How can I embed an HTML5 canvas in Google Forms?

Question: I am trying to create a drawing response in Google Forms. I am looking to create an add-on using Google Script to make this happen. I am thinking that I will have to use HTML5 canvas, but I'm not quite sure how.
Answer: Google Apps Script could be used to create forms, to add custom features to the Google Forms editor, to submit responses automatically and to do things on form submission but it could not add features to published forms like the embedding an HTML5 canvas.


MOSS 2010 Content Deployment Reset List ID's

Question: We want to synchronize data across several environments that are not production, ie dev, test ect. We have several list that are set to order by ID. The problem is that when doing the content deployment the ID's are not kept in sync across environments which causes the data to not display in the expected order. Is there a way to reseed the ID's in the receiving tables to match the record being inserted?
Answer: The best way I've found to do this is to periodically copy the content database itself back down from Production and attach copies of it to each of the environments.  This is very simple to do but does have a few potential drawbacks, such as:

Any manual changes to the dev/qa environments are wiped out (if you
are using features to deploy customizations this should not be an issue)
Dev/qa content is replaced which can lead to a potential loss of
test data
The production database is often very large and can eat up precious
DB space on the typically spartan dev/QA database servers
You MUST be using the exact same version of SharePoint in each
environment

That said, it has some very strong points as well

Developers are testing against real-world data which means that they can test against situations that would be extremely complex to manually replicate
Fewer surprises as code is moved through environments since it is effectively developed in "production"
All internal IDs exactly match in each environment making it much
easier to move ID-bound components (i.e. many webparts) from environment to environment
Comment: Good points. I would put the version requirement as a strong point - unless you are in fact testing an upgrade. But even then, you restore it *before* the upgrade process anyway. :)
Answer: In SharePoint list ids only remain the same if the lists were created declaratively (ie defined in XML in a feature).
If the lists are created through the UI, in script, or programatically they will get a new id in the import destination. It's a big plus for defining lists (properly) in features.
I think.
Answer: Thanks for the responses guys. As the Content Deployment is a requirement across several version of the production site as well a db restore is not a valid solution for us. What I ended up doing was creating an additional column in the list to support sort order (int), then wrote n OrderBy query in CAML to sort by that column. This was where I was trying to go to begin with but for some reason the way my access in the Site Admin was set up limited what actions I could take on that column. We ended up getting that prepped and the query works great.


Salesforce execution order on flow updates

Question: All – I am in the process of resolving the issue when Process builder try to update a field and a validation rule stopping that update. Here my question is if we have 10 flow updates, for each flow updates Salesforce will run all the triggers/validation rules? Or it commits all the 10 flow updates as a list and at end it runs the triggers/validation rules. ?
Comment: What is the meaning for 10 flow updates? it is 10 different flows?
Answer: There are 2 cases:

flow with 10 field update actions:
This will result into re-evaluating triggers/validation only once provided Reevaluate Records in the Process Builder setting is disable.
10 flow with 1 field updates per flow

Short answer: Yes, for each flow updates Salesforce will run all the triggers/validation rules.
Long answer: Each flow will run in its own contexts and will be unaware about other flows. This will result in re-evaluating triggers/validation rules 10 times. This is something like you are calling 10 distinguish Update statement.
Also take a note about Reevaluate Records in the Process Builder setting which can cause re-evaluating triggers/validation & same flow up-to 5 times.
Ref:
https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=process_advanced_reevaluate.htm&language=en_US&type=0
https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.apexcode.meta/apexcode/apex_triggers_order_of_execution.htm
Comment: Atul - Thank You for your response.  What I mean my 10 field updates is in once (immediate) flow action contains 10 field different field updates. -
Santanu - FYI!
Comment: Check my updated answers.


How would strength effect a punch?

Question: To make things easier, let's have two clones who are completely identical in every way you can imagine, except for the difference in physical strength. Man #1 can lift 2 tons like Louis Cyr. Man #2 can only lift 200 lbs. If they both punched a punching bag with all their strength (assuming they both punched at the same speed), would there be an apparent difference in force, or the kinetic energy?
Comment: Just a basic hint: you *can't* understand punching in terms of physics 101 concepts. No, not even approximately. The motion isn't free and is driven by a beautiful and complex ballet of connections between muscles and bone and a coordinated series of changing applied forces. And that's just on the delivery end. On the receiving end there is a whole new set of complexities that mean that neither momentum transfer nor work give a detailed story about the effects of the punch. There is a reason that teams of Ph.D. scientists are needed to do useful sports physics.
Answer: Your question is a little rigged: the speed at which someone punches (all the way through the target, mind you) is the primary manifestation of their strength.  If they accelerate the bag equivalently (ie, punch with the same speed), there is no difference in the force/momentum transfer imparted to the bag.
Answer: The total power delivered by a punch depends on several other things apart from the physical strength. A good martial artists always know this thing and generates his power from the twisting motion of his hips , shoulders and his arm whereas ordinarily the strength of a punch just comes from your arm and is not that effective.The power delivered also depends on your speed.
Try searching the "one inch punch","six inch punch"

How would strength effect a punch?


Proper term for amount + currency

Question: What is a proper term to name amount of money and their currency?
Like 100 USD, 50 EUR, 100 GBP - all are "amount", "value", "sum"?
Comment: If you give us some context about why you are asking and what you will be using the word for, you will get a better answer.  If English is not your first language, you could try questions like these at [English Language Learners](http://ell.stackexchange.com/) using the "[word-request](http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/word-request)" tag.
Comment: Thanks for the tip :) Sample context: a .......  to deposit; a .......  to withdraw. It is possible to say "an amount", but it will not reflect the need to specify currency.
Comment: You answered yourself: amount of "money" and their currency. Money is the thing with properties of amount and currency. So - money.
Answer: "Amount" is the closest single word.  "Amount in dollars" would be the easiest way to specify information you are requesting.  "Amount and currency" if you ware in an area using multiple currencies.  An accountant might be able to give you a more technical term, but it would be accountancy jargon.  Amount due, credit amount, debit amount, amount deposited, amount credited, amount withdrawn, or amount included.  If you're writing instructions and want to specify that the person following the instructions needs to indicate the currency, you'll probably have to simply state that requirement.
Based on US centric thinking, inside the US, money is dollars, dollars is money.  For US citizens outside the country, we would always tack on the currency.  100 dollars, or 100 Euro.  There is a segment of Americans who do not understand geography, and that other countries exist, and that they use different currencies, might not realize that other countries have currencies named dollars, and that USD means US Dollars.  So for U.S. citizens, be specific and clear.
Bottom line, if this is written for US residents, and they need to specify the currency, you need to explicitly require them to "List the amount and currency."
Comment: Probably "Amount with currency" is the closest option to what I want. Great explanation on US citizens' way of thinking - really useful to know.
Answer: The best I could come up with would be to simply ask for the amount of "notes" and "coins" you would like, and specify denominations thereof.
The different currency labels exist for the reason that not all of them are valued the same, so USD 100 is not the same as EUR 100. To generalize would mean some form of uniformity in the values, that just isn't there.
Answer: I would go for price or cost if what you mean is "how many units of some currency can I exchange for a good or service". In scientific terms, that would be a function of currency, as long you don't care which currency your sum is in. That is, any amount of some currency has a perfectly same value as a certain amount of any other currency and vice versa. For instance, an item priced at 100USD would be priced 86EUR or 74GBP or 11182JPY in some hypothetical world where taxes, exchange interests, inflation and that sort of things don't exist.

Proper term for amount + currency


MVC Really a Four Headed Pattern?

Question: Is it just me or is MVC really Model-View/Controller-View View-Model/Controller-Model with two distinct controllers?
alt text http://www.hupcapstudios.com/projects/mvc/mvcvmc.gif
Comment: We should probably stop calling MVC a pattern.  It's more of a context for the Mediator pattern than anything else.
Answer: They are all just flavors of the Mediator pattern as opposed to first class patterns anyway.  As such, it's probably okay for two distinct flavors to have two distinct names.
Answer: I think that it often has two models, the base model model and the view-model, but it typically just has one controller.
Answer: I consider these patterns to be loose guidelines more than strict patterns.  I use a lot of MVVM (introduced in WPF but works great with anything that supports a good 2-way binding framework), and I always see some kind of controller (or controllers) being used with it.  Every project is different and has different needs based on size, purpose, etc.
Answer: Better to change the moniker to something more accurate
Algorithmic code,  IO code , Initialization/Runtime Management code, Error/Interrupt code, Event/Messaging code.
or  User input/output code, internal housekeeping code, data-centric code, program state code.
MVC has the unfortunate viral effect on code systems of enforcing its rigid model upon all
design of operations in a codebase. That is why Professors of CS, and Vendors of model-driven software like it, not because it is superior to this or that paradigm. The separation of duties allows for cleaner modeling and revision at the planning stage, and is fantastic for designing a database, but is not the correct tool for every programming task.
Highly inter-relational event-based programming (games, robotics, guidance) lends itself  to messaging paradigms with a central message controller, but data views may or not be required for the interactions to take place.
Code reuse is the defining reason for wanting MVC , so that all views can be attached to all models with a single controller object. This is silly in a lot of cases. True OO would dictate that each object know how to view ( perform IO ) on itself.  Pure MVC would be that model objects would have no clue about IO or what they are being used for, and the Controller manages it all, creating views for each object.  But nothing is pure and there is a lot of messaging between all three kinds of objects.
plus there is in  most computer languages things that are objects and things that are not objects, and different ways of modifying each.
MVC has an earlier ancestor which all books assume that you are clued in to: the basic INITIALIZATION, INPUT, STORAGE, PROCESSING, OUTPUT, FINALIZATION model, which of course no program could exist without following. Get the above 6 right and it doesn't matter if its procedural, MVC, Event based, or spaghetti.
It does make a difference in the sequence: define Problem Domain, Design Solution, Implement, Debug, Redesign, Test/Debug loop, Deploy , Maintain/Modify loop.
MVC is more of an interfacing methodology for objects into a system than a "Better Way to Program".
It is by nature a hierarchical system with the controller at the top, when the real work is done
by the algorithmic code.  Perhaps a better model for some tasks is to have the  model be its own controller and deal directly with IO code (views) instead of a Middle tier of object handling.

MVC Really a Four Headed Pattern?


Macbook pro with latest opp system upgrade

Question: Not wanting my documents on iCloud as they about fill my 5gb quota,I tried to drag the folder to my desktop from the applications window iCloud heading on the left hand side, POOF and the folder was gone not to be seen again, Can any one please tell this old fool how to get the folder back and out of iCloud forever, many thanks :-)
Answer: Open system Preferences and go to iCloud.
When you opt out of storing documents in the cloud it should fix things. If not, log out then restart the Mac.
Answer: Ah, you discovered the 'remove from Sidebar' option rather than the 'copy contents'
You can restore the Sidebar icon from Finder Preferences > Sidebar

To prevent iCloud storage go to System Prefs > iCloud > iCloud Drive > Options...

Switching off any item immediately empties the corresponding folder in the iCloud folder, so make sure to copy out first.
Switching back on does seem to restore them after a while - I really don't know where they go in the meantime, or if after a while they would purge entirely, like deleted photos.


Need search filters, place # of search items on top of listing and

Question:
Place # of items found on top of the page. I have to scroll to the bottom of the page to find out if my search keywords caused too many or too few result items.
There's no clear pattern for search results. Where the keywords found in the title, body,  or both? Which keywords were used? Do the results include all the words or some depending of how many results it found? Some search engines try to use fewer of the keywords to increase number of results. I don't particularly like this feature because I don't know when they are doing it unless they highlight the keywords. SO doesn't do this.
Need filters on search criteria, like search for keywords in title only, body only or both. Use all the keywords or some.. etc. Search by tag.
Comment: @Brad was it necessary to bump this to change `-` to `.`?
Answer: A few recent changes in search..

Search now HEAVILY weights title in the results, since people seemed to really like that approach (used on the /ask page, which searched exclusively on title alone).
Any individual search terms which map directly to the top 40 tags will be auto-converted to tag searches. So if you enter

c++ entities

it will convert to

[c++] entities

automagically.

Try again and see if it is more to your liking.


Clone is not getting all my branches from GitHub

Question: I followed the instructions here to create a GitHub Pages-hosted blog using Octopress.
After the first deployment, two branches got created on GitHub: source and master.
Then I ran git branch and I noticed I only have one of the two branches locally. I ran git pull, expecting Git to download my other branch as well, but it instead merged the two branches.
I deleted my local repo and then did a git clone, expecting to get the two branches locally, but I Git only downloaded the master branch of my Weblog.
Any ideas what have I done wrong and how can I get my two branches locally?

Update 1
Thanks for the answers. Just for sake of completeness, here's what I ended up doing:
git clone <github URL> -b source myblog
cd myblog
git clone <github URL> -b master _deploy

And then it was possible to continue with writing new posts, and deploying via rake deploy.
Comment: After cloning did you try `git checkout source` ? Also did you do `git branch -a` to show both local and remote tracking branches?
Answer: There is a big difference between local branches and remote branches.  A git clone will fetch all information from the origin/remote.  And will checkout (create the local branch, which tracks its corresponding remote branch, and checks out the working files) the default branch of the repository.  Technically you should have master, origin/master, and origin/source branches in your cloned branch..but git branch only shows your local branch(es): master.  Run git branch -a to show all branches (local and remote).  Run a git checkout source, which will create a local branch based off of the remote branch.
Answer: Seems like nothing is wrong, actually. Your source branch should contain Octopress, so once you did git checkout source, you should be able to create your posts and then use corresponding rake tasks in order to generate static files, stage/commit/push them to the master branch on origin, which will make your posts accessible on Github Pages.


Is there a way to do an inner join in Excel between 2 csv files?

Question: This seems like a simple concept, yet I can't figure out a way to do it without writing some code.  Does Excel have a function that will let me join columns from 2 different csv files (say Orders and OrderDetails) based on a shared ID column and create a composite csv with columns from both?
Comment: Statically or dynamically (i.e., are the CSV files constant or dynamic data)?
Comment: you have already tried something with msquery? You have to build the query in it, but you should be able to do so.
Comment: if it were excel files instead of csv, it would be possible with ms query (see http://superuser.com/a/421493/118860)
Answer: This is possible in MSQuery although you will have to setup a datasource in ODBC

This isn't a function, but you should find it relatively simple to implement.
Help does provide documentation on accomplishing different joins as well

The resultant SQL msquery creates is:
Answer: I would not use Excel to accomplish this task.  Instead, I would use a command line program called join.exe.  This is what is is designed to do.  It is apart of UnxUpdates.zip.
The syntax is straight forward:

Usage: join [OPTION]... FILE1 FILE2
For each pair of input lines with identical join fields, write a line to
standard output.  The default join field is the first, delimited
by whitespace.  When FILE1 or FILE2 (not both) is -, read standard input.

  -a FILENUM        print unpairable lines coming from file FILENUM, where
                      FILENUM is 1 or 2, corresponding to FILE1 or FILE2
  -e EMPTY          replace missing input fields with EMPTY
  -i, --ignore-case ignore differences in case when comparing fields
  -j FIELD          equivalent to `-1 FIELD -2 FIELD'
  -o FORMAT         obey FORMAT while constructing output line
  -t CHAR           use CHAR as input and output field separator
  -v FILENUM        like -a FILENUM, but suppress joined output lines
  -1 FIELD          join on this FIELD of file 1
  -2 FIELD          join on this FIELD of file 2
      --help     display this help and exit
      --version  output version information and exit

Unless -t CHAR is given, leading blanks separate fields and are ignored,
else fields are separated by CHAR.  Any FIELD is a field number counted
from 1.  FORMAT is one or more comma or blank separated specifications,
each being `FILENUM.FIELD' or `0'.  Default FORMAT outputs the join field,
the remaining fields from FILE1, the remaining fields from FILE2, all
separated by CHAR.

Important: FILE1 and FILE2 must be sorted on the join fields.

The last line is very important!  Inside of this same zip file, includes sort.exe which can sort the files for you. Or you can also sort the files with Excel.
Answer: Yes, there is. It's a little hacky, but a lot better than having to write code.
Example:

Set1 = Alice, Bob, Charlie, Echo, Foxtrot, Lima
Set2 = Bob, Charlie, Foxtrot, Lima, Mike, November, Zebra

Put the two sets in separate columns, with a column in between.
  A       B          C
1 Set1    JoinColumn Set2
2 Alice              Bob
3 Bob                Charlie
4 Charlie            Foxtrot
5 Echo               Lima
6 Foxtrot            Mike
7 Lima               November
8                    Zebra

In cell B2, enter this formula
==IF(COUNTIF($A$2:$A$8,C3)>0,C3,"<NULL>")

The first part $A$2:$A$8 is the range of cells from Set1. The $ symbols keep it a static range, so you can copy and paste into new cells and the range stays the same. The C3 is the cell immediately to the right of the current cell that you are joining on.
Copy and paste this all the way down, and (showing formulas for demostration) you will have this:
  A       B                                        C
1 Set1    JoinColumn                               Set2
2 Alice   =IF(COUNTIF($A$2:$A$8,C3)>0,C3,"<NULL>") Bob
3 Bob     =IF(COUNTIF($A$2:$A$8,C4)>0,C4,"<NULL>") Charlie
4 Charlie =IF(COUNTIF($A$2:$A$8,C5)>0,C5,"<NULL>") Foxtrot
5 Echo    =IF(COUNTIF($A$2:$A$8,C6)>0,C6,"<NULL>") Lima
6 Foxtrot =IF(COUNTIF($A$2:$A$8,C7)>0,C7,"<NULL>") Mike
7 Lima    =IF(COUNTIF($A$2:$A$8,C8)>0,C8,"<NULL>") November
8         =IF(COUNTIF($A$2:$A$8,C9)>0,C9,"<NULL>") Zebra

which will actually look like this:
1 Set1    JoinColumn Set2
2 Alice   Bob        Bob
3 Bob     Charlie    Charlie
4 Charlie Foxtrot    Foxtrot
5 Echo    Lima       Lima
6 Foxtrot <NULL>     Mike
7 Lima    <NULL>     November
8         <NULL>     Zebra

A few more steps:

Copy column B and Paste Special over itself, paste Values
Delete column A

You now have a simple right outer join

Sort by column B
delete the  value rows

You have the inner join
I leave it as an exercise to the reader to handle multiple columns tables.
Ok, I'll give you simplest and most inefficient method that occurs to me: do the inner join in both directions, sort each set on the join field, and put the results side-by-side. They should line up. (Note: this would only work if the join column contains unique values)


Is there any chance that LGA771 Xeon CPU will work in LGA775 Systemboard without BIOS microcode update?

Question: My Systemboard is HP-DX2400MT - IPIBL-LB (MoBo) and it supports Pentium Dual Core/Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad CPUs.
I want to buy any same spec Xeon CPU and I want to know if if it is possible or there is a change that it will work without microcode update?
Comment: If I am not mistaken then an LGA771 literally has seven hundred seventy one connection points and LGA775 has seven hundred seventy five connection points. Please point to the documentation which you read that says these sockets and CPUs are interchangeable with nothing more than a "microcode" update.
Comment: the topic i started is a well known issue. people do this but i want someone who really knows answer to my question. concerning my motherboard. The documentation is on wikipedia if you would like to know more >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_771
Answer: I figured it out, I updated microcode and now running Xeon without problem.
It needs microcode update.


Problem of PD estimation

Question: Why is small number of defaults is a problem in case of PD estimation? What are the consequences? Can you recommend notes, books, etc about the topic?
Comment: The fewer defaults you have the more imprecise your estimate of the PD. The worst case is when there have been no defaults: a naive estimate is $PD=0$ but common sense tells us that cannot be true: sooner or later there will be some defaults if we follow enough companies for a long enough time. "It has not happened yet" is not the same es "it will never happen".
Answer: A low default portfolio (LDP) problem is encountered more often in case of wholesale lending portfolios where the number of borrowers is much less compared to retail lending portfolios where the number of borrowers run into tens of thousands and consequently low default portfolios are often the exception. A useful presentation on negotiating low default portfolios can be found here.
This presentation has references to other important work done on working with LDPs.
Answer: So there are two issues present in estimating the probability of default, the scarcity of observed defaults and the form of the model.  For simplicity, we will restrict ourselves to Pearson-Neyman decision theory and Bayesian decision theory.  Presumably, if you are calculating a default rate or a probability of default, you are going to do something with this information.  If that is not the case, as may be true in academic research, then you should note that the likelihood-based solution will be similar to the Frequentist solution anyway.
@AlexC points out the obvious extreme case, that the number of observed defaults is zero.  If you used a simple counting mechanism such as defaults/total observations then in a Frequentist methodology, the projected probability of default is zero.  It won't happen.  Don't worry about it.  Of course, this is naive, as is also pointed out by @AlexC.  The Bayesian alternative is problematic in that a solution is not unique.  The solution will depend entirely upon the prior alone.  Although the data will influence the final solution, the posterior estimate will be heavily determined by the estimate prior to collecting any data.
To put this in a real-world context, consider a firm that had 1,000 credit transactions with customers and no defaults.  For simplicity, assume that if there is a default then there is no possibility of partial recovery.  That simplicity has to go away, but let's keep this simple.  The firm is seeking a bank loan to expand and the bank will do so but rejects their accounting department's "allowance for doubtful debt."  They want compensating balances to cover the allowance.
The problem of using a Bayesian method is that you have to state your beliefs about the default rate, prior to collecting data.  Of course, this could be retrospective and one could say "last year I believed the default rate would be $\mu\pm\sigma$.
The question is what density function to use.  Someone could use the uniform distribution as the prior distribution, which is the same thing as saying all possible default rates are equally possible.  The difficulty with this solution is that it probably is not credible.  If something is a rare event, then probably everyone knows it is a rare event.  In fact, if you believed that there was an equal chance of 999 defaults and 1 default, then your pricing would probably drive all customers out of the credit market.
So let's consider a simpler prior density, where any default rate $\theta$ is more probable to the left and less probable to the right.  The easiest version of this is the triangle distribution.  It's density is $2(1-\theta).$  This is tempting because all it says is small values are more probable than large values.  The challenge is that the prior expected rate of default is 33%, which is not a rare event.
Alternatively, one could ask the managers what they expected.  Let's assume the manager said that from prior experience they expected a one percent, plus or minus one percent rate of default.  Using the beta distribution as a model, that is approximately a beta distribution of one default per ninety-seven successes.  The prior density is $97(1-\theta)^{96}$.
If you have not noticed, we haven't even begun to discuss things like logistic regression.
So now let's consider our four possible default rate calculations, the Frequentist, the uniform distribution, the triangular distribution and the density from an expert.
Under the Frequentist solution, the probability of default is zero and the confidence interval is zero in width so it is [0,0].
The Bayesian estimate using the uniform is one default per 1002 transactions.  The Bayesian 95% highest density credible interval is (0.00253%,.368%).
The Bayesian estimate using the triangular distribution is one default per one thousand and three observations.  The Bayesian 95% highest density credible interval is (0.00253%,.367%)
The Bayesian estimate using the expert managerial opinion is one per one thousand and ninety-eight observations.  The Bayesian 95% highest density credible interval is (0.00231%, .336%).
Of course, the deeper issue is that we have estimated a parameter on an event we have never even seen once.
Let's assume they got the bank loan, and there were 2,000 total observations the next year and nine were defaults.  Strangely, the results must depart because the Frequentist solution is to treat this as a new sample.  While you could combine them in a meta-analysis, or if you were doing an analysis of the entire set, the default is to separate them as separate samples.  Repetition is important in Frequentist theory.  We will solve it both ways, however, since someone approaching the problem for the first time at the end of the second year wouldn't see the first year as a different sample.
The second year estimate would be .45% with a confidence interval of (.430%,.470%).
The joint year estimate would be .3% with a confidence interval of (.289%,.311%).
To simplify, only the "expert" decision will be tested.  The mean parameter estimate is .323%.  The 95% highest density credible interval is (.155%,.551%).  The last Bayesian posterior would become the prior for the new estimate.
You might ask yourself, "why is the Bayesian estimate so wide compared to the Frequentist?"  The Bayesian method basically takes the uncertainty around rare events as more substantial than Frequentist methods would imply.  While the Frequentist joint estimate is quite tight with a width of .022%, the Bayesian is quite wide with a width of .396%.  That is 18 times wider than the Frequentist method.
The difference is created by how the two methods interpret uncertainty.  The Frequentist assumes the true model is known and since it is known only chance remains.  The Bayesian method does not assume the true model is known and the infinite set of possible true models is assigned a probability distribution that it is the true model.
Basically, a Frequentist prediction is a prediction built on an expectation, while the Bayesian method provides an expectation of a prediction.  P(E(X)) versus E(P(X)).
If the probability had been nearer to 50% then the Bayesian interval would tend to be inside the Frequentist interval because you have seen so many examples of both cases.
Which of the two should you consider using?  If your question is of a true or false nature, such as $H_0:.1\le\theta$, then you should use the Frequentist solution.  On the other hand, if the true value of $\theta$ matters, particularly if you are gambling on the result as you would as the management creating a policy for recievables, then you should use the Bayesian method.
The reason is again based on how they handle uncertainty.  The Frequentist estimator is a form of an expectation.  As such it has nice properties when thinking in terms of truth or falsehood or more properly rejection of a null.  On the other hand, the Bayesian solution actually creates an entire statistical distribution of possible answers.  When you estimate the number of future events that could happen, a density function provides more information to the predictive estimate than a single point will, no matter how well chosen.
What has not been discussed are things such as logit, probit or related methods.  The biggest issue there is that your number of factors have to be small relative to your observed defaults.  Logit is the easier to discuss because it is directly related to the methods used above, except that the problem is converted into one of odds, to be more precise, log odds.
All the limitations seen above are present in logistic regression except that you are trying to condition the prediction on factors.  The difficulty here is that you have few examples of an event and so while factors may be very good at explaining variation among the observed non-defaults, they may not be good at predicting the difference between defaults and non-defaults.
The form is restricted by the size of defaults and non-defaults.  Imagine you were sure eight factors were involved in separating defaults from non-defaults, but you only saw nine examples of defaults.  Further, you think one factor is actually quadratic.  You will have an overfitting problem.  The very thing you need, which is a highly predictive model for these rare events, is the very thing you cannot have.  Fortunately, Bayesian model selection processes will provide a disciplined mechanism for you to make estimates with, but it would be very surprising to find the successful model had 8 factors with the above data.
On top of this, most defaults are not "all-or-nothing," and on top of this, you will need to model the actual amount at risk and not just the rate.  This will reduce your independent variables down quite a bit.
If your useage is academic or existential, then use the Frequentist method.  If this is being used for a business then the Bayesian method should be used.

Problem of PD estimation


hard wired remote WiFi access point

Question: I have a 1 gig netgear router connected to a 1 gig netgear switcher & then patched to my distribution throughout the house.  My router is in the basement & I would like to have a ethernet hard wired remote access at a high point in my house for better coverage.  What is the best solution or equipment for this.  I do not need the remote access to be a switch.
Comment: Can you please clarify on what you are trying to achieve. Are you trying to setup wireless access point on the second floor, but you don't have wired connection to the second floor? What remote access are you talking about.
Comment: I have a cat6 line up to the second floor which will give me much better coverage.
Answer: You can use either a wireless range extender or a wireless router (with DHCP turned off).
In either case, it's wired to your network with a LAN cable, to bridge your wireless connections to the basement. Both are going to give you unused ethernet jacks for now, but potentially usable in the future.
Comment: I actually only need an access point without it being a switcher if they make one.

hard wired remote WiFi access point


Does browser prefetching have an impact on stats from Google Analytics?

Question: Some pages can be prefetched by the browser (see this or that). If a user uses a browser that prefetches pages, will this be counted by Google Analytics? If there are 5 pages to be prefetched, will Google Analytics count that as 5 visits?
Answer: From this SO answer:

The prefetch only downloads the resources, but does not execute the
  code, or fire DOM events or so.
Given Google Analytics depends on running JS, I don't expect it to be
  affected.
Any server side analytics that track requests to the given resources
  will be affected though.
Comment: @Cedric: This answer is not a guess - it is a very reasonable assumption based on the information available.
Comment: I have found only guess on this question throughout the web. This answer on SO is one of them. He "don't expect" it.


Best way to ground an Intersystem Bonding Termination (IBT)?

Question: What is the best way to ground a IBT? To the main panel ground bar? directly to the UFER grounding electrodes?  Or to install the IBT on the meter base?
Comment: Can you not get access to the Grounding Electrode Conductor itself?
Comment: Yes, we can, house is still in rough-in stage...that's why I mentioned directly to the UFER ground as a potential (no pun intended).
Answer: D) None of the above
Most purpose-made Intersystem Bonding Termination devices are designed with a lay-in lug as part of them, designed to connect to a wire-type Grounding Electrode Conductor without disrupting the GEC, which is required by NEC 250.64(C) point 1 to be unspliced save for exothermic welds or irreversable compression splices.  As thus, I would do just that, mounting the device at a convenient point along the GEC and routing the GEC through the lay-in lug to make the connection.
If that is not an option, I would use a Burndy BDT mounted to the service equipment cabinet, with a minimum 6AWG bare copper bonding jumper inside the enclosure connecting the device to a ground bar.  This avoids having to reroute the GEC itself while still providing a convenient intersystem bonding termination point.
Comment: So would it be OK to simply run a ground wire to the UFER electrodes fro the IBT and call it good?   BTW, that was one of the above options in my OP.
Comment: Yeah, that works.  I thought your question implied attaching the IBT directly to the rebar stubup on the Ufer electrode or somesuch :p (which would be legal, but very, very odd)


PyDev in Eclipse seems not supporting incremental find

Question: Eclipse Galileo + PyDev 1.5.4
Looks like under PyDev environment, the incremental find is not working. Can anyone confirm this, please? Thanks.
Answer: Eclipse Helios + PyDev Nightly from a few days ago. Working normally. I guess it's a feature of the generic text editor so it should work no matter which environment you use. Try the newest PyDev version (add http://pydev.org/nightly as update site) or a fresh Eclipse installation/workspace. If it still doesn't work, file a bug report.
BTW did you look at this similar bug report?


is the consecutive day counter working properly?

Question: I have been visiting Apple.SO every day throughout the day including yesterday, and today I see the counter has gone from about 15 down to 1 :-( This is the second time it has happened (last time I was up to 13) so its beginning to bug me.
Answer: You may be falling on the wrong side of when the server rolls over between days - the day changes at midnight GMT (10 AM in Brisbane, 8 PM EST) so if you don't visit between 10 AM today and 10 AM tomorrow you won't have visited for 24 hours despite having visited once each day (eg. 9:30 AM today and say noon tomorrow).
Check out Consecutive Day count reset this morning on MSO for a similar situation.
Also, just visiting the front page isn't always enough to make it count.
Comment: Sucks to be me then :-( I would really appreciate a change in the way that bit of functionality works, because at the moment I feel like its screwing me over.


Can a planet mostly covered with water exist in a perpetual sunset?

Question: I have read many posts about planets in perpetual sunset or twilight. Tidal locking, perpetual sunset at the poles of a planet with zero axis tilt, and so on. Great information by the way. This question is similar.  Can a planet that is mostly covered in water be in a state of perpetual sunset? And can the sunset be significantly larger than our own sunsets and still be habitable by humans?  My short story takes place on a water world in perpetual sunset.
Comment: If the question is similar, why would not the answers be similar? Water should not affect axial tilt, and if anything it should make tidal locking happen faster.
Comment: @Hohmannfan because water bends light, and a planet with an (largely) unbroken curved surface of water could have longer periods of twilight, especially with greater amounts of water vapor in the air.
Comment: Hmm, what is a "larger sunset"?
Comment: Can you provide more information as to why tidal locking or zero axis tilt would not do the trick? Do you want the water everywhere on the planet always to be liquid? Also an entire planet can not be in the state of perpetual sunset (unless you abandon physics and go for full magic), you will always have zones of light and darkness, so can you clarify that part as well?
Answer: It depends on the nature of your story.
Fantasy: go for it! In the bible, God made the sun stand still so his prize fighters could finish whooping some ***. No reason divine will of some sort could engineer something of the sort!
High Sci-Fi (meaning "more out-there"): Yes, you might want to set the stage a bit more (a closer, ice moon that reflects more light than we are used to, crystalline formations at the poles or in the air, water vapor, etc.) to make it feel plausible. But look at worlds for sci-fi settings like Halo . . . if your story is good enough, your audience will help you with the suspension of disbelief.
Low Sci-Fi (like low-fantasy): Maybe. If your sci-fi story is trying to stay grounded, you will want to set the stage with extremely plausible reasons why the planet is perpetually in twilight. Just "mostly water" won't cut it. You need something that almost constantly eclipses the sun, and something else (a not-very-distant second star system?) that provides weak light to the dark side of your planet. Or, perhaps the planet is tidally locked and the dark side is a frozen wasteland? That opens more cans of worms for the planet. To sum up, it may be doable, but it won't be easy.
Answer: Give the planet an ring set askew of the sun-ward plane such that its shadow is constantly cast upon part of the planet.  Have your "twilight" be caused by sunlight reflecting off of (and through) ice particles in the ring.  This would definitely meet your desire for "significantly larger" as it could fill most of the sky.
Now for the perpetual part, set your story on a floating resort city which deliberately cruises through the shadowed waters, constantly keeping up with the planetary rotation and/or currents, such that its' guests are always under the "twilight".  Imagining how beautiful the skies under the shadow might be, it is easy to understand why they might choose such a course, purely for aesthetics and guest appeal.
Alternatively, the shadow could be the only habitable part of the world, with everywhere under direct sunlight too irradiated and with the nighttime side too cold for easy living.  The city ship's efforts to stay in the shadow would therefore be for survival sake.  Whenever the ship is out of shadow, it needs to shield all its windows and cover its food-growing fields to save them from the sun or the frost.  Only in the twilight shadow is it safe to grow food and pursue other activities on the deck.
Comment: The ring's shadow moves with the seasons.


Why is /dev a subdirectory of / (the root)?

Question: Why is /dev a subdirectory of / (the root)? I ask because isn't everything in the file system also mounted from the computer's hard disk which show up in /dev? Then why isn't dev the root directory and then all the disks will show up there.
Comment: When you say "isn't everything in the file system also mounted from the computer's hard disk" I don't really know what you mean. I guess your root filesystem is *probably* (but not necessarily) from a block device which appears in `/dev`, but this does not usually pose a problem. Are you referring to the bootstrap problem (how to mount anything at boot time before anything is mounted)? If yes, then the details depend on the OS (and sometimes distro) which you didn't specify...
Answer: I believe Unix V1 would be run from a single disk. It had no real VFS. You can find the system filesystem at the root of the namespace, /. No indirection required; no SYSTEMROOT = c:/windows variable. Remember this was hand-written assembly code. Minimalist ideas were very useful.
The ideas here are often described in terms of their elegance. I want to run /bin/ls from the running system, or read the contents of /etc/motd.  I don't need to think about how the disk is called every time (DOS' C:).
Drive letters on DOS / CPM  actually pre-date their implementation of a hierarchical filesystem.  But you could also consider them as a user interface feature which made different tradeoffs, for systems which made very heavy use of filesystems on floppy disks.  In fact, you can run a DOS system disk, remove it, and continue using the DOS shell to run programs on a second disk. So you do end up wanting a way to refer to drives that doesn't depend on special files from the system filesystem, because you don't exactly have a system filesystem that's mounted all the time.
Drive letters don't appear to have much relevance on modern systems; Unix is feeling somewhat smug here :).
Unix V1 already had paths like /dev and /etc that people and code were internalizing. Also from the beginning, mount was used for "detachable filesystems".
(A second disk /usr was used in subsequent versions. The search path - PATH environment variable - was added to support the second bin directory, /usr/bin.)
Messing around with the standard paths is generally a cause for excessive drama (even when there's a good reason).  They've been reformed somewhat over time, and you can see this in Linux.  But no-one found a compelling reason to e.g. stick C: in front of everything.
Answer: It's a convention. Simply called Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. There is nothing more to it.
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
Answer: This is because the device files you find in /dev aren't actually mount points *. They're just handy filesystem-based references to access the devices themselves. You can see a similar sort of hierarchy under /sys — particularly, look in /sys/block.
Why is something like /dev/sda a special type of file rather than a directory under which there are subdirectories for different partitions, and then the filesystem contents of those partitions under that? It's mostly just because. The designers of Unix could have done something like that, but this is what they did instead.
Why /dev instead of just putting the device files in / directly? Well, there's a lot of files in there. It would look ugly. You could do it if you want, though. Take a look at, for example, /dev/sda:
$ ls -l /dev/sda
brw-rw----. 1 root disk 8, 0 Apr 27 23:18 /dev/sda

The b at the beginning indicates that this is a block device, and the "8, 0" are the major and minor device numbers — basically magic, predefined numbers which the kernel knows correspond to a particular driver.
You can create these wherever you want. For example:
$ sudo mknod /tmp/this-is-my-main-disk-drive b 8 0
$ ls -l /tmp/this-is-my-main-disk-drive
brw-r--r--. 1 root root 8, 0 May  1 14:31 /tmp/this-is-my-main-disk-drive
$ sudo fdisk -l /tmp/this-is-my-main-disk-drive
Disk /tmp/this-is-my-main-disk-drive: 477 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
[...]

Note, though, that I've created a major security hole, since this device is now readable by everyone on the system. Don't do that.

* well, except for a few things which are, but for simplicity's sake let's ignore them right now.


Bought Drupal Organization Membership But Cannot Create Listing

Question: Recently, I bought DRUPAL ORGANZIATION MEMBERSHIP at $200 but now i am unable add my listing in drupal organzation list. And it also shows "not a confirmed user". Can someone help me with this ??
Comment: Drupal Association Orgranization Membership is not necessarily coupled to Organization listing. You can create an organization here https://www.drupal.org/node/add/organization, but there are some requirements for this and your application needs to be confirmed by the community. And in the first term your user needs to be confirmed (anti-spam policy), read this https://www.drupal.org/node/1887616 (this needs some involvement on the drupal.org pages and/or confirmation from other users).
Comment: Finally if your organization has been approved, you need to link it with your membership, which might need the help of Drupal Association support.
Answer: I understand that you've already created an organization page for Elsner Technologies Pvt. Ltd. on the Drupal marketplace, but that you want the listing to appear as a Drupal services provider.
If this is not yours, you may request its removal, or that ownership of the node is transferred to you so that you can edit it in the Drupal webmasters issue queue.
I've found this 4 year old application – which was denied.
The guidelines for being listed in Marketplace still apply, and you still do not qualify.  Unfortunately, having a Drupal organization membership does not qualify for a listing.  I suggest you re-read the comment given by lizzjoy as it contains good advice.
Comment: How can i remove the old listing?? Can please guide me...
Comment: @ElsnerTechnologies Updated answer about removing old listing.
Answer: Being able to create an organization is not linked to buying the Drupal Organization Membership but to having the confirmed role. You need to request the confirmed role in the webmasters' queue, explaining that you need it to create the organization node. If you don't give that information, the webmasters will postpone the request until you don't post on drupal.org.
As for associating the organization membership with your organization, I cannot reply about that, but it's better to ask for support using the Drupal Association contact link. If you choose to contact them online, the Contact the Drupal Association green button will redirect you to https://www.drupal.org/contact. Select Drupal Association membership as category, enter the subject, the message, and click on Send message.
Disclaimer
I am one of the Drupal.org webmasters and user administrators.
Comment: Sure..I will submit a request but one more thing is that the organisation member badge doesn't show up. Will it appear once i become confirmed member??
Comment: I guess it will appear when the organization node is created, and you associate the account to that organization.


Regarding Android auto application development resources folder

Question: If we are targeting our application to support android auto too, how can I have the Auto layout look different from the phone/tablet layout?
In order to achieve that, is there an option to put a separate res folder inside resources?
And I want to know how the UI will render on the screen of Vehicle as the apk is inside mobile.
Answer: Well, I have a bad news for you: you don't get to touch the Android Auto's UI at all.
There are only two kind of Apps you can develop for Auto,

*Audio apps that allow users to browse and play music and spoken audio content in the car.
  *Messaging apps that receive incoming notifications, read messages aloud via text-to-speech, and send replies via voice input in the car.

For Audio app, they require you to provide a service which they can call and get information, contents from your app. (Like Delegate in iOS?)
For Messaging app, your notifications would be shown as long as contain the CarExtender.
So.. no custom UI, no custom App.
p.s. UI are drawn on phone and send to car dashboard.
Answer: We have an update on this, now we are able to develop media apps, messaging apps, navigation/parking/charging apps.
For more details refer this click here


In the UK, which ATS unit would be responsible for CTR entry clearances?

Question: In the UK, which ATS unit would be responsible for CTR entry clearances? Would the approach controller issue them, or would the approach controller need to co-ordinate a clearance from the aerodrome controller? If the former, I assume the approach controller would pre-note the aerodrome controller?
Comment: Are you talking about IFR or VFR? For IFR flights the clearances are usually given by clearance delivery before departure.
Comment: Sorry should have specified, I'm referring to VFR.
Answer: The answer depends on which aerodrome you are talking about, and can be found in the UK AIP: http://www.nats-uk.ead-it.com/public/index.php%3Foption=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=165&Itemid=3.html
Click eAIP to open the electronic AIP. In the left menu, open the AD 2 Aerodromes section and navigate to the aerodrome in question. Then open the AD 2.17 section of that aerodrome.
In AD 2.17, airspaces related to the specific aerodrome are listed. Column 1 contains the airspace designator and lateral limits. Column 4 contains the responsible ATS unit.
As an example - the Birmingham (EGBB) CTR is controlled by Birmingham Approach.


How can I set a single .bashrc file for several users?

Question: during my work I need to constantly add alias commands to bashrc, most of those commands needs to be runed by other users. is there any way I could add alias commands to a bashrc from external source?
Answer: Many config files in users home directory just override/add to ones in the /etc - for example the settings for GIMP in the users home are in ~/.gimp-2.*, which adds to the system-wide config /etc/gimp/2.0.
So for ~/.bashrc, you could edit the system wide config files /etc/bash.bashrc (for functions/aliases) or /etc/profile (for environment stuff) - you can the full list from man bash:
FILES
       /bin/bash
              The bash executable
       /etc/profile
              The systemwide initialization file, executed for login shells
       /etc/bash.bash_logout
              The systemwide login shell cleanup file, executed when a login shell exits
       ~/.bash_profile
              The personal initialization file, executed for login shells
       ~/.bashrc
              The individual per-interactive-shell startup file
       ~/.bash_logout
              The individual login shell cleanup file, executed when a login shell exits
       ~/.inputrc
              Individual readline initialization file

This warning is given for a few Linux systems in the files:
# It's NOT a good idea to change this file unless you know what you
# are doing. It's much better to create a custom.sh shell script in
# /etc/profile.d/ to make custom changes to your environment, as this
# will prevent the need for merging in future updates.

So you could edit those files, you may want to back them up first (cp /etc/bash.bashrc /etc/bash.bashrc-backup for example), or create a shell script in /etc/profile.d - for example you can create one with these commands (with sudo/as root):
touch /etc/profile.d/custom.sh
chmod +x /etc/profile.d/custom.sh

Then open it with nano /etc/profile.d/custom.sh
#!/bin/sh
alias ls='ls -lah'

And check whether it works by seeing if it appears in the output of alias - Note that you may need to logout/login or reboot to see any changes (if you don't want to, running source /etc/profile after any changes might work)
Comment: Plenty of good suggestions there. I think there is one other option, which would be worth mentioning as well. One can edit `/etc/skel/.bashrc` to change what the contents of `~/.bashrc` will look like for newly created users.
Comment: AFAIK alias in `/etc/profile.d/` will *not* be picked up by sub-process right? So the alias is only available when Bash is the log-in shell?
Comment: @kasperd - nice idea (you could do a answer on it if you want)
Comment: In my experience, `~/.bash_logout` and `/etc/bash.bash_logout` do not work. :(
Comment: I think some of them only work when its used in say a TTY as the only environment, in a desktop terminal some of them may not be used. I'd have to test this to verify this though and can't at the moment!
Answer: Go to /etc/bash.bashrc

vim /etc/bash.bashrc

and make your alias there.
add your alias in last line.

alias abc="whatever"

That alias will become global for all users.
but for security reasons we dont recommend you that.
there is profile.d directory which contains user-environment files
go to

cd /etc/profile.d/
vim aliases

and add your aliases here.
without effecting your system files. It is safe and right way to work with your environment files.
Answer: There's already an accepted answer here, but you might consider using some form of environment modules to handle system-wide configuration of user environments rather than messing with the files in /etc/profile.d, etc. This is especially true if you want to manage this control in one place across lots of shells. Lmod (under very active development), C/TCL modules (the classic solution), or Cmod (lightweight).
Answer: Don't know if I'm doing it right, but it works for me to keep a /home/ComunAtodos directory (capitalized and in spanish to make evident that it is not a linux native directory) and put .bashrc, .nanorc and .bash_aliases there.
Then I reference those in /etc/skel/.profile so new users point to them, and only add extras to specific users that need them.
Answer: I'm really new to Linux operativ system, but i did a sketch of a bash script that works to modify all the users .bashrc file and not the system file /etc/.bashrc file.
#!/bin/bash

X=$( cat etc/passwd | cut -f1 -d: ) #All-users

For X in /home/*/.bashrc ; do

echo "alias ls='ls -al'" >> $X

2>/dev/null

done

source $X

exit 0

Okay so i know that that script works, but i don't if it's fault free :)
Also u can modify it so it doesn't involves all the users, maybe u make a file for all the users that need their .bashrc file customized.
Comment: First line (where you read /etc/passwd) seems to do nothing.  Your 4th line seems to be a mistake (and I don't see why you'd want to suppress errors).  "exit 0" is redundant.  This requires all users to already have a `.bashrc` file, and always appends regardless of whether the line is already in their file.
Comment: I was thinking to get the names of all users with that line? But now that i think about it i could just do cut < /etc/passwd, there was alot of names on that list so i didn't want IT to make errrors for those who doesn't have bashrc filé. How can u append only if the line doesn't exist ? And could u Write the proper script for this type of rask please i have only been using Linux for a week.
Comment: Looks like you already have some skills but this tutorial is a good one for shell scripting: https://www.shellscript.sh/ .
For other questions such as how to append a line only if it doesn't already exist, feel free to ask them as new questions on here.


Topology and geometry books for particle physicists

Question: What is the best book covering basics of topology and geometry for particle physics  graduate student who wants to go deeper into gauge theories and string theory? I am looking for something which is not horribly rigorous and verbose.
Answer: There are several texts that offer introductions to topology and geometry for physicists, but I feel that a complete education, at least sufficient for physics, requires a pathway through many books. I have outlined my thoughts for what would be best below:
Point Set Topology
Any introductory topology necessitates an understanding of basic point set topology. I personally would recommend the point set topology chapter in Lee's Introduction to Topological Manifolds, as the chapter is very clear and sufficiently comprehensive.
Basic Topology and Algebraic Topology
I think nobody would question Munkres' Topology as a great introduction to the subject, and I find it goes well when paired with Hatcher's Algebraic Topology.
Applications of Topology
Once you have gone through those, and are interested in applying the concepts you've learned in physics, I would recommend Classical Solutions in Quantum Field Theory by Weinberg as well as Nakahara's textbook, Geometry, Topology and Physics for applications; not the maths.
Fibre Bundles
Fibre bundles are ubiquitous in mathematical physics, and a great introduction to fibre bundles is provided by Husemoller's, Fibre Bundles. For a book on understanding the topology of fibre bundles, such as the homotopy theory, especially on a conceptual level, Steenrod's Topology of Fibre Bundles while dated will ensure a thorough understanding.
Smooth Manifolds (Geometry)
Lee's Introduction to Smooth Manifolds provides a sufficiently rigorous but still accessible introduction to the subject, and includes the language of tensor calculus and differential forms, as well as for example the Mayer-Vietoris sequence from algebraic topology to understand cohomology calculations of manifolds.
Algebraic Geometry
I personally feel Principles of Algebraic Geometry by Griffiths is a suitable introduction for physicists. This is because it introduces algebraic geometry from initially a more differential geometric perspective, and it provides an introduction to complex manifolds and Riemann surfaces whilst also enhancing your understanding of complex analysis, all of which are essential tools in mathematical physics, most notably in string theory.

Another answer has recommended Nakahara's Topology, Geometry and Physics whilst I have only suggested this for applications. I strongly advise that you do not rely on Nakahara's text for learning the geometry and topology itself, as the book is extremely encyclopaedic and does not work through anything thoroughly, but instead provides rather superficial descriptions before quickly going on to another topic. It's trying to cram too much into one book.
Comment: Yes I would agree that Nakahara is somewhat encyclopedic, and there is a lot in there.  The book by Lee never felt to me like it was targeted at physicists but to each his/her own.
Comment: @ZeroTheHero Many of the books I've mentioned were not *targeted* to physicists but the point is whether they turned out to be accessible to physicists. The intentions of the authors are irrelevant if they make for good introductions for physicists (compared to other options).
Comment: fair point.  The intent of the OP is not completely clear in that regard.  I use Nakahara (and others) as starting point and indeed as you suggest as a kind of encyclopedia from where I branch off if need be.  I actually like it precisely because it's a good starting point.
Comment: @ZeroTheHero Maybe you can elaborate on that in your answer then, as in how you'd branch off.
Answer: The book by Mikio Nakahara Geometry, Topology and Physics was originally published in a series of Graduate Texts in Physics; there is a new publisher and a new (3rd) edition and I only have the 1st edition.  I believe the author wanted to add some material on quantum information in the new edition.
Regardless, you can check out the comments on various sites.  The text is advanced in concepts but written with physicists (graduate students or above) as a target audience.  It is an excellent starting point.


How can I increase my delegate count?

Question: In Brave New World what increases the delegate count for the World Congress/United Nations? Is there anything I can build to get more votes?
Comment: I think as of the second or third era of the World Congress, allied City States give you additional votes. Other than that I'm not sure.
Comment: Patronage social policy tree and city-states.. nuff said.
Answer: The base number of delegates each Civ gets is based on the era. The host of the congress starts with an extra delegate, which increases as the base number of delegates goes up during the Eras. The host is voted on again each time the congress enters a new Era. Once the Industrial Era has been reached, city-state allies provide additional delegates.
According to in-game Era-change pop-ups:

Renaissance Era: 1 for being a member, +1 for being
the host, and +0 per allied city-state.
Industrial Era: 2 for being a member, +1 for being
the host, and +1 per allied city-state.
Atomic Era: 3 for being a member, +2 for being
the host, and +1 per allied city-state.
Information Era: 4 for being a member, +2 for being the host, and +2
per allied city-state.

The Forbidden Palace Wonder gives +2 delegates.
The Globalization technology gives +1 delegate per spy assigned as Diplomat you have in another Civs Capital City.
If the World Congress enacts a World Religion, you get +2 delegates from being a member of that religion.
If the World Congress enacts a World Ideology, you get +2 delegates from being a member of that ideology.
You can also trade votes with other Civs through the Diplomacy screen provided that you have a spy assigned as a Diplomat in their capital.
Comment: the forbidden palace is very powerful because of the extra 2 delegates. I speared headed a war against a Civ to remove them from power as they seemed to control all the resolutions after becoming host.
Answer: There are a few ways that you can gain delegates throughout the game.

The player hosting the congress gets one* extra delegate, but only while they are the host. The player that builds the World Congress is the first host. From then on the host is voted in using the same process as enacting legislation.
* IIRC this bonus increases through the eras.
Each civilization gains one delegate once everyone has progressed to the next era.
Beginning in the Industrial Era, you gain one delegate for each city-state ally.
You can trade delegate votes for the next session using the normal trade mechanics.

How can I increase my delegate count?


Which hero is more effective to boost as Ana in Junkenstein Brawl?

Question: In terms of effectiveness in killing the minibosses that spawn periodically (Reaper, Roadhog, Mercy, and Junkrat) which hero is better to nano boost? For example would boosting a Soldier: 76 who is ulting help more than boosting a McCree who is ulting?
Answer: You will definitely want to boost Mccree to take down the bosses, but not right as the boss spawns, especially in higher difficulties. The bosses have too much HP and will need longer than the full 10 seconds of charging to kill them with Deadeye even when boosted by Ana. You will want to chip down bosses before using Deadeye. All of the bosses have some way to heal aside from Junkenstein himself, so you will want Deadeye to be used to finish off the kill.
Soldier does get guaranteed hits with his ultimate, but they are limited to body shots which simply don't deal enough damage even with the boost in damage.
Hanzo is too heavily dependant on accuracy since his arrows are not hitscan like Mccree and Soldier. I do not believe his Ultimate gets more damage from being boosted. Even if it were, the bosses move around too much for it to be much help, again aside from Junkenstein who sticks to his small ledge.
Comment: I agree with this, and I like your reasoning as to why the other characters aren't as good. Soldier will have a much easier time just going for headshots, rather than trying to nano-ult the bosses.
Answer: McCree, no question about it. His ult does by far the most damage, charging by 170 damage every second before firing.


Can I connect a UMC202HD Directly to my pc via the units rear outputs?

Question: I see that there are many issues with win10/11 and drivers. I was wondering if I just use the USB for power and use an audio cable to connect the unit directly to my pc via the line-in?
Comment: The best solution to your problem is to buy a product that isn't plagued by driver issues.
Comment: Any suggestion would be great thanks. My setup is just to improve my mic for better audio. Im not sure if a condenser mic with a usb for direct connection would be ok? But im struggling with my headphone mic not being loud enough on calls.
Answer: Using an audio interface as a USB-powered preamp is possible.  However, it is not designed for that purpose, so results really depend on the particular interface.  A principal difference is between (typically older and/or simpler interfaces) analog monitoring and "zero-latency" digital monitoring (where "zero" means actually something like 5ms, the time to convert samples from analog to digital including the necessary analog/digital filtering and back again and adding enough cycles for digital processing).
Sometimes interfaces offer channel inserts still in the analog pathway: those are also without either artifacts or delay from digital conversion/processing but offer only unbalanced connectivity.
Of course you cannot expect anything but the quality from the A/D conversion of the interface you ultimately use at the end, and integrated soundcard input quality is notoriously bad.  Separate PCI soundcards will tend to be better but have to deal with being in the same enclosure as a lot of electric disturbances.
The price point of modern-day class-compliant audio hardware is such that you really should think twice before engaging in that kind of revitalizing old hardware.  Sometimes it's just easier to sell the old gear to Linux users whose systems tend to have no more problems working with old hardware than they had 15 years ago.
Answer: If your goal is to use the device as an audio interface, then no, you cannot just connect a line-in to the behringer device.  The device needs a way to send digital data to and from the PC- and USB is the only way.
With just a line-in- I'm not clear if you're suggesting a line from the behringer device to PC or vice versa.  With PC to device, the only thing it would do for you is play sounds from your PC (or any other connected devices) through your headphones or speakers.  With device to PC, you could record sound from a microphone or guitar, but only 2 channels at a time, and you can't play any sound through the behringer device.  Monitoring will be a pain, and time delay compensation may be a pain as well.  In both cases, you're just using the "direct monitor" feature to use the device as a preamp of sorts.
Comment: Basically the idea is to use line 1 for a condenser mic, line 2 for the pc output(game audio only). Use the mixer to control the volume/mix. I would use the direct monitor to hear the balance. Then output back to the pc the mixed audio for recording. There by bypassing any driver and software issues.
Comment: You could do that (I think... I haven't tried it with that specific interface but I expect it will work).  But if you just want mixer, you may as well just buy a mixer.  You might not even need that though- most recording programs can record sounds from your PC already, and also provide a virtual mixer.  All you need is a microphone and a way to plug it in.  You already have that, but it's too quiet.  So, is that the problem you're really trying to solve?  That the mic is too quiet?


Microwaves and state of matter

Question: Does the heating efficiency of a microwave oven depend on the state of matter that it heats? If yes, how?
Comment: Yes, very much so. It also strongly depends on what the matter is.
Answer: Yes ! The heating efficiency of a microwave depends on the efficiency of microwave generation AND where the microwave power is absorbed - in food, in air (very inefficient), in the oven itself (as when the oven is empty).
Liquids and solids, being denser than gas, absorb waves more effectively, but there is à huge difference between polar (such as water) and non-polar molecules. Metals reflect instead of absorb (because of free charges).
Notethat solid water (ice) absorbs less than liquid water because the molecules are "locked" in position and therefire cant be accelerated as much by rotation resonance with the electric field.
Answer: A microwave oven is a Radio Frequency power source, it excites polar molecules through "dielectric heating". As mentioned above the energy will have less effect the lower the material density, as there are fewer molecules to excite per unit volume.
As heat is thermal motion of atoms and molecules, the heat is more efficiently transferred through materials where the molecules are tightly bound.  In a gas, you may excite a gas molecule or atom but it has to travel a comparatively large distance to impart any of that energy to it's neighbor or impart that heat energy on an object.
It all comes down to density.

Microwaves and state of matter


Why would a country prefer to purchase Su-35 rather than Su-30MK?

Question: Given that the Su-35 is merely an upgrade from the Su-27, why is Indonesia purchasing Su-35?
Comment: so for what tasks is su-30 series better than su-27 series? air to surface attack? do they need it? or do they want to save money and have a lighter specialized fighter for air-to-air combat?
Answer: There can be many reasons for such a choice. The first is a single seat air-defense fighter, the other is a two-seat multirole  air-superiority fighter according to Wikipedia. The cost can be another reason; depending on configuration it seems that the two aircraft have an overlap with both types starting around USD \$40 million per aircraft.
Indonesia already operate a fleet of several single-seat types, such as the Su-27, F-5 and F-16, so it might simply be easier to transition to another single seat fighter. They do have a small number of Su-30 already, so it could also be a desire to use each type for the optimal mission, rather than having one type do everything.


Any way to use sftp as superuser?

Question: I'm using Transmit.app (in Mac) to sftp to my Ubuntu server. Is there any way to gain superuser permission so that I can remotely write any file?
Comment: Have you tried logging in as root on the Ubuntu Server? Does it work then?
Comment: Yes, I've enabled root in Ubuntu. I can ssh to it as root, but sftp doesn't work.
Answer: It's generally not recommended that you allow direct root remote access. If you enable direct root login via SSH, anyone could attempt to brute-force your root password, at which point they can do whatever they like with your server.
That said, if you're set on doing this, you should set up public key login, as it's more secure than password-based login. That page includes instructions on how to set this up for root.  Once you have that configured, you can configure your SFTP client to login via key rather than password.
Answer: Why not using SCP ?
There is a good client for osx -> click
It's over SSH and allows you to login on whatever user as long as it is allowed to login via ssh.
Comment: Using scp will be no problem. Does cyberduck allow to pass sudo where necessary?
Comment: I found similar sudo question here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3381498/how-to-use-sudo-over-sftp-with-cyberduck

Any way to use sftp as superuser?


Where to make the changes to enable an InfoPath 2007 Form to open in a browser.

Question: At present an Infopath 2007 form will not open in a browser. I am looking for a way to force
it to open in a browser and a description of how to do this,
Comment: First of all, what is your edition of SharePoint ?
Comment: It is SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise edition
Comment: Is it a form from a form library? a standalone form displayed by the browser form webpart? If it's the former, check in the list settings that the form should open in web browser. Also check that the Enterprise features (web and site) are activated.
Answer: Make sure that InfoPath Forms Services (SharePoint Server 2010) are configured   (in Central Administration under Farm Administrators SharePoint group account)
For a library form check Sharepoint workbook opening in Microsoft InfoPath Filler 2010 rather than Microsoft InfoPath Designer 2010, for a Sharepoint List Form check this my answer


C# Javascript iframe resize

Question: How do you auto resise an iframe after you've added content to a div in the code behind. I'm called
<code>function resizeIframe() {
  parent.document.getElementById('iframe2').style.height = document.getElementById('events_calendar').offsetHeight;
}
</code>
but i'm about 20 px short. BAsically i've got a calendar that renders whats on on a certain day. this can be n number of lines. after i've popuplated that div in C# code behind I'm call resizeIframe() and not getting anywhere. i've tired style.height, clientheight etc.
Thanks
Frames
Answer: What you really need is "outerheight".
see: Javascript/jQuery outerHeight()

C# Javascript iframe resize


Could humans survive on a planet with only deuterium 'heavy water' made with hydrogen isotopes?

Question: If all the fresh water were at least 25% deuterium, would humans be able to survive?
Would there be significant other detrimental side effects to human physiology as a result?
Comment: From HDE's answer, it sounds a little bit dangerous. If you cut it back to twenty or fifteen percent, and you'll be fine.
Comment: Of importance would be if these were humans who colonized the planet, or 'humans' who evolved independently on the planet such that life adapted to the heavy water.
Comment: Note that people usually drink processed water. You **could** process drinking and irrigation water to have reduced deuterium if you have the technology for it. Making this a question of economics, not survival.
Comment: Relevant Wikipedia article: [Heavy_water#Effect_on_biological_systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water#Effect_on_biological_systems)
Answer: It depends.
Heavy water proves toxic to human cells at levels ~20% of a human's body weight (although other sources give 25%). At lower levels, however, it's harmless. Given that ~2/3 of a human's body weight is water, you'd have to have much higher ratios of D2O to H2O than you have in this scenario.
Even at levels from 15%-20% body weight, heavy water may produce no adverse effects. In this world, therefore, it seems like humans would be fine.
Raise heavy water levels, though, and things could get really bad. Death comes to mind at very high concentrations.
Answer: This is a problem on Venus the solar wind unslowed by a decent magnetic field has blown a lot of the standard hydrogen away. Eucaryote Mitosis stops at about 20% heavy water so we would have to extract the heavy water before using the light water for agriculture or culinary purposes.
Considering a sizable chunk of our ecosystem including most of our food is eucaryotic there my be some discomfort.
conclusion: a tiny fraction of humanity survives in a very different world. Domed farms with sprinklers because the rain is too heavy. There would onlt be intentional macro-organisms like a moon base. Vastly smaller population and nobody living apart from the main groups. A silent landscape of dead trees and slimy water from the prokaryote explosion caused by all the resources freed up by the mass die off.
Answer: It depends on the rate of uptake and retention of the heavy portion in the human body, if the human metabolism for some reason has a biochemical propensity to take up heavy water (DHO) preferential to standard H2O then an environment with concentrations much lower than the proposed 25% could be deadly since DHO can be toxic at high levels and it would be taken in at a higher rate. On the other hand if the bodily uptake of heavy water is lower than that for normal water much higher levels of heavy water would be required to poison someone.
Humans are about 70% water to get to lethal 20-25% of total body weight you need to saturate someone to between 30 and 35% of their total bodily water with heavy water to kill them and between 20 and 30% to start seeing ill effects. So assuming that heavy water is taken up in the same way as regular water and retained without prejudice then the environment described could be rather harmful but wouldn't be lethal. From my classwork on forams I know that most living organisms actually retain H2O preferentially to DHO since it "fits" better into biochemical structures so you probably need slightly higher levels than the pure math above would indicate.
That doesn't however address three things 1. the fact that you are going to see at lot of super-heavy D2O with two deuterium because I don't know how toxic or otherwise that stuff is, 2. the fact that there will be an ongoing build up of Hydrogen-2 in living tissue with progressively deleterious effects and 3. the presence of tritium, radioactive Hydrogen-3, which may or may not be a factor but depending on the mechanism of accumulation high levels might be expected. Tritium is a beta emitter that decays to Helium-3, a process that really messes with life-systems that it is integrated into at the time. Tritium uptake is even lower than that for Deuterium but it's also going to be a progressive issue especially since the half-life is a relatively short 12.32 years well within the human span.


What is the religious standing of a Gentile attending a Jewish service?

Question: What is the religious standing of a Gentile attending a Jewish service? In other words, why is it allowed?  And is it encouraged or discouraged?
Comment: Hi and welcome to Mi Yodeya. To aid us in finding the right answer for you, could you explain where you are coming from, and why you have reason to think it might not be allowed?
Comment: Related: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/18995/15256 https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/73469/15256 https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/40950/15256 https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/33684/15256 https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/20281/15256
Answer: (I'm speaking from an Orthodox perspective here. The Reform movement pushes for maximum participation from, let's say, non-Jewish spouses of Jewish congregants, so they may have different views or norms on this.)
First off, contact the synagogue in advance -- they have security concerns.
Synagogues are used to having non-Jews show up in about three circumstances:
a.) Those thinking about, or planning to, convert to Judaism.
b.) Attending a Jewish colleague's lifecycle event (e.g. their kid's bar mitzvah).
c.) Curious about Judaism, with no interest in converting, e.g. they're taking a World Religions class. I once encountered a few Christian seminarians at synagogue who were supposed to see a Jewish worship as part of their studies.
A & B are quite common; the reaction to C will range from a shrug to a raised eyebrow.
A non-Jew who has no interest in converting to Judaism (say they want to be a Noahide) and keeps showing up week after week to synagogue would probably be told "hey, this really isn't the place for you."
(After centuries of Christian missionary efforts -- and they are still around -- you can forgive us for being a bit sensitive about who's in our pews on a regular basis.)
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, considered the greatest Orthodox authority on Jewish law in 20th Century America, was asked about a non-Jew who wants to show up just to see what it's like. (This is not in his formal responsa, but the notes from his personal secretary.) He replied that if we tell them NO YOU MAY NOT!!, it will only cause more intrigue (or enmity, or both). He suggested to tell them "there's really not that much to see", but if they really want to show up, eh, fine whatever.
(He's right, by the way. It's not that exciting. Check out a Hebrew/English prayer book such as the Artscroll  [black or brown edition, essentially the same] or Koren translations; if you don't want to buy one, many libraries have them. Most of the service will be people reading quietly out of those, in Hebrew. Then find a Jewish translation of the Five Books of Moses; we read about a hundred verses of that per week in the Hebrew.)
Noahides -- non-Jews who follow Judaism's prescriptions for them -- can pray anywhere. The whole point of a synagogue is communal prayer, which requires ten Jews (so it's not really something Noahides need), and reading Jewish Scripture (again, not really something Noahides need). Noahides would certainly praise God for sustaining life, but not for sanctifying the Sabbath (as that's something they actually should not be keeping).
Comment: Our security committee says "no" to group C now because of safety concerns and missionaries who, once they get in, are hard to remove.
Comment: @rosends In case of religious studies students, the professor usually asks the permission of the local rabbi. The rest are really suspicious.
Comment: The problem apparently is that once they ask and are allowed in, they are not formally "tresspassing" so if they start preaching, no one is allowed to touch them until police are called.
Comment: @rosends thanks! Exactly. There is no "religious status" per se about a non-Jew who happens to be there, only practical concerns.
Answer: Jewish prayer is often modeled on precedents from the sacrificial system described in the Bible. One can see in Numbers 15:14 the idea of a non-Israelite bringing a burnt offering as a sacrifice:

And when, throughout the ages, a stranger who has taken up residence with you, or one who lives among you, would present an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the LORD - as you do, so shall it be done by the rest of the congregation. There shall be one law for you and for the resident stranger; it shall be a law for all time throughout the ages. You and the stranger shall be alike before the LORD.

Today, we no longer offer sacrifices of meat or grain, but instead we offer up prayers from our hearts. In this endeavor, it is also appropriate to allow a Gentile of honest intentions to join us in praying to G-d.
As to whether it is encouraged or discouraged, this is more of a sociological question and the answer will vary according to the community you are in. Some synagogues go out of their way to welcome Gentiles and to facilitate their praying with a Jewish congregation. Other synagogues are indifferent to the matter and may allow a visitor, but will not particularly encourage them. At other places, a Gentile might feel actively discouraged from participating or even viewing.
This range of responses has to do more with history, intercommunity relations, and who makes up a particular community than it does with formal legal standards or theology. I can only recommend that if you want to observe or participate with a Jewish congregation at prayer, you try to find one who finds your presence at a minimum to be tolerable.
Comment: Numbers is talking about a convert. It is true that non-Jews could offer sacrifices at the Temple, and Isaiah refers to the Temple as "a place of prayer for all nations." Still, I'm not aware of synagogues reaching out to non-Jews saying "come do your prayers here despite your lack of interest in converting!"
Comment: @Shalom maybe that happens somewhere, but why limit it to invitation to _pray_?
Comment: @Shalom no need to reach out. Just not barring the door or making people feel unwelcome. Maybe they want to convert, maybe they don't, maybe they don't know themselves yet. I've been in Orthodox places where this was an acceptable standard.


Are these two 'that's relative pronouns? If then, what is the antecedent of each of them?

Question: Was there some move that is beyond what was being presented to me that maybe a Churchill could have seen, or an Eisenhower might have figured out? - Barack Obama
Comment: What research have you done? I'll give you a hint - there is only one antecedent.
Answer: Yes, those are two relative pronouns. The move is the antecedent of both thats.
The main clause:

Was there some move?

relative clause 1:

the move is beyond what was being presented to me

relative clause 2:

Maybe a Churchill could have seen or an Eisenhower could have figured out the move.

The relative pronoun that replaces "the move" in both clauses which are then used to describe move in the main clause.


Titanfall - Dead mans trigger

Question: In Titanfall, which items constitute "planted explosives" for use with dead man's trigger? For example, the satchel charge doesn't seem to go off upon death- I assumed it would.
Answer: Dead mans trigger works for both Arc Mines and Satchel Charges. After you die any placed mine or charge will explode after around 1 second delay.
For example a good use of Dead mans trigger is while playing hardpoint, throw satchels around the hardpoint you are at. If the enemy is able to kill you, you will still mostly likely be able to kill them from the explosions and keep the hardpoint neutral or defended that much longer.
Comment: Surplus Satchels burncard works well dead man's trigger. It gives you an infinite supply of more powerful satchels. Just run around planting satchels charges while you're alive and let all hell break out when you die.
Comment: @Gordon not really. There is still a limit on how many you can have placed.

Titanfall - Dead mans trigger


Is there a calculation to find what motor is required for a specific propeller?

Question: So I am going to be running 20x5.5 carbon fibre drone propellers at 10,000 rpm maximum and I cannot find out which motor I need. I have been scouring the web for weeks and I have given up and I am sorry about that. Is there any way to find the right motor? Can you at least tell me how to search for it?
Answer: There are numerous motor calculators on line that you can use to estimate how much power will be required to reach a particular RPM, and how much thrust that will give.
eCalc is probably the best known, but there are several. They use standard motor equations and data from testing popular props.
RCGroups keeps a list of all the calculators


When do you use "das ist" instead of "es ist"?

Question: I have seen a sentence starting with "Es ist ein fisch", and I wondered why "es" is used with a masculine noun "fisch". I know that if something new is to be introduced, we can start with "Das" as in "Das ist ein mann" regardless of the gender of the noun "mann". But what I dont know is what's the point of using "Es" in such sentence? Does it have the same meaning if replaced with "Das"?
Comment: @ShegitBrahm, the noun *Ding* is not at all relevant here. Please do not answer in comments.
Comment: Welcome to German.SE. Quick question: did you skip the capital letters by intent? If not, I'd consider to set them.  Related question: https://german.stackexchange.com/q/33325/36160 (thus not fully duplicate, I'd say)
Comment: I guess your answer is here: https://german.stackexchange.com/a/33962/36160 - `Das` or as well `es` refers to `Das Ding` - because the correct article for fish is in right place and used (ein Fisch). That means: you have 2 articles here, just ommitting the first noun: `Das Ding ist ein Fisch.` / `Das Ding ist ein Mann.` - Or better for living things: `Das Wesen ist ein Mann.`  So "Das Ding" transforms zu "Es"
Answer: From a grammatical point of view, you probably can use both interchangeably.
But there's a slight difference in the meaning:

"das ist" has something of an introduction or telling apart: "Das ist ein Frosch, (aber) das ist ein Fisch" or "Das ist Klaus". Think of pointing at the animal or person in question.
for "es ist" remember "It's a bird, it's a plane ... it's Superman" instead of "That's Superman". In German you wouldn't say "das ist Superman" either (except he's coming to tea and your parents wonder who that might be) but "es ist Superman" -- for want of a better term I'd call it explanation or recognition. The bell rings, everybody freezes in apprehension, but someone looks through the window and says (in relief) "Es ist Klaus!". A child is born and the midwife says "Es ist ein Mädchen." Everybody knows about the concept of boys and girls, so there's no point in "Das ist ein Mädchen", but presumably nobody knows what sex the newborn is, so the emphasis is on that information.

Come to think of it, it's probably the same pattern as in English (that vs it).


How does copyright apply to rules, eg ISO standards?

Question: As I understand it, copyright applies to creative expression and not for examples rules of games.  Does this also apply to the ISO standards (example, costs CHF 158)?  For example, could one re-write the standards in one's own words and sell them in competition with ISO?  Or is there something that would prevent this, perhaps something like Copyright in compilation?
Comment: Your rewrite of ISO standards would not literally be "ISO standards", so people could not and should not depend on them in any official way. Perhaps as a study guide to ISO standards?
Comment: A US startup called UpCodes won a lawsuit over a related question of construction codes recently: https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/16/a-court-decision-in-favor-of-startup-upcodes-may-help-shape-open-access-to-the-law/
Answer: Expression vs Idea

As I understand it, copyright applies to creative expression and not for examples rules of games.

That is not correct as stated. Game rule, or more exactly the fixed expression of a set of game rule (what one finds in the package of a commercial game, or in  a book such as Hoyle's Rules of Games, can be and usually are protected by copyright. What is not protected is the ideas  expressed in a set of rules. These are sometimes called "game mechanics". For example it is a rule of bridge that 13 cards are dealt to each of 4 players. That is a fact, and so is not protected by copyright. But the exact wording of the official Laws of Duplicate Bridge is protected.
"creativity" vs "originality"
Many things that might not be considered very creative are protected. US Copyright law calls not for creativity, but for an original work. The concepts of  "creativity" and "originality" have a significant overlap, but are not at all the same.
For example, a person might watch a baseball game and write down  play-by-play account of it. That might not be very creative, but it would still be protected by copyright. But the event of the game are facts, and not protected. Someone else might describe the same game in different words, covering the same facts, and that would not be copyright infringement.
Another example. A person writes a scientific paper describing in detail a series of chemical experiments and the results obtained. That is not very creative (although the design of the experiments might be). It would, however, be protected by copyright. But the facts and ideas would not be protected. Another person could desacribe the same experiments in different words, and that would not be an infringement of copyright.
Merger Doctrine
In extreme cases, such as a basic recipe, there is no expression temperate from the facts. In such a case the "merger doctrine"  applies, and there is no copyright protection at all.
Standards
Standards, such as ISO standards, are normally protected by copyright. But the ideas expressed in them are not. And since
standards are highly factual, the protection afforded to them is particularly narrow. But when one is testing compliance with a standard, the exact words of the standard may be important. A compliance officer is not likely to accept a paraphrase as a valid substitute.
Standards in Laws
The actual text of laws (and regulations), however (Federal, state, or local) is never protected by copyright. All are in the public domain. So when a law incorporated and reprints a standard, as is often done with fire and building codes,  anyone may freely reproduce the codes as set down as part of  law, even through the code has been copyrighted and indeed registered, as long as the source is the text of an enacted law or regulation.
Comment: Your final paragraph is true in the US but not in most other places. Australia and the UK have copyright in their laws including incorporated standards.
Comment: *A compliance officer is not likely to accept a paraphrase as a valid substitute.* => whoever is verifying compliance should have their own copy of the ISO standard, no? As long as you're compliant it shouldn't matter what phrasing you've originally used to become compliant.
Comment: Some other wrinkles: The Monopoly board and cards are also likely protected by copyright (although I think this still allows others to create Monopoly-like games). And game mechanics may be patentable.
Comment: @Barmar [the Landlord's Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord%27s_Game), however, ought to be in the public domain.
Comment: Laws in most countries are protected by copyright- the US is unusual among English speaking countries in this
Comment: I would think that there might be an implied license to use copies of the ISO standards for their intended and anticipated purpose.
Answer: "In your own words" would be fine. Trouble might come from another source. If you make people believe that the contents of your document is equivalent to a standard, but it isn't, that could be a problem. And of course you need to be careful that your document is not a derivative work.
Answer: After reading the Copyright Act of 1976, §102 (b):
"In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work."
I understand that there are no copyright in a standard published by a standards body.  The reason is that standards are ideas, procedures, processes, systems, methods of operations, and so they can't be copyrighted because of the merger doctrine, as even if they contain an original expression, because of the limited ways those standards can be expressed and still be considered the same standard and not a deviant standard.  Also, a standard's intended purpose is to be used by all, so restricting it with copyright restrictions is against its purpose: we would have many competing standards (de jure and de fact) to do the same thing and so we wouldn't have a standard at all (oh, wait, we already have it, just think of office software documents, spreadsheets and presentations).
Of course one can protect him/herself against decisions made by judges that don't agree on this by rewriting the standard, but then risk not being the same standard.


Creating a Post with a larger photo size

Question: When using the Facebook Graph API and including a Picture with a post, the picture always appears as a small thumbnail.  Is there a way to make the picture larger like it appears when you upload a photo and share it?
Answer: No, the size of that photo is controlled by facebook and the only thing you can do is playing around with the relative size of the photo you use so that it would look slightly bigger (you should use pictures with landscape layout as opposed to portrait to get a 'slightly' bigger photo.
The hack you can use to do that is what apps like Instagram and Path did: Each time someone uploads a photo, they upload the photo to an album named "Instagram/Path photos" and include the link to the original photo in the caption (in your case,the link to the original article).
However, in order to do that, you users must grant you additional permissions on Facebook and they may not like the idea of uploading photos to another album, so I (personally) wouldn't go that way.