2013 list search (aka-Find an Item) isn't working

Question: The Find an Item search box isn't producing results when I enter criteria for it to search.
Is there a way to enter ID numbers to search by ID?
Answer: First check if the list has been crawled properly. Please go to the CA check the search service applications. We can search the crawl log ensure the list items have been crawled.
After that, here is something for you to check:

Check if URL of site to which the List belongs is being added to the
Content Source in Search Service Application.
Re-index the list from advanced settings of the List
Run a full crawl in Central Administration and test again.

If there are multiple lists on same site affected you might want to index whole site: Site Settings -> Search -> Search and Offline Availability
More information about general solution for list search:https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/sharepoint-search-your-search-returned-no-results/


Why are androids in the Alien franchise so fascinated with the alien?

Question: Why they are so fascinated by the creature? Why do they speak of the xenomorph as being a superior life form?
Comment: Because it's a perfect life-form. Singular, intelligent and deadly.
Comment: I edited the question so it doesn't refer to "Alien", as a proper noun, which it isn't.
Comment: I'm not sure this is a characteristic of androids. Ash and David are into the aliens; Bishop less so. Burke is pretty keen to get some aliens back to earth, so presumably there are also humans with an interest.
Answer: The androids are programmed in this way.
Weyland-Yutani, their mother corporation, wants to examine the alien life-form because of its perceived perfection. When, in the first movie, the disabled android on board is brought back online, it confirms that it was placed on board the Nostromo specifically to protect the alien life-form in case of contact, and that the human crew is expendable in the agenda of the company.
(Info from the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_(Alien))
Answer: Ash (Ian Holm) in the first film comes across as being frustrated by having to deal with humans around the clock. If androids do have feelings just like humans do, then Ash probably feels both inferior and superior to humans. Superior in intelligence and inferior socially, as far as interaction and understanding the subtleties go. I refer to the scene where he tries to choke Ripley to death by basically shoving a rolled up porn mag down her throat. I mean why would he do that? In a cut scene the two women Ripley and Lambert talk about Ash. Ripley ask if Lambert has ever tried to have sex with Ash. Lambert's reply is that he never seemed all that interested.
I would think that part of the fascination that Ash shows for the alien would come from the fact that both Ash and the alien are different from humans, other, truly other. The alien is completely superior to humans. Both physically and intelligence wise at least when it comes to the game of kill or be killed. The alien doesn't have to conform to any social norm. It is what it is.  So the alien is free. Unrestrained. Liberated. To a certain degree Ash has also been the midwife. He has in his lab closely watched what's been happening to Kane.


Client server over wireless network

Question: Is it possible to set up a simple client server application to send text and other data over a wireless network in a LAN situation between two computers without setting up any network shares? By just knowing the IP address?
Answer: Yes. WiFi is just like any other network, you use TCP/IP over it to implement any network protocol you like.

Client server over wireless network


Examples of classes used to represent html controls in a wcf service

Question: I am writing a wcf service which will generate html controls which the client application will use to render part of a web page - for example a html select populated with list of options. The service will be written in C# (.net framework v4), in my implementation the client application will be a C# asp.net web forms application.
I would like the service to provide the html controls in a structured format rather than just a string of html so that the client application will be able to use them more flexibly (for instance the client application might want to add another option to a html select control)
In the past I have used classes the System.Web.UI.HtmlControls namespace within an asp.net application for this purpose, but these classes cannot be serialized so I have not been able to use them with wcf. At the moment I only have the requirement to send select and text input controls, but rather than re-inventing the wheel I hope that someone will have an example of a service that already provides html controls in a structured format.
Answer: Instead of using WCF I would use ASP.NET Web API and Razor view engine to generate HTML.


Hide Prices everywhere but allow ordering

Question: We have a client who is using a legacy developed webstore, but we are looking to move them to magento 2. They currently have a web store with no pricing features, as each client has a different contracted price. I am curious about to do this with Magento? The goal would be to have no pricing, no cart totals, no pricing in order / email summary. The store will operate only once logged and registration will be closed.
Answer: Have you taken a look at extensions?
https://landofcoder.com/magento-2-hide-price.html/
I've not done this myself but in theory you could configure to hide for all customer groups
Although if you want to code something yourself you will have to use plugins. Depending on how much customisation is in your theme you may still have to do some template work though.
Answer: I have done this, and it basically requires modifications to the themes files.
You basically have two options:
1) Full purge of pricing via theme pages
2) CSS only changes to hide pricing blocks (still there if they want to inspect), but may require a few additional edits such as to the email templates
As a developer you can turn on Template Path Hints and look for the blocks and template files that display pricing data. If you are going to the trouble of modifying the theme files, then I would also add a System Config option to allow you to toggle on and off the pricing.
Areas that need adjustment are:

Category and product pages
Wishlist
Checkout
Email templates for order confirmation
Order History
RSS feeds
Any 3rd party extensions??


Why is the letter K a rare letter?

Question: I was looking in a dictionary to find the meaning of the word: kalendae. When I came to the letter K, I saw that there are only a few words/names which starts with the letter K. I saw that there aren't many words which contain the letter K either. Why did the native speakers of Latin never use the letter K?
Answer: The letter K was common in the old Latin alphabet, but somehow it all but died out before the classical age. It may have been ousted by the letter C, but I'm not sure why that happened. Sometimes things happen for no apparent reason, arbitrary developments. Lewis & Short have this to say:

K, k, was used in the oldest period of the language as a separate character for the sound k, while C was used for the sound g. In course of time the character C came to be used also for the k sound, and, after the introduction of the character G, for that alone, and K disappeared almost entirely from the Latin orthography, except at the beginning of a few words, for each of which, also, the letter K itself was in common use as an abbreviation; thus, Kæso (or Cæso), Kalendæ (less correctly Calendæ), sometimes Karthago (or Kar.; v. Carthago); "and in special connections, Kalumnia, Kaput (for Calumnia and Caput, e. g. k. k. = calumniae causā in jurid. lang.): nam k quidem in nullis verbis utendum puto, nisi quae significat, etiam ut sola ponatur", Quint. 1, 7, 10; cf. id. 1, 4, 9.—Some grammarians, indeed, as early as Quintilian's time, thought it proper always to write K for initial C before a, Quint. 1, 7, 10.—Besides the above-mentioned abbreviations, the K is also found in KA. for capitalis, KK. for castrorum, K. S. for carus suis.
Comment: There's a little more to the story. In the Etruscan alphabet, which is the source of the Roman alphabet, the letters C K Q were used for [k] depending on the following vowel: C before E and I, K before A, and Q before U (Etrsucan had no O). The Romans originally adhered to this system, which is why practically all instances of K in Latin are followed by A. But eventually they very reasonably decided to scrap the distinctions and use C for [k] regardless of the following vowel.
Comment: But why did the Etruscans have that convention? That's the odd thing: why borrow three letters for one sound?  In Latin there was a distinction between  /kw/ and  /ku/; perhaps Etruscan had the same thing. Any surviving examples of Etruscan CV? Even if so, that doesn't explain the use of K before A.
Comment: @TKR: This. The letter G was introduced in Latin to represent [g] and C, K, and Q were all used for [k] until later when C was used for the sound almost exclusively most likely because it was more common. Also the letter Q is completely useless. No idea why it exists.

Why is the letter K a rare letter?


Why is it advisable to capture a disk image before shutting down?

Question: I am currently studying windows forensics and I have found that it would be advisable to image the drive while it is powered on and live. If you power it off, you likely will not be able to recover the keys. What would be the importance of these keys since I can re login into the system again?
Comment: What keys are you referencing? You know that there are other reasons not to shutdown when you want a clean forensic image, right?
Answer: Are you referring to bitlocker/encryption keys?
If so, the device is 'unlocked' while it's on and live, but once it has been powered down, the drives are 'locked' again adding extra requirements in order to get actual usable data off the drive.  Again, assuming we're talking about something like bitlocker, depending on how bitlocker is handled on the machine, there is a chance that generating a recovery key after the fact is just not feasible in general.  There may be no reasonable way to create one.
If you can freely relogin to the system, I can't see this being a major concern.


When will a TCP network packet be fragmented at the application layer?

Question: When will a TCP packet be fragmented at the application layer?  When a TCP packet is sent from an application, will the recipient at the application layer ever receive the packet in two or more packets?  If so, what conditions cause the packet to be divided.  It seems like a packet won't be fragmented until it reaches the Ethernet (at the network layer) limit of 1500 bytes.  But, that fragmentation will be transparent to the recipient at the application layer since the network layer will reassemble the fragments before sending the packet up to the next layer, right?
Comment: The only thing that can fragment TCP transmissions at the application layer is the application. Your question doesn't really make sense.
Answer: It will be split when it hits a network device with a lower MTU than the packet's size. Most ethernet devices are 1500, but it can often be smaller, like 1492 if that ethernet is going over PPPoE (DSL) because of the extra routing information, even lower if a second layer is added like Windows Internet Connection Sharing. And dialup is normally 576!
In general though you should remember that TCP is not a packet protocol. It uses packets at the lowest level to transmit over IP, but as far as the interface for any TCP stack is concerned, it is a stream protocol and has no requirement to provide you with a 1:1 relationship to the physical packets sent or received (for example most stacks will hold messages until a certain period of time has expired, or there are enough messages to maximize the size of the IP packet for the given MTU)
As an example if you sent two "packets" (call your send function twice), the receiving program might only receive 1 "packet" (the receiving TCP stack might combine them together). If you are implimenting a message type protocol over TCP, you should include a header at the beginning of each message (or some other header/footer mechansim) so that the receiving side can split the TCP stream back into individual messages, either when a message is received in two parts, or when several messages are received as a chunk.
Comment: There is also parameter `MSS` which is not mentioned here.
Comment: it does depend on the MTU (actually, the smallest MTU) along every hop along the way. But for small payloads (10 or 20 bytes as in the OP's question) it can be "almost sure" that it won't be fragmented if the whole packet (including all headers of each protocol layers, even the ones added on top if going through, say, a VPN) + the size of the payload are within limits of ipv4 minimal size. On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_transmission_unit you can see that for ipv4 you are guaranteed a maximum MTU of at least 68 bytes (NOT payloads!) on the hops.
Answer: Fragmentation should be transparent to a TCP application. Keep in mind that TCP is a stream protocol: you get a stream of data, not packets! If you are building your application based on the idea of complete data packets then you will have problems unless you add an abstraction layer to assemble whole packets from the stream and then pass the packets up to the application.
Answer: The question makes an assumption that is not true -- TCP does not deliver packets to its endpoints, rather, it sends a stream of bytes (octets).  If an application writes two strings into TCP, it may be delivered as one string on the other end; likewise, one string may be delivered as two (or more) strings on the other end.
RFC 793, Section 1.5:

"The TCP is able to transfer a
  continuous stream of octets in each
  direction between its users by
  packaging some number of octets into
  segments for transmission through the
  internet system."

The key words being continuous stream of octets (bytes).
RFC 793, Section 2.8:

"There is no necessary relationship
  between push functions and segment
  boundaries. The data in any particular
  segment may be the result of a single
  SEND call, in whole or part, or of
  multiple SEND calls."

The entirety of section 2.8 is relevant.
Answer: At the application layer there are any number of reasons why the whole 1500 bytes may not show up one read. Various factors in the internal operating system and TCP stack may cause  the application to get some bytes in one read call, and some in the next. Yes, the TCP stack has to re-assemble the packet before sending it up, but that doesn't mean your app is going to get it all in one shot (it is LIKELY will get it in one read, but it's not GUARANTEED to get it in one read).
TCP tries to guarantee in-order delivery of bytes, with error checking, automatic re-sends, etc happening behind your back. Think of it as a pipe at the app layer and don't get too bogged down in how the stack actually sends it over the network.
Answer: This page is a good source of information about some of the issues that others have brought up, namely the need for data encapsulation on an application protocol by application protocol basis  Not quite authoritative in the sense you describe but it has examples and is sourced to some pretty big names in network programming.
Answer: If a packet exceeds the maximum MTU of a network device it will be broken up into multiple packets. (Note most equipment is set to 1500 bytes, but this is not a necessity.)
The reconstruction of the packet should be entirely transparent to the applications.
Answer: Different network segments can have different MTU values. In that case fragmentation can occur. For more information see TCP Maximum segment size
This (de)fragmentation happens in the TCP layer. In the application layer there are no more packets. TCP presents a contiguous data stream to the application.
Answer: A the "application layer" a TCP packet (well, segment really; TCP at its own layer doesn't know from packets) is never fragmented, since it doesn't exist. The application layer is where you see the data as a stream of bytes, delivered reliably and in order.
If you're thinking about it otherwise, you're probably approaching something in the wrong way. However, this is not to say that there might not be a layer above this, say, a sequence of messages delivered over this reliable, in-order bytestream.
Answer: Correct - the most informative way to see this is using Wireshark, an invaluable tool. Take the time to figure it out - has saved me several times, and gives a good reality check
Answer: If a 3000 byte packet enters an Ethernet network with a default MTU size of 1500 (for ethernet), it will be fragmented into two packets of each 1500 bytes in length. That is the only time I can think of.
Wireshark is your best bet for checking this. I have been using it for a while and am totally impressed
Comment: So, will the receiving application receive two packets or one at the application layer?
Comment: Application layer has no concept of MTU and packet fragmentation. It is a seperate layer with seperate responsibilities from the Network and Transport layer. So shot answer, App layer cannot see two packets.


what permissions are granted to a sql server database owner?

Question: I have been trying to find out what permissions are granted to the owner of a database in SQL Server 2005 or higher.  I have seen best practices questions like this one: What is the best practice for the database owner in SQL Server 2005? but I haven't been able to find anything specifically addressing what the purpose of having a database owner in SQL Server is and what permissions are granted as a result of making a given login a database owner.  If the owner of the database is disabled, what would stop working?
Answer: Essentially setting a database owner allows for full privileges in that database by mapping that login to the dbo user in that database. This includes the ability to select, insert, update, delete and execute. In addition the db owner can alter objects, grant permissions and change the configuration of the database. If it can be done within the database the db owner can do it.
As per microsoft: Members of the db_owner fixed database role can perform all configuration and maintenance activities on the database, and can also drop the database.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189121.aspx
The more up to date alternative to the sp_changedbowner stored procedure is the syntax:
    ALTER AUTHORIZATION ON database:: TO "".
Finally, it doesn't seem like anything will break if the owner of a database is disabled.  It is common to set the owner of all user databases to 'sa' and this login is commonly disabled.  I tested myself and the results seem to bear that statement out.  See here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlsecurity/thread/a0519b62-a509-45c9-b2cb-d9a2e6861ace/
Comment: Yes, that's true for the database role db_owner.  However, I'm asking about the actual owner of the database.  The one you see under the General tab when looking at database properties.  The one that can be changed via the sp_changedbowner stored procedure.  I'm not asking about the role you are discussing.
Comment: IT will be the same permissions. the person assigned as that owner will have DBO privileges applied.
Comment: A better way to say what you are suggesting is that the login you specify as the database owner gets mapped to the dbo user within the database.


Get relative path from comparing two absolute paths

Question: Say, I have two absolute paths. I need to check if the location referring to by one of the paths is a descendant of the other. If true, I need to find out the relative path of the descendant from the ancestor. What's a good way to implement this in Python? Any library that I can benefit from?
Answer: os.path.commonprefix() and os.path.relpath() are your friends:
>>> print os.path.commonprefix(['/usr/var/log', '/usr/var/security'])
'/usr/var'
>>> print os.path.commonprefix(['/tmp', '/usr/var'])  # No common prefix: the root is the common prefix
'/'

You can thus test whether the common prefix is one of the paths, i.e. if one of the paths is a common ancestor:
paths = […, …, …]
common_prefix = os.path.commonprefix(list_of_paths)
if common_prefix in paths:
    …

You can then find the relative paths:
relative_paths = [os.path.relpath(path, common_prefix) for path in paths]

You can even handle more than two paths, with this method, and test whether all the paths are all below one of them.
PS: depending on how your paths look like, you might want to perform some normalization first (this is useful in situations where one does not know whether they always end with '/' or not, or if some of the paths are relative).  Relevant functions include os.path.abspath() and os.path.normpath().
PPS: as Peter Briggs mentioned in the comments, the simple approach described above can fail:
>>> os.path.commonprefix(['/usr/var', '/usr/var2/log'])
'/usr/var'

even though /usr/var is not a common prefix of the paths.  Forcing all paths to end with '/' before calling commonprefix() solves this (specific) problem.
PPPS: as bluenote10 mentioned, adding a slash does not solve the general problem. Here is his followup question: How to circumvent the fallacy of Python's os.path.commonprefix?
PPPPS: starting with Python 3.4, we have pathlib, a module that provides a saner path manipulation environment. I guess that the common prefix of a set of paths can be obtained by getting all the prefixes of each path (with PurePath.parents()), taking the intersection of all these parent sets, and selecting the longest common prefix.
PPPPPS: Python 3.5 introduced a proper solution to this question: os.path.commonpath(), which returns a valid path.
Comment: Take care with `commonprefix`, as e.g. the common prefix for `/usr/var/log` and `/usr/var2/log` is returned as `/usr/var` - which is probably not what you'd expect. (It's also possible for it to return paths that are not valid directories.)
Comment: @EOL: I don't really see how to fix the problem by appending a slash :(. What if we have `['/usr/var1/log/', '/usr/var2/log/']`?
Comment: @EOL: Since I failed to find an appealing solution for this problem I though it might be okay to discuss this sub-issue in a [separate question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21498939/how-to-circumvent-the-fallacy-of-pythons-os-path-commonprefix).
Comment: Exactly what I need. Thanks for your prompt answer. Will accept your answer once the time restriction is lifted.
Comment: @PeterBriggs: Thanks, this caveat is important.  I added a PPS.
Comment: That's the most postscripts I've ever seen. Thanks for keeping the answer up to date
Answer: os.path.relpath:

Return a relative filepath to path either from the current directory or from an optional start point.

>>> from os.path import relpath
>>> relpath('/usr/var/log/', '/usr/var')
'log'
>>> relpath('/usr/var/log/', '/usr/var/sad/')
'../log'

So, if relative path starts with '..' - it means that the second path is not descendant of the first path.
In Python3 you can use PurePath.relative_to:
Python 3.5.1 (default, Jan 22 2016, 08:54:32)
>>> from pathlib import Path

>>> Path('/usr/var/log').relative_to('/usr/var/log/')
PosixPath('.')

>>> Path('/usr/var/log').relative_to('/usr/var/')
PosixPath('log')

>>> Path('/usr/var/log').relative_to('/etc/')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python3/3.5.1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/lib/python3.5/pathlib.py", line 851, in relative_to
    .format(str(self), str(formatted)))
ValueError: '/usr/var/log' does not start with '/etc'

Comment: Am I wrong or is `os.relpath` more powerful since it handles `..` and `PurePath.relative_to()` does not?   Am I missing something?
Comment: Checking for the presence of `os.pardir` is more robust than checking for `..` (agreed, there are not many other conventions, though).
Comment: @RaySalemi is correct, it should be noted that `>>> Path('/usr/var').relative_to('/usr/var/log')` fails with a `ValueError`
Answer: A write-up of jme's suggestion, using pathlib, in Python 3.
from pathlib import Path
parent = Path(r'/a/b')
son = Path(r'/a/b/c/d')

if parent in son.parents or parent==son:
    print(son.relative_to(parent)) # returns Path object equivalent to 'c/d'

Comment: So `dir1.relative_to(dir2)` will give PosixPath('.') if they are the same. When you use `if dir2 in dir1.parents` then it excludes the identity case. If someone is comparing Paths and wants to run `relative_to()` if they are path-compatible, a better solution may be `if dir2 in (dir1 / 'x').parents` or `if dir2 in dir1.parents or dir2 == dir1`. Then all cases of path compatibility are covered.
Answer: Another option is
>>> print os.path.relpath('/usr/var/log/', '/usr/var')
log

Comment: This always return a relative path; this does not directly indicate whether one of the paths is above the other (one can check for the presence of `os.pardir` in front of the two possible resulting relative paths, though).
Answer: Pure Python2 w/o dep:
def relpath(cwd, path):
    """Create a relative path for path from cwd, if possible"""
    if sys.platform == "win32":
        cwd = cwd.lower()
        path = path.lower()
    _cwd = os.path.abspath(cwd).split(os.path.sep)
    _path = os.path.abspath(path).split(os.path.sep)
    eq_until_pos = None
    for i in xrange(min(len(_cwd), len(_path))):
        if _cwd[i] == _path[i]:
            eq_until_pos = i
        else:
            break
    if eq_until_pos is None:
        return path
    newpath = [".." for i in xrange(len(_cwd[eq_until_pos+1:]))]
    newpath.extend(_path[eq_until_pos+1:])
    return os.path.join(*newpath) if newpath else "."

Comment: This one looks good, but, as I stumble upon, there is an issue when `cwd` and `path` are the same. it should check first if those two are the same and return either `""` or `"."`
Answer: Edit : See jme's answer for the best way with Python3.
Using pathlib, you have the following solution :
Let's say we want to check if son is a descendant of parent, and both are Path objects.
We can get a list of the parts in the path with list(parent.parts).
Then, we just check that the begining of the son is equal to the list of segments of the parent.
>>> lparent = list(parent.parts)
>>> lson = list(son.parts)
>>> if lson[:len(lparent)] == lparent:
>>> ... #parent is a parent of son :)

If you want to get the remaining part, you can just do
>>> ''.join(lson[len(lparent):])

It's a string, but you can of course use it as a constructor of an other Path object.
Comment: It's even easier than that: simply `parent in son.parents`, and if it is, getting the remainder with `son.relative_to(parent)`.
Comment: @jme You answer is even better, why don't you post it?


Time conversion confusions in C#

Question: I'm accessing the file.LastWriteTime of a driver (.sys file) in C#.
Code as follows:
DateTime fileDate = FileInfo(path).LastWriteTime;
String locaZone = TimeZoneInfo.Local.DisplayName;
DateTime BinaryDate = TimeZoneInfo.ConverTimetoUtc(fileDate, TimeZoneInfo.Local);

I checked the Drivers folder in System32 - file time is 9/27/2012 12:40:42 AM
and the local timezone is Pacific.

Hence, fileDate = 9/27/2012 12:40:42 AM
But, BinaryDate (after conversion to UTC) = 9/27/2012 07:40:42 AM

Can anyone please guide what's wrong here - seems like conversion is not happening correctly.
Ideally, we should observe BinaryDate value to be > 9/27/2012 12:40:42 AM (including DayLight Saving)
Comment: Pacific is GMT-7:00. So if you convert your local time to UTC, that should be 7 hours later. Or what is it you expect?
Answer: Can you not just call FileInfo(path).LastWriteTimeUtc ?
Comment: No, UTC does not change according to daylight savings time.

Time conversion confusions in C#


How can I create keyboard like buttons with UIInputView?

Question: With iOS 7 Apple introduced UIInputView, which allows you to add a custom view above the keyboard that looks like this (you can adjust the height):

The docs state that:

The UIInputView class is designed to match the appearance of the standard system keyboard when used as an input view with a responder. When defining your own custom input views or input accessory views, you can use a UIInputView object as the root view and add any subviews you want to create your input view. The input view and its subviews receive tinting and blur effects based on the options you specify at initialization time.

What I do not understand, however, is how I can add additional row of buttons that look like standard keys above the keyboard (such as here in Fantastical):

Is it possible to a) correctly style system UIButtons so that they appear like keys or b) is there a library that simplifies the rendering of custom keys?
Answer: I think this an inputAccessoryView used with the iOS keyboard. Just try by creating a UIView and adding some custom buttons to it and assigning it as the inputAccessoryView.


Drying time of dewaxed shellac

Question: What is drying time of dewaxed shellac before I apply water based top coat?
Answer: If your shellac is fresh the drying time should be measured in minutes, literally as soon as the alcohol has evaporated shellac is considered touch-dry and it should no longer be tacky*. A very thin coat applied to bare wood can dry in as little as 1-2 minutes (!) in a warm room, but any thicker applications should be expected to take 10-20 minutes.
Note that after initially drying shellac isn't quite hard and you may want to wait 15 minutes to an hour before overcoating it, depending on your local drying conditions and how many coats you've applied.
__
*If it remains tacky for an extended period of time, hours or longer, it indicates the shellac has aged and the common advice is to discard it. As much as possible shellac should be made up fresh in small batches (or bought in small containers, paying attention to the production date) so that it gets used up and isn't stored for months and months.

Drying time of dewaxed shellac


Is there a way to add more text to a range value?

Question: I'm trying to extend a query in Dynamics AX that populates the "My Projects" window. I've found the query that I need to modify, and tried to modify it, unfortunately, the character limit in the Value field (see screen shot), is not sufficient to allow me to enter all of the text I need to extend this query.

I've explored adding additional ranges, but I need to add additional OR arguments here and it appears that adding additional ranges will AND the range instead of ORing it.
Is there any way to bypass this character limit?
Comment: Can you please provide a bigger screenshot - yours is too small so it isn't possible to see the objects you are trying to show.
In some cases you can avoid such issues by creating and using new Views.
Answer: If you add several ranges to the same datasource field, the ranges are combined with OR in the SQL.
This is useful sometimes. See this queustion for a (klunky) example.


Do things move towards each other in space?

Question: I watched a video once explaining space-time curvature, and it said that one of the things that made Einstein think of it is because objects in free fall move radially inward, so two objects falling side by side are actually moving towards each other, while objects floating in space are not moving relative to each other. Space-time curvature solves this problem, because the curvature of space-time means that two objects in free fall aren't moving towards each other, they only seem to be because space-time is curved. But wouldn't objects in space also be moving towards each other, either because of their gravity or because they're actually in free fall to some planet nearby, as some answers to other questions I saw while looking this up suggest?
Answer: Well, yes. Technically we can never turn off gravity completely. But it's useful to pretend that we can do so, and so when we talk about "objects floating in space", we're implicitly assuming that these objects are small enough that the gravitational force between them is negligible, and that they're far away from any astronomical body. Under these conditions, we can pretend that two objects placed in space will remain where they are.
Comment: But we usually don't think of objects in free fall as moving towards each other either. So was that video wrong?
Comment: @Chana you don't notice it because at the Earth's surface the gravitational field is nearly uniform. If you have two objects sufficiently far apart and drop them, gravity will pull them towards the Earth's center and they will move towards each other.
Comment: So you're saying that in space, things would have to be either really big or really close together to noticeably move, but objects in free fall just have to be pretty far apart and you'll notice that they're moving closer to each other, so that means that they wouldn't seem to be the same if you were one of the objects?
Comment: Not to speak about the Casimir effect ;-)
Answer: Considering increasing Entropy and that we observe the universe to be expanding exponentially and the space between matter is doing the expanding we must conclude at certain distances between objects gravity is not the prevailing force. At such a hypothetical zero gravity point and perhaps anti-gravity point I would have to say it is very important to consider what other forces would be acting on these objects. If there is no observable force nearby increasing entropy and an expanding universe should prevail and in time these objects will be farther and farther apart.
However in a special case as a black hole I could see them falling in on themselves once they breach the event horizon. In this case gravity is definitely the prevailing force and space time curvature should play a role in their radially inward motion as they free fall.
Additionally if they happen to be drawn in by gravity into a decaying orbit of a planet or sun they would experience a space-time curvature that would change their velocity and cause a "free fall with a radially inward motion to the larger masses center that is acting on them.
I think it is very important to note that if the two bodies are in very empty space with no black wholes, no suns, no planets, no large gas nebula, no matter of any consequence, that the gravitational influence of empty space will approach a zero point and may even be negative {perhaps due to dark matter} and that the law of entropy and an exponentially expanding universe will over time result with the two objects being infinitely separated over an infinite time. This result should also be evident by examining a quantum probability distribution of two particles laid out by the Schrodinger wave equation on a macro scale with universe set as the boundary conditions.
Comment: Downvoted on the basis of incoherence. Not to mention not addressing the question.
Comment: I have done my best to make this complex topic more coherent. Let me know where I can assist.


Will messages delivered as SMS if I'm blocked in iMessage?

Question: I texted somebody on iMessage but I think the recipient blocked me. iMessage says it got sent as a normal text. Will that text go to the recipient's phone?
Answer: If she has blocked you, then the message will not be sent to her.
When you first send a message to another Apple device, it will look like an iMessage. It will then change to look like an SMS message, just like you experienced. To you, it will look like a regular message, and it will look like it sent, but she will not actually receive it.


Does Categorical Variable need normalization/standardization?

Question: since we do normalize as 10kg >>> 10 grams or 1000 >> 10.
so incase of one hot encoding eg male=0 and female =1, are we giving more weight to  female as 1>0 for training our models?
Comment: What is supposed to happen after normalization?
Answer: The 0/1 encoding of male/female doesn't by itself put more weight on females versus males; it's not really different from having a value of 0 versus 1 (or 1 versus 2) in a continuous predictor. It's just a difference of 1 unit in the predictor value. As @Tim rightly points out, for many machine learning approaches normalization is not required and there is no issue about weighting.
There is, however, a potential problem when your modeling method requires all predictors to be on the same scale. Examples are principal-components analysis (PCA) and penalized linear approaches like LASSO, ridge, or their hybrid elastic net. The default, in some implementations at least, is to normalize all predictors including the categorical predictors. That's where you can have difficulties.
If you don't normalize the categorical predictors, are they on the same scales as the continuous predictors, as your penalization method implicitly assumes? If you do normalize 2-level predictors like male/female, the normalized values can depend heavily on the class frequencies in your sample. So normalization of predictors having class imbalance can alter weighting. For multi-level categorical predictors the issue is even more vexing as the choice of the reference level can affect the normalized values.
This page goes into more detail. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this issue in PCA and penalized regression; intelligent application of your subject-matter knowledge might be best.
Answer: Machine learning algorithm is a function of the inputs, that predicts the outputs. There are many different algorithms. You seem to assume linear model, where $y = X\beta + \varepsilon$, so the result of $y$ would linearly depend on $X$. Notice however, that even with such model if $\beta$ is negative, then decreasing $X$ would lead to increasing $y$.
Moreover, most of the machine learning models learn non-linear functions, so there is no such linear dependence. For example, decision tree is a series of if ... else ... statements based on learned thresholds if X > c then ... else ..., so it doesn't matter for the model what are the actual values as long as it can pack them into meaningful "buckets" of similar values. Neural networks achieve non-linearity by using redundant weights and stacking multiple layers. If you use $k$ nearest neighbors, it only looks at similarities between your samples, so bigger/smaller relation does not affect it in this case.
Finally, normalization/standardization does not affect ordering of values. So if $x_1$ is larger then $x_2$, after normalization or standardization they both would have potentially different values, but the relation between them would not change.
Comment: I enjoyed reading your answer I believe it partially answers my recent question  https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/445254/encoding-categorical-time-series-data-with-missing-value
Answer: Normalization/standardization of features is done to bring all features to a similar scale. When you one hot encode categorical variables they are either 0/1 hence there is not much scale difference like 10~1000 hence there is no need to apply techniques for normalization/standardization.


If I have already used all my movement, and then Zephyr Strike increases it after my attack, can I move more with the increased speed?

Question: My character is a Ranger with the spell Zephyr Strike, which increases my speed by 30ft after I make an attack. If I have already used all my movement to reach an enemy, can I attack and then use the increased 30ft to move away?
Answer: Yes
The movement in combat rules say that:

"You can break up your movement on your turn, using some of your speed before and after your action."

Your overall speed is increased by 30ft after the attack for the rest of this turn only. So if your normal speed is 30ft, your total speed for this turn is then 60ft. You've already moved 30ft of it before the attack, so you have 30ft left to use as much of as you like after making the attack.
Even better, Zephyr Strike grants that:

your movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks

So the enemy you just hit can't make an opportunity attack against you if you use your new extra movement to escape their threatened area.
Answer: Yes, but...
Zephyr Strike is an unusual spell because it includes a variety of things it does and those things are contingent upon whether the spell is active or not.
First of all, let's address the root of your questions about moving away. You may do so because the spell specifically states:

Once before the spell ends, you can give yourself advantage on one weapon attack roll on your turn. That attack deals an extra 1d8 force damage on a hit. Whether you hit or miss, your walking speed increases by 30 feet until the end of that turn.

This means your walking speed is increased by 30 feet until the end of your turn. Curiously, you can stop concentrating on the spell at this point and this clause would still be in effect. The only criteria for the increase in walking speed is that you attempted a weapon attack roll on your turn before the spell ends.

I believe there's a second implied question relating to this regarding whether you can move away from the enemy without provoking an opportunity attack. And the answer to that is entirely dependent on whether you maintain concentration.
The spell includes this clause:

Until the spell ends, your movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks.

If you make your attack as described and stop concentrating on the spell then you would have the extra movement, but provoke the opportunity attack. However, if you were to maintain concentration following your attack then you could use the additional movement to escape without the enemy getting a chance to hit you back.
Comment: @TheGreatJava It is situationally handy, but spell slots are scarce on a Ranger, so when to do this will depend on the opponent and the battlefield, and lighting conditions.  But when it works, it works well.
Comment: Never tought to play with maintaining the concentration or not! This is really thinking outside the box xD not sure why I would want to stop concentrating on the spell though, but it's nice to know the implications!
Concerning the second part, I already have a mean to escape (mobile feat), so it's not a concern for me ;)
Comment: I thought Zephyr Strike ends on a hit, but reading through it again, it appears that you can indeed keep concentrating on it after the hit. That's crazy. Also, very exploitable for a gloom stalker or horizon walker.

Also makes a 2-3 level dip into ranger for a rogue a lot more appealing. Having disengage basically on for a minute, leaving BA to do other rogueish things.
Comment: @TheGreatJava that's exactly my character xD
I have a rogue scout (4) ranger gloom stalker (3), so my first turn is pretty crazy!


Will Creative Cloud open CS2 files

Question: I use CS2 on an old iMac (OS 10.6.8). If I upgrade to the latest iMac (Yosemite) and rent Creative Cloud will I be able to read my CS2 files.
If there's anyone out there who can help, I'd be most Grateful.
Norman
Comment: In general yes. Most new applications will open all previous version files. The issue is going *backwards* not forwards.
Comment: What Scott said. Also,if you can install the new cloud in Trial version on your older system, you can always try if you're really worried. But there's absolutely no reason why the CS2 wouldn't work. You can go back as far as opening 20 years old files without any issues!
Answer: Yes, you should be able to open your old files with creative cloud. Most software doesn't lose the ability to open old files, so you should be fine.

Will Creative Cloud open CS2 files


Eisegesis needed for correct exegeting of Scripture, with John 1:1-14 as question topic

Question: So, I had asked a related question that was closed for it's lack of Scripture to apply a hermeneutically approach to, so I've re phrased to scripture which is very important to the Christian faith: How do we understand the words of Scripture? I believe literally in John 1:14 "the WORD (Logos) was made flesh" in the person of the man Jesu(s) the Christ; Thus, I exegetically understand this Word is in reference to that spoken of in John 1:1 , this all is easy exegetical exercise, we don't have to leave the book of John. But what is John speaking of as the WORD? I then must define the Word by an out side source from John? One can not rely on the Greek language for this concept, you can not chronologically implore Greek culture or philosophy or mythos.
For me, for the record, I arrive at what the WORD is and means by defining Logos by use of the Greek LXX which renders Christ as the literal mediating voice of YHWh. But what say ye?
Answer: John was a Jewish theologian expressing Jewish ideas in Greek terms, not Greek philosophy.  So "The Word" would not be a concept but a person, as you note, and that person can only be "The Messiah" - Hebrew or "The Christ" - Greek.  So I feel that Hebrew thinking and theology must be used to explain the N.T. and how the Jewish Messiah became Flesh.  I do hold to your idea that the Greek LXX was part of God reveling his self to mankind which pointed to the Christ/Messiah.
Answer: There is a HUGE literature on this subject of the "LOGOS".  So here we will only briefly view the highlights.
The interesting thing about this passage is what John did NOT say.

John offers no explanation about this "Logos" (= "word" in most versions); therefore, it was clearly understandable to his intended (presumably Greek) audience.  "Logos" is a deeply significant Greek word that has invaded almost all modern languages in various forms (English: logic, geology, philology, etc.)  As is well known, "word" is a most inadequate translation - idea, concept, thought might be better (but misleading) but originally meant a "communication whereby the mind finds expression", or, "computation, reckoning" (BDAG #1 & #2).
Despite the above, it would be misleading (but technically possible) to translate John 1:1 as, "In the beginning was the thought and the thought was with God … ".  He wanted to convey more than this because Jesus was a person not just an idea.
John did NOT say, "In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God and Jesus was God … ".  He clearly wanted to convey much more than this, including that Jesus created by mere thought!! (v3)  This makes Jesus far greater than any pagan god that could even be imagined.
John selected his words carefully.  Another Greek word, "rhema" literally means, "word" (that which is spoken), was NOT used by John - God created by even less than speaking things into existence - by using LOGOS, Jesus thought things into existence!

Therefore, what did John say?

Jesus was separate from God but with God
Jesus created all things by the power of thought
Jesus was God
Jesus became flesh (ie, human) and lived among us.

John's masterpiece of literary economy achieved all this (and much more) in such few words!  It was perfectly crafted to bridge the divide between Hebrew and Greek thought.
For some further material on Jesus as the LOGOS, see BDAG article on Logos #3 which also includes some fascinating material about pagan ideas of divinity personified and called Logos.
Comment: So, by what systematic means is this Logos (thought if you will), or perhaps better Logic To be understood? This is a hard concept grasp by simple speech, and even if we convey that Logic of God was with God and was God and became flesh in Jesus, what is the imported meaning of the Logic of God? Even to the Greek this must be defined by Hebrew scripture.
Answer: The Apostle John already interprets for us what it meant in John 1 in the opening of his first Epistle: What (ὅ) was from the beginning (cf. John 1:1), what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld, and our hands have reached out for concerning the word (λόγος) of life (cf. John 1:4). And the life was revealed, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father (cf. John 1:2) and was revealed unto us." So we can clearly see here that the word of John 1 is not a person as John calls it a "what" but God's divine plan of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God which was in God's divine council and plan before the world was created (1 Pet 1:20, Rev 13:8, Matt 25:34) and was later revealed in the person of His anointed King (the word [God's divine plan] was made flesh). And notice what John 1:4 says regarding the word: "ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων· (In it was life and the life was the light of man)." However, if you keep reading on through the next few verses you'll notice that the light is personified as being Jesus. In other words, Jesus is the light within the λόγος (God's divine plan/decree).
In regards to the word being called "God," we must look at the original Greek text in order to gain proper understanding: "Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος" ("In beginning was the word, and the word was with the God, and θεὸς was the word"). The word for God here in the third clause ("θεὸς") is to be understood here in the adjectival sense since the words "θεὸς" and "ὁ λόγος" (the word) are joined together by the verb "ἦν" ("to be") but the first subject (θεὸς) lacks the definite article. So "ὁ λόγος" (the word) is not being identified as "θεὸς" but is described as being within the sphere and likeness of "θεὸς". An example that might help one understand this in English is if I say "the preacher is the man" I add the definite article before the word "man" and I thereby identify "the preacher" with some definite man I have in mind. But if I remove the definite article and say "the preacher is man" what I mean is that the preacher is in the sphere and likeness of man. He is "man-like." The same things applies with "the word" of John 1. "ὁ λόγος" here in John 1:1 is being described as "God-like" or "divine."
Comment: I appreciate your biblical approach, thanks!
Answer: http://www.bible-researcher.com/logos.html

Mackintosh's discussion of λόγος
The following is from Hugh R. Mackintosh's discussion of the word
  logos in his book The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ
  (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912, reprinted New York: Chales Scribner's
  Sons, 1942), pp. 115-18.
We hold then that what St. John required and sought for was a term
  worthy to express the absolute nature of Christ, in whom the eternal,
  self-revealing God was incarnate; and that this seemed to be furnished
  by the contemporary religious thought, in which the Logos-conception
  had become familiarly established. He perceived its extraordinary
  value for the expositor. More significantly than any other word it
  gave expression to that aspect of Christ's life and work which he
  regarded as supreme. In addition to its place in Old Testament
  thought, it had received from Hellenism a certain cosmic width of
  meaning, and thus furnished a point of contact—this every missionary
  must appreciate—between Christianity and current modes of religious
  speculation. He chose it therefore as peculiarly fitted to recommend
  the Light and Life which had appeared in Jesus; but in choosing it he
  took full precautions to ensure by his exposition that its Christian
  import should not be overshadowed by former associations.
Answer: So, after seeing for a few days the differences in thought here there seems to be a question as to if I can even ask such a question no matter how I phrase it. The answers gotten, to me indicate a heavy leaning on historical possibility and philosophy qualified by learned men of reputation (eisegetical?). But I've not seen Scripture to answer Scripture (exegetical). Among the first answers I had got  before I had rephrased this important question is that all reading of Scripture should be defined by exegeting a prior Scripture to give meaning to what we read and have faith in...along those lines.
If we let Logos be defined by philosophy Logos becomes non-sense in search of a greater good or purpose, it's not Logic ( just read some Aristotle). If we understand " John 1:1 In the beginning was the WORD (Logos) and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God. As God's Logic we are lead to Creation, we are lead to Noah's  God who revealed him self by his voice and judgment, in fact we are lead to the Logos of the LXX in compare to that Hebrew culture John was tell about. The Logos is the WORD /DeBaR / דּבר of YHWH revealed by what YHWH says / AMaR / אמר, and then we can start to understand Christ's person by understanding the world his creative force made and what his mediating WORD has commanded. We see Christ as the Logic or Rational of YHWH as taught in his Law. That's my approach, I just wanted to know how others understand the words of scripture. Thanks for the forum
Answer: Peace.
In Beginning was the Word or Saying.
"In Beginning" has no definite article as it is speaking of Jesus being the Beginning.  Jesus was the first to have the Saying of God within Him and He relayed that message to mankind whose foolish heart became darkened about the nature of God even though it was already manifest within man. (Romans 1:19).

John 1:1 KJV (1)  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
  God, and the Word was God.

In (no "the" is present) Beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  there is no definite article found here:  "in Beginning....
In Jesus…the Beginning of the creation of God…all things were all things in Heaven and earth created through.

Genesis 1:1 KJV (1)  In the beginning God created the heaven and the
  earth.

The Word is the "Saying" that was in the Beginning…in Jesus.  It is a saying/message for all mankind about the divine nature of God of which Jesus was the express image of.
The "Beginning" is Jesus who had the Saying about God and Jesus is that the exact express image of God in this world as He lived it.
He is the "brightness " of His glory and the "express image" of His person as He lives the Saying.

Hebrews 1:2-3 KJV (2)  Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
  Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made
  the worlds; (3)  Who being the brightness of his glory, and the
  express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of
  his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the
  right hand of the Majesty on high;

The Saying was made flesh for all to see.  Jesus …the Light of the world.

John 1:14 KJV (14)  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
  (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
  Father,) full of grace and truth.

Jesus is the "Beginning of the creation of God" (Revelation 3:14).
The Word or Saying was "with"…or toward…God.  This Saying is about or pertaining to God's nature.  It was "toward" God as it is about Him.   It pertains to God.
The Word was God as those who do the Saying share fellowship with God.  Elohim is plural as we share communion with God when we live the Saying of Life.
This Saying/Word  of Life is found 1st John 1:5.
This is the message which we (the apostles) heard of Him (the Beginning which is Jesus)  and they declare unto us:   that God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all.

1 John 1:5-7 KJV (5)  This then is the message which we have heard of
  him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no
  darkness at all. (6)  If we say that we have fellowship with him, and
  walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: (7)  But if we walk in
  the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
  and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

The Saying is found in Genesis 1:3 where the Beginning (Jesus) states the very first words of God...the words that pertain to His nature:    that God is Light.
Elohim….He IS Light.
The Hebrew word "hayah" in the context of this verse means "to exist" as God IS Light and always has been Light and will always be Light.   He does not "become" Light as He IS Light.
"And there was light":    It is mankind that is commanded to become light as God is Light so that we may communion/fellowship with Him.   We turn from darkness unto Light. His Light shines within our once-darkened hearts when we hear His voice speaking His knowledg.
From Interlinear Scripture Analyzer 2 Basic :


sample space for a feature in machine learning

Question: In machine learning data set each feature is considered as a random variable.
Random variable is a function which maps the outcomes in sample space to a real value.
Now I am trying to understand since each feature is a random variable. what would be the sample space of it? I mean what is the domain it is trying to map?
Comment: I marked this as a duplicate of another, more general, question. I believe the another question applies as well to what you ask, since the definition of random variable is the same in probability theory, statistics, and machine learning.
Comment: here my question is not about what is a Random Variable. its about what would be the events the random variable is mapping. In the data we typically see the values but the input domain in unknown. I would like to know about the domain here not what is a random variable.
Comment: Those events are part of definition of random variable. Is there any reason why the linked thread does not answer your question?
Answer: Just look at the empirical distribution of your features, e.g. by a histogram if you have real values. If you have discrete values, like categories, the same idea applies. Now each value in your sample space (interval / category) is mapped to a probability.
Comment: This is not correct. See https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/50/what-is-meant-by-a-random-variable/54894#54894 for description of what random variable is.


How do I insert a picture into the Notes app?

Question: I use the Notes app for keeping track and sharing the extended notes with fellow physicians in cardiology studies. There are a lot of pros to this app and I would find it very much useful if I could insert pictures into specific areas within Notes. (a video would make it even better). How is it possible to customize this for a such purpose and is there an alternative to this solution?
Answer: The iOS Notes app is not able to insert pictures. At best it will paste a url to an image.
I suggest you use another note app such as Evernote or Notability.
Answer: You could just wait for the next iPhone update. While it's not guaranteed to have the ability to add photos, I believe it's likely that it will have the ability to do so. That's because one of the new features in Mountain Lion is a Notes app which synchronizes with iCloud, and one of it's features is adding pictures to notes:

Notes in OS X Mountain Lion is designed for whatever's on your mind. Think it up. Jot it down. Make it even more noteworthy with photos, images, and attachments.
Comment: In light of http://meta.apple.stackexchange.com/questions/1114/can-we-open-questions-about-mountain-lion maybe this should be a comment instead of an answer but I could be wrong and/or biased :)
Comment: I suspect that if you can source the answer by linking to Apple's website, you're probably not breaking any NDA by posting this, as I first feared. :-)
Answer: That was one of the things I also noticed and found a bit strange - therefore, I developed the app My Photo Note.
You can let the app set a link of your photo note into the iPhone calendar - tapping the link will open up the photo note in My Photo Note.
My Photo Note is also not free ($1.99 for the full version), but you can try the lite version for free: My Photo Note
Answer: You cannot add pictures to the Notes app at present. NoteMaster is a paid app that lets you add images and make pretty notes easily. Some of the other features include:

rich text
sync with Google docs
create and manage lists & to-dos

It isn't free though, and costs $3.99.

There are a bazillion note-taking apps out there that are better than the default — it's almost like the "Hello world" of apps, and this article reviews 100 of them!
Answer: iLA is a brilliant tool designed for notes, project planning, deep learning, collaborating , brainstorming and the like. Of course you can insert pictures in card, make notes to card, create stack from cards (categorizing), and make a desktop of one topic. Sharing knowledge becomes extremely easy and fun!
It is available on Apple Appstore from this link.
Also "Individual Learning Tool," the book about iLA, is available on iBookStore for free.
Answer: Use Evernote that is the best note taking website/app


How to keep chia seeds from sticking to the side of a vessel

Question: I use chia seeds in my smoothies.  I put them in the blender vessel and then add some water to soak them (What Happens to Chia Seeds Soaked in Water?) before putting in the yogurt, berries and bananas. I often soak them overnight. They mostly float and some always stick to the side of the vessel even after running the blender.
How can I keep them from sticking to the sides and help them to absorb water?
Answer: I started buying them already ground into powder form. So much more versatile.  Not only can you add a spoon to your shake you can add a spoon to a lot of recipes for that nutty flavor. Grind the seeds with a coffee grinder. An additional benefit to grinding them is they will be easier to digest allowing for better absorption.
Answer:
I put them in the blender vessel ...

Well, just do not do that :)
You can soak the seeds in a separate glass. When you want to make the smoothie, just transfer the seeds to the blender.
If it will be difficult to remove the seeds from the glass, them maybe soak them directly into the yogurt, or any other wet ingredient you use. You can adjust the viscosity of the smoothie later, adding more water / milk / whatever.
Alternatively, add just a little water over those seeds. When fully soaked, they will probably sit on the bottom of the vessel and they will be removed when you start the blender with the other ingredients inside.
Answer: After some experimentation I have found that putting some smoothie ingredients in first and adding the chia seeds in after works. I have stopped soaking them solely in water. I actually make the smoothie completely and keep it in the fridge overnight.


What if I am a victim of serial downvoting?

Question: What to do if another user, or users, disagreed with me and serially downvoted bunch of my posts without reading them (all votes were cast within minutes)?
Answer: Based on the meta.SE question "What is serial voting and how does it affect me?" and the very thorough accepted answer:

Do nothing. Automatic script checks for and detects unnatural voting patterns, and reverses serial up or downvotes after 36 hours or so (it runs every day at 03:00 UTC).
If after 36 hours situation yet to be rectified, flag one of the posts for moderator attention, and explain the situation.
Answer: My advise will be - do nothing. Stay calm and keep on moving. Imagine that you have, say, 200 answers (which is quite a lot), everyone of which had been up voted at least once. So, you have 2000 points  - I assume, your concerns are about reputations, since otherwise there is not point in worrying at all.
Imagine now that someone is in bad mood and down voted you serially for some reasons. Then, actually, all damage such person can produce is about 400 points. Even if there was not a system for detecting serial down votes (and there is a system, as you've already mentioned and it works pretty well), even in that case it is not a big deal.
I believe that concentrating in questions and answers in ant case will give one incomparably more profit than trying to seek revenge. After all, remember that one up vote can be annihilated only by five down-votes.
Comment: Regardless of losing reputation, the behaviour is not OK. So if the script doesn't work, you should contact a moderator. That's not revenge. :)
Comment: @Alenanno, it's OK not in that sense that is is good, nice or even acceptable, it is OK in sense that I believe nobody will do it for weeks. I hardly can believe in such pure evil :) There is, by the way, a nice russian word for it - перебеситься :)


Visual studio Reformat Code/Document

Question: I can't find the Reformat button, I know I can use ctrl+k+d, but I wish to have also the toolbar with the button. can someone help me ?
Comment: See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5755942/how-do-you-auto-format-code-in-visual-studio
Answer: You can use Edit > Advanced > Format Document and you can also move this as a button to any toolbar. Go to Tools > Customize > Commands, select Toolbar and push Add Command button. Then select Edit category and find Document Format.
Comment: Sorry it is called Document Format not Format Document in commands.
Comment: thanks, I've searched the for the command in order to add it but didn't find it in the Edit category
Comment: Mine does not show either "Format Document" nor "Document Format" under the edit menu list when adding a new command.  Any other thoughts on where to find it?
Answer: Apparently VS2010 (maybe others) hide certain commands depending on the style you choose.  I chose Web Dev (code) as my choice and the Document Format is not present to be added to a toolbar.  But, if I change to C# Code (tools>Import/Export) then the Document Format command is right there in the Edit menu where others here have said it is.
I had to import the C# Dev layout, but unchecked colors and code formatting options (so it won't overwrite those).  What section you must import to get the format document button, I don't know, I didn't experiment that deep.
Seems stupid MS chose to force us down specific paths for layout with no convenient way to get out of it.
Answer: If you can't find it in the Edit menu: you can also find it if you press CTRL + P and then type >format. The shortcut is SHIFT + ALT + F

Visual studio Reformat Code/Document


I want to put snap together wood flooring over bathroom subfloor. Is this effective?

Question: Due to water damage I needed to repair a section of my particle board bathroom subfloor. This ruined the linoleum, which we removed. Now I want to put snap together flooring in. What do I need to do to prep flooring?
Comment: Hello, and welcome to Home Improvement. Good question; hope the answers were helpful. And, you should probably [take our tour](//diy.stackexchange.com/tour) so you'll know how best to participate here.
Answer: There's a lot of problems with this

particle board subfloor
snap-in wood flooring
bathroom flooring

Your bathroom is a wet zone. Wood floor/subfloor and water don't go together. Add in

Due to water damage I needed to repair a section of my particle board bathroom subfloor

and you have a recipe for disaster. The water will penetrate a wood floor and wreck your wood subfloor again. What you need here is

Waterproof membrane. Could be a vapor barrier, but could also be something like waterproof cement board or polyethylene underlayment. Make sure to use an approved method to seal the seams. You do NOT want to have to tear the floor up to repair subfloor.
Waterproof flooring. Tile used to be the only product here, but floating floor vinyl has become more common on the market. Because it's 100% vinyl, it won't be harmed by water, and it goes down like any other floating floor. Do not use wood flooring in a bathroom (especially solid hardwood), as these floorings respond poorly to repeated water exposure.
Answer: I would rip out ALL of the particle board first. Then put in a new 3/4" plywood subfloor. I would NOT put wood-laminate in a bathroom. It will not hold-up. (based on experience of a co-worker). Perhaps LVT would hold up, but if you want real wood-- I would use old-fashioned solid 3/4" t&g oak hardwood flooring. I've had that in one of my bathrooms for 30 yrs with no issues.


Can one oven be used for both meat and milk?

Question: Is it kosher to use one oven for both meat and milk dishes cooked separately. For instance, can I cook a meat dish and, after it's done, put in a milk dish and cook that?
Or does the oven have to be either meat or milk permanently?
Comment: There are so many details which matter. Are you asking about one-time or regularly? After the fact or a prior? Do you mean to use the oven and clean it in between or right away?
Comment: Related: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/104555/ . Here's [another article](http://www.spolter.net/shiurim/HOH/Kashrus/HOH%20Kitchen%207%20-%20Reiach%20and%20Ovens.pdf) on the topic. See also: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/59998/ https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/73093/ https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/14869/ .
Answer: This is not ideal but is the reality for some. There are plenty of discussions by distinguished authors on the halachic perspectives (e.g., R Doniel Neustadt here, OU Kosher here, R Michael Broyde here and R Chaim Jachter here) but, in practice, the following two answers give you practical guidelines
From chabad.org

How do I bake dairy as the oven is mainly used for meat?
It's pretty simple. Any dairy you bake in that oven has to be wrapped
in a double layer. Aluminum foil is great. Make sure each wrapping is
complete, covers the food entirely, and goes all the way around the
entire pan or pot—not just the opening. The food and your oven will
both be completely kosher.

A more complete answer from aish.com

The best, if possible, would be to have two separate ovens – or a
double-chambered oven – one for meat and one for dairy, since mix-ups
are so common. However, if this isn't possible for you, it's fine to
use a single oven for both types, so long as you observe the following
guidelines:
(a) You should determine which type of food you cook most often,
whether meat or dairy. That type you can cook as normal in both
covered and uncovered pots and pans.
(b) The opposite type should only be cooked in a covered pan or pot.
If the opposite type is completely dry, then there is no need to cover
it (but the other requirements below do apply).
(c) Separate racks should be used for meat and for dairy (or a layer
of aluminum foil should be placed on the rack underneath the
opposite-type pan).
(d) The oven should be cleaned out from any liquidy spills of gravy or
grease in between uses of meat and dairy.
In terms of pareve, that may be cooked as regular in an oven, even on
the same racks, with the following restrictions. (For simplicity, I
assume the oven is regularly used for meat.)
(a) The oven must be clean of any meaty spills. If the oven was not
checked and cleaned beforehand, the pareve may not be eaten together
with dairy, but it may be eaten immediately before or after (even in
the same meal, but the hands should be washed before switching).
(b) Even if the oven is clean, if it was used to cook liquidy
uncovered meat within the past 24 hours and the pareve is also liquidy
and uncovered, then it may not be eaten together with dairy but can be
right before or after.
(c) If the oven is clean and has not been used within 24 hours with
liquidy uncovered meat, liquidy pareve foods should not be cooked in
it in order to eat them together with dairy, but if they were cooked,
they may be eaten together with dairy.
Note that Sephardic Jews are more lenient with such indirect tastes of
meat and milk (based on Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 95:1-2). Thus, they may
bake pareve foods in a dairy/meaty oven without restriction and the
food is still considered pareve.
(Sources: Igrot Moshe Y.D. I 59, Yabia Omer Y.D. V 7, Yalkut Yosef
89:35, The Laws of Kashrus by R. B. Forst pp. 226-228.)
Answer: The short answer is yes, if you take the right precautions.  The exact parameters are going to depend on which posek you ask, but this is the Star K's recommendation.
Comment: Could you please edit to summarize the Star-K's recommendation here?


According to the Catholic Church, what happens to a person who is in the process of learning about Catholicism, if that person dies?

Question: Suppose a person is learning about the teachings of the Catholicism, and dies before that person has reached a conclusion whether he or she would like to join the Church. According to the teachings of the Catholic Church, what would happen to this person in terms of salvation? Now suppose that person leans toward accepting Catholicism, what would happen instead?
Answer: Catechism of The Catholic Church has direct Answer for your question:

For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament (CCC 1259).

Such a baptism is called Baptism of desire. But for this to be valid, their conversion should be accompanied by internal act of perfect love and contrition by which their soul is cleansed of all sin.
It is also to be noted that the ordinary magisterium of the Church has openly taught the three-fold Baptism (water, desire and blood) since the earliest days of the Church, and never has this teaching ever been condemned by the Catholic Church.
Comment: To @euler: In that case, the Catholic Church has no authority over them, and it does not have a definitive answer to that question. That is, only God can tell whether they will be saved or not. But those who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it will not be saved (CCC 846). At the same time those who through no fault of their own ... seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it ... too may achieve eternal salvation (CCC 847).
Comment: What about a person who have no desire to join as yet? As in, they are still in the process of making the decision?


Is there a way to use Live Photos in iMovie?

Question: Is there a way to use Live Photos in iMovie on macos or ios? Or do we have to wait until Apple updates iMovie to make it so?
Answer: Yes.  You don't have to buy any software.  Here's the procedure for transferring a "Live" photo taken on an iPhone 6 on to a Mac and then into iMovie or Photos as a movie file:

Connect your iPhone to your Mac using a USB cable
Open "Photos" on the Mac.
Select your phone icon should be under a grey "Import" title in the sidebar.
Select the "Live" photo(s) and import them.
In "Photos" select the "Live" photo you want to convert to a movie.
In "Photos" in the "File" menu select "Export"=>"Export unmodified original..."
Select a location to save your movie (container) file.  It exports the file as a .mov file.
You can open and play this file in Quicktime.  But...you're not done yet.
Right click on the .mov file.  At the bottom of the menu select "Encode selected video files".  IT takes a few seconds.
Now you can choose 480p, 720p or 1080p.
Save your file (it is .m4v format)
Now you can import this file back into "Photos" and share it as a movie or you can drag it to iMovie and select frames, edit etc..
Comment: Just curious - what is the advantage of turning it into .m4v?
Comment: Skipping 9, 10 & 11 worked for me.. in fact it didn't work if I did encode them as directed.
Answer: My workaround is to use the Google Motion Stills app to create a video from the live photos and then insert this video in iMovie.
All done on an iPhone.
Comment: What a great way NOT to involve a mac, perfects for travels!
Answer: If you are wondering if there is a way to extract the video from a Live Photo, there is. But not directly through iMovie. If the videos are still on your phone, you can use Live GIF ($1.99 USD) to convert it to a video file or to a GIF to send over Messages. There are other alternative apps that may be used as well that are free, such as Lively and LP. If you are looking for even more features, Live.ly may be another solution.
Answer: In recent versions of iOS (at least 14.6, but probably from 13 already), there is a direct Save as video action from the Photos App Share menu.  You then have both the live photo and the video in your Photos Library and can use the video directly in iMovie on your iOS device.
This feature even allows combining multiple Live Photos into a single video: select multiple Live Photos, then choose Save as video for the whole selection.
Answer: Use a PC -
Once your iPhone is connected to a PC go to "This Computer" - "This iPhone".
All the Live Photos are saved twice, as an image and as a 3 second Video.
Now copy past all photos to external drive.
Import to iMovie/iPhoto on your Mac and do what you need to do.
Comment: OP specifically says macOS or iOS


Token replacement

Question: I currently implement a replace function in the page render method which replaces commonly used strings - such as replace [cfe] with the root to the customer front end. This is because the value may be different based on the version of the site - for example the root to the image folder ([imagepath]) is /Images on development and live, but /Test/Images on test.
I have a catalogue of products for which I would like to change [productName] to a link to the catalogue page for that product. I would like to go through the entire page and replace all instances of [someValue] with the relevant link. Currently I do this by looping through all the products in the product database and replacing [productName] with the link to the catalog page for that product. However this is limited to products which exist in the database. "Links" to products which have been removed currently wont be replaced, so [someValue] will be displayed to the user. This does not look good.
So you should be able to see my problem from this. Does anyone know of a way to achieve what I would like to easily? I could use regexes, but I don't have much experience of those. If this is the easiest way, using "For Each Match As String In Regex.Matches(blah, blah)" then I am willing to look further into this.
However at some point I would like to take this further - for example setting page layouts such as 3 columns with an image top right using [layout type="3colImageTopRight" imageURL="imageURL"]Content here[/layout]. I think I could kind of do this now, but I cant figure out how to deal with this if the imageURL were, say, [Image:Product01.gif] (using regex.match("[[a-zA-Z]{0,}]") I think would match just [layout type="3colImageTopRight" imageURL="[Image:Product01.gif] (it would not get to the end of the layout tag). Obviously the above wouldn't quite work, as I haven't included double quotes in the match string or anything, but you get the general idea. You should be able to get the general idea of what I am getting at and what I am trying to do though.
Does anyone have any ideas or pointers which could help me with this? Also if this is not strictly token replacement then please point me to what it is, so I can further develop this.
Aristos - hope reexplaining this resolves the confusion.
Thanks in advance,
Regards,
Richard Clarke
Comment: Just seen the edit from Jan 11 2020 - almost 10 years on - and damn I was a noob back then. Didn't even care about punctuation in some words...
Answer: @RichardClarke - I would go with Regular Expressions, they're not as terrible to learn as you might think and with a bit of careful usage will solve your problems.
I've always found this a very useful tool.
 http://derekslager.com/blog/posts/2007/09/a-better-dotnet-regular-expression-tester.ashx

goes nicely with a cheat sheet ;-)
 http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/regular-expressions-cheat-sheet/

Good luck.

Token replacement


Connotation of "laundry list"

Question: Does "laundry list" have any negative connotation?
Or can it be used synonymously to "long list" in informal contexts?
Comment: Hello and welcome to the site - did you do some websearch on "laundry list"? If yes, please include your findings - you may always edit your own posts. But overall, I think this is an interesting question.
Comment: Does "a long list" have any negative connotation?
Comment: Here is a wee laundry list of `a laundry list of`: http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/?c=coca&q=37711393. You can see it for yourself whether it carries any connotation but long.
Answer: A quick websearch defines "laundry list" as

a usually long list of items (Merriam-Webster)
a list of items perceived as being long (Collins)
A long and often tedious list of items. (Wiktionary)

So, yes, the phrase can basically be used for all types of long lists.
The only "negativity" that may be percieved that it is usually used for mundane and boring issues. This becomes especially clear once you consider the origin of the term: A list of items that was sent away for washing - per se characterized by repetition and mundaneness.
Therefore you probably wouldn't say "I had a laundry list of rides I wanted to do in Disneyland". If you did, you would implicitly point out that even fun can be exhausting...
Answer: Yes, I think so!
Laundry list probably comes from a number of things to be done as laundry, often boring. So, I think 'laundry list' though it means a long list to do things reflects a bit of frustration, annoyance or something unpleasant (but important to do).
For instance, If I have loads of work during weekdays, I may say...

There is a long list of work to do on Monday and Tuesday

But then, if this all work, unfortunately, is falling on weekend (when I generally unwind), I'll say...

Damn! There is a laundry list of work to do on this weekend.
Comment: Actually, the term originates back in time when laundry was sent away for washing (ususally from well-todo households to service providers). A laundry list is literally a list of items - ready for double-checking once the clean laundry was to be returned.

Connotation of "laundry list"


Magento 2 How to stop spam / fake customers

Question: I have a lot of spam customers registered even I have already enabled Captcha validation on Customer creation form, but I wonder why there are still many fake / junk customers registered  everyday. Does this mean that some bot can actually figure out passing through the Captcha validation? and how do we prevent this?
Comment: Try to change Magento's native captcha with Google reCaptcha.
Comment: @MohitKumarArora I'm using SSL. I have just enabled Goolge reCaptcha, and disabled Magentos native captcha, and see how it goes. I'll give you update tomorrow. thanks for far :)
Comment: Are you using SSL for your website?
Comment: @MohitKumarArora I haven't got any spam customers today. I think it helps with change Magentos native captcha to Google reCaptcha. thanks
Comment: Great, can I post my answer. Can you please up-vote if it helped ;)
Answer: Try to change Magento's Native Captcha with Google ReCaptcha. It is much secure and intelligent than Magento's native captcha.
Verify that you are using valid SSL certificate for the website.
Check and change the following something which is not easy to guess:

Password of all admin users for Magento admin panel
MySQL/MariaDB password, which you are using in app/etc/env.php
FTP/SSH credentials

Verify, that there is no custom PHP file residing in the document root or pub folders. If there is any, then validate the code it has.
This is because, customers/admin users can be added directly from the database or using a custom PHP code also.
Comment: change Magento's Native Captcha with Google ReCaptcha solved my problem.
Comment: Setup Google ReCaptcha, but still getting spam registration. Can fix issue if change all passwords?


Nsa attempting to MITM socks proxy users?

Question: Today I connected to a free socks proxy and checked the dns and found that the serverhost name was prism1.nsa.gov! I was wondering if this is how the nsa attempts to perform mitm attacks on clients? As most people know the nsa has successfully exploiTed tor users by exploiting the exit nodes used to reach the clear...but do they do this same method for socks users? Are they hoping that some malicious user will unknowingly connect to their server and conduct nefarious acts through their server and everything will be logged ? Entrapment?
https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ss7B3.jpg (screenshot of nsa socks hostname)
Comment: I highly doubt this is actually the NSA.
Answer: If they are situated as the DNS server then they can log every hostname that a client attempts to connect to (because they are the resource for hostname to IP address resolutions).
That means they can also change the IP address of the requested hostname to whatever server they want (one of their own). From there they could create a fake copy of the site that the victim is attempting to access and capture login credentials, whilst returning a vague (made up) error message to the user with something like "Please refresh the page".
The victim would refresh the page and by then the NSA would've changed the host IP back to the legitimate one, and made off with the victim's account.
In this case, I believe it is targeting users who are not familiar with how something like this works.  You caught it though...
But then again this could just be your proxy host trolling you.  The host prism1.nsa.gov would be painfully obvious of the NSA to use, even for an uneducated user.
Here is a fantastic article by OccupyTheWeb over on WonderHowTo's Null Byte about another way they do this called Quantum Insert.
Comment: I also suspected the host name to be way too obvious and that surely the nsa would know better? But then that got me thinking....aren't all dotgov registrations only available to local federal and state organizations? If this is true whoever registered that domain name must not know how to do their job correctly.
Comment: @Tambaepyuh The [dotgov.gov](http://dotgov.gov) website says: `The Gov Internet domain facilitates collaboration among government-to-government, government-to-business, and government-to-citizen entities. The domain hosts only official, government sites at the federal, state and local levels of government, including federally recognized Indian tribes and Alaskan Native groups, known as Native Sovereign Nations (NSNs).`  I do think there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get one of these but prism1.nsa.gov would be a subdomain so you would only need to edit the domain registry...


What are reasonable levels for the ERLE (Echo Return Loss Enhancement) in acoustic echo cancellation?

Question: I am working on acoustic echo cancellation which has a double talk detector. During the single talk, the ERLE (Echo Return Loss Enhancement) exceeds 100dB and during double talk around 20dB to 40 dB. I have read few papers and saw that for a good echo canceler the ERLE should be between 40-50dB. Am I going wrong anywhere? Is is ok to get such high ERLE?
Answer: It is annoying that I replied after 4 years, but this is helpful to others
Yes, ERLE has to be minimum of 40 dB for good echo cancellation. During the presence of only near end speech, you should not calculate ERLE as it will be near to 0dB, so ERLE has to be used only in presence of Far_end signal.
In your case I think you might be using low average filter length for calculation of ERLE. It mainly depends how you are calculating ERLE, ideally if you have ERLE 100 dB after convergence of your adaptive filter, then it is good enough.
Regards
Answer: The ERLE depends on many factors, such as the length of the echo in samples, the length of adaptive filter in samples, the strategy for residual echo estimation and nonlinear processing.
Usually, the length of the echo is about 10~100ms, more than the length of the adaptive filter. For example, 16kHz sampling rate, 10~100ms is about 160 ~ 1600 samples. But the adpative filter is only 160 ~ 640 samples because of the computation overhead limitation. Considering the length limitation, the adaptive filter can only contribute 20~30dB ERLE. In order to obtain more ERLE, good residual echo estimation and nonlinear processing are also required.
However, 100dB ERLE seems strange. For a 16-bit system, the dynamic range is only 96dB. Hope I can get more insights from the question.


How to distinguish dukkha ñanas from the arising of psychological issues?

Question: As the question states, is there a clear way to distinguish the pair? I understand that stopping one's meditation practice causes the affects of the dukka nana to end. Are there any other signs?
Love and gratitude
Answer: In original Buddhism, the word 'ñāṇa' means 'insight knowledge'. It is the culmination of the Noble Eightfold Path, as described in the following Pali Sutta:

Right view gives rise to right thought. Right thought gives rise to right speech. Right speech gives rise to right action. Right action gives rise to right livelihood. Right livelihood gives rise to right effort. Right effort gives rise to right mindfulness. Right mindfulness gives rise to right immersion. Right immersion gives rise to right knowledge. Right knowledge gives rise to right freedom.
Sammādiṭṭhissa, bhikkhave, sammāsaṅkappo pahoti, sammāsaṅkappassa sammāvācā pahoti, sammāvācassa sammākammanto pahoti, sammākammantassa sammāājīvo pahoti, sammāājīvassa sammāvāyāmo pahoti, sammāvāyāmassa sammāsati pahoti, sammāsatissa sammāsamādhi pahoti, sammāsamādhissa sammāñāṇaṁ pahoti, sammāñāṇassa sammāvimutti pahoti.
MN 117

I am not sure the term 'dukkhañāṇa' formally exists in the scriptures however 'dukkha', as a 'knowledge', is part of the Three Characteristics, as taught in the Buddha's 2nd Sermon, as follows:

"What do you think of this, O monks? Is form permanent or impermanent?"
"Impermanent, O Lord."
"Now, that which is impermanent, is it unsatisfactory (dukkha) or
satisfactory?"
"Unsatisfactory (dukkha), O Lord."
"Now, that which is impermanent, unsatisfactory (dukkha), subject to change, is
it proper to regard that as: 'This is mine, this I am, this is my
self'?"
"Indeed, not that, O Lord."
O monks, the well-instructed noble disciple, seeing thus, gets wearied
of form, gets wearied of feeling, gets wearied of perception, gets
wearied of mental formations, gets wearied of consciousness. Being
wearied he becomes passion-free. In his freedom from passion, he is
emancipated. Being emancipated, there is the knowledge (ñāṇa) that he is
emancipated. He knows: 'birth is exhausted, lived is the holy life,
what had to be done is done, there is nothing more of this becoming.'
SN 22.59

In the later commentary literature, such as in the renowned Visuddhimagga, from which modern (particularly Burmese) monks have contrived various systems of meditation, what is contemporarily and formally referred to 'dukkhañāṇa' forms part of the 'KNOWLEDGE OF DISSOLUTION/Bhanga Nana'

[2. KNOWLEDGE OF DISSOLUTION]

When he repeatedly observes in this way, and examines and investigates material and immaterial states, [to see] that they are
impermanent, painful [unsatisfactory], and not-self, then if his knowledge works keenly, formations quickly become apparent. Once his knowledge works
keenly and formations quickly become apparent, he no longer extends
his mindfulness to their arising or presence or occurrence or sign,
but brings it to bear only on their cessation as destruction, fall and
breakup.

Page 668

Therefore, regardless of the scripture text, be it Sutta or Commentary, the experience of 'dukkha-ñāṇa' results in liberation/freedom/release.

As for how the term 'dukkha-nana' is used by 21st century bloggers on the internet, such as to refer to 'Dark Night' experiences, in reality, this does not refer to any type of Buddhist Knowledge ('ñāṇa'). Instead, in reality, it exclusively refers to psychological issues, neurosis & psychosis.
We should be aware certain Western societies have strong social & childhood conditioning for worldly success & achievement. Therefore, when highly conceited worldlings have neurosis experiences when trying to practice meditation & solitude, their social conditioning makes their mind publicly boast they have attained Stream-Entry & other Insight Knowledges when, in reality, it is only psychological neurosis they are experiencing. For example, this type of social phenomena is particularly apparent on a certain chatsite operated by a self-declared married worldly Arahant.
In conclusion, in real Buddhism, the term 'dukkhañāṇa' refers to the liberating knowledge that conditioned things (sankhara) cannot bring lasting pleasure because of their impermanence. But in the contemporary financial business of 'Buddhism', the term 'dukkhañāṇa' refers to the  claiming/boasting of psychological neurosis as a stage of enlightenment.


correct white balance in images using ImageMagick

Question: I've got a folder with more than 2000 portrait photos. All of these are shot in front of a plain white canvas. The problem ist, that some of the pictures need a color correction - or to be more specific I have to set a white point.
I've found this script wich does exactly what I need to do:
http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/whitebalance/index.php
(Specify a white point and correct the balance)
My problem now is, that I have to run this on a windows server. There is no Linux environment and I cannot install any additional software.
Does anyone know a different way to accomplish this task using imagemagick on windows?
Thank you very much.
Answer: This is an example on how to run it on DOS for a whole directory
The command is used for resize, but you will get the point.
<code>for %j in (*.JPG) do convert %~nj.JPG -resize 2592x1728 %~nj_r.jpg
</code>


How do fiber optic sensors detect strains in a structure?

Question: I am working on a project on detecting damage in structures using fiber optic sensors. I read the paper Structural Health Monitoring in Composite Structures by Fiber-Optic Sensors and found out that fiber optic sensors can not only detect strains but also locate them; how is this possible? Do they measure the intensity of the reflected light or something?
Comment: Is that your only source? perhaps search for other relevant sources as well.
Answer: Searching for "fibre-optic strain measurement" yields plenty of results. One from HBM states:

To create the actual strain sensor, the optical fiber is inscribed during production with a so-called Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG). This is basically a pattern of material interferences, which reflects the light differently from the rest of the fiber. For better understanding, you can visualize the fiber as a cylindrical length of transparent material, with a number of thin slices in it. When the light from the laser hits this pattern, certain wavelengths are reflected, while others pass through.
The material interferences—the "slices" —are placed at certain intervals. When the fiber is stretched or compressed—and is therefore subjected to positive or negative strain—these intervals change. When the fiber is stretched, it lengthens and the spaces get bigger and vice versa.
Not only does the reflected light take a little longer or shorter to travel back when the FBG is under strain, but the wavelength that is reflected also changes. In scientific terms, the FBG has a certain refractive index. The refractive index of a material describes how much light is bent or refracted when passing through the material. When the grating changes shape due to strain, its refractive index changes as well.

The article goes on to explain the topic further including problems with temperature, etc.
Answer: Strain is defined as a relative displacement.  Measuring strain is measuring movement of a material, basically a tape measure on a very small scale.  So a laser can ostensibly be used to detect how far something moves.
Googling "measuring strain with lasers" seems to give a representative set of info.


What would the ploidy of a multinucleate cell be?

Question: If we have a haploid organism, and it undergoes karyokinesis without cytokinesis, would the organism be considered haploid or diploid?
Answer: Ploidy is generally defined in terms of the number of chromosomes in the nucleus, rather than the number of chromosomes in the cell.
Some examples in support of this:
- A paramecium has a diploid micronucleus and polyploid macronucleus
- Muscle cells are generally considered diploid even though they have multiple nuclei
- The additional chromosomes in mitochondria and chloroplasts are not considered to make cells polyploid, even if the organelle itself may be polyploid.
Thus, I would assess a cell such as you describe to be haploid, albeit with two nuclei.
Comment: This was very helpful, thank you so much!