and this is a deciding factor for me.
Comment: Is there any log-in mechanism (apart from Game Center)? | As far as I know, the PC version doesn't have anything apart from (if purchased from Steam) achievements on Steam, and **that isn't linked to Game Center or XBL in any way**. Neither does the Win Store version.
Comment: I should add that I dont own the game. I'm thinking about buying it but I'd rather get it on a platform that has xbox achievements if possible. I prefer iOS if it has achievements that link with my xbox otherwise I'll get it on another platform that does.
Comment: As far as I'm concerned, *pirated* copies do not work in any way (as you are required to buy it) and the game on other platforms are not interlinked in any way... The high-scores boards may be linked, but that it as far as I can tell.
Answer: Nope.
The iOS (okay... iPad) version of Halo: Spartan Assault is not linked with Xbox Live Arcade in any way, due to the way the APIs are handled in each version of the game. The iOS version is locked to Game Center.
Steam uses the Steam API (in steam_api.dll) to add achievements to a Steam account, the Windows Store app does not record (as far as I know) achievements, iOS links straight with Games Center while the XBLA version links with your gamertag.
Your only option for it to increase your gamerscore is to purchase it through the Xbox Live Arcade channel; platform.

This should be obvious since there is no way to log onto XBLA through any of the versions on the other platforms (apart from the Xbox version).
Comment: @jimmyplaysdrums They are the ONLY games that have Live achievements on iOS.
Comment: I only asked because Wordament and Wordament Snap Attack both are on iOS and they DO give you xbox live achievements.


No reply after declining a PhD offer

Question: Couple of weeks ago, several professors from one of the universities I received an offer from wrote me asking if they could help me with anything (to decide on a place I choose). As pleasant as it was, I wrote (what I think was) a very nice email declining that PhD offer to each one of them. It's been quite a while now, but none of them have replied, while from other places I've received wishes of good luck. Have I burned some bridges there?
Comment: Definitely overthinking this one a bit.
Comment: Why do you think a reply was necessary. They offered, you said no, that is the end of it.
Comment: @JonCuster it's just a bit odd to me, one day I receive 3 emails from the same uni, and then none of them replies.
Answer: Probably no burned bridges. Like everyone else (especially now) they are busy and just focused on the essential things they need to do to keep everything else together. In normal times you might have gotten a few more replies, but not from everyone. They just say to themselves "oh well" and move on to the next crisis.
I suspect that even those who haven't replied hope you succeed. When one does, we all do.
Comment: @PraphullaKoushik, thanks for your confidence. It is just that I'm old and was an educator since the late pleistocene and I tried to learn along the way. I've seen a lot and have been in good situations and bad. I even once had a student with your family name. That was a good situation, of course.
Comment: It's difficult to guess how do you have a reasonable explanation for almost all kinds of questions... :D Thank you.. Salutes..
Comment: :) That is nice to know :) Thanks again.

No reply after declining a PhD offer


Delay sending e-mail in Lotus Notes

Question: I just accidentally sent the exact same e-mail twice to the same recipient (my computer was acting sluggish and I double clicked too many times). To avoid this, is there a way to either delay sending e-mails or set sync intervals for the desktop client? I'm using Lotus Notes 8.5.3
Answer: You can edit your location document, go to the Mail tab and change "Mail file location" to Local (make sure to have a local replica of your mail). This opens up an additional field for "Transfer outgoing mail if" which you can set to a number. If you set this reasonable high mails will be held in the local mail.box database. You can then open mail.box and delete mails which should not be sent.
Using a local mail replica is something you should consider anyway for performance reasons. With a local replica you do not need to access the server for your mail file operations.
Here's a blog entry that describes the steps: http://blog.darrenduke.net/darren/ddbz.nsf/dx/notes-slow-use-a-local-replica.htm.
Here is IBM documentation on using and administering local mail file replicas in general:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/local-mail-replicas/
Comment: There isn't really a great way to add a send delay without doing some custom coding.  The answer about replicating will work, but you don't really want to cause it not send until you multiple messages queue'd up because you may only send one email within a couple of hours and you don't want it waiting around.  Plus there are advantages and disadvantages to working off a local replica, that may or may not be appropriate for your situation.   If anything, check with your Notes administrators, there may be a reason you are configured a certain way.
Comment: Good point about not wanting to queue up messages. You could also work offline or disable the replication of outgoing mail (meaning you would have to actively replicate mail to be sent).
Answer: Assuming your administrators have it enabled, you can go into your sent folder, right click on the sent message and do 'recall message'.

Delay sending e-mail in Lotus Notes


truncated quantile regression in R

Question: I have used the "quantreg" package in R to find quantiles for my data. All my data, both predictors and responses are limited between 0 and 1, while a number of quantiles given by "rq" or "rqss" functions have values less than 0 or more than one. I was wondering if there is a solution for this problem, maybe a different function which gives truncated quantiles. Thanks
Answer: Quantile regression is an additive model.  No purely additive linear model can prevent predicted values from going outside any given range.  You can either hope to find a transformation of $Y$ that does not have a limited range that will fit the model, or consider the use of ordinal regression.  For example the R rms package orm function handles continuous $Y$ and allows estimation of quantiles, the mean, and exceedance probabilities
Answer: Thanks to the property of equivariance to monotonic transformations, shared by all quantile methods, one can simply operate a logit transformation and run a linear quantile regression on the transformed outcome.
For further information you might consider referring to this paper on quantile regression for bounded outcomes (Bottai & McKeown 2010).

truncated quantile regression in R


How to detect a mobile device manufacturer and model programmatically in Android?

Question: I want to find device specification of a mobile phone  for examples, the device manufacturer, model no ( and may be types of sensors in the device, wifi chipset etc..). I want to get the device manufacture/model number (eg. Samsung GT-I9100 i.e Galaxy S2) programmatically. The manufacture/model number is also used in Google Play when installing an app. I want to use this information to make some configuration changes in my hardware dependent app (for eg. power measurement).
Comment: Possible duplicate of [Android: Get Hardware Information Programmatically](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10496872/android-get-hardware-information-programmatically)
Answer: You can get as below:
String deviceName = android.os.Build.MODEL;
String deviceMan = android.os.Build.MANUFACTURER;

For more other device details, Please refer this document: android.os.Build
Comment: Or use `Build.BRAND` for the brand name.
Comment: Can you imagine, your 7 years old answer is still useful for people like me. :) :)
Thank you..
Comment: The answer is 10 years old and still useful for people like me. Thanks!
Answer: I just wanna elaborate on how to use the built in Attribute for the future visitors. You can use this method in identifying a Kindle Device(s)
public static boolean isKindle(){
        final String AMAZON = "Amazon";
        final String KINDLE_FIRE = "Kindle Fire";

        return (Build.MANUFACTURER.equals(AMAZON) && Build.MODEL.equals(KINDLE_FIRE) ) || Build.MODEL.startsWith("KF");
}

Answer: String deviceName = android.os.Build.MODEL;
String deviceMan = android.os.Build.MANUFACTURER;

The original solution will work fine, however it will not detect a custom ROM (non OEM) in call cases.  You may want to also evaluate the android.os.Build.PRODUCT string or other strings from the Build class.
String build = android.os.Build.PRODUCT;


Attaching a steel angle three-hole to a 2x4 red cedar joist

Question: What is the holding pull-out strength difference,relatively speaking, between using wood screws or lag screws when attaching a steel angle plate three-hole to a red cedar 2 x 4 joist ?  Access to only one side of the joist, and the fastener cannot penetrate completely through.
Comment: (a) is this a modern 2x4 - i.e., actually 1.5" x 3.5"? (b) are you going into the short side (2/1.5) so you have the long distance (4/3.5) to put in the screw? Or into the long side (4/3.5) so you have a much shorter distance (2/1.5)?
Comment: Can you describe what you're doing a little more?  If an angle plate is attaching to the side of a joist, where is pullout force coming from?
Comment: a) going into long side 3.5
Comment: The 2x4 is 60" long span, connecting to large beam (8x6 wood) at each end with the 3" steel angle having 3 holes each side for screws, nails, … the down vertical load is midpoint of span.  ps I was able to find some charts on various screw designs with  holding capacity and pull out strengths. Thank you.
Answer: Wood screws or lags.... really it depends on which wood screws or lags you have, the main figure of merit is obviously pull strength but if you don't have access to that measuring the volume of between the screw thread peaks and troughs will  give some indication of how well it will hold.
So screws or lags, if you want hexagon heads use lags, if you want round
heads use screws,
If you want it to hold stronger, longer teeth, larger major diameter of the threaded parts, and more threaded length is better.  also don't ignore the possibility of the screw itself snapping
If the lags you can get are better suited than the screws you can get use the lags etc.
Answer: To compare like for like is difficult,  The strength mostly depends on the thickness of the screws and the thread size and material.
All things being equal, one could argue that since lag screws do not have threads all the way, a similar wood screw would win.
Perhaps, follow the instructions for the steel plate.


A tendency to use "a" in place of "an" in American English

Question: I have noticed that a lot of native American speakers use the indefinite article "a" in front of words beginning with vowels, such as  interesting, old, apple  , etc. Is there any reasonable explanation?
Comment: Do they elide the vowels together, or insert a glottal stop or a glide in between?
Comment: Relevant but not a duplicate: [Variations in the pronunciation of "the"](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/191979/variations-in-the-pronunciation-of-the) and all of the linked questions.
Comment: The tendency you notice has been mentioned by another person here: [When should I use "a" vs "an"?](http://english.stackexchange.com/a/202573/77227)
Comment: Sort of related, but broader in that it also mentions the opposite (use of "an" before words starting with a consonant sound): [Correct usage of "a" and "an"](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/268906/correct-usage-of-a-and-an)
Comment: Draconis, to be honest I didn't hear it, but I've  seen it a lot in most comments.
Comment: Sumelic, I didn't see the previous posts connected to this topic. Anyway thank you for your reference.
Comment: Can you please [edit] this to give some concrete examples (written would be okay but audio would be preferred) for us to analyse? Without some data it's just as likely that you've misheard than that they are actually saying this.
Answer: I use a with such words and I am a native speaker of American English. The only sensible explanation is that language usage changes and that it sounds fine to me.
It used to be that people would use an in contexts where we, or not all native speakers (still) do, such as before some words starting with h- (an hundred) or other sounds, such as the yu- in eunuch. I don't talk much about eunuchs but when I do I say a eunuch, not an eunuch as some people, such as Shakespeare, does in Twelfth Night, performed first in 1600, give or take a year.
There's a theory that says there's a gottal stop between a and apple (etc) which "licenses" such usage. But I'm not self aware enough to determine if I employ one or not. I certainly don't say a educated man like I would Hawai'i with its prominent gottal stop.
Comment: Do you never use "an," or would you use both "a" and "an" indifferently before words that start with vowels? Or is there some conditioning factor, like word-initial stress, that makes the use of "a" more likely before only a subset of vowel-initial words?
Comment: A fiend of mine ordered "a English muffin" from room service at the pricey Pierre Hotel in NYC. She got eight English muffins and a bill to go with them. Licensed or not, it was a failure in communication.
Comment: @sumelic I can use *an apple* around people who might not well receive *a apple*. Other than that I haven't paid attention and analyzed my usage as a whole. Maybe I'll pay more attention. I do know it is not only in speaking but also in writing.
Comment: Got it. I did notice that you use "an indefinite" in your answer here: http://english.stackexchange.com/a/298746/77227 and "an example" here: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/199904/in-the-phrase-man-enough-is-man-an-adjective/298949#298949 I asked because I have a similar experience (phrases like "a octopus" don't strike me as sounding terribly wrong, and I produce some instances of them in spontaneous speech) but I also definitely use "an" as well, and not just when I'm consciously trying to do so.
Comment: When I write on SE I usually consciously change any *a* + vowel to *an* + vowel. @sumelic.
Comment: @Xanne I guess she must have pronounced it as the emphatic form (long **a** sound) instead of the regular form with the shwa sound.  Otherwise, it seems unlikely that "a" would be confused with "eight." It's ironic that the attempt at emphasizing one singular item is what led to the confusion :D
Answer: This is mentioned in Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage:

There are signs that a is intruding into the proper territory of an in American English of various kinds. Two scholars presented substantial evidence of this phenomenon in both the unscripted and scripted speech of American politicians, entertainers, etc., pronounced both as /eɪ/ and /ə/ (a apple, a interesting, a ultimate, etc.). Also in representations of the speech of African Americans (e.g. He had a old Ford somebody gave him—M. Golden, 1989; My old dad lost one of his legs, had it bit off by a alligator this time he's fishing the rim canal—E. Leonard, 1994). This is not the same as the emphatic a.

As for other specific dialects, apparently this often happens in Smokey Mountain English, a dialect of English spoken in south Appalachia. According to Montgomery (2009):

Phrases like a axe, a ear of corn, and a uncle occur frequently in the CSME. Examples like a address (with a following unstressed syllable) are sporadic as well.

I found more information in the article Grammar and Syntax of Smoky Mountain English.
While I speak in an American dialect that's neither Appalachian nor AAVE, I also notice myself using "a" before vowel sounds sometimes.
I found A corpus-based analysis of indefinite article use in London English which also covers the subject, mostly focused on British English.
Comment: I went to college in Appalachia and this is an immediately noticeable feature of the local dialect.
Answer: There are many different accents in North American English. In some of those accents, it might be quite comfortable for the speaker to say "a apple." Either because of the way they are putting their syllables together, or perhaps because they are from a region where people tend to speak very slowly. It might be "a [pause] apple."
Answer:
Sorry, but that's poppycock. Can you cite any research article that backs that up?

El-Koumy, A. S. A. (1998). Effect of dialogue journal writing on EFL students' speaking skill. Retrieved from ERIC database (ED424772)

Rokni, S. J. A., & Seifi, A. (2014). Dialog journal writing and its effect on learners' speaking accuracy and fluency. Study in English language teaching, 2(1), 28-37.

Kim, Y. (2008). The effects of integrated language-based instruction in elementary ESL learning. Modern Language Journal, 92, 432-451.

Nation, I. S. P., & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL listening and speaking. New York, NY: Routledge. [41]

Newton, J. (1995). Task-based interaction and incidental vocabulary learning: A case study. Second Language Research, 11(2), 159-176

Blake, C. (2009). Potential of text-based internet chats for improving oral fluency in a second language. Modern Language Journal, 93, 227-240.

Sanchez, M. A. (2014). The effect of written input on young EFL learners' oral output. Journal of English studies, 12, 7-33. DOI:10.18172/jes.2821

Fathali, S., & Sotoudehnama, E. (2015). The impact of guided writing practice on the speaking proficiency and attitude of EFL elementary learners. The journal of teaching language skills, 7(1), 1-25. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.22099/jtls.2015.3456

". . . almost all the above previous studies concluded that writing abilities affect speaking proficiency in a positive way (e.g., El-koumy,1998; Kim, 2008; Williams, 2008; Blake, 2009; Nation & Newton, 2009; Rokni & Seifi, 2014; Sanchez, 2014; Fathali & Sotoudehnama, 2015). Journal writing, integrated based instruction of speaking and writing, written input and output, and guided writing practice are likely to have a positive impact on learners' speaking abilities. Hence, 'writing to learn' is proven by evidence from the previous studies to enhance spoken language."
—   Speaking and Writing Interconnections: A Systematic Review
Fouad Akki, Mohammed Larouz
Department of English Studies,
School of Arts and Humanities,
Moulay Ismail University, Morocco
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3aad/04eb4c1f0fa690abc1aea4033d22cb961c4e.pdf
I have my own test:
A student who is taught to write, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Yesterday, I gave my teacher an apple, and today, my teacher gave me an apple" is highly unlikely to say even in casual speech, "A apple a day keeps the doctor away. Yesterday, I gave my teacher a apple, and yesterday, my teacher gave me a apple." Ergo, correct writing influences correct speaking.
Of course, the exception might be the 60% of college freshman who have to enroll in remedial English courses, 95% of whom never go on to complete their degree. I don't blame the students; I blame their teachers. And beyond the teachers, I blame those who might have influenced educational policy, such as those claiming, "Literacy means being to able to read, not speak."
We reap what we sow.
Comment: Looks like there might be a good answer about divergence between spoken and written communication hidden between those two posts. The two word answer didn't give any detail, and this one was more about arguing with other users than answering the question, so as currently shown it's well hidden for (and from) anyone looking for a justification to upvote.
Comment: I noted 7 of the 8 references are to ESL/EFL students, who would be trying to make sense of English in the context of their first language. If you are still leaning to pronounce words you can be expected to make mistakes with *a/an*. Also - to native speakers "n" is easy to insert between vowels that need to be separated, but this may not be the case for speakers of other languages.


What happens when two units attack each other with equal support?

Question: We have the following orders:
England:

F Nor - Swe.
A Den S F Nor - Swe.

Russia:

F Swe - Nor.
F St. P (NC) S F Swe - Nor.

Both have an equal strength. How does this resolve?
Answer: In the rules as of 2015, this is covered under "Standoff Rules":

Units can't trade places without the use of a convoy. If two units are each ordered to the province that the other occupies, neither can move.

and then in "Support in Standoffs":

Diagrams 10 and 11 show two common standoff situations. In both cases, a strength of 2 meets a strength of 2 and all units stand in place. In Diagram 10, if there had been a Fleet in the Tyrrhenian, it wouldn't be dislodged by the standoff. (A standoff doesn't dislodge a unit already in the province where the standoff took place.)

Since the two units both have the same support, they cause a standoff and neither one moves.
However, if any other unit was moving into Sweden or Norway with support, then the unit in that province would be dislodged since its support related only to its move order.
Answer: Not much to add to ConMan's answer, if there are no other orders affecting the involved units, the result is a stand-off. But bear in mind that if any unit of different nationality moved to Den or StP (i.e. different nationality than the unit currently occupying that space), the support from that space would be cut. Thus, when adjudicating manually, always cut any support orders first, before comparing strength of individual battles.
When in doubt, try using an open source adjudicator such as Realpolitik: http://realpolitik.sourceforge.net/


Who actually knows Saitama is as strong as he is?

Question: Other than Genos, King, and those he's defeated(if they even knew they were fighting him), who else knows his secret? It seemed to me the Hero Assoc. still hasn't taken a real notice.
Answer: Going by the chapter 102 of the Shonen Jump Manga:

 Genos, King, Silver Fang, Blizzard, and (possibly) Mumen Rider
Comment: Welcome to the Animanga SE. Could you possibly specify which chapter this is, as the "current chapter" will change over time?
Comment: Hi, can you explain how Blizzard know Saitama true strength?
Comment: @IamaStudent Presumably this is referring to how Blizzard attempts to newbie-crush him with utter futility, is protected by Saitama from a blast from Genos, and then watches said S-class Demon Cyborg be subservient and obedient to Saitama, while Saitama curb stomps the apparent villain Demon Cyborg was having trouble with and that she was thinking might be a Dragon Class threat. And later she finds out that King, Bang, and Bomb are all basically bros with Saitama.  So she knows he's stronger than her, and knows he's strong enough to earn the respect of the strongest, at least.
Answer: Well, Suiryu seems to recognize Saitama's incredible power when they first meet, but only after their bout does he realize that his strength is nothing compared to baldy's.
Also, down the road (Monster Association arc and onward spoilers):

 After the huge battle with MA and Garou, some heroes see that Saitama is actually really OP. Some of these are Sweet Mask, Zombie Man and even Tatsumaki begins to suspect something after the battle.
 Also, in the latest webcomic chapters, Flashy Flash sees that Saitama is strong, but instead of respecting him he tells him that he wishes to train him in order to make him even better, not knowing that Saitama's overwhelming speed and strength really don't need any more perfecting.
Comment: It'd be more helpful if you could [edit] and state the specific webcomic chapters instead of "latest webcomic chapters" because they will change over the time, and finding the chapters based on date is usually not easy. Thanks!


Why do certain chess combinations start with moves that can be intuited before understanding the full sequence?

Question: There seems to me to be a strange phenomenon in chess where a combination exists and pays off if and only if you make a series of accurate moves without any deviations. Often times you can find many of the correct moves in that series without having seen the point of the combination, or the entire combination. This strikes me as odd. Why should this be so? If those moves are only good if you complete the combination, why then do they jump out at you intuitively, even if you can't see the whole combination?
Comment: Request: I answered, but still, could you add a striking example?
Answer: As a 100% intuitive player, I try to answer:
Combinations do not come out of the blue. There must exist objective preconditions (say, a lead in development). Even if I can't calculate further than half a move (in fairness, I can, but my brain hurts if I try), I "see" the move. Case in point: I was analyzing a training game with a kiddie and his trainer. He said: You were lucky, the engine gives a move here that annihilates you. Me, in a nanosecond: e5. He: How did you... Me: Easy. You gave the move away by it's pure existence, in Sicilian Bxf6 gxf6 structures, it is always e5! Of course I couldn't analyze e5, it wasn't even that tempting. But intuitive players know thousands of patterns, and the case you describe is simply the pattern checker throwing a "Go!".
Compare also to Alpha Zero. It doesn't do concrete "calculation" at all, it only checks patterns (that's how neuronal nets work). Still, it's a tactical monster.
Answer: The initial move or moves of a combination and understanding the full sequence, whether the combination is a blunder or a winning one, are not connected.
ALL initial moves of this sort are the rest of pattern recognition or a kind of intuition. At least for players who have progressed to the early beginner stage where some chess related pattern recognition has been developed. Complete beginners may still make moves that are almost random.
Understanding the full sequence is a matter of correct calculation. The two are not connected. Not understanding the full sequence, a kind of "hope chess", leads to chance results. You may get lucky or your move may be a blunder.
Here is an example from the "HangingPawns" YouTube channel of a player getting lucky. He thought Qh8+ at the end of the combination would be mate, overlooking the black knight on g6, only to be rescued by the possibility, spotted at the very last moment, of Bxf7#.
Some of HangingPawns commentary added in the comments, but it's worth watching it on his channel for the full emotional rollercoaster.
<code>[Title "Getting lucky"]
[fen "1nbqrbk1/3r1ppp/p5n1/1p3p2/1P1NP3/PBQ5/1B2N1PP/3R1RK1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Nxf5 Rxd1 2. Nh6+ gxh6 {Oh! There's a knight on g6! There's a knight on g6! Nooo! Wait!} 3. Bxf7# {It does work. I have Bf7. ... I didn't see Bf7 before I played Nh6. I didn't see that. Luckily it did work} (3. Qh8+?? Nxh8)
</code>


Find where my Gmail account is used for registration?

Question: I have a Gmail account that I use for official purposes and another account for signing up to various sites. How do I find to which sites I have given my Gmail ID?
Answer: The answer depends upon what you mean by "given my Gmail ID"
If you signed up to those sites using your email address and created a password, then your inbox or archive should have messages from those sites verifying your registration.
If you instead used your Google ID to log in to these sites "with Google" authentication, here are the easy steps to find these sites:

Sign in to https://www.google.com/settings/security
In the "Account permissions" box, next to Apps and websites select View all.

This section will list all of the sites with account permissions.  This works for regular Gmail accounts as well as Google Apps accounts.
Answer: You can find this only if you get an automated reply (or) confirmation message from the respective website and you can perform manual search. Now the GMail ID which you used for signing up to websites is just like open source id and many website would have this ID in their database but GMail will have the reference only if it gets reply from those website.
Hope this helps!


process mail in /var/spool/clientmqueue in linux

Question: How do I get sendmail to process mails in /var/spool/clientmqueue? sendmail -q does not work for this directory.
Answer: To manually flush the queue in clientmqueue:
sendmail -Ac -q -v

Or without -v if you don't want to watch the progress in the console:
sendmail -Ac -q

Comment: The messages in clientmqueue are locally generated outbound messages handled separately from messages received externally via smtp.  To process this queue, you need to tell sendmail to use the submit.cf configuration file.  The -A switch is used to tell sendmail which configuration file to use.  -Ac will use the submit.cf configuration and -Am will use the sendmail.cf configuration file.  Absent the -A, it will default to using -Am unless you are running sendmail with -t or -bs.  The -q is to tell Sendmail to process the queue once.
Comment: Why does this work?  I don't really understand what the `-Ac` and `-q` flags are supposed to be doing.
Answer: You will need to check what items are in that folder, if it is a qf/df pair, then it probably a failed mail transaction. So something wrong with your setting or mail not going out or to someone or even got rejected.
You also need to know that the normal sendmail -q will process the queue every one hour interval. You can do sendmail -q10m to make it process the queue every 10 minutes.
It will also be good to check the mail queue mailq -v -Ac, see if its empty or not. If its empty, then those mail in the clientmqueue, must have been the one that are not successful.
Comment: mailq -Ac -v show the queue as empty, so it is safe to remove these files?
Comment: If there are only a few qf/df pair, you can try can cat the file and see the content before removing it.

I used a perl scripts from here (http://www.brandonhutchinson.com/deleting_mail_queue.html) to check the queue and removing it, it is much more easier and safer.


Is it possible to use Compiz with GNOME Flashback on Ubuntu 20.04?

Question: As in title - is it possible to use Compiz with GNOME Flashback on Ubuntu 20.04 ? If yes, how ?
It would be nice to have some features like window overview screen with miniatures of all open windows, something that Compiz provided in the older version of Ubuntu.
Answer: The corresponding compiz-gnome package is in place.
So it should work after you install it with
sudo apt-get install compiz-gnome

and optionally set settings using CompizConfig Settings Manager (ccsm):
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Then select relevant session on login screen.
Answer: Yes, Gnome Session Flashback can be used both with metacity and with compiz. In addition to installing gnome-session-flashback, you need to install compiz::
sudo apt-get -y install compiz-plugins compizconfig-settings-manager

Select the "GNOME Flashback (Compiz)" session during login.
Comment: Installing compiz-plugins will automatically pull in compiz as well.
Comment: Compiz was not installed by default with system installation. I needed also to install compiz itself, not only compiz-plugins and compizconfig-settings-manager. After installing all these and restarting the computer, I was able to choose GNOME Flashback Compiz session.
Comment: After those package installs, I could get compiz settings to run alright, but couldn't get any of its effects (e.g. the window switching cube) actually happen after being selected. Maybe I really need the flashback version of gnome, but wasn't brave enough to make the switch from the version of gnome shipped with 20.04. Didn't get a new session login option either. [Some extra steps listed here](https://linuxconfig.org/enabling-ubuntu-compiz-3d-cube-desktop-effect) feel outdated.


How can Chae Young-Shin drive at the end of Healer?

Question: In the Korean Drama Healer, the whole show goes by with Chae Young-Shin (Park Min-Young) being afraid of cars due to trauma. But in the last episode, not only does she drive, she also hands over camera and stuff to Seo Jung-Hoo, as if he could not carry a camera while riding. But what puzzles me is her driving with the fear she had.
Answer: My guess is that that with the passage of time and her growth over the course of the show, she has finally been able to overcome her fears and learn to drive.