Word for exploiting one's title/designation

Question: What's the word for when someone uses the power of their title or designation to get some work done or extract some information? I know there's a very specific word for this, and it's not exploit or leverage.
Comment: There are expressions, such as "Throwing your weight around" or "Pulling rank". I can't think of a single word, though.
Comment: This is not a single word, but a common phrase for this is "he's throwing his weight around."
Comment: @JoeL. 'Pulling rank' is a good answer, at least for some contexts. You should post it as an answer.
Comment: It's about the exercise of authority isn't it?  But I have a question about the context here.  I see bossy, ranking, and tossing weight, but what is a word to describe a professional application of authority?  He says it's not exploitative or leveraged(?) so it seems to me that "throwing" and "abuse" are out.  Pulling rank and impose seem the less hostile.  Just my two cents.
Comment: Right on.  A case of simultaneous typing!
Comment: you can also use 'abuse of power'
Answer: To boss about/around, comes close to what you are looking for:

to tell someone what to do all the time:

I wish he'd stop bossing me around/about.

(Cambridge Dicrtionary)
Answer: Consider to to throw one's weight around, which implies bullying behavior based upon the person's real or perceived status.

Senator Phogbound brought the Contaminated Pork Museum to his hometown by throwing his weight around in the Office of Public Monuments and Useless Facilities.
Answer: Impose seems like a fitting word for the situation described. The word implies forcing upon (the origin indicates "laying on a burden"), which fits the authority/power characteristic.

Impose

to lay on or set as something to be borne, endured, obeyed, fulfilled, paid, etc.
: to impose taxes.
to put or set by or as if by authority
:to impose one's personal preference on others.
to obtrude or thrust (oneself, one's company, etc.) upon others.
Answer: There's the expression, "Pulling rank", which is used in a more neutral way.
Comment: You need to post a much more detailed answer. Pulling rank refers specifically to someone within the same organisational structure, using their position to establish their authority.You should include an example usage.


Can a purely biological account of man show a superiority over other animals?

Question: Can a purely biological account of man show a superiority over other animals other than that of belonging to a later stage of evolution or of greater possibilities of action, a superiority "in his very being"?
Comment: Possible duplicate of [Is human exceptionalism justifiable?](http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/14753/is-human-exceptionalism-justifiable)
Comment: Some of this will depend on what you mean by "superiority" or "later stage of evolution."
Comment: The "other than" part, in my understanding, forecloses the answer to be "no".
Comment: @Dave: I do not think this to be a duplicate, as it points at a "purely biological account" and narrows the question significantly. Perhaps, as I stated, too much.
Comment: Douglas Hofstadter became a vegetarian once he realized that there was no way of clearly distinguishing humans from other animals mind-wise.
Comment: @rvelbon can you clarify your question a bit? Right now, there's a comparative about "superiority" with no definition but with the exclusion of what would capture it in the most general terms "later stage of evolution" and "greater possibilities of action".
Answer: No.
Biological data is merely data.  It requires an interpretation.  To show A's superiority over B, we must define a metric upon which we can declare A=B, or A>B.  It is trivial to define metrics which show humans to be superior to animals, and it is trivial to define metrics which show humans to not be superior to animals.  The choice of metric is not founded in biology, it's founded in what we believe being superior means.  It should not be surprising to find that humans find "superior" means doing human like things!
As an example of where such metrics get complicated, a human is typically viewed as superior to an ant.  However, it is less clear if humankind is superior to antkind, because suddenly the ants get to leverage their massive numbers to make the metrics look bigger.
If we're not careful, "inanimate" things can score higher than us.  For possibilities of actions, the great ball of fusion in the sky above us is capable of more possible actions than all of us (measured using potential quantum states as a metric for possibilities), thanks to its enormous mass!  It just goes to show how tricky defining such metrics can be.
Answer: The answer is, of course, "whatever you force it to be by picking appropriate definitions of 'later stage of evolution' and 'possibilities of action'".
If the question is whether there are some metrics in which humans vastly outstrip other animals, the answer is of course yes: our ability to construct technology utterly dwarfs that of every other extant and historical species.
If the question is whether there is some objective measure of importance, I suppose one could argue that our technological facility positions us uniquely to be the savior of complex (as measured by things like number of different genetically stable states, for example) life on earth as we alone (so far anyway) have the potential to escape the eventual death of our star.
But that this is the only possible choice is not entirely clear, and the answer depends intimately on those choices.  But if you're just looking for something grand to feel good about as a human, "We can save life!" is a decent place to start.
If it is likely for dormant bacteria to survive being blown into space by an asteroid impact, and then colonize other planets, our potential may sound slightly less grand ("we can save the big multicellular life forms we care about").
Comment: Conceptually true, but extremely ironic, given that right now human technology is the biggest threat to life on the planet.
Comment: @AlexanderSKing - Yeah, it is. Nothing we're doing is a threat to life as a whole, but we're a pretty big threat to a lot of species (and a few larger taxonomic groups).
Answer: This is a highly ambivalent question. On one, supposedly "scientific" level the answer is obviously no.
By any silly attempt at a "value-free" biological, and quantitative measure, the human, self-conscious existence, or Dasein, is a wholly dependent blip in the existence of bacteria. The sheer historical longevity, biomass, and genetic diversity of bacteria on Earth render their random offshoots in the plant and animal kingdoms, including the tiny subset of humans, statistically meaningless.
Since humans themselves are dependent upon and genetically comprised mostly of bacteria, and since the totality of bacteria have greater genetic diversity than humans, one can hardly argue by any "objective," quantitative measure that we are some pinnacle of biological "progress."
But such arguments are, in the end, silly.
We are what we are, cogito ergo... How can one refer to "biological" arguments without assuming the priority of the species that conjures up the existence of something called Logos and its descendant "biology"?
And would anyone behave differently if they could? This is a peculiarly insistent fallacy: that science can somehow become so "objective" that it will at last rid itself of these damn, anthropocentric "scientists."
Answer: I am assuming that by "superiority", you mean that humas merit a privileged status with regards to other lifeforms and especially with regards to other animals. Such a status would justify placing human needs above the needs of other animals and place more value on human life than on animal and plant life.
As others pointed out in their answers, most attempts to do so based on a purely biological / naturalistic criteria will be completely arbitrary. There is however one potential scenario were one can give humans a privileged status without resorting to any metaphysical or supernatural justifications.
One could take Hegel's world spirit idea literally, and imagine that the universe is gradually evolving towards self-awarness, with humans acting as its constituent basic computational building blocks in a naturally evolved version of Ned Block's Chinese brain.
Recall that Daniel Dennett, a hardcore materialist, among others, argued that if the China brain were implemented, it would indeed form a self-aware mind. In such a "universe as living organism" scenario, humans would indeed enjoy a privilege status as the vehicles of the universe's thoughts and mental states, in the same way that neurons are more important than skin cells or bones are for an individual human organism.


Basic references on MCMC for Bayesian Statistics

Question: I'm looking for some papers or books with practical and theoretical examples about basic MCMC for Bayesian Statistics (With R).
I've never studied about simulation, and that's why I'm looking for "basic" information.
Can you give me some recommendations or advice?
Comment: I strongly advise you to study some basic simulation before trying to tackle MCMC.
Comment: Given the pedigree of some of the recommendations below, I hesitate to post this here, but if you _really_ want "basic", I have some notes on the use of MCMC for parameter inference in physically-based models [here](http://jamessample.github.io/enviro_mod_notes/) (using Python rather than R). The other references given below are far more rigorous, so please use with caution, but I'd like to think they might one day be useful to someone other than me :-)
Answer: people often highly recommend Kruschke's Doing Bayesian Data Analysis as a great intro book.
From there maybe try Gelman's Bayesian Data Analysis.
Then finish it off with the excellent Monte Carlo Statistical Methods
Without more information on what specifically you are looking for this is probably best I can do.
Answer: Besides the above titles, there are books specifically targeting R, like

Jim Albert's Bayesian Computation with R
our book Bayesian Essentials with R with a solution manual on arXiv
our book Introduction to Monte Carlo Methods with R which is a beginner's version of our more comprehensive Monte Carlo Statistical Methods and also has an arXived solution manual
Richard McElreath's Statistical Rethinking with Examples in R and STAN which I reviewed on my blog
Comment: loved your book by the way Christian
Comment: Christian, I want to congratulate you because TBC! as a beginner at Bayesian stats, your book has helped me a lot!
Comment: @user135273: thank you. The Bayesian Choice may sometimes be harsh for a beginner...!
Answer: When I started to learn statistics I found  Gelman's book on Bayesian data analysis very difficult to understand , it may be a bit overwhelming for someone new to statistics !.
I  recommend you to start with Peter Hoff's book A First Course in Bayesian Statistical Methods .
It is not a comprehensive book for advanced statistical topics but it contains a large number of statistical models and examples and  R-codes are  provided either throughout the text or from the  website for this book.
Answer: If you ask about introductory papers, you can check the following:

Casella, G., & George, E. I. (1992). Explaining the Gibbs
  sampler. The American Statistician, 46(3), 167-174.
Andrieu, C., de Freitas, N., Doucet, A. & Jordan, M.I. (2003). An
  introduction to MCMC for machine learning. Machine Learning, 50,
  5-43.
Tierney, L. (1994). Markov chains for exploring posterior
  distributions. The Annals of Statistics, 1701-1728.
Hartig, F., Calabrese, J.M., Reineking, B., Wiegand, T., & Huth, A.
  (2011). Statistical inference for stochastic simulation models –
  theory and application. Ecology Letters, 14, 816–827.
Comment: Historically, the American Statistician paper by George and Ed should have been entitled Gibbs for kids, but the editors did not like it. It took an animal breeder, Dan Gianola, to recycle the title into Gibbs for pigs and get his review published.
Answer: Bayes theory always made sense to me, but Bayesian analysis was always very confusing. Things really started to click when I read this blog post about the 8 Schools example:
http://andrewgelman.com/2014/01/21/everything-need-know-bayesian-statistics-learned-eight-schools/
I actually think the example could be more meaningful with a better example, the metric described in the 8 Schools is some abstract "coaching" result.
Answer: Great graphical explanation of MCMC from Stata
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTO1DygELpY


Installing New T8 Ballast; need wiring diagram

Question: I am installing a New T8 Single tube ballast to replace an older ballast.
The new ballast has one black wire, one white wire, two blue and one red.
The old ballast has two wires coming and going from bulb mounts. How should I wire the new ballast?
Comment: Are you sure you don't have a 2-lamp ballast? Generally speaking you will have 2 blue wires and one red for a 2-lamp-er.
Comment: Chief, you're thinking of instant start ballasts. They have 1 wire to each bulb end.  His old ballast was a rapid or programmed start ballast which have 2 wires to bulb ends, since they preheat the bulb filaments in each end.   I gather he is switching to an instant start ballast intended for 2 bulbs but rated for 1 bulb also, which the electronic ballasts can do.
Answer: The new ballast should've come with a wiring diagram. It might even be printed on the ballast itself.
In general I think most (all?) T8 ballasts have blue wires going to one end and red wires going to the other. Are you replacing a T8 ballast or something else? T12s are wired differently so make sure to follow the new ballast's wiring if you are replacing an older one.
Comment: His original was possibly a magnetic single lamp ballast. The replacement  he's describing is a two lamp ballast instant start. For single lamp use as follows, Black = incoming line hot, White = incoming line neutral, Red = common shared by both lamps, for single lamp one end of tube, 2 Blue = Cap one, the other goes to the other end of the single tube. Electronic ballast wiring diagrams are a dime a dozen on Google image search. And printed on all the replacement ballasts I've ever bought. And if it has a starter, that no longer is used in the newer ballast circuitry.
Answer: I found this video that might help you out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLvawsR5xyE
And if you prefer PDF documents on the subject, this one from GE is pretty good:
http://www.gelighting.com/LightingWeb/na/smartcatalogs/Lighting_and_Ballasts_Section_10_Ballasts_T8_Instant_Start.pdf
Much more than you want, I bet, but look on page 10-61 and there are wiring diagrams for various ballasts.


Joining attribute table between two features classes

Question: I have two networks of london, one comes from openstreetmap and the other one from a national Survey. I need to join the attribute table of the second one to the first one. The problem is that they are not completely overlapped. Any suggests?
Answer: Try to create a buffer of one of the layers. It depends how 'much' these two layers don't fit each other.
If You create a buffer of one of them, maybe most of features from second one will match or fall within the buffer. If so -  intersect them.
Alternatively, You can use the Spatial Adjustment tool in ArcMap. It's similar in use to georeferencing, it allows to fit a vector layer to desired shape.


Portal is down when a user tries to login

Question: We had a user with login "DOMAIN\user" he left the organization long back. We have a new user with same name, infra team created the same login name for this second user "DOMAIN\user". Now whenever the new user tries to login the site is not responding, I have to recycle the App pool or reset the IIS. I have SharePoint 2013, but the said portal is still in windows authentication.
Answer: That's an odd bug, but try running:
$user = Get-SPUser -Identity "DOMAIN\User" -Web https://webUrl
Move-SPUser -Identity $user -NewAlias "Domain\User" -IgnoreSid

Make sure the first line, Get-SPUser, points at a Site Collection where your previous user had access to (was added to the User Info List).
Once complete, try having your new user log in.
Comment: Works like a charm...Thank you. I do not know why i didn't think of Move-spuser...


Need two sidebar (right and left)in Twenty Seven theme

Question: I need two sidebars in Twenty Seven Theme. I created in Function.php, sidebar.php and index.php also.
But both sidebars appearing on left.
Please help me how to create exactly left and right...
Comment: Hello Tarun, you mean in Twenty Seven theme can not create left and right sidebar? Or I have to put "1) Lef Sidebar 2) Container 3) Right Sidebar" in CSS. If it is then where I have to put theme in CSS (like which paragraph between) Please tell me more details. I am not perfect at coding...
Answer: For this you needs to three column
<code>1) Lef Sidebar
2) Container
3) Right Sidebar
</code>
And then apply the CSS.


how to turn off Windows Live automatic updating?

Question: I'm running Win 7 home edition. I have turned off automatic updates. But today I just opened Windows Movie Maker and after sometime I got a message saying windows live updates are ready to be installed. I clicked yes and WMM, Live Messenger, Live Mail and everything got updated.
How do I turn off this Windows Live automatic updates?
Comment: Can't you turn of that at action center in control panel?
Comment: @TitanZack I disabled the "Give me updates for Microsoft products and check for new optional Microsoft software when I update windows" option, may be that's the reason
Answer: A similar discussion on Technet for this similar problem:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/thread/1d862bbc-5e29-415e-8ef1-d662cd96d5fd
Suggested remedy in that thread is:

To disable the option "Show me detailed notifications when new Microsoft software is available". In the meantime, you could delete files in the folder (C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download), for the update patches are located in it.
  Since the update patch has been downloaded, if the issue persists, you may update first and uninstall the update patch.(control panel->Programs and Features->view installed update).
  Windows 7 - Windows Update - Enable or Disable Access

It seems that Windows Live apps update can't be turned off from the Windows update which you have already done. You may have to check in the individual windows live programs if there is some option that could disable update prompts.
Comment: I have already disabled "Show me detailed notifications when new Microsoft software is available". But I had the option "Give me updates for Microsoft products and check for new optional Microsoft software when I update windows" turned on which I disabled now. may be that's the reason. Thanks!
Comment: Also could you tell me how to go to the window which contains those options, I just lost it after I disabling and now I can't find the place where those options are present?
Comment: @user601L First open control panel. Then choose system and security -> Windows Update -> change setting
Comment: yes but those options are missing there now. here is a screenshot [ http://imgur.com/HQTim ].
Answer: Installing Movie Maker turns on Windows Update automatically without telling you.  As a result at 3AM after installing Movie Maker I got about 50 updates shoved down my throat and the PC rebooted itself.  So if you don't want Windows Update, turn it off after installing Movie Maker.  We'll see if just using Movie Maker will turn Windows Update back on (so far it hasn't).


RAID 6 vs RAID 10? Which would you choose

Question: My choice would be RAID 6 for a file server since you can lose two drives and it does not matter which set of two can die. From what I understand with RAID 10 you can lose two drives but if they happen to be on the same RAID 1 array then you are a out of luck? Any suggestions? Basic file server with about 200GB of data and it would act as a single point of backup for other workstations and servers.
Comment: "single point of backup" means a repository of backups from around the network. this is your single point that you then backup to media. i would never backup one server then another then another. that would work if you had only one, we have about 10.
Comment: If your real goal is to have a "safe" place to store backups, then I would just buy a pile of disks, then swap disks daily and put the unused ones in a firesafe, or even better, off-site in a secure location. RAID is only going to help with performance and uptime in the even of a single disk failure, but not if the server melts or the building burns down. In the past this was done with tape drives, but these days, extra disks are probably a much more economical way to go, and easier to manage.
Comment: dasko, do any of the items below answer your question?
Answer: It depends on what you are trying to do. While Raid 10 would give you faster reads and writes of the two, as you said, it is possible to lose everything if you lose the wrong two drives. But on larger disk arrays you could lose exactly half the drives and retain full operations. But with Raid 6, your writes could be a bit slower b/c of the extra checksum. But you could lose any two drives and not lose any data as long as there are no UREs found on any other drive during the RAID reconstruction phase.
I think another important point to remember is that Raid is not data backup. So the main thing RAID should be looked at is server uptime. Not keeping data intact.
I think in the end it is a matter of preference. I would go with Raid 10 personally; For really large arrays you might be able to pull of a RAID 50 or 60. Where disk in the striped set could be protected with raid 5 or raid 6.
Some good reading:

Wikipedia - Standard Raid
Wikipedia - Nested Raid
Comment: Let me add then: Online backup is not backup. If it is a backup it should be stored on tape/disks and put in a safe somewhere far away from the rest of the systems. RAID does not aid in that.
Comment: @cypher Online backup systems have two very nasty properties: 1: It's possible to wipe the whole backup through accidents or bugs in the backup system, often without noticing. Verifying and Restoring from an offline system is done read-only, reducing the risks to your backups. 2: An online backup is most likely not in a fireproof safe with no external connections. Once you have had an electrician feed 480V into your server hall you learn that lesson.
Comment: While RAID is not backup....in this case I think his definition of backup is sound.  As the original data lives on workstations and other servers and is being backed up to this server.  Which happens to use RAID to help aide in availability.
Comment: The main problem with raid is that it means drives are constantly in use and subject to wear, making them significantly more likely to fail than an offline drive or tape backup.  Also it does not protect against data corruption or replicated deletions.  Tapes/offline drives can have their own problems, the only foolsafe way is multistage.
Comment: I think this also depends on the types of drives used but for a basic file server RAID 6 is sufficient.  Reserve RAID 10 for high load SQL server.
Comment: @pehrs - Plenty of very sound backup systems live on disk and rarely need to go to tape.  For these systems, RAID considerations are critical, and do aid in the stability of such a system.
Comment: @Insanity, you don't lose the RAID 10 array if you lose the wrong two drives, you lose if it the "wrong" *second* drive fails; the first failed drive can be any.
Comment: It's not exactly backup, it's online disk backup which is just one of multiple tiers in backup that helps improve recovery speed. Just as RAID helps improve reliability - neither is really backup as a single malware or configuration error can wipe it all.
Answer: [I'm assuming you're comfortable with the performance hit of RAID6, and only concerned with failures]
I'm using the numbers from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels, and I suck at math, so this may be wrong. Lets assume that 5% of your drives will die within 1 year.
The probability of a dual-member RAID1 outright dying is the probability of any given drive dying, squared: P(R1) = P(drive)^2.
So with the 5% failure rate, you end up with:
P(R1) = 0.005^2 = 0.0025 = 0.25%
(Here's where I'm not sure about the math---it makes sense, but that doesn't mean anything)
So the chances of losing any given R1 member are 0.25% per year, but you've got several of them striped together, and if any of them die, your array is dead. so you need to plug the P(R1) number into the R0 failure math: P(R10) = 1 - (1 - P(R1))^(n_R1). Lets assume you've got 8 drives total (and don't replace them when they fail) so a stripe across 4 R1s:
P(R10) = 1 - (1 - 0.0025)^4 ~= 0.99%
So you've got about a 1% chance of losing a RAID10 that's got 8 drives with a 5% chance of failure per-year.
Simplistically, the probability of RAID6 failing is the probability of any given drive dying, cubed (since you have to lose three drives for it to fail), e.g.:
P(drive)^3 = (5%)^3 = 0.0125%
So for the "multiple drives dying" scenario, RAID6 is about 1/80 as likely to fail as RAID10 with the same drives.
Unfortunately, life is complicated, and you have to deal with sectors going bad. It's entirely likely that random errors are introduced into your drives that go unnoticed. I'm no longer just copying wikipedia here, but I'd guess the probability of a bad sector showing up on any given drive is P(bs) = P(UBER) * bits_written. If that happens, then recovery after a drive failure is impossible in an R1, and trickier in an R6.
Of course, all that is moot if the RAID6 controller or driver is buggy, and introduces errors into your data, or corrupts your array :-)
Comment: That maths is good but during a rebuild the parity/mirror drives are specifically hit more than any other and so are much more likely to fail than than the average failure rate.  So RAID10 is even more likely to lose that specific 2nd drive.
Comment: Another consideration is that drives purchased in batches tend to *die* in batches, which makes multiple-disk failures more common than the simple math would suggest. (A lesson learned the hard way!)
Comment: parity/mirror is 1 drive in RAID10 but spread across all drives in RAID6
Comment: While RAID10 usually is built using only 2-drive RAID1 pairs, it's not always the case. Linux `mdadm` allows to create a RAID10 layout with any level of redundancy (2, 3, 4,...), as long as its lower than the number of drives in array (so it's possible to create a RAID10 with two copies of data with only 3 drives). The `--layout=` option allows to set number of copies.
Answer: For a workstation or a primarily CPU-intensive server, I'd vote for RAID 10 for the better read/write performance.
For a data storage server, I'd go with RAID 6.
If possible, I'd use the RAID 10 on my workstation and servers and use a RAID 6 on a file server to keep backup files.
Answer: File servers are typically more bound by the network link.  So for a typical file server I'd opt for the extra protection that RAID6 offers as at the end of the day the speed through the network is going to be your bottle neck.
If you're running something local on the server like a large database or virtual machines then I'd opt for the RAID10 configuration.
Answer: Raid6 is much more safer than R1. Probability is 5 % that disk will make failure during one year. Raid6 will fail if 3 disk will die att the same day. So probability for that is 0.05*1/365 = 0.000014. Thus probability to fail Raid6 is 2.6 E-12, which is far less than probability of winning in lottery. If disk goes broken in Raid6 array, you can change is and raid controller will start to rebuilt raid array immediately. It takes app. 1 day to f. ex. rebuilt 2TB disk on Raid6 array. Thus you have to have failures during one day or even less if you are using smaller disk than 2 TB.
But like said here, keep some real back up continuosly runing. Some day your power source can die and give some extra voltage to your system and all harddrives migth be offline after that, just like that (or something other weird stuff happens, who knows). Usually these wont happend, but if you really need your data, take back up somewhere else than to Raid array.


Naive Bayes: Mix unigrams and bigrams for text classification?

Question: I'm creating a naive bayes text classifier, but I'm wondering if it's a good idea to break the text up into both unigrams and bigrams. Should I only use one method? Will having both variations mess with the algorithm?
Answer: Having a variation is a very common practice. It actually has a smoothing effect.
Bigram --> Low bias/high variance
Unigram --> High bias/low variance.
Combination the two helps to "hedge" the bets made between the two. See for instance, the first equation on pg. 13 of this link. The author shows how to merge trigram, bigram and unigram estimates
Answer: Starting simple with just unigrams and then just bigrams would likely be ideal. If you use both then the complexity of the model would increase, and it might not even result in an increase in performance. If you do include both unigrams and bigrams, and that results in a better classifier, I don't see why not!
Comment: By combine, do you mean into one classification or having two separate classifications and then deciding the outcome based on the ratings for both bigrams and unigrams? It just dawned on me that I could actually do that...
Comment: I guess you could do either of those options. It might be easier to include into one model, but you run into some serious correlations between unigrams and bigrams, which goes against the "Naive" part of Naive Bayes. That might result in some funky behaviour, but you could definitely assess that with how good your classifier is working after trying it out. I would still suggest starting simple with one or the other, and only increasing in complexity if it's not working very well.


How to change this kind of light bulb?

Question: This is in my bathroom ceiling, I can't figure out how to remove it. Any help is much appreciated.
Comment: More pix, from more angles?  Could the entire "cone" come down from the ceiling?
Answer: Rotate it about 20 degrees counterclockwise.  It should go "snap".   Very gently keep unscrewing it.  If it goes "bonk" almost immediately and won't freely rotate further, it's a GU style socket and it should practically fall out at this point.   If not, try another 10 degrees counterclockwise and jiggle it.
Don't be forceful. It's glass and if you break the glass you get a mercury shower. Not that dangerous, just a messy tedious cleanup.
If it shows a willingness to keep unscrewing, and you've gone 1/4 turn or more, then it's definitely an Edison socket. It should turn quite free by now, you know what to do.
Answer: Should just turn out, the same way as the old style incandescent bulbs.
It is a CFL bulb.  They used to contain Mercury so cannot/should not dispose in normal household garbage.
Comment: Should be a base unit below the tube and above where the threads are, that should take a bit more force.
Comment: I tried it but it doesn't come out, I almost broke the light bulb.
Answer: It's also possible that it pulls straight out (downward, in your case).
There are 3 major base types for CFL bulbs:

Screw-in, a.k.a Edison (E26, E27)
Bi-pin Screw-in (GU10, GU24)
Push-in (Gx24q, etc)

Ice-cream bulbs come in all 3 base types, but there are a few ways you can rule out one or the other.

Self-ballasted bulbs are almost always Edison.  These are direct retrofits for incandescent bulbs in pretty much any lampholder.  Unscrew them like any light bulb.
Bulbs with an external ballast are a mix of GU (large pin, turn 20 degrees counterclockwise to remove as Harper mentioned) and GX (push-in, pull-out).  You'll just have to be careful and test for these ones.  Don't pull too hard and always try to pull on the base if you can, never the glass.

FWIW, every single recessed can CFL I've ever encountered is push-in.  I've encountered GU style bases on sconces and things like dome fixtures and fans, but never in a RC.
At one point between my house and the buildings I maintained, I had a huge box of pretty much every length, style, and base type you could imagine.  The most common were definitely push-in (Gx24q).
Answer: Those pigtail (CFL) lights are potentially being outlawed in parts of US as well as other countries. I highly recommend you use a LED prefered or a tungsten lamp which is also being banned starting about 2023. Also when removing it were eye protection and do it over a container; I use a waste basket. Technically in the if you break it you need to go a difficult process to clean it up or call hazmat people. I do not know of anybody that makes the call. This link will give you instructions on what you technically need to do. https://www.epa.gov/mercury/cleaning-broken-cfl#:~:text=home%20after%20cleanup.)-,Use%20sticky%20tape%2C%20such%20as%20duct%20tape%2C%20to%20pick%20up,glass%20jar%20or%20plastic%20bag.
Comment: ummm... you may want to take a look at your link. It seems broken.

How to change this kind of light bulb?


What exactly is the difference between RA, SHRA and TSRA in METAR and TAF reports?

Question: What exactly is the difference between RA, SHRA and TSRA in METAR and TAF reports? I couldn't find a source where they were all compared together.
Answer: Short answer:

RA: Moderate rain
TSRA: Thunderstorm with rain
SHRA: Shower(s) of rain

How this is constructed is detailed below.

From WMO Aerodrome Reports and Forecasts, abbreviations for precipitations are:

A type of precipitation is RA for rain. It can be associated with a one or more qualifiers, e.g. TS for thunderstorm, SH for shower, + for heavy, etc. No qualifier means moderate.
Definitions

Thunderstorms: One or more sudden electrical discharges, manifested by a flash of light (lightning) and a sharp or rumbling sound (thunder). Thunderstorms are associated with convective clouds (cumulonimbus) and are usually accompanied by precipitation. The associated cumulonimbus has vertical updraughts that may reach 30 m/s in the more vigorous cells. Downdraughts also occur,
especially in the later stages of development, with speeds of about half of those for updraughts.

Showers: Precipitation, often short-lived and heavy, falling from convective clouds. A shower is characterized by the suddenness with which it starts and stops, and generally by large and rapid changes in precipitation intensity.

Use

The qualifier TS shall be used whenever thunder is heard or lightning detected at the aerodrome within the 10-min period preceding the observation.

When an automatic observing system is used and when showers (SH) cannot be determined with a method that takes account of the presence of convective cloud, the precipitation should not be characterized by SH.

The descriptor SH (showers) cannot be associated with ice pellets (PL).

Examples

RA: (Moderate) rain
+SHRA: Heavy showers of rain
TSRA: Thunderstorm with rain
Comment: Note that `TS` can be used with other precip, for example `TSSN`, or with no precip, as `VC TS`. Note also that the intensity modifier applies to the precip, so `+TSRA` means "thunderstorm with heavy rain" and NOT "heavy thunderstorm with rain."
Comment: @randomhead: One or two qualifiers can be used with any single weather phenomenon (`SH`, `+`, ... are qualifiers, not weather phenomena). Generally, qualifiers cannot be used alone, but `TS` is an exception, it is both a qualifier and a phenomenon (though this is not visible in the table).
Answer: TS stands for thunderstorms, so TSRA means rain associated with thunderstorms.
RA means steady and continuous rain. SHRA means rain showers. Showers stop and start abruptly and can vary in intensity.


Vertical front brake pads

Question: My daughter received a brand new bike. It came preassembled. The brake pads are oriented vertically. Is that correct?
Comment: "Pre-assembled" means that a 17-year-old in the store stuck the parts together.  Check other details as well.
Answer: Your intuition is correct those pads are not right.
The long part of the pad should follow the rim, like this:
(not exactly the same brake but the pad alignment is similar)

You can:
- take it back and let them straighten the pad.
- Use a 10mm wrench, loosen the nut, turn the pad and set it to the correct height and tighten the nut.
If they did this wrong it would make me nervous that there are other things they missed.
Comment: Can't emphasize that last line too much: Someone who puts brake pads on like in the question, they simply don't know enough of a bike to tell a saddle and a pedal apart. You do not want to go trusting something they put together with your life. True, this seems to be child's bike, so the dangers are less than on a bike that's going to be used in downhill or racing, but the brakes are definitely among the most safety critical parts. Checking every single bolt and nut on a bike with such an extreme assembly mistake would be a prudent course of action.
Comment: Note for OP -   its really important the pad does not touch the tire
Comment: Btw, the best explanation for this mistake is, that the brake came to the assembler pre-assembled, with the brake pads oriented such as to reduce storage space requirements. The assembler then simply screwed on the brake, forgot to adjust the pads to the rim, and skipped the mandatory brake function test that any professional should perform after assembling a brake.
Comment: +1 for the last point especially.
Answer: No. To exert the correct amount of braking force, the whole of the brake pad should contact the rim. When your daughter pulls the lever, only the top quarter of each pad will contact the rim.
Presumably your daughter bought this bike at a department store. Employees there don't specialize in assembling bikes. It could be that the person there thought this was actually the correct way to assemble brakes, or that this error simply didn't get noticed. This is not to blame the person at the store; they tend to be poorly paid and have multiple demands on their time, plus their employers don't find it worth it to train them sufficiently to assemble specialty items correctly. Bikes, even children's bikes, are pretty complex objects, and assembling them well is not easy. I would recommend taking this to a bike store for a once-over.
Answer: The pads are installed incorrectly.The need to be oriented so that as much pad as possible rubs on the wheel when the brakes are applied. The pad also cannot contact any part of the tire. Care must be taken to orient the pads in the right direction. These pads don't appear to have a forward indicator but they do appear to have a "V" pattern on the braking surface. They are typically installed so point forward as an arrow. I would recommend bringing the bike to your local shop for a once over. If the assembler was incapable of installing the brakes correctly who knows what else was assembled incorrectly.
Comment: To be clear, the arrow would need to point in the direction that the brake pad travels over the rim material (so as to scrub any dirt/water/debris away from the center of the pad, ensuring a clean contact region). Because the rim is traveling forward at the top of the wheel, that means that the arrow needs to point towards the back of the bicycle.

Vertical front brake pads


Eclipse alternative to VS .sln files

Question: I've recently had to switch from Visual Studio to Eclipse CDT.
It would seem that Eclipse "workspaces" are not quite like VS solution files.
Eclipse workspaces use the .metadata folder for managing multiple projects, but there doesn't seem to be a simple distinction between user settings or IDE preferences and project/solution settings.
What I want is a way to group a collection of related (and dependent) projects together and have that data live in source control without all the other user specific stuff that developers don't need to share.
You know, like a .sln file in Visual Studio.
Does Eclipse just not work this way?  (And if not, then why not?)
Answer: Yes you are right eclipse does not manage projects in the same way VS does with solution files. However for putting a group of related projects into a VCS eclipse has the concept of a Team Project Set available in File->Export then under the Team folder there is Team Project Set.
Answer: Like JProgrammer said there is Team Project Set. You can send your colleagues a bunch of .psf files, works similar to VS.NET. I can only say we have good expierience with this feature.
Answer: I often find IDE's have a preferred way to work. Sure, you might be able to get the IDE to do it your way, but you'll probably end up fighting it all the way.
Try to use your IDE like their makers intended you to. They have made presumptions on how you are supposed to do your work. They have optimized the user experience according to those presumptions.
Go with the flow. Anything else will make you gnarly, bitter, wrinkly and give you gastly breath!
Corollary: If you can, choose the IDE that makes the same presumptions about workflow as you do!
Comment: This post dont suggest anything except author annoyance about using IDEs.

Eclipse alternative to VS .sln files


References for superfluids that are not Helium nor BEC

Question: I've seen a lot of introductory texts dealing with BEC and two-fluid-model for superfluidity (like Helium at finite temperature). Can anybody tell me some reference for other superfluids? Is the dynamics the same? I've been said something of that sort exist in astrophysics but I don't know where.
Thank you in advance
Answer: Superconductivity can be treated as superfluidity of the Cooper pairs - pairs of electrons with integer net spin. Its condensation is not governed by BEC (it is one of the limits, though), but by Bardeen-Cooper-Schriffer mechanism, where interaction is the key. Dynamics is somewhat similar.


Shower Door Hinge Pulling Away From Wall?

Question: The top hinge of our shower door is pulling away from the wall, which causes the door to sag and leave a little gap when it's open. I tried pushing the hinge back into place and tightening the screws, but they simply can't be tightened anymore, and I don't want to strip them. What is the easiest way to fix this?
Answer: Whatever the screws go into is no longer holding.
So you need to find out what it is and then redo the support there.
If it is wood then I would drill a larger hole and glue a wood dowel in there and, once dry, drill pilot holes and resecure with the screws or even new screws.
If brick / masonry, t6hen perhaps gluing rawlplugs in may work or drilling and fitting larger diameter plugs may work.
Comment: Do you think I could get away with just using longer screws? I was hoping not to have to remove the door and to just replace one screw at a time. It is wood, and it only pulls away from the wall slightly, with that first picture showing the max amount it can go.
Answer: Try putting some glue on a match stick and tap into the hole. A few hours later reinstall the screw, a longer one would help. Then repeat for the other screw. I am assuming these are fastened to a stud or some backing installed for this purpose. You might also check the lower hinges to be safe.


Wall Jump for 2D Platformer

Question: I've been looking for a way to implement wall-jump in my xna game, but I can't find any information about it, can someone could someone please help me out ?
Answer: When a player collides with a wall while jumping (or, if you like, falling), turn on a flag for the next 100 milliseconds or so that causes an attempt to jump to successfully initiate a jump (ignoring any surface contact checks) with a fair amount of speed on the X axis in the direction away from the wall.  Remember to turn the flag off early if a jump is in fact initiated.
Comment: I think you need to modify the first sentence: "When a player collides with a wall (while they are jumping)..." otherwise the player could wall jump from being stationary on the ground next to a wall, which wouldn't be expected.
Comment: @CiscoIPPhone: Yeah, thanks.  That would produce an odd change of behavior between the 100 ms after collision and later.
Answer: I honestly would have just done a point check. So:
<code>if (falling AND left_key_pressed AND !point_free(x-1,y))
    doWallJump
</code>
You may want to change the y to say y + sprite_width/2 (or - depending on your coordinate system) so that it checks to the left of the middle your sprite instead of the top (or bottom). This is how N implements wall checks for wall jumping (last paragraph).
After that you must decide on how tight you want your wall jump. If the vertical velocity of your jump overcomes the horizontal before the player is able to reach that same wall again, you will not be able to wall jump up the same wall and will gradually fall back to the bottom (like in Mario games with wall jumping). If you do allow the horizontal to be weak enough for the player to get back to the wall, he/she will be able to progress up the wall (like in Meat Boy).
Another approach not mentioned is Super Metroid's. In that game when you are against a wall, if you move off that wall a very short "moving off wall" animation will play. If you jump during that animation, you will do a wall jump. (Super Metroid also allows a player to climb up a wall using wall jumps, but it requires a bit of skill (in fact everything about wall jumping in Super Metroid requires a fair bit of skill...).)

Wall Jump for 2D Platformer


Is this a papaya? What kind, and how do I know when it is ripe?

Question: There are several trees with these fruits growing wild near where I'm staying in the Caribbean. I let one ripen from green to orange and cut it open.  Is it a papaya?  And what kind? This one didn't taste too good.  Did I let it ripen too long, or is this type just not as good as others?
Comment: Good question and good illustration; if could include an overall illustration of the tree, its approximate height, if there is a similar tree nearby that isn't bearing fruit, close illustrations of the trees' flowers, and the size of the fruit, could also be helpful. We encourage you to take the [Tour], and browse through the [Help], to learn more about how the site works! Thank you! Welcome to the site!
Answer: Yes, it looks like papaya. The outer skin in the second photo looks like it has some greenish flecks which indicate it is not fully ripe. Leave fruit to go fully yellow all over and then pick. Use nose and softness of outer skin to judge. Papaya needs to be cut when fully ripe, otherwise it will taste a bit flat; they may not continue to ripen after cutting unless exposed to ethylene from a banana or similar. You may just be unlucky with that tree - the fruit looks small compared to commercial varieties; that may or may not be a bad thing.


SonicWall: Unable to manage networking component. Operating system corruption

Question: Anyone had this error message when trying to install to a Win10 x64 box (hosted on a local virtual machine)? Ive spent some time googling and most of the fixes seemed to be: like this one updating a registry key. I tried that with no success. Any other suggestions, or explanations for whats causing the issue?
Comment: Older versions of SonicWall clients aren't compatible with Windows 10.  What version of the VPN client are you using?  There were DNE fixes, but the later versions don't need it.  4.9 and 4.10 work for me.
Comment: @essjae upgrading to 4.10 solved the issue for me, please propose it as an answer so we can mark this as solved
Answer: Older versions of the SonicWall clients have issues with Windows 10 (and Windows 8).  There was a Windows and DNE fix offered for a while.
Recent versions of the client starting with at least 4.9 will work with Windows 10.  I believe the current version is 4.10 and also works fine with Windows 10.
I have seen on occasion where a Windows update breaks the VPN, but all that's needed is a reinstall, no immediate reboot necessary, for the VPN to work again.


Is it possible to temporarily remove margin from iTerm2 window?

Question: I just wondering whether its possible to remove the left, right and top margin (or just all margin) temporarily in iTerm2 windows. My goal was to make the vim-airline looks better in iTerm2 by removing those margin. Here's the screenshot of the margin I want to remove..
Answer: I think you have to fork and build iterm yourself. Here's a project where somebody did that: https://github.com/jaredculp/iterm2-borderless-padding


How to use dd to dump an image to unallocated space

Question: I have a bin file (chromiumos_image.bin) which contains some (around 12) partitions, which I need to dump into the unallocated space between 2 other partitions. The partition table is this:
My partition table, as seen in gparted
I want to dump my chromiumos_image.bin file into that unallocated 59.76GB space. How can I make dd understand that I want the unallocated space to be dd'ed?
Answer: This isn't really how dd works. The partition table is on the raw disk and to restore those 12 partitions you will end up overwriting your current partition table.
You're going to have to dd the .bin to a raw disk somewhere and then create a new .bin for each individual partition.
You can then setup the partitions as needed in the allocated space and dd each partition.
Comment: I have a problem, actually chromium OS has a ridiculous file system - with more than 12 little partitions, and dividing the bin file would be too hard to do, as I can't mount it as /dev/loop1:
`sudo mount chromiumos_image.bin /media/alex/chromiumos/ \n
NTFS signature is missing. \n
Failed to mount '/dev/loop1': Invalid argument \n
The device '/dev/loop1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
`
. Btw does gparted have a hidden tool somewhere that does that job?
Comment: @user258456 Try running a partition manager on `/dev/loop1`.  This will allow you to find the offsets to the partitions inside the file.  Mount the partitions using the offsets specified by the partition table.
Comment: I don't get that actually... :/


Likelihood Function of Normal Variables

Question: We know that for $i.i.d.$ random variable $Y \sim N(\mu, \sigma^2)$, $Var(Y) = \frac{1}{n}\sum_{i = 1}^n (y_i - \mu)^2$, and the likelihood function for $Y_1, Y_2, ..., Y_n$ is
$$l(\mu, \sigma|Y) \propto e^\frac{\sum_{i = 1}^n(y_i - \mu)^2}{2\sigma^2}$$
I am curious if I substitute $\sum_{i = 1}^n(y_i - \mu)^2$ to $n\sigma^2$, then $l(\mu, \sigma|Y)$ will be
$$l(\mu, \sigma|Y) \propto e^\frac{n}{2}$$
I know it is wried, but I am curious whether it is possible to happen.
Comment: It's not true that $\sigma^2 = \frac{1}{n}\sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}(y_i-\mu)^2$. If $\mu$ is known, the RHS can be used to estimate $\sigma^2$.
Comment: Just a comment on notation: usually the lowercase "l" ($l$ or $\ell$) is reserved for the **log** likelihood.
Answer: You have some mistakes in your likelihood.  If both $\mu$ and $\sigma$ are unknown, then $$\mathcal L(\mu, \sigma \mid \boldsymbol y) \propto \color{red}{\sigma^{-n}} e^{\color{red}{-} (2\sigma^2)^{-1} \sum_{i=1}^n (y_i - \mu)^2},$$ where the red highlighted symbols are missing from your likelihood and cannot be ignored.  The factor $\sigma^{-n}$ may only be ignored if the likelihood is for $\mu$; i.e., if $\sigma$ is known.
Moreover, while one can compute the joint maximum likelihood estimates for $\mu$ and $\sigma$ as $$\hat \mu = \bar y, \quad \hat \sigma = \sqrt{\frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^n (y_i - \bar y)^2},$$ you can see that substituting this back into the likelihood doesn't give you the result you expect.  Note that your choice $$n \hat \sigma^2 = \sum_{i=1}^n (y_i - \mu)^2$$ is invalid as a maximum likelihood estimate of $\sigma^2$, because the parameter $\mu$ is contained on the right-hand side, whereas the correct choice as I have illustrated above is not a function of any unknown parameters.
Comment: Thank you so much for your correction, I was too careless. I understand the maximum likelihood for $\sigma^2$ is $\frac{1}{n}\sum^n_{i=1}(y_i-\bar{y})^2$. I am curious if it is possible for $L(\sigma|\textbf{Y}, \mu) \propto \frac{1}{\sigma^n}e^{-\frac{n}{2}}$ under $\mu$ is known and we substitute $n\sigma^2$ for $\sum^n_{i=1}(y_i-\mu)^2$.

Likelihood Function of Normal Variables


How do I force Windows system directories to be on a volume other than C:?

Question: What title said.
Background: a customer has done this somehow and he doesn't remember how. I must reproduce this to investigate a possible bug in the application I'm maintaining.
Comment: not sure but I think that when you install you get the options of disks. To simulate the situation, you might be able to try installing the XP on a guest in a VirtualBox.
Comment: Are you trying to install or move the whole windows directory to another drive? Or trying to move specific folders?
Answer: Windows will consider active partition to be C:. If you somehow install windows on partition which isn't active, active will still be C:. I think it can also be done by installing windows and changing active partition later.
Answer: I've done this accidentally.  In my case the system had one hard drive with two partitions, one for the system the other for data.  I needed to reload the system because the system's file system was corrupted.  To ensure the system partition was OK, during the reinstall I told the installed to delete the system partition and recreate a fresh partition and install Windows on it.  After the install, I found the installer called the data partition C: and loaded Windows on the newly created partition D:.  I eventually needed to delete all partitions to get Windows to make the system partition C:.
I never tried to recreate this on demand.  Also, I don't remember if I rebooted after the deletion and then restarted the install process to create the system partition.  After reloading Windows so many times to fix the system drive on C, they kind of all blurred together.
Hope this helps.
Answer: Try this link: How can I change the System partition drive letter in Windows XP?, if you are trying to moved the whole folder/drive.
If you trying to moved specific folders, such as the Program Files, then you will need edit the Windows Environment Variables via the registry.
Answer: You will need to somehow boot into a different Windows, mount the HKLM registry hive, go to HKLM(mounted)\System\MountedDevices, and modify the data by hand. I've done this before; see this link for how to do it.


Can we say Allah is time?

Question: One of my friend said Allah is time and i argued it is shirk to say such a thing but he insist it is supported by sunnah. since time is a creation of Allah, it is like saying  Allah is  water another creation of his. What is the Islamic view on this ?
Comment: probably he is talking about this: http://islamqa.info/en/9571
Comment: @Enakku, Time has a beginning, Allah hasn't.
Comment: @kalahari why do you say so?! i think this is a lie. i think everybody can easily think about time coordinate and about 3 coordinates of space as infinite to both ends, as about 4d euclidean space ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_space ) .
Comment: and i think, if our space is not euclidean, time is probably infinite to both ends.
Comment: @qdinar Scientists say that time is relative, can be distorted by mass or magnetic force, and also it has a beginning which is Big Bang. Theories with evidence/proof is much more solid to rely on then personal opinions.
Answer: ad-Dahr is one of Allah's names that we know through Hadith Qudsi, and it's not a creation of Allah.
ad-Dahr is something that is infinite, i.e. it has not beginning or end.  It cannot be measured.  Sort of like an eon, but not exactly.
ad-Dahr is different from what we call as the measurement of time - waqt/zaman
So the issue is in the interpretation of ad-Dahr = Time, and mixing the definitions.
ad-Dahr isn't a creation of Allah because Allah is ad-Dahr as it comes in several hadith:
"Allah said, "The offspring of Adam abuse ad-Dahr, and I am the Dahr; in My Hands are the night and the day."
Sahih al-Bukhari and others
Prophet said "None of you should say, 'May ad-Dahr be disappointed. Allah is ad-Dahr."
Sahih al-Bukhari/al-Adab al-Mufrad and others
There are a few more in Musnad Ahmed where Allah clearly said "I am ad-Dahr"
ad-Dahr is THE Time and not time how we perceive it.
Waqt/Zaman is the creation of Allah that you're referring to, and it's relative to how we measure it.
You can probably say ad-Dahr is what controls waqt/zaman.
Some may object and mention the ayah about what the pagans said as it comes in Surah al-Jathiya 45:24:
And they say: "There is nothing but our life of this world, we die and we live and nothing destroys us except Ad-Dahr. And they have no knowledge of it, they only conjecture.
But as you can see, they didn't believe Allah was ad-Dahr and separated ad-Dahr from Allah, even though Allah is ad-Dahr.  They had no knowledge of it.  They blamed ad-Dahr, yet they rejected Allah.

Can we say Allah is time?


Origin of Naam Traya Mantra

Question: What is the origin of Naam Traya Mantra? Or in which scripture this mantra is mentioned? The mantra is Om Achutaya namaha Anantaya namaha Govindaya Namaha. I don't know the correct form but these 3 names of God Vishnu are there in Naam Traya Mantra. I also got the Rishi and Chanda from internet but don't know in which scripture this information is found?

Image link
Answer: These Mantras are found in the Padma Purana and are also used during Achamana by certain sects.
Quoting from the book "Essence of Padma Purana" @Kamakoti.org:

The arrangement of the 'Samudra Mathana'was that Manthara Mountain was
  to be set as the churning rod, Maha Sarpa Vasuki was the string with
  which to tie up the Mountain and Bhagavan himself as balancing Shakti
  as the Avatar of Kurma (Tortoise) to ensure that the Meru Mountain
  would be made stable and steady. As the churning started, innumerable
  of the proud Danavas who opted for the head of thousand faced Vasuki
  out of pride got perished due to the poisonous flames where as Devas
  were at the tail end. Eventally, a massive 'Halahala' or the
  sky-rocketing poisonous flames engulfed the Univerese and by the grace
  of Three Names of Lord Vishnu viz. Om Achyutaya Namah, Om Anantaya
  Namah and Om Govindaya Namah, Bhagavan Shankara gulped the blue
  poisonous flames in his throat thus giving him the epithet of Neela
  Kantha. By the power of the three names of Vishnu, there would never
  be any hardship faced:
Achyutaananta Govinda iti naamatrayam Maha Mantram hareh/ yo japetpriyato Bhaktaayaa Pranavaadhyam namontakam/ Tasya Mrityu
  bhayam naasti visharogaagnijam mahat/ Naamatrayam Maha
  Mantramjapedyam prayatatmavaan/ Kaala Mrityu bhayam chaapi tasya
  naasti kimanyatah
Whoever recites the Three Names viz. Om Achyutaaya, Om Anantaaya,
  and Om Govindaaya sincerely and with dedication, none of the poisonous
  diseases or Agni- based frights/deaths would affect.

Here, as one can see, the context is Samudra Manthana.
But it is also quite possible that the Mantras are also found in some other scriptures as well.
UPDATE:
I have found the Rishi-Devata etc for the Nama Traya Mantra in Nityotsava's 3rd Chapter, the Shri Krama. But the they are not matching with the ones you have given. I am giving below the limbs as well as the Dhyanam for the Mantra:

NAmatraya mantrasya kAshyapAtribharadvAjA rishayah | Anushtup Chandah
  | ShrimahAvishnur devatA | Tat prityarthe jape viniyogah ||
DhyAnam:
Samastadurastar vyAdhi sangha dhvamsa patiyase | Achyut ananta
  govinda nAmne dhAmne namo namaha ||

Note that there are three Rishis - Kasyapa, Atri and BharadvAja -  mentioned as the seers of the Mantra.
Comment: Thanks for the answer. Yes it is related to Samudra Manthan. Can you please try to find Rishi, Chandah and other things and where they are mentioned.
Comment: @Ram I think we shd consider them as 3 names here.. Even the verse says "Namatraya".. If we take as 3 Mantras instead then for which of the 3 Mantras shall we find the limbs? I don't think finding the limbs is possible here ...
Comment: This mantra has Rishi, chandah, I will put that in question. I have read in net that Lalita Devi used Nama Traya Mantra Astra on Bhanadasur when he threw some disease Astra on her, I am not sure about the validity of this statement. Maybe there might be the origin...
Comment: Ok so u already know the limbs.. But I don't know in which scripture the info is found.. none of the books that I possess hv anything on this.. @Ram
Comment: ok no worries. Can you  try to find the Lalita Devi's incident of throwing Naam Traya Mantra Astra on Bhanadasur?
Comment: I do not know about it but if it is really there then it will be found in the Brahmanda Purana @Ram
Answer: As per PADMA-PURANA: UTTARAKHANDA: Chapter 78 The Hymn called 'Apamarjana',

Mahadeva said:
1-2. I shall hereafter tell you about the excellent vow of the sprinkling with water, as told by Pulastya to the magnanimous Dalabhya. It destroys all faults caused by diseases. It gives auspiciousness. I shall tell it to you. Listen, O daughter of the
  (Himalaya) Mountain.
...
Sri Pulastya said [to Sri Dalabhya]:
...
45-65. ... By means of the medicine of the utterance of the names, viz. Acyuta, Ananta,
  Govinda, all the diseases vanish. ...
...

It's references can be found during Samudra Manthan episode also.
PADMA-PURANA: BHUMIKHANDA: Chapter 9. The Churning Starts:

Suta said:
2-7a. Seeing them running away Shankara said these (words): "O hosts of gods, hand over the poison to me. I shall quickly inactivate the great (i.e. severe) poison, viz. Kalakuta". >
  Saying so, that lord of Parvati, meditating upon Visnu in his heart and
  uttering the great hymn, took that fearful poison. By the power of the great hymn, that great (deadly) poison was digested.
7b-22. 7b-22. He who, being controlled, would devoutly mutter the three names, viz. Acyuta, Ananta, and Govinda, of Visnu with Pranava (i.e. Om) at the beginning and Om at the end, has no fear of taking poison, or from fire and also from death. ...

PADMA-PURANA: UTTARKHANDA: Chapter 232. The Raise of Goddess Laksmi:

Sankara said:
16-21. Having meditated (i.e. when I meditated) with a concentrated mind upon that lord along with J§rl and Bhumi, having earrings of gold purified by fire, remover of all miseries, and on my having muttered the great hymn of the name and form (of Visnu) along with Mahalaksmi, all that poison, which was very fierce, which was the first one, which was fearful to all, which was (capable of) destroying all the worlds, was digested (by me) due to the three names of Visnu, the omnipresent one. He who, being restrained, would devoutly mutter the three names of Visnu, viz. Acyuta, Ananta, Govinda, beginning with Pranava (i.e. Om) and (also) ending with Om, has no fear of death, so also the great
  fear due to poison, disease and fire. The wise, restrained one, who would mutter the great hymn—the three names—does not have fear of Death; then from where else (can he have it)? Thus with (the muttering of) the three names I drank that poison.
Answer: Okay since already other shastra pramanas are given, I will answer the question you asked in comments.
<code>Can you try to find the Lalita Devi's incident of throwing Naam Traya Mantra Astra on Bhanadasur?
</code>
It appears in Lalitopakhyana,
The Chapter number varies as per different publications, but is put under the title of श्रीललिताभण्डासुरसंग्राम     or श्रीललिताभण्डासुरदिव्यास्त्रप्रयोगह् ।

महारोगास्त्रमसृजज्छक्तिसेनासु दानवः।
राजयक्ष्मादयो रोगास्ततोsभूवन्सहस्त्रशह्।।
The Dānava discharged the missile of Mahārogas (great diseases) among the armies of Śaktis. Thereupon pulmonary consumption and thousands of other diseases began to ravage.
तन्निवारणसिध्यर्थम् ललिता परमेश्वरी।
नामत्रयमहामन्त्रम् महास्त्रम् संमुमोचह।।
In order to achieve their eradication and prevention, Lalitā, the great goddess, discharged the great missile of the great Mantra of the three names (of Lord Viṣṇu).
अच्युतश्चाप्यनन्तश्च गोविन्दस्तच्छरोत्थिताह्।
हुंकारमात्रनिर्दग्धरोगास्तामनमन्मुदा।।
Acyuta, Ananta and Govinda rose up from the missile. By their Huṃkāra alone they burned those diseases and gave (relief and) delight, (to the Śaktis).
नत्वा च ताम् महेशानीं तभ्दक्तव्याधिमर्दनम्।
विधातुम् त्रिपु लोकेषु नियुक्ताह् स्वं पदम् ययुह्।।
They bowed down to Maheśānī. They were employed (by her) to suppress sickness of her devotees in all the three worlds. They went to their own region.
Answer: In the 19th patala of Aanadikalpa-Tantra

ऋषय उचुः-
नामत्रयस्य माहात्म्यं श्रोतुकामा वयं प्रभो।
भगवन् श्रोतुमिच्छामो वक्तुमर्हस्यशेषत:।

Rishis said: O Prabho, We wish to here about the Nama-Traya Mahatmya! Please enlighten us with it.

ब्रह्मोवाच
अतिगुह्यतरं मन्त्र वर्षकोटिशतैरपि।
नशक्यं विस्तराद वक्तुं संक्षेपाच्छूणुत द्विजा:॥ १ ॥

What you wish to here is highly secret. Even if I speak for a hundred crore years, I would be unable to describe it completely. I shall speak briefly,

अथ अच्युतादों पूजादिः
अच्युतानन्तगोविन्दैश्चतुर्थयन्तैस्त्रिभि: पदेः ।
नमोऽन्तैर्जपकाले तु मूलमन्त्र इतीरितः।
अथवापि समस्तैस्तु चतुर्थ्यन्तैकमन्त्रता ।

know the three mantras, Achutaya Namaha, Anantaya Namaha and Govindaya Namaha to be three distinct Mool-Mantras (अच्युताय नमः, अनन्ताय नमः, गोविन्दाय नमः). One must however use Achuta-Nanta-Govindaya Namaha (अच्युतानन्तगोविन्दाय नमः ) in japa and puja.

तदृषि: शौनको ज्ञेयः पृथक् पक्षे पराशर:।
व्यासश्च नारदश्चैव विराट्छन्द उदीरितः।
परं ब्रह्म तथा प्रोक्तं हरिर्वा देवतेत्यपि ।

The seer of Achuta-Nanta-Govindaya Namaha is Shaunaka, and that of the Mool-mantras is Parashara, Vyasa and Narada respectively. All the four mantras are in Virat Chandas (विराट्). The devta is Hari.

So going by the above, the Seers match with the one in the question. The Dhyanam given in Aanadikalpa is same as in the question.

Origin of Naam Traya Mantra


sequence of graphs converge in the sense of varifold to multiplicity 2 plane

Question: Say in $R^3$, is there a sequence of smooth graphs $f_n$ over some plane P, such that the graphs as submanifolds in $R^3$ converge in the sense of varifold (as Radon measures on $R^3 \times Gr(2,3)$ ) to a limit V, which is multiplicity 2 of the plane P? Seems impossible but is there a proof?
Comment: It's possible to converge to a multiplicity 2 plane which is perpendicular to P though.
Answer: I think that the following argument rules out getting $2[P]$:
Suppose that $v_n : = graph (f_n) \rightharpoonup 2[P]$ as varifolds. Consider the open set $U = \{(x,P') \in \mathbb{R}^3\times Gr(2,3) : |x| < 1, d(P,P') <\epsilon\}$. Then, a standard result for weak convergence of measures implies that
$$
\liminf_{n\to\infty} v_n(U) \geq 2[P](U) \qquad (= 2 |B_1(0)|).
$$
However, it is easy to bound $v_n(U) \leq |B_1(0)| + O(\epsilon)$ as $\epsilon\to0$, since $v_n(U)$ is the $\mathcal{H}^2$ measure of the set of points in $graph(f_n) \cap B_1(0)$ whose normal vectors differ from that of $P$ by a distance $O(\epsilon)$ (the precise distance we choose on $Gr(2,3)$ is irrelevant). This is a contradiction.
Comment: @Thompson, The measures might converge but the associated varifolds do not converge as varifolds
Comment: Thanks. Seems can use this argument to rule out any multiplicity 2 plane not perpendicular to P, for the perpendicular ones we need a gradient bound for the graphs to rule out that.
Comment: But the $\mathcal{H}^2$ measure of the graph is getting close to $2|B_1(0)|$. And more and more of it could have normal vector far from the normal to $P$. For example, isn't it fairly clear you can converge to $\sqrt{2}[P]$ by zig-zagging?


Word for a description of the physical characteristics/range/habits of an animal or plant species?

Question: i.e. is there a word for something like an entry in a natural history dictionary? I poked around trying unsuccessfully to find one, and I'll probably just use "description", but I still have a nagging feeling that there's a word for this, something similar to using "morphology" or "pathology" as countable nouns.
Answer:
Biological description

is the term used by the University of Miami to include the morphology, behavior etc. of an animal.
Alternatively, lots of academic papers seem to use

biological synopsis

You can find here an example used by the California Academy of Science for some type of shrew.
What's interesting is that the term encompasses everything related to biology: Phylogeny, taxonomy, morphology... See all the sub-sections they use below:

And last, if you focus only on physical characteristics you could use

biological profile
Answer: I have a 1980s bird guide that uses "(species) description" (the photos are in a separate section of plates). A more modern Audubon guide with the same layout uses "species account" but also a simple (if tautological in the context of a book) "text description"


Blenders Directories Are Broken?

Question: Trying to open pref scripts directly into Blender and replicates a message of "Directory not supported in this version". I don't understand the problem entirely and theres nothing on Blenders website, this the first I have seen and heard on this topic. Any opinions would be appreciated! Thx
Answer: Honestly... Blenders a bit broken with directories, there's honestly nothing i can say until they update there #NAME system of pref Codec. Sorry but its just a waiting game.
Comment: @YogurtM8, what worked? I don't see anything instructions in Adam's answer to follow. Would you be able to post what you did to get your problem resolved?
Comment: Glad to help, happy directoring
Comment: Sorry, theres nothing that I can do with my problem at the moment, but he explained the problem well. But thanks.

Blenders Directories Are Broken?


What's the definition of "subject" in japanese?

Question: In spanish, the subject is "a syntactic function, the element of the sentence that matchs in number and gender with the verb". In japanese, verbs arent affected by the subject (in number or gender) . As a spanish speaker, I really dont like the spanish definition because it doesnt help to understand the language at all, moreover, it seems to justify some sentence constructions that after comparing them with other languages you start to find odd and in some senses non-sensicals, and that over-complicate the language. When we were in primary school, we were introduced to another , now obsolete or perhaps always considered wrong definition of subject that made more sense and helped to understand languages. So my question is, what's the definition of subject in japanese? I would like to see if it is something more congruent with the idea most people have of what's the subject of the sentence and not something like our official spanish definition
Comment: Does [this](http://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/25668/19206) help?
Comment: @siikamiika I have to read it several times and patiently, but first question that arises is, in which cases  "a verb is not an action that can be performed, it is a word that may or may not represent an action" . I can open another question if you want
Comment: You can probably skim the English subject part; I havent read the whole answer but I think it's there just for comparison. Not sure if that quote applies to Japanese
Answer: In Japanese, the subject is something that precedes the subject-marker particle が, and is the thing or person described by the predicate. However, the subject is not the most important part of a sentence. Japanese is a topic-prominent language, and the topic, marked by は, is often what we really care about; this is also why sometimes が and は are interchangeable (i.e. when the topic is the subject).
Comment: @Pablo Well, this is the usual definition given to a subject in the study of syntax (across languages), and is intended to be quite vague.
Comment: "is the thing or person described by the predicate". I'm not complaining with that definition at all, but is it official? Because many definitions seem to follow the idea that the subject is a syntactic function, something that seems to fit more with the first part of your definition "is something that precedes the subject-marker particle が"
Comment: http://chu.benesse.co.jp/qat/335_j.html    This link may help. Also, Subject 主語 is defined in the Japanese dictionary as 文法上、述語に対し、それが表す動作・作用を持つものを表した語。例、「花が咲く」の「咲く」に対して「花」…


Run python script from Finder rather than edit?

Question: Max OS X. When I double-click on a python script it opens in the default editor. How might I make it so that when I double-click, or choose the script from Applications, it executes from the python interpreter? From the "open with" option it does not appear that I can choose /usr/bin/python.
Answer:
Start up Automator
Choose application
In the Actions bar, select Library, and search for Shell
Drag "Run Shell Script" to the right pane.
Change pass input to "as arguments"
Change the script to
for f in "$@"
do
    python "$f"
done
Save it (possibly in the application folder, but can be anywhere) as Python.app

Now if you want .py files to always launch with python:

Select a .py file
File -> Get Info
In the Open with selection, choose Other, and select the Python.app you created.
Click Change All
Comment: Joined just so I could upvote this.
Comment: :-/ unfortunately it's simply not working... I have no idea why. Any step having python run a script simply has automator say the Run Shell Script failed, with no description of what went wrong.
Comment: step 6 of the accepted answer needs to be formatted correctly to work for f in "$@" do python "$f" done
Answer: I suggest you install the latest version of Python (not the one installed on Mac OS X as of Mountain Lion). It includes PythonLauncher that does just what you want.

Install the latest version of Python (download)
Run "Update Shell Profile.command" (in Applications/Python 2.7) to make sure python is in your shell's PATH
Select a .py file
File -> Get Info
In the Open with selection, choose Other, and select the PythonLauncher app (in Applications/Python 2.7)
Click Change All
Answer: Seems like it would be easier to just fire up the terminal and type "python /path-to-script/scriptname"? If not, there's apparently a way to get Apple script to do this, according to this stack overflow post: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14793391/easy-way-to-launch-python-scripts-with-the-mouse-in-os-x
In either case, you'll need to know the full path to the script.
Comment: For the problem I am trying to solve it isn't easier but yes, I could execute the script from the terminal. Thanks for the info.


RabbitMQ failing inexplicably, restart required, restart fixes problem

Question: RabbitMQ keeps failing and we fix it by restarting the service but we don't know why it fails.  Has anybody else experienced these issues?
Answer: A better place to ask this question is the RabbitMQ discuss mailing list.  The devs hang around there and make a point of answering every question posted.
Also, your question gives very little information.  A more detailed description would be useful; posting the log file would also help.
Answer: There is a known issue in Rabbitmq 2.2.0 that could cause these symptoms.
You should downgrade to 2.1.1 until the next version of RabbitMQ is released.


What does Chrome use for accelerated 2D vector graphics in its HTML5 canvas draw functions?

Question: So i would like to do things like what is possible with a HW accelerated HTML5 canvas for animated 2D vector graphics drawing, but on top of my OpenGL (4.x) rendered 3D scene (for complex HUD and GUI displays). I need this to be able to work on Win7+, MacOs, and Linux, mobile platform support is not needed.
BTW I am working with C++.
I was wondering if anyone knew what for example Chrome uses for accelerated 2D vector graphics in its HTML5 canvas draw functions? I was under the impression it was accelerated using ANGLE (which wraps OpenGL or DX9). Or am I wrong and its only SVG rendering that is accelerated, not the javascript canvas draw functions.
Doing HTML5 canvas style animated 2D vector graphics with OpenGL is highly non-trivial, is Google using an available library for that or is it just in-house code?
I have been looking into OpenVG and have had a hard time finding the right implementation to use for that, so far the only thing i can actually get examples compiled for is ShivaVG (but there seems to be shimmering artifacts for the tiger demo and other issues for the latest release 7 years ago). Also i think ShivaVG is using fixed function and my team decide to lock down our OpenGL usage to 4.x core profile, so that won't work. I would love to use NV_Path_Rendering but its not portable (to anything other than a nvidia accelerated device).
I also thought using OpenVG would be useful since I might be able to hide NV_Path underneath, or a new OpenVG library that might come out in the future. But I am wondering if OpenVG's future might be in peril.
Answer: They apparently use the Skia library for all 2D rendering.


Visualizing directories

Question: How do I plot the content of a directory and all its subdirectories into infinity using TreeForm? I've tried using a mix of FileNames, StringSplit and GatherBy but in the end I couldn't find even a promising start.
Comment: An alternatieve presentation here: http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/a/6200/57
Comment: Take a look at the `makeTree` function in [Leonid's answer](http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/a/447/5) on implementing Tries. By redefining the RHS of the first line in the definition as `makeTree[StringSplit[wrds, "/"]]`, you can get a good structure for the directory tree with `makeTree@FileNames["*", {"*"}, ∞]` (you'll have to clean up the `{{} -> {}}`). While this can't be plugged in a built-in graph function like `Graph` or `TreePlot`, it can be easily converted to a graph using some custom code.
Comment: Does it have to be TreeForm? Could it be TreePlot?
Comment: Yes, that would work too (I choose TreeForm because I thought formatting the list in that way would not be too hard).
Comment: Thx @Hypnotoad your solution worked well. Posted it below. (Thx to everyone else as well!)
Answer: The following is a slight modification to @amr's code.
It shows a directory tree using TreeForm[], with a button at each vertex. When the button is pressed, it opens a dialog with the list of the files contained in that directory.
ellipsizeMax = 8;
ellipsize[str_] :=
  If[StringLength[str] > ellipsizeMax,
   StringTake[str, ellipsizeMax] <> "\[Ellipsis]", str];

readDir[currentDirectory_, 0] := ellipsize[FileNameTake[currentDirectory]];
readDir[currentDirectory_, level_] :=
  Module[{joinedFiles, perFile}, SetDirectory[currentDirectory];
   joinedFiles = FileNameJoin[{currentDirectory, #}] & /@ FileNames[];
   perFile[file_] :=
    If[DirectoryQ[file], file @@ readDir[file, level - 1],
     Sequence @@ {}]; perFile /@ joinedFiles];

treeDir[dir_] := Module[{k},
                TreeForm[dir @@ readDir[dir, 5],
                     VertexRenderingFunction ->
                         (Inset[Button[#2,
                                If[(k = FileNames["*.*", #2]) == {},
                                        CreateDialog["No Files", WindowTitle -> #2],
                                        CreateDialog[k, WindowTitle -> #2]]], #1] &)]]

treeDir["C:\\ff2"]

Answer: Here's a relatively straightforward "first version":
ellipsizeMax = 8;
ellipsize[str_] := If[StringLength[str] > ellipsizeMax, StringTake[str, ellipsizeMax] <> "\[Ellipsis]", str];

readDir[currentDirectory_, 0] := ellipsize[FileNameTake[currentDirectory]];
readDir[currentDirectory_, level_] := Module[{joinedFiles, perFile},
   SetDirectory[currentDirectory];
   joinedFiles = FileNameJoin[{currentDirectory, #}] & /@ FileNames[];

   perFile[file_] := If[DirectoryQ[file],
     FileNameTake[file] @@ readDir[file, level - 1],
     ellipsize[FileNameTake[file]]];

   perFile /@ joinedFiles
   ];

treeDir[dir_] := TreeForm[dir @@ readDir[dir, 5]];

treeDir["C:/blah/blah"]

This has a very poor display capacity if there are more than a certain number of files in a directory level.
It would need a lot of work to make the presentation reasonable in the general case. But this form of tree presentation of a file system also has a lot of potential. For example, you could build a graphical navigation system based on this (though not necessarily with TreeForm).
Comment: @belisarius Absolutely not. Plus, a lot of my answers (such as this one) are more rough sketches than complete answers. I'm more interested in the "conversation," so to speak. :)
Comment: I posted an answer shamefully stealing your code. Hope you don't mind
Answer: Here is the code required to implement Hypnotoad's solution (see comment to the question). I've copied Leonid's code over from its original thread.
The one problem I had with this solution was that FileNames["*", {"*"}, ∞] doesn't include empty directories. I replaced it with FileNames["*", Directory[], ∞], which solves that. But Directory[] is an absolute path so all those folders leading up to your current folder will be shown in the graph. I don't know how to solve that, one would have to find a replacement to {"*"} which includes directories but at the same time produces relative paths.
ClearAll[makeTree];
makeTree[wrds : {__String}] := makeTree[StringSplit[wrds, "/"]];
makeTree[wrds_ /; MemberQ[wrds, {}]] :=
  Prepend[makeTree[DeleteCases[wrds, {}]], {} -> {}];
makeTree[wrds_] :=
 Reap[If[# =!= {}, Sow[Rest[#], First@#]] & /@
    wrds, _, #1 -> makeTree[#2] &][[2]]

ClearAll[getSubTree];
getSubTree[word_String, tree_] :=
 Fold[#2 /. #1 &, tree, Characters[word]]

ClearAll[inTreeQ];
inTreeQ[word_String, tree_] :=
 MemberQ[getSubTree[word, tree], {} -> {}]

ClearAll[getWords];
getWords[start_String, tree_] :=
  Module[{wordStack = {}, charStack = {}, words},
   words[{} -> {}] := wordStack = {wordStack, StringJoin[charStack]};
   words[sl_ -> ll_List] := Module[{}, charStack = {charStack, sl};
     words /@ ll;
     charStack = First@charStack;];
   words[First@
     Fold[{#2 -> #1} &, getSubTree[start, tree],
      Reverse@Characters[start]]];
   ClearAll[words];
   Flatten@wordStack];
SetDirectory["~/dirtest"];

TreeForm[
 DeleteCases[
   makeTree@Select[
     FileNames["*", Directory[], \[Infinity]], DirectoryQ
     ], {} -> {}, {0, Infinity}] //. {Rule[a_, {}] :> a,
   Rule[b_, c_] :> Apply[b, c]},
 VertexRenderingFunction -> (Style[Text[#2, #1], 14,
     Background -> White] &)
 ]

Visualizing directories


Booked flights on different bookings; how to make the connection?

Question: I am traveling from Ahmedabad to Thiruvanthpuram via Mumbai. I booked a connecting flight with different airlines but my first flight from Ahmedabad to Bombay (Akasaa airline) got cancelled so I had to book another flight from Vistara airline to reach to Mumbai. As I have two separate bookings, this is no longer a connecting flight. What will the procedure be to board the second flight from Mumbai to Thiruvananthapuram? I have 3 and half hours between the flights and they land and depart from the same terminal (Terminal 2 Mumbai International Airport.)
Comment: Do you have checked luggage? Can you check-in online or via mobile for the second flight?
Comment: Yes I have checked luggage and also online checking is done.
Comment: It is the same airline now? In any case you may have two cases: either the baggage go directly to destination, or you should get in Mumbai and then go again to "checkin" (or transfer desk). My experience (outside India): it seems random and you will know at checkin (but you have enough time).
Answer: These are both domestic flights, so this is straight forward enough.
It appears that Akasaa and Vistara are not interline partners. That means you have to collect your bags on arrival in Mumbai, leave the secure areas and drop them off at the Vistara bag drop or check in counter in Mumbai and then clear security again.
Think about it as two separate flights. The steps that you have to go through are the same as if you were flying on two separate days. It just so happens that arrival from flight 1 and departure of flight 2 happen on the same day and you are not doing anything else in Mumbai in-between, you are just staying on the airport.
If things go reasonably well. 3.5 hours should be fine for that. Vistara check-in closes 1 hour before departure for domestic flights, so you have over 2 hours to get your bags and make it to the counter. So unless there are any major delays or hiccups (lost bags) that should be ok

but my first flight from Ahmedabad to Bombay (Akasaa airline) got cancelled

As this was originally a single PNR, Akasaa is technically required to provide alternatives. Did you explore this with them? What are they offering as alternative routings and/or compensation/refund.


How to ask forgiveness for bad wish?

Question: I know i am disturbing you guys a lot and i am sorry for that. But my guilt is just eating me alive. What if someone is harmed because of me? Although I changed my speech immediately after wishing for woman getting cheated on. I changed my speech within 7-10 seconds, i am still afraid. Please guide me. Will i go through the same?
Answer: Don't worry it's ok your asking a question about ur religion NEVER DESPAIR FROM ALLAHS MERCY EVER. No matter what you have done repent to Allah and promise never to do it again and Ramadan is coming up you are never gonna get closer to Allah then Ramadan. One of Shaitan's largest plans is to make you think in ur head I sinned to much and there is no hope from me I am done. NEVER THINK THAT WAY EVER remember this run to Allah and repent and he will forgive you if you are sincere and remorseful in the repentance.
And Allah knows best.
Comment: I am worried i will go though the same. Is there any way that i won't have to go though this? Please help.
Comment: If you go through the same repent again and again and again Allah's forgiveness is unlimited never stops with a sincere repentance.
Answer: My brother,
Allah is Forgiving and Merciful, and He is Welcoming to repentance, so ask Allah for forgiveness, during this blessed month and especially continue afterwards and InchaAllah God will forgive you.
And my brother, it is a good thing that you make your own judgement in this life, it is a blessing. And never doubt that the greatness of Allah's Mercy.

How to ask forgiveness for bad wish?


How far back can we make a query?

Question: I'm trying to get all the historical data for a business unit that should go back to 2014, but my queries for Bounces, Sends, Opens, and Clicks only goes back to about 6 months whereas my Jobs query goes back to 2014.  I have no date clause in the queries.
Comment: Please post your queries here
Comment: Was history tracking enabled on that object at that given year you are trying to query?
Answer: Erik, I'm assuming you're talking about Data Views in Marketing Cloud. The documentation clearly states that you can only retrieve up to 6 months' data from the Data View. It's expected that you run your queries monthly and download it or send it to an external database.
You can check with Marketing Cloud Support or your Account Executive to check if they can extract some information from the backend to share with you. It's a long shot but know that queries won't get you the data you're looking for.
For details, refer here:

Query Activity
Answer: You can get the entirety of the activity data using Tracking Data Extracts and either load it in an external database or import it back into SFMC.
If you submit the extract request(s) via SOAP API, then you can specify whatever data range suits your requirements.
The available data is outlined in this post.
Answer: Rajdeep is correct, the data views only go back 6 months. It is worth noting that if Support cannot/will not get you the historic data, it is available via the API. For example, any open events can be pulled via the object below.

OpenEvent

How far back can we make a query?


What's the function of ground wire anyway?

Question: I thought Ground wire in house electrical systems was used in order to discharge electrical currents to the earth. However, I've seen people saying ground wire would drive electric current to fuses, when there was a short circuit, in order to avoid damaging people, or the system. Can someone help me understanding this?
Answer: Keeping the example to mains in a house for simplicity...
UK mains consists of three wires: L(ive), N(eutral) and E(arth).
The mains electrical circuit has electrical current flowing between Live and Neutral.
At the local sub-station, Neutral is connected to Earth and Earth is connected to the ground.
In a house, Earth is connected to the metal cases of electrical equipment like cookers and to water pipes, radiators and so on.
If the mains accidentally connects to these metal cases or anything else earthed, a high current flows from Live to Earth, back to the sub-station and thence to Neutral.
In a very short time, a fuse in the mains Live should be overloaded and blow, cutting off the Live supply and rendering things safe. There is a 1, 3, 5 or 13 A fuse in every mains plug.
In the old days, the mains supply to those sockets would have a 30 A fuse in the  fuse box where the house's incoming mains first goes through. That would blow if the mains plug fuse didn't. However, you needed to draw all that current to blow the fuse and if you were the thing causing the short-circuit, you might be seriously harmed or dead by the time the fuse went.
Nowadays, house 'fuse boxes' must use Residual Current Devices (RCD) instead of fuses. These are a sort of current-detecting switch and cut the mains supply to the socket when the current flowing out from that Live is sufficiently different to the current coming back on that Neutral. If Live current is being shorted down to Earth and heading off to the sub-station, it's not coming back on that Neutral.
RCDs are very fast-acting and also very sensitive, tripping on a current imbalance between Live and Neutral of milliamps. These means that far less harmful current flows off through a fault or short-circuit and for far less time, causing far less harm to people caught up in that fault.
Answer: Ground by practical terms is any 0V reference.  When they connect Neutral in outside premise distribution transformer (DT) to earthing ground, it may be <100 ohms if another ground in home is via copper underground pipes with some other value <100 ohms. Normally the only current flowing thru ground is EMI filter noise up to 0.25mA or 0.5mA (stds?) per line filtered supply.  The other case is if a lightning strike to ground occurs, inside home is protected. Or if line to ground fault occurs, breaker should be tripped and inside home is protected.

IF a line to GNd fault occurs, the LIne breaker would trip instantly.
But for excess ground leakage currents, a local GFI or RCD outlet or breaker in panel, ($) is needed.

However in special cases miswired outlets or ground faults from unbalanced Hot LINe and Neutral currents, a GFI or equiv.RCD  will,protect that user from humid leakage currents to ground that may occur with dust contaminating pure water and if hair dryer in bathroom does this, user is protected by GFI or equiv.RCD. It does not sense the ground current, rather the difference between Line and Return... Neutral to sense ~ 500uA or ? local std. of safe current trip level .
In electronics, we call anything with 0V and low resistance a " ground". But here we are talking about an "earthed ground" so power line transients from lightning must also consider ground wire inductance and fault to ground to see what voltage gets created to see if unsafe to equipment. Thus MOV's are used in areas with high hurricane or lightning activity to shunt induced over-voltage and protect the electronics.  Since most portable devices do not have a 3 pronged plug, the protection is designed into the insulation and Breakdown Voltage bdv, rating  or the device. Most are designed for 1.5kV, some are 3kV like TV's and the best are protected to 6kV where external power meter is gapped to protect at 6kV line transients and above with respect to ground and each other.


Auto fitting image to margins for multiple pages?

Question: I imported a PDF to InDesign but many pages have different proportions and they didn't fit the InDesign pages so I have to resize each one of them, is there a script or other way to do that (rather than do it manually) they are over 200 pages.
Comment: I am unaware of an existing script that will do what you want, but this could be scripted
Answer: You can use an Object Style with proper Size and Position Options and Frame Fitting Options.
There are multiple ways to do this. Here's one recipe. You might have to adjust it to fit your workflow.
The description of the method is rather long, but really it only takes a few minutes once you get a hang of it.

Make a new document with the dimensions and margin settings you want.
In the Scripts panel, locate the Application > Samples > JavaScript > PlaceMultipagePDF.jsx script and double-click it.

Choose the PDF you want to place. Choose the current document and click OK to get through two alerts. Choose the page you want to start on (probably page 1) and the script will place all the pages of the PDF on separate pages in the upper left corner at their actual size.
This of course looks a bit messy to begin with.

Now we'll make an Object Style for the frames containing the placed pages which we will later apply.
In the Object Styles panel, make a new Object Style. Double-click it to enter its Object Style Options.
Under Size and Position Options set Size > Adjust to Height & Width. Set the Width and Height to whatever dimensions fit your needs. In this example I have an A4 document with 20 mm margins.
Set Position > Adjust to X & Y. In this example I'm setting the Reference Point to the top left corner, X offset and Y offset to 0 relative to the Page Margin.

Under Frame Fitting Options tick Auto-Fit on, set Content Fitting > Fitting to Fit Content Proportionally. In this example I choose to set Content Fitting > Align From to the center, but you can choose for example the top if you want.
Leave all Crop Amounts at 0.

With the Object Style in place all there's left to do is to apply it to every frame containing a page from the PDF. Since our document doesn't contain any other objects, it's pretty easy.
Open Find/Change and switch to the Object tab.
At Find Object Format, click the Specify attributes to find button and set Style Options > Object Style to [None] (since all the frames placed by the script don't have an Object Style by default).
At Change Object Format, click the Specify attributes to change button and set Style Options > Object Style to the Object Style you've just created.

Click the Change All button to apply the Object Style to all frames in the document.
Now all the placed PDF pages fit neatly to the margins of the document.

You can now change the settings of the Object Style to finetune the appearance of all the placed pages in one go. You might need some space in the bottom for a text which could be achieved by setting a smaller height. Or you might want to align the images to the top instead of the center.


How can I get user information from JWT tocken?

Question: I'm react-native developer, I'm new to Magento, REST and OAuth. I want to use the Magento 2.0 OAuth REST API to login into my app
I am getting this token as shown in the image, how can I use this token to do login authentication in react native application?
Answer: The token is NOT encoded user-information. There is no way to extract information from it on the client side. The token is a key in a DB table (oauth_token) where you can look up  the customer_id tied to the token.
Or you make a second request (/customer/me) with that token to get all user info.
Comment: In Magento 2.4.4 data is not stored in oauth_token table


Render links as images on default view

Question: I have links (as urls) to docx files and would like them to remain as links but to be displayed as clickable images. With the picture/hyperlink field, if you're using an image, you cannot make it take you to a URL other than where the image is actually stored. I played around with some jQuery to do this, but my page uses grouping and other things which cause the links to not be converted instantly (E.g., document.ready won't help because the items aren't loading on document.ready but rather whenever the group is opened.
One of the main reasons they're interested in doing this is to cut down on the width of the column.
Answer: I think you could use a calculated field.
The calculation would be:
="

"

Change the type of the calculated field to Number. I know that the field is returning text but by changing it to a Number type SharePoint will render the link.
The image path is hard coded and the URL is a reference to another SharePoint field. I tested this in SharePoint 2010.
Comment: This seems very promising, but I'm not having luck with the actual "on click" taking me to the URL specified in that column. It's just appending "#" to the list url though I can see the link to my hyperlink in another field pop up with a "syntax" error that points as though I'm missing something after my URL.   Is it best to use an actual hyperlink field for the column containing my URL? I've been using a single line of text. edit:  just realized I can't use hyperlinks as columns.
Comment: You are right. Change the # to "&URL&". I have updated the solution.
Comment: works great! thanks. Might want to update your answer to remove the typo'd 4 btw.
Answer: I did something similar, but in my case I was using a DWVP to create a custom list view. In that case, I simply had a standard hyperlink using an image. Using XSL:Choose I was able to dynamically display a different file icon based on the file extension of the current item. Here's a rough example of what I used for the actual link:

With SharePoint 2013, this sort of thing is easy to do even with OOTB list views, thanks to the new JSLink property of the ListView web part. That allows you to use Javascript/JQuery to replace even a blank single-line-of-text field with whatever HTML you choose. In my current environment, I have a blank column called "Actions" and then on the view itself I replace the empty column with HTML containing several icons. In my scenario, these icons are used to launch workflows with a single click, but they could easily be used to launch a document instead.

Render links as images on default view