Energy level below ground state

Question: Can an electron occupy an energy level lower than its ground state? Do electrons come closer to each other at 0K temperature?
Comment: What do you mean by ground state other than 'lowest energy level'? Obviously you can't have a lower energy than the lowest allowed energy.
Comment: Yes, this is all the answer this question needs. It's not some physics principle but just understanding the meaning of the words used.
Answer: No quantum particles can't posses an energy lower than the ground state of the system, see variational method for some more detail on this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variational_method_(quantum_mechanics)
Answer: The other answer is correct, no electron can occupy as per QM an energy level lower then the ground state. I would like to add a few things.
It is very important to differentiate between classical orbit and QM orbital. The classical (planet like) orbit for electrons is no longer valid, now we use QM orbitals, that state that the electron exists around the nucleus at a certain energy level.
There are three forces that govern the electrons at the energy level:

the EM force keeps the electron close to the nucleus (neutrons)
the kinetic energy of the electron keeps it away from the nucleus
the Heisenberg uncertainty principle keeps the electron away from the nucleus

When these three forces equal out, the electron is at a stable energy level as per QM.
The reason why it is so, is because:

as soon as the electron would try to come closer to the nucleus, that is to be restricted to a space volume smaller then the ground state, that is a QM orbital closer to the nucleus then the ground state, its position would be known with higher certainty, and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle would cause the electron to gain momentum (its momentum would be known with lesser precision), thus the electron would move away from the nucleus

Energy level below ground state


Should redirects to the home page including a trailing slash?

Question: The website URL is http://example.com but some pages have been redirected to http://example.com/, the version of the URL with the trailing slash. Should I change all redirects to the non-trailing-slash URL?
Comment: Launch some developer tools inside your browser, and inspect the HTTP request being done. Even if you type just a name or an "URL" like `http://example.com` you will see that your browser sends in fact a `GET /` request, so at least a `/` is mandatory to say "root".
Comment: Are you talking about the trailing slash on the home page (the root of the domain) without any extra path?   The situation for that (`http://example.com` vs `http://example.com/`) is different than for a directory (`/folder` vs `/folder/`).
Comment: Actually it is the homepage not subfolder
Comment: Yes, as Patrick suggests, don't just look at the "beautified" URL in the browser's address bar. Browser's notoriously "beautify" the public URL seen in the browser - more so these days than they ever did. See also: https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/35643/is-trailing-slash-automagically-added-on-click-of-home-page-url-in-browser
Comment: not really matter for redirect in q if done corecct but redirect technique also matters, for example doing apache `redirect` without trailing slash will most probably fail if original request came with path like example.com/foo. it will redirect to invalid example.comfoo
Answer:
Homepage: Google has stated that the homepage doesnt really matter if there is or isnt a trailing slash.
Directory: directories must have a trailing slash in the end.
File/Page: an html page or an file shouldn't have a trailing slash.
Comment: It's not just Google.  When it comes to the home page, the HTTP spec states that there is no difference between having a trailing slash and not having one.   Whether or not the slash shows in the URL, the HTTP request **must** include the slash.
Comment: Note example.com/index.php are the same as example.com/index.php/something at least for apache. You can process this trailing uri in index.php, making possible to use different urls with same script without mod_rewrite


Turn iOS Device into AirPlay Speaker

Question: I'm fiddling with an app, and I'm also aware that apps made by developers that allow an iOS Device to receive an audio stream from another iOS Device or iTunes.  So I'd like to implement it and possibly find a method within Apple's guidelines, allowing audio to be streamed.  I've tried looking for everything, but I can't find where to start.  Any ideas, a place to start, maybe even a point of direction would be great.
Comment: after looking at airfoil ( paid app ) i now have a similar question as yours. I will post here if I can crystal something meaningful in next few days. but if you have any leads pls post. tx.
Answer: chekout the airspeaker project on github.
https://github.com/chenkaigithub/AirSpeaker
I was able to run it on iOS simulator 6.0 and then use my iphone to stream audio.
However if I try to stream from iTunes 11 it does not work ( iTunes lists the device in airplay list but , on selection , prompts with error "airplay device is not compatible with this version of iTunes." )

Turn iOS Device into AirPlay Speaker


What is the meaning of Maxim #37 in "The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries"?

Question: Maxim #37 is "There is no "overkill". There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload." What does this mean?
Comment: It's a joke. I don't think it needs to make complete sense - and that's what makes it funny.
Comment: Without telling in question what exactly isn't perfectly clear about it, 7 downvotes instead of upvotes would be more logical here.
Answer: Though perhaps better suited to English Language the clear source gives us a fig leaf of coverage...
Webster's defines overkill as;

1 : a destructive capacity greatly exceeding that required for a given target.
2 : an excess of something (such as a quantity or an action) beyond what is required or suitable for a particular purpose publicity overkill an overkill in weaponry.
3 : killing in excess of what is intended or required.

Maxim 37 means that maximally effective mercenaries do not believe that there is such a thing as too much destruction. Any and all levels of force are acceptable in the pursuit of the goal.
The second part of the quote is an example of overkill. Keeping firing even when the target is already stopped would usually be considered overkill, the mercenaries however believe in continuing firing until they need to reload.
Comment: For that matter, it's not even clear that they wouldn't resume firing after reloading. :)
Comment: So, are you saying that the only thing that would stop the mercenaries from continuing to shoot a given target is something that there is no substitute for, such as ammo? You can't shoot something without ammo, so that would be something that there is no substitute for; thus, the mercenary in question would have no choice but to stop firing (they will just keep firing other wise).
Comment: @Anonymous Those are maxims, not rules or laws. Their objective is not to actually lay out anything the mercs can do, but to setup the *ethos* of the soldiers, their way of thinking. It does not tell soldiers when or at what to fire, or which weapons use. But if in the middle in the battle, they doubt about the level of force to apply, the maxim tells them that ignoring any limits is correct. It is like the real life maxims of "shoot first, ask questions later" or "it is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission".
Comment: @Anonymous Of course there is something that stops them from shooting.  "Cease firing!"  The point is that the _individual soldier_ doesn't make the decision to stop, it's a command decision.  There may be good reasons (including suppressive fire and and armoured hideouts) to maintain a bombardment after the obvious targets are gone.
Answer: It's an old joke about how people in movies shoot the monster once, it falls down, and they walk up to it saying "do you think it's dead?" just before it jumps up and kills them. Compare that to the Predator "mini-gun scene" where they see the monster and fire pairs of guns, grenades ... for 30 seconds blowing up trees until the mini-gun is spinning empty with smoke pouring out and we see they've created a new clearing in the forest. That's how you do it! And they didn't even kill it. There is no such thing as overkill!
The second most-(mis)quoted line from Aliens (after "Game over man!") is probably "nuke it from orbit -- it's the only way to be sure". They're screwing around with flamers trying to do minimal damage to an expensive converter plant and Ripley jumps to nukes, which seems like massive overkill, but she was right.
"The Forever War" isn't as well known, but won awards when it came out in 1974. In a scene the space marines are attacking an alien base and getting their instructions from the Sergeant about a building: "There's only one of them though, so we don't damage it any more than we have to. Which means ... we blast it to splinters if I think it's dangerous". That's funny and rings true.
It's a go-to joke. This week's Supergirl has a character discuss how to kill Lex Luther again. He says afterwards they can burn him and spread the ashes on planets with inhospitable atmospheres in different galaxies (because when killing supervillains there is no such thing as overkill).


Character name change

Question: In my story I am writing in third person, my character is kidnaped and finds out his real name towards the end. Do I start referring to him with his real name or the name I used previously?
Comment: There is a lot that could go into that choice. You are gonna need to provide more details on what lead up to this and how the character feels about it. How you manage the identity crisis would likely become a big part of the story going forward. Also, welcome to Stack Exchange!
Comment: How does your character feel about it? Just found some old document and suddenly they respond to a new name? That's not how it works, generally.
Comment: My character thought his father was his real father and he was referred to as George. Until one day he found articles in his "fathers" room and recognizes that the missing kid called Calvin is himself. Do I start using Calvin to refer to my character or George like I did previously?
Comment: Related, possibly duplicate: https://writing.stackexchange.com/q/5292/23927
Answer: In my mind, the answer to the question depends upon several factors.
Perhaps the most important in my way of thinking is the identity of the narrator(s). The classic questions about each narrator are: who are they, when are they telling this story, are they reliable, and what vested interests do they have in the outcomes in the story. The "father" as narrator will tell a much different story from the "son". A story told in near real time to the events of the story is much different from the decades-later recounting. A narrator who is trying to justify their actions will emphasize different aspects of the story from a narrator who is "seeking justice" for past bad deeds. Each of these choices can substantially color the common facts. Your question really does not give any clue about what your choices about narration are, and, thus, the number of possible answers spirals out of control.
A second factor is the motivations of the characters. To use the information from your question, does the "son" feel better off as George or as Calvin? How do other characters feel about this? Are there financial, societal, or physical consequences to recognizing the change? Does anyone other than the "father" and "son" know this information? Is it possible to keep this information hidden? Are blackmail and/or shunning in the picture?
We could also toss in writing style. I deliberately referred to the two characters as "father" and "son" rather than commit to a specific name. That is a bit awkward but you might invent a nickname that is independent from whatever the actual name turns out to be.
All of these questions are largely technical, baring on the details of how the story is told. In most cases, the story remains the same. But there is also the question of why you are telling this particular story. How important is the naming of the "son" character to that story?
Perhaps not the simple answer that you were seeking. But the act of writing is never as simple as we think that it should be.
Answer: It depends on your character they don't have to assume a name they don't identify towards. I knew someone who changed their name we all assumed they where cohersed into it by their parental figure to gain their love even if it was true the person did not like us calling them by their old name & nick name even now as an adult a slip of the tongue shuts them down.
So this person wants to be the new name for whatever reasons they deem fit it would in essence work that way with your character do they want to be Calvin? Do they want to piss off their kidnappers and use their given name? Did they always hate their forced name? Or what about a third option if they don't want to be the forced name nor the birthed unknown name why not they give themselves a new name and in so doing a new identity they wish to forge in the spirit of the new name?
The media might call him by Calvin for their viewers that doesn't mean he has to let them do so in actual interviews (considering any arise at all). He'd just politely (or not depends on personality) correct them they may to his face call him the forced name for his comfort but print it as Calvin for their readers.
Names are huge deals to the soul it's different from being a kid who tries on the name brings life to who they are in that moment for that role. Your character's feelings need to be your guide here what is their personality like? A name change is a big deal to that person and those around them some people will abandon others for name changes. It changes how people perceive you if you were called Lettice that gives a different impression to another's mind then you being called Ty.
Your character also will need to know who their birth parents are and decide do they want to be theirs? In that changing the name or allowing himself to be called his birth name aligns him with them he is their property, their child, their blood is acknowledged. Did he like his forced name? If he did he'll insist his parents not just temporarily call him this but maintain it making apart of himself always aligned to his kidnapper especially if that kidnapper was someone he admired or liked well growing up in essence keeping the memory bond in this case it maybe love the sinner hate the sin. He may still love the one who raised him this taints his name on one hand it is a bind towards the kidnapping father he loved prior but on the other hand its now a reminder his formative years were at least in parts lies upon lies a pain will always be coupled with the better memories of the lying father.

Character name change


How do I view files and folders in a list?

Question: There is not an Edit | Preferences option.  How do I get the files to display in a list view with details, and not as icons?
Answer: To change the default for all folders *, Open the file manager and when the window is active move the mouse pointer to the top left of the top panel and you will see:

Select Edit -> Preferences -> Views (tab) -> View new folders using then select your preferred view type (in your case it would be 'List').
To change the default view for just that folder, select View -> List from the menu, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + 2
*Note that in the first step the default preferences will not be used for any folders you have manually changed view type on in the past. To reset this, see this question then apply the new default preference.
Answer: In newer versions of Ubuntu you can click the list button on the taskbar:
Answer: In 12.04 and 12.10 (under the default Unity desktop environment), hold down the Alt key for just a second, and you'll see the options for Edit->Preferences and the rest (top left of the screen).
Maximization will also let you see the pull-down menus, but isn't necessary.  The handy shortcut to maximize your application or window is Ctrl+Super+Up ("Up" is the "Up Arrow" key).  The same combo but with the down arrow reverses the maximization effect.
In Unity, hold down the Super or Windows key to see shortcuts.
It's generally easiest, though, to use Ctrl+2 to see a list view, and Ctrl+1 to go back to icons.
Answer: Open your file manager then move your mouse to the left of the top panel
and select 'View' then 'List' (near the bottom) or try CTRL+2.
Comment: I agree with user44179's method. The quickest way to get to a list view in Nautilus (Ubuntu's default file manager) is with the keyboard shortcut CTRL+2. You can also use the menu method as Jacob Johan Edwards suggested.
Answer: From a command line you can list what is in a directory with ls -la
For example
warren@min:~/workspace/crc8$ ls -la
total 52
drwxrwxr-x  4 warren warren  4096 Apr  3 10:41 .
drwxrwxr-x 14 warren warren  4096 May 22 13:39 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 warren warren 31048 Jun 10  2011 .cproject
drwxrwxr-x  3 warren warren  4096 Apr  3 11:22 Debug
-rw-r--r--  1 warren warren  2380 Jun 10  2011 .project
drwxrwxr-x  2 warren warren  4096 Apr  3 10:41 src
warren@min:~/workspace/crc8$

Its also possible to get a tree like view by installing tree
To install sudo apt-get install tree
Typical output.
warren@min:~/workspace/crc8$ tree
.
├── Debug
│   ├── crc8
│   ├── makefile
│   ├── objects.mk
│   ├── sources.mk
│   ├── src
│   │   ├── crc8.d
│   │   ├── crc8.o
│   │   └── subdir.mk
│   └── txt
└── src
    └── crc8.c

3 directories, 9 files
warren@min:~/workspace/crc8$

Answer: In 13.04 "Raring Ringtail":

Open "Files" or just some folder like Documents, Music etc.
Move your mouse pointer to the top - left corner and click on Files -> Preferences. Or the new smart way: Press the ALT key (do not hold it, just press for less than one second) to open HUD and start typing Preferences, select it and press ENTER.
In the Views tab, set View new folders using to List View. Optional: For small screens I like to set the default zoom level for list view to 33%.
Close all folder windows and reopen them. Everything should be fine now.


Can I keep several features with multicollinearity in the model?

Question: I am creating a sports prediction model with around 300 features. There is a high degree of multicollinearity which breaks an assumption for logistic regression. The issue is that several of these features contain the most information toward prediction. One such predictor is the current number of wins a team has, which can be indirectly predicted by the other predictors. Can I keep this feature, and several other important features with high multicollinearity?
Comment: Why do you think there is such an assumption?
Comment: Multicollinearity blows up the variance of the coefficients (and makes Ceteris Paribus interpretation of them unnatural). But the predictions themself (and goodness of fit measures) are not affected. Since you are mainly interested in a prediction machine, this multicollinearity should not be an issue (except from introducing certain unnecessary overfitting). Absence of multicollinearity is not an assumption. Otherwise, one would probably not use logistic regression: predictors are always at least slightly correlated.
Comment: @MichaelM My understanding was that in order for parameter coefficients to be accurate, and hence deliver accurate predictions, several assumptions must be met. Namely, linearity of the logit and the continuous features, absence of multicollinearity, and no overly influential outliers. Why does this assumption not need to hold for a prediction problem?
Answer: There is no assumption about uncorrelated features in logistic regression. For instance, people will run logistic regression on the MNIST digit pixels without giving it a second thought and achieve decent performance north of $90\%$ accuracy. While this is hardly world-class performance (deep learning approaches can score more like $99.97\%$ accuracy), that's a lot of digits identified correctly. However, some of the pixels are quite correlated.
I understand the appeal of dropping some correlated predictors: preserve most of the "information" available in the features yet drop a parameter that risks overfitting. However, there are a few drawbacks to this.

Unless there is perfect multicollinearity, the dropped feature will contain unique information. Yes, dropping a parameter can help to quell overfitting, but that can come at the expense of underfitting! Imagine dropping a feature due to overfitting concerns and wanting strong predictive ability, only to find yourself unable to get a good fit because a useful feature has been dropped from the model.

It is possible to overfit a feature selection step. If we consider overfitting to be fitting to coincidences in the data that do not generalize, a selection of particular features can be specific to a particular set of training data, and you might get a rather different selection of features in a different split of the data. Our Frank Harrell talks about the instability of feature selection in one of his machine learning presentations.

If you start including interaction terms, which are implicit in many sophisticated machine learning models like neural networks and random forests and can be included in logistic regression models when those interactions are made explicit, dropping a variable misses the opportunity to have it participate in the interactions.

There are techniques, such as regularization, that can reduce overfitting yet do not totally remove the variable from the analysis.

Therefore, it is far from a given that you should remove a feature that is correlated with other features.
Answer: I don't know of any problem with collinearity if your only goal is prediction. But make sure that is your only goal. The parameter estimates can be totally misleading.
One negative feature of collinearity is that small variation in the data can yield huge variation in the model. Belsley (in one of his books, I forget which) gives an example where changing data in the third significant figure flips the parameter estimates from positive (and sig) to negative (and sig).  But the models make nearly identical predictions.
The danger is that you start thinking about your model as if the parameter estimates are, somehow, good. "Oh!  Teams that do XXX win more games" but that may not be the case.
With 300 features, overfitting may also be a problem, but that's separate from collinearity and you may have a huge database of games.
Comment: Of course, even if there's no doubt about a coefficient's sign, there's the danger of interpreting "teams that do XXX win more games" as "If a team did XXX vs. not, they would win more games", when it might just be that teams that do XXX also happen to be the ones that do XXX. E.g. people that put out rat poison on their property, likely have more rats on their property 1 week later than those that do not. However, that's not because rat poison makes rats live longer or causes more rats to turn up or causes them to have more baby rats, but rather because all else was not equal to start with.
Answer: A lot of literature regarding multi-collinearity being problematic refer to either
a) difficulty in interpreting coefficients (arguably of less importance in a model that's primarily for prediction),
b) difficulty in finding a maximum likelihood estimate for model parameters in a traditional statistical model (e.g. complete or quasi-complete separation in logistic regression - which is a problem without regularization, but some other model types deal with it more "gracefully" e.g. random forest, gradient boosted decision trees),
c) inefficiency (the more highly similar multiple features are, the more you wonder whether there's a lower dimensional representation that captures almost the same information and then some issues go away, such as in gradient boosted decision trees the regularizing effect of sub-sampling columns is reduced if you have many almost identical columns), or
d) overfitting (too many features and too little training data = potential to have some randomly associated with the target variable by chance = overfitting risk, if not dealt with via a robust process).
One can debate how much any of these truly matter for a model that is solely for prediction (e.g. explainability/interpretability may still be rather important).
However, beware some proposed solutions that are known to be problematic (e.g. pre-screening each feature vs. the target in isolation aka "univariate feature selection").


What do you call someone who reacts impulsively in distressing situations?

Question: What do you call someone who reacts impulsively when faced with distressing circumstances? I would prefer a formal word that would be appropriate for essays.
Comment: You need better context to help answer this question. Could you provide an example sentence where it might be used?  Acting impulsively seems quite normal in a distressing situation.
Answer: An impulsive person acts without thought.

based on emotional impulses or whims; spontaneous

Whether there is a specific word for being impulsive due to anxiety is uncertain. People who are anxious often act impulsively, trying to soothe their anxiety rather than following reason.
Comment: What do you call someone who acts sickly? Would that be a sick person?
Comment: @Drew - There are obviously times specific words exist. A malingerer acts 'sickly' when they want to deceive someone, often for money or to escape responsibility. Someone with Munchausen's acts 'sickly' for secondary gain. The ill may or may not act 'sickly' depending on their symptoms. Etc.  The OP would like the proper word. Why don't you submit an answer?


How do I duplicate a particle system and keep its settings separate from the original?

Question: When I select "Duplicate particle systems" a copy of the first particle system is created. This copy can be edited in Particle edit and I can even add new particles there. But if I change any settings (for example, change Children, Root, Material & etc.), then these settings also change in first particle system. How can I duplicate a particle system so that I can edit the copy, but that this doesn't affect the first particle system?
Comment: In question at this link, particles was not required to be changed in Edit mode. Therefore, this is not what I need. I need to be able to change settings after particles have been changed with brushes (Comb, Smooth, Add, Length, Puff, Cut, Weight) in Edit mode.
Comment: I'm not entirely sure not being able edit the particles is related to duplicating the particle system? I think the question could do with being edited to be a bit clearer because looking at the answer below and its comments there is obviously some confusion about what you are asking.
Comment: I already don't know how to say it right. I just want to know how I can change settings of duplicate copy, but so that settings of original don't change. After editing in Particle edit, settings where I can unlink copy from original become inaccessible & accordingly, any changes in copy are also duplicated in original.
Answer: Do exactly what Sanbaldo said, BUT using Cmd+C and Cmd+V when duplicating the object instead of Shift+D. Then those steps will work!
Hope it helps!
Answer: you have to play with system block and data block so you don't have the same particle system applied twice. Probably you'll need to click on that "files" icon  (that let you duplicate the particle system, starting from a cloned version of the original one)
This is correct:

check how to work with different emitter settings:

this is wrong (see the number 2 that means that the particle system is used twice)
Comment: This only works when particles have not been modified in Particle edit. Once hair has been changed in Particle edit, these settings become unavailable.
Comment: This comment is not clear to me. Can you explain better the problem you have?
Comment: OK I'll try. Suppose I want to make 2 frames. I made hairstyle. Then I want to duplicate ready hairstyle & slightly change settings for second frame. I need hairstyle to remain the same but I want to make it more shaggy. I.e. I want to change settings in Children for example. But Blender doesn't allow changing settings only in duplicated version.
Comment: Again I don't fully understand, cause It's possible to do what you are asking for. Check again my screenshots and see that you need to have 2 particle system index and 2 particle settings (that need to be different, so no "2" number that means that you are using it twice)
Comment: check the video in my answer
Comment: Here: https://i.stack.imgur.com/k8msP.gif
Answer: Have the same problem - the controls become inactive once I edit the hair via particles edit mode (i.e. comb, grow etc). It seems to be impossible to detach the duplicated hair system without losing hair comb data. Does anyone have a solution?
Answer: I get what they are asking cause I have the same issue. I have a animal head that I groomed. The first groom is to determine flow and is done with the first particle system. I want to add some more randomness to the hair, but keep all the groom settings I just made in the particle editor. So when I duplicate the particle system, I need to be able to duplicate the particle settings, but be able to change the child settings without changing my first particle setting. Thus, I need a duplicate of the original settings. Currently it links the original settings only.
Thankfully, someone made an addon for this that works with Blender 2.93 beta
https://blenderartists.org/t/duplicate-edited-hair-particles/1247900


Is the official Twitter search widget subject to the API rate limit?

Question: I have been told by a development partner that we cannot use the normal Twitter search widget - found here - https://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets/widget_search because of the API rate limit. My understanding is that the rate limit applies to the API as used by app developers, and not to the official widgets. Who is correct?
Answer: This page - http://dev.twitter.com/pages/rate-limiting - has information on this (important stuff highlighted in bold below)

Requests to the Search API, hosted on search.twitter.com, do not count towards the REST API limit. However, all requests coming from an IP address are applied to a Search Rate Limit.
The Search Rate Limit isn't made public to discourage unnecessary search usage and abuse, but it is higher than the REST Rate Limit.
We feel the Search Rate Limit is both liberal and sufficient for most applications and know that many application vendors have found it suitable for their needs.

The API limit is linked to an IP address but does allow 150 requests per hour.
OAuth calls are permitted 350 requests per hour.
Also see;
https://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics/topics/114-guidelines-best-practices/articles/15364-about-twitter-limits-update-api-dm-and-following
Hope this helps
Comment: Thanks for this - I had seen it before but it wasn't clear whether the use of the term Search API referred to application-based requests, thereby excusing their own search widget or not. In fact I had a reply to this question from @twitterapi themselves which backs up your answer: "the Search API rate limits apply to the Search widget, but not the REST API limits." (https://twitter.com/status/78156044219588608)


Is it against any Texas wildlife regulations to keep a possum as a pet?

Question: Is there a law anywhere in black and white on paper that says it is against the law to keep a possum that was rescued as pet since if would only die if released into the wild?
Answer: There sort of is a law, this one. It does not absolutely forbid owning a possum, but it is required that you have a license to take or keep a wild fur-bearing animal including a possum. There is no existing "license to take and possess as a pet", but you could try under trapping licenses. However, they warn that the

Fur-bearing Propagation Permit does not authorize individuals to
  possess live fur-bearing animals as pets.This IS NOT a "pet permit."

Ultimately, what would happen is you apply for a license, but they would deny the application because you don't plan to propagate the animal, or skin it. Although the statute does not specifically prohibit keeping a fur-bearing animal as a pet, it does authorize Parks and Wildlife to promulgate and enforce  regulations.
Another approach would be to seek a wild animal rehabilitation permit, pursuant to PWD regulations (here). This is also not a general pet permit, but in case your program of possum rehabilitation fails, you are not required to kill it or release it into the wild to die. There is a test required, to be sure you know how to rehabilitate wild animals, plus a requirement for letters of support from conservationists, veterinarians or rehabilitators.
Answer: I wanted to add a piece to @user6726 comment for anyone that comes across this answer which both of you may also find helpful.  IANAL so I defer, and your local animal control, authority figure, etc may not be smart enough to know the difference, but...
If you forego the propagation (breeding, I believe) and trapping licenses (there appear to be many others as well), there's this tidbit:
EDIT: This is the same statute listed above by @user6726, and it has quite a bit of info in it.  This part of it, specifically, may help..
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PW/htm/PW.71.htm
Specifically, subsection (d) under section 71.005:

Sec. 71.005.  LICENSES REQUIRED.
(a)  Except as provided by this section and Section 71.004(a), no
person may take a fur-bearing animal or a pelt in this state unless
the person has acquired and possesses a trapper's license.
(b)  Except as provided by commission regulation, no person may
purchase, possess after purchase, or transport for commercial purposes
a pelt or carcass taken in this state unless the person has acquired
and possesses a retail fur buyer's or wholesale fur dealer's license.
(c)  No person may capture or possess a live fur-bearing animal for
any purpose, except as otherwise authorized by this code, unless he
has acquired and possesses a fur-bearing animal propagation license.
(d)  A person who possesses a hunting license may take and possess a
fur-bearing animal if:
(1)  neither the fur-bearing animal nor any part of that animal is
taken for the purpose of sale, barter, or exchange;  and
(2)  the number of fur-bearing animals taken does not exceed the daily
bag limit or possession limit set by commission regulation.

also, just to cover the bases regarding 'take' above:

Sec. 71.001.  DEFINITIONS.  In this subtitle: (8)  "Take" means the
act of snaring, trapping, shooting, killing, or capturing by any means
and includes an attempt to take.

Assuming your locality does not ban wild animals entirely or opossums specifically (or both) to include both city and county, this may be the loophole for the Texas restriction on it being a fur-bearing animal, and as per the statute that regulates them you are able to take and possess them with a hunting license so long as it doesn't violate those stipulations.
https://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/outdoor-annual/hunting/fur-bearing-animal-regulations/
I hope that helps anyone searching, but again IANAL.
Comment: You might want to make it clear that the statute you quote from is the same statute user6726 discusses in the first few sentences of his answer.
Comment: Thanks, yeah I wanted to clarify that it was the same area but a different focus (hunting license vs the propagation or trapping licenses), but I could have made it more clear (aside from mentioning him at the beginning of my answer) that it was the same statute.  It was really just an addition to his own answer.

Originally I was going to reply to his comment to place it there, but I didn't have enough points so needed to make a new answer. The important bit was just getting the information out there.


Is there a path which continues from here?

Question: I'm in Stormveil Castle on the westside where I've dropped down from the top to here. Is there a path which continues from here? I only see an illusionary ground which disappears when I drop down. Can't see anyway to continue.
Comment: Is there a reason to assume there is a path? If so, can you [edit] your question to add that information?
Comment: @Joachim Games in the souls-series are notorious for having hidden/sneaky routes. There appears to be some sort of road with an arch/gate, so I think it's natural to assume there is a path. Since the OP "falls through the map" per se could mean they can't access that path from their current location
Answer: Landing on the illusionary ground and falling through it will make you survive the fall. But I think doing a ground attack was what killed me. So probably as long as you don't do a ground attack you should survive.
Answer: You can jump without problems, the illusory floor will not hurt you, and you will be able to reach a small secret area.


Search function in powerapps for DataTable not working

Question: I have used datatable in powerapps and i used search function using textinputbox.In the search function, when i am trying to set the field name it is showing error.(more info:for the field names i have used relationships such as project.name).
Answer: You can search in database using simple queries.
Set Gallery Items property with similar to that formula:
Search(DatabaseName, InputText.Text, ColumnName)


Seeking boundaries of Canadian Location Code regions used for Meteorological Services?

Question: I have looked into the GADM datasets. The problem is that Canada has a very non-standardized level-2 Administrative Zone identification across the various Territories and Provinces. As a result, their Meteorological Weather Forecasting uses a unique system of boundaries they created. Info on this here. Visually, you can see these boundaries here on a map. I am looking for datasets to reproduce those regions (ideally shapefile format, but I'm open to other formats so long as I can generate/transform the geometries from it using something like QGIS).
Answer: They're well hidden! I found a directory with archives of shapefiles here. There's some documentation here. It looks like the polygons aren't updated regularly, but you can sign up to the mailing list to find out when they are, according to that document.
If you download this archive (33MB), the forecast zones are in land_CLCBaseZone_detail_proj.shp. (The detail files have accurate coast lines. The coarse files are more general.)
Comment: @BrandonK: actually, I just searched for "canada forecast weather region shp" and that document was the second hit. The really helpful thing is that Google knows that when I say, "shp," I really mean "Shapefile."
Comment: in Name field there are codes like BC082640 (that should be Fraser Valley) correct?
Comment: I can't thank you enough - I need to learn your Google-fu techniques. I'm thinking the PubStdZone_detail_proj.shp files should do the trick perfectly (found in the first link under "Land Projection" set). I was having some doubts about anyone coming through on this but you surprised me.

@Mapperz - For example: I see the Fields "NAME" & "NOM" with value "Windsor - Essex - Chatham-Kent" and also the Fields "PUBSTDZA" & "CLC_V5" with value  "041400" under the dataset I mentioned above


Will something accelerate forever if a constant force is applied on a frictionless plane?

Question: Will something accelerate forever if a constant force is applied on a frictionless plane, or will it continue to move with constant velocity the moment the applied force is removed?
Comment: why would it not continue to accelerate? this is newtons laws of motion
Comment: As it's a frictionless plane , the $something$ will move with constant velocity as soon as force is removed ...
Comment: @sithuhlaing... Answer it , what will be the work done by you when $something$ moves incessantly ...?
Comment: Infinity, of course. but if only if I keep applying the force, right?
Comment: @sithuhlaing...infinite it is till you apply force up to infinity ... Or else not ...
Comment: This is not an either-or case. Both of your statements are true
Answer: It will continue to accelerate for as long as the force is applied. If it is applied forever it will accelerate forever, however if the force ever stops, the object will move at a constant velocity.
Comment: Perhaps change "if it ever stops" to "if the force ever stops" as "it" is potentially ambiguous.
Answer: I) Circular motion
If circular motion is allowed in your question, then, you need to prove, at least, that: the universe, it's laws and mater (any gravitational source) are eternal.
In this framework a moon made up of eternal matter orbiting a planet made up with similar (eternal) stuff, in a perfect circular orbit will be under constant acceleration forever.
II) Linear motion
In this case you should not only prove that the universe, it's laws and mater (any gravitational source) are eternal, but that it is infinite in size and has an infinite net energy in it as well, because
Under constant linear acceleration (force)

the displacement is $x=\frac{1}{2}at^2$, and speed $v=at$, therefore if $t \rightarrow \infty$ then $x \rightarrow \infty; \, v \rightarrow \infty$.
the work done is $W=max= \frac{1}{2}m(at)^2$, therefore if $t \rightarrow \infty$ then $W \rightarrow \infty$.

*) $a$: Magnitude of acceleration; $t$: time elapsed; $m$: body mass.
PS: This is under Newtonian approach, at some moment relativistic effects are going to be impossible ignored anymore. In this case your infinity will just be the speed of light $c$ and the results will be: $t \rightarrow \infty$ then $x \rightarrow \infty; \, v \rightarrow c; \, W \rightarrow \infty$.
Answer: Assuming you are talking about linear motion, NO, it won't. As the speed of the mass keeps on increasing and becomes comparable to the speed of light, the relativistic mass of the particle starts to play a role, $m=\frac{m_o}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}$ where $m_o$ is the rest mass of the particle. You see once this becomes "$infinite$" (very large) for any further acceleration, either you have to increase the amount of force that you are applying or with the same force and increasing mass the acceleration would keep on decreasing. So once the speed is quite close to the speed of light (say $0.99999c$), you need infinitely large force to further accelerate it; and this is something which is very non physical (at least to me).


Single Sign On Login Type issue

Question: I've implemented Single Sign On using ADFS as the Identity provider.   We tested in sandbox, and again in production prior to release.
Now, in release we find that some users are able to login via SSO, while others using the same instructions are not.
Checking our login history, successful users login type is SAML SFDC Initiated SSO.  Failing login attempts show 'Application' as the login type, and receive the error message: 'The Single Sign-On Gateway Url is invalid'
What setting in Salesforce determines the login type and/or gateway url?  How can I resolve this issue?
Thank you!
Comment: https://gavan.in/2020/11/27/restricting-salesforce-username-and-password-login-for-non-administrators/
Answer: I'm not sure if you figured this out but we were experiencing a similar issue.  99% of our users logged in successfully and a couple received that same error.
Our issue was case sensitivity of the user lookup.  We're using ADFS which returns the user's email address after successful authentication which looks up the user's salesforce account using their federation id.  What was confusing was their email address in AD looked fine (all lower case) but upon closer inspection we realized their O365 account wasn't syncing (mixed case).
Navigating to Setup > Single Sign-On Settings you'll find a setting labeled
'Make Federation ID case insensitive'
Once we enabled that setting, our users were able to successfully sign in.
You can validate whether this is the issue by selecting the button SAML Assertion Validator on the Single Sign-On Settings page.  You'll see something to the effect of 'unable to find the user' in results.
I hope this helps
Comment: Thank you Chris!  I did figure out it was a case sensitivity issue, but I didn't know about the federation case insensitivity setting.  That sure would have made things easier.
Hopefully this answer helps someone in the same situation.

Single Sign On Login Type issue


Irreversibility and the Fermi golden rule

Question: When a quantum system is perturbatively coupled to a continuum of states, one uses the Fermi's golden rule to compute the rate of transition form an initial state to a set of states contained in an infinitesimal volume of phase space (the energy density factor). However, I am still puzzled by the fact that the continuum feature of the spectrum implies this non reversible evolution whereas a discrete one would imply Rabi oscillations and finite time reversibility. How does one makes the transition from one to the other?
Answer: One can see the difference by considering the resolvent. Generic matrix elements of $(E-H)^{-1}$ have poles at the discrete spectrum of $H$, but are square integrable (typically smooth) functions of energy in the continuous spectrum, though with large peaks near resonances (poles in the analytic continuation to the nonphysical sheet).
Treating the resonances with small imaginary part as particles is often an excellent approximation, but the imaginary part introduces dissipation. The reason is that $(E-H)^{-1}$ is nonhermitian for nonreal $E$, and remains so in the limit of infinitesimal imaginary part.
Comment: @eigenvalue: see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonance The Green's function is here called transfer function.
Comment: A detailed treatment is in the book by Economou (2006), Green's functions in quantum physics.
Comment: I am very interested in your answer. Could you provide details (or examples or references) why a (typical) matrix element $\langle \psi | (E-H)^{-1} | \phi \rangle$ is typically smooth but have large peak as a function of $E$ near the resonance? (And how is it related to poles in the analytic continuation to the non-physical sheet?)
Answer: Great, similar questions have been bothering me too for quite some time. Arnold, I do not understand your post. The question is about the Fermi golden rule, but I did not see any mention of imaginary spectrum in its derivations. Can you please explain what did you mean? Or post a link to a paper, if possible.
I agree with Vladimir, there is really no dissipation unless the Hamiltonian contains some other interaction with the environment. In the light of this, I think the Fermi rule cannot be satisfactorily derived only from the Schroedinger's equation of the system in driving external field. Some other interactions are needed, and their effect may be described well by the Fermi rule, but I do not know whether there is some paper on this - I would like to read one.
Comment: Arnold Neumaier won't see your question unless you post it as a comment on his post. (Unfortunately I don't think he's an active user of this site anymore either.)
Comment: You don't need a driving external field for the Fermi golden rule to hold, you just need coupling from an initial state to a continuum. See my other answer.
Answer: Sorry for resurrecting this old thread, but I don't feel the accepted answer addresses the question exactly, because the resolvent interpretation already assumes a preferred direction of time (the "physical sheet", which comes from the one-sided Fourier transform of the propagator). This has also been bugging me quite a bit and I think it's a very deep question (it's a concrete and relatively simple version of the more fuzzy question "how can dissipation arise from quantum mechanics"), so let me give several possible viewpoints on this apparent paradox. Hope that helps any confused reader who finds this question on google...
First, note that the Fermi golden rule itself does not break reversibility: it says what happens to a particularly prepared state (the initial state), but applies to positive as well as negative times. If you're able to prepare a state in the right way, you'd be able to see the reverse process, ie a transition to the initial state. But of course to do that you have to prepare the continuum amplitudes in the right way. In many (all?) applications, the continuum states come from an unbounded physical domain: "information" (eg the set of amplitudes on the initial states) is not "lost", it just becomes weirdly encoded in the relative amplitudes of the waves that propagate at infinity.
Second, regarding Rabi oscillations, note that oscillations at different frequencies can cancel each other by destructive interference, as long as their amplitudes are coherent. You can plausibly understand and possibly even derive (I haven't tried) the Fermi golden rule from the Rabi oscillations by considering a superposition of infinitely many Rabi oscillations, just because $\int f(\omega) e^{i \omega t}$ can be localized if $f$ is continuous. If you have a system without continuous spectrum, you will get recurrence, ie approximate periodicity (see eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_recurrence_theorem), but the recurrence time will grow as the spectrum densifies and approximates continuous spectrum.
Third, mathematically what the Fermi golden rule and such things are doing is focusing the attention to a subsystem, ie computing in effect an approximation to $P e^{-iHt} P$ where $P$ is the projector on the "interesting" states (eg the initial state). This effective dynamics (on the subsystem of interest) may not share the properties of the full dynamics (eg it's not unitary, so it can model things like dissipation). This is particularly clear in the context of the Fermi golden rule, because then you can approximate this "non-autonomous" dynamics $P e^{-iHt} P$ (the state of the subsystem at times $t$ does not depend only on the state of the subsystem at times $t'$, $t' < t$) quite neatly in terms of a simple non-Hermitian effective Hamiltonian ("self-energy").
Answer: In order to obtain irreversibility in case of discrete spectrum, you have to add another channel of transition responsible for irreversibility (absorption of excitations). It is often done with adding level widths (imaginary parts of energy levels). If you "imply" that there are no widths, then your time evolution contains a superposition of oscillations, even in case of a (quasi) continuum final states.


Can time dilation affect time taken?

Question: Take an example of a space ship moving at speed comparable with speed of light (like 60% of c) now if spaceship launched from earth to near star does time dilation affects the time taken by space ship to travel from earth to star? I mean does time taken is different for observer on earth and observer on spaceship or it's same?
Comment: Welcome *New contributor* The One Eye Triangle! I've downvoted your question for the "Does not show any research effort" reason. There are many questions and answers here regarding time dilation that answer this question. Did you do a search for before asking? You might find the following link helpful:  [How do I ask a good question](https://physics.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask) - *"Have you thoroughly searched for an answer before asking your question? Sharing your research helps everyone. Tell us what you found and why it didn't meet your needs."*
Comment: What I studied in my class was that by the theory of special relativity the passage of time observed by observer in spaceship is diffrent from the observer on earth so I thought then the time taken by ship should be different for diffrent observer and that confused me like ther is gap in time where observer is at star and for other observer it's going to star. I'm new to this field of study so please tell me where am I wrong.please
Comment: Search for "Twin paradox"
Answer: Yes.
We have an intuition of a 3D isotropic world in which a universal parameter called "time" ticks away uniformly for all observers in all states of motion.
Our intuition is wrong, and be glad: that world would have really messy physical laws.
Instead, relativity is correct: we live in a 4D spacetime, and how an observer slices that 4D spacetime into 3 dimensions of Euclidean space and one moment of time (call "now") depends on their motion (which can only be defined relative to other moving observers).
The key results of relativity regarding your question are (1): any observer sees a moving clock tick slower (that is: time ticks slower), and (2): it is not possible to define a unique time interval between distant events.
Putting numbers to it: if your space traveller goes 5 light years at $v=\frac 3 5 c$, then according to Earth, it takes him:
$$\Delta t = \frac{5\,{\rm ly}}{\frac 3 5\,{\rm ly/y}}=\,8\frac 1 3\,{\rm y}$$
to arrive. Earth sees the space clock tick off:
$$\Delta t' = \frac 1 {\gamma} \Delta t = \,4\frac 1 6\, {\rm y}$$
because the Lorentz factor $\gamma=2$.
In the space traveler's frame, the trip also takes $\Delta t'$, as it must. He watched the Earth/Star system zoom by him at $v=\frac 3 5 c$ for $4\frac 1 6\, {\rm y}$, but the distance between the Earth and Star is Lorentz contracted to 2.5 ly, so everything works out.
The confusing part is as follows: in the space frame, Earth was moving, so the Earth clock was running at half speed in the space frame. For the space traveler, only:
$$ \Delta t'' = \frac 1 {\gamma^2} \Delta t = 2\frac 1 {12}\,{\rm y} $$
ticked by on Earth during the trip.  Both are correct because they are measuring different time intervals. "Now" depends on motion, so that when the space traveler arrives at the star, "now" on Earth really is only 2.08 years after lift off.
If the spaceship stops, so he is in the Earth inertia frame again, "now" on Earth jumps forward to 8.3333 years after lift off.
If he decides to go home, the moment he accelerates to $v = -\frac 3 5 c$, "now" on Earth jumps forward again, and he can return home watching the Earth clock ticking more slowly than his (as it did on the outbound trip), yet when he arrives, the Earthling has aged 16 2/3 years, while the space traveler has aged only 8 1/3 years.
Comment: Maybe you should re-think this statement: "If he decides to go home, the moment he accelerates to v=−(3/5) c, "now" on Earth jumps forward again".

Can time dilation affect time taken?


How can I convert a 120V chandelier to 240V?

Question: I have a chandelier made for the USA market and runs on 110-120 volts. What modifications do I need to make it work in India which has 220-240 volts? Will it need to be rewired?
Answer: The wire is usually rated for 600V; check that first if it is and you can find lamps that fit the sockets at 220-240V with the same wattage or less than the maximum wattage. If lamps that fit at the correct wattage are available you could connect the black wire center pin on the fixture to your hot and the white wire to the neutral conductor or shell and last if a metal fixture connect the ground from the fixture to the service ground and it should work. There are sockets to switch from U.S. base to European bases so that bulbs from overseas can fit.
Comment: A 120-V lamp fixture has to have heavier wires than a 240-V fixture for the same wattage bulb. If you have 240-V lamps that fit the base, then just use it as is.
Comment: am I missing something here or is not this the way that it would be wired from the factory here in the States?
Comment: I'm also confused. What, if any, changes are expected to be needed assuming that the wire is adequate?
Comment: I agree Jim, I was just concerned about the voltage since some U.S. fixtures may not use 600v wiring but most do.
Answer:
Will it need to be rewired?

No, it does not need to be re-wired. Just buy lamps rated for the voltage that you are using. They should be readily available in India.
Wire it properly as Ed Beal points out and you will be good to go.
Good luck!


What is an example of a deductive argument that Biblical Unitarians would present to prove that Jesus is not God?

Question: I'm interested in learning about how Biblical Unitarians arrive at the conclusion that Jesus is not God from a deductive reasoning standpoint (for examples of deductive arguments, see this question). I'm particularly interested in the validity and soundness of their arguments. Is the argument valid? Is the argument sound? Are the premises of the argument properly justified? Is the argument rigorous in its use of words or is it taking advantage of the ambiguity in certain definitions?
Answer: There are a large number of arguments that can be made from a Biblical Unitarian standpoint that Jesus is not God. Although I am skeptical of deductive arguments such as you are looking for (and prefer multiple lines of probabilistic reasoning that point towards a conclusion, instead), here is one that is easily transferred to that format (taken from Jesus is the Son of God; not God the Son, a Biblical Unitarian site).

"Jesus and God have separate wills. Jesus prayed to God, "not my will,
but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42 ESV; cp. John 5:30). If Jesus and the
Father are the same "one God," then they would have one will."

God cannot have a will different from His own will.
If two persons are both God, therefore those two persons will have the same will.
Jesus and the Father's wills are at times different.
Therefore, Jesus is not God.

Trinitarians of course can respond to this, by saying things like 'Jesus has two wills', one his divine nature and one his human nature. Only the human nature is in conflict. And so on, and so on (as the link referenced above goes on to note).
The question for me isn't whether any one argument is logically seal-proof (virtually no argument is, for anything), but how the arguments taken together weigh against the counter-arguments.
The major line of argument by Biblical Unitarians isn't that there are 100% deductive arguments in their favour (although I think some get pretty close, and requires a 'God is ultimately a mystery we cannot understand' response), but that the scriptural evidence strongly leans in favour of Jesus not being God.
Again, for argument after argument that Jesus is not God, you can see the page linked above. You could transform basically all these points into a more formal style.
Comment: @SpiritRealmInvestigator No, it's not. There's a mystery beyond our comprehension, where dogs can simultaneously have dog DNA and *still be* cats. It sounds odd, and the Veterinarian's Bible seems to say otherwise, but there you have it. I know because I developed an elaborate philosophical system, called Dogcatinarianism.
Comment: Fair point. But I'm pretty sure no one would honestly defend Dogcatinarianism in all seriousness. I think all this struggle comes from the fact that we are dealing with the nature of God which is beyond space-time. We don't have examples of God to study in a laboratory, as opposed to dogs and cats which we can study. There is a lot of speculation in all these discussions. I'm each time becoming more convinced that without a direct one-on-one divine revelation, this matter will remain a mystery.
Comment: In your example, what is the justification for the first 3 premises? Are they defended abductively (or probabilistically, as you say)? How do you measure the probability?
Comment: @SpiritRealmInvestigator This is the problem with pretending one is making 100% a priori true deductive arguments. Any premise is questionable. "A dog cannot be a cat." How do you know that? What is the justification for that premise? How do you measure the probability? At some point, you just throw up your hands and carry on. The better question is, why would anyone think otherwise?
Comment: You could use an inductive argument based on DNA analysis to conclude that dogs always have DNA of dog when you check, and cats always have DNA of cat when you check, and since that's always the case, without exceptions, you could inductively conclude that that will always be the case. We would need to formalize what we mean by "DNA of dog", "DNA of cat", etc., but I think it's doable.
Comment: Just going to put out a basic response to this for the heck of it. 1. this is just untrue on the face. As writers like John Piper have pointed out, even God can have different wills, like his permissive will (what God allows) and his "actual" will (what God truly desires). 2. This one is true. 3. Jesus has two wills, his human will, which can contradict the father on the grounds of his humanity (though he will never commit an action against God's will), and his divine will, which is in complete accordance with the father.


Can we recite two or more surahs in one rakat when praying?

Question: Assalamu Alaikum.
I just want to know that when praying, can we read 2 or more surahs (chapters of Qur'an) in one rakat?
Comment: As always: It's important to know what you would accept as proof. Is the opinion of Abu Hanifa enough for you?
Answer: Well the short answer is yes you can read as much of the Quran as you want or can.
This was described in the well known Hadith of the man who didn't pray well (See for example this Version from Sahih al-Bukhari)

...and then recite of what you know of the Qur'an,...

This means you can recite a few ayat or a long ayah or a complete surah or a part of a surah and you can complete a surah and jump and read another. This can be concluded from the sahih hadith (See here the Version of al-Bukhari) about a Sahabi (May Allah be pleased with him) who used to add in the final rak'a surat al-Ikhlass. And an other Hadith from Sahih al-Bukahri and Jami' at-Tirmdihi and an other from Sahih Muslim -which apparently quotes a voluntary qiyam prayer- which is more explicitly answering your Question.
But if you pray in congregation and you are Imam you should also take into account that there are people who can't afford standing long so the Imam shouldn't prolong the prayer too much according to the sahih ahadith (See this hadith with the version from Sahih al-Bukhari and an other hadith from Sahih Muslim here).
And as a practical example in tarawih prayer in Ramadan or qiyam (night) prayer mostly the Imams try to recite the whole Quran in one month so especially at the last night of Ramadan it would be usual to recite many surahs in one raka'a. Or they might start at the end of one surah and begin an other or just recite a part of a surah!
And here are some Fatawa in English and in Arabic: 1 & 2.
And Allah knows best!
Answer: According to all 4 major Imams, yes you can read as much as you want in one rakat
Comment: It would be nice and more helpful if you could elaborate a more helpful answer (Read for example http://islam.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer) and add evidences to support your claims


Codeception DataFactory interaction between helper and other factories

Question: I'm looking into using DataFactory's in Codeception for seeding of data, and for use in our acceptance tests. In the documentation there's mention of 2 approaches, one using the helper file and one using factories files.
We load both options using this snippet from our acceptance.suite.yml
class_name: AcceptanceTester
modules:
    enabled:
        - Db
        - WebDriver
        - \Helper\Acceptance
        - Doctrine2:
            connection_callback: getEntityManager
        - DataFactory:
            factories: tests/_support/factories
            depends: Doctrine2
        - \Helper\Factory

Both of the options seem to load correctly. As per the documentation I can then define factories like this, which will allow interaction with Doctrine.
// tests/_support/Helper/Factory.php
class Factory extends Module
{

    /**
     * @param array $settings
     * @throws \League\FactoryMuffin\Exceptions\DefinitionAlreadyDefinedException
     * @throws \Codeception\Exception\ModuleException
     */
    public function _beforeSuite($settings = [])
    {
        /** @var Module\DataFactory $factory */
        $factory = $this->getModule('DataFactory');

        /** @var EntityManager $em */
        $em = $this->getModule('Doctrine2')->_getEntityManager();

        $factory->_define(User::class,[
            // generate random user name
            'name' => Faker::name(),
        ]);
        parent::_beforeSuite($settings);
    }
}

As per the other option, I can also create factories by loading all files from within tests/_support/factories, such as below:
// tests/_support/factories/seed.php
use League\FactoryMuffin\Faker\Faker;

/** @var \League\FactoryMuffin\FactoryMuffin $fm */
$user = $fm->create(User::class);
dd($user);

However, the seed.php version cannot seem to share the Factory, and errors with:

The model definition 'User' is undefined.

I wondered if maybe this could be solved by moving the Factory.php logic into the initialize() method but this seems to be called before FactoryMuffin has been initiliazed.
The documentation for this with codeception seems a bit sparse, and the FactoryMuffin docs, while better, don't cover Codeception integration. Just trying to work out if i'm missing something, or I just need to repeat the code in each place if I want to use both files/methods.
Answer: This is an old question and technology moves fast so the documentation has likely changed since this was originally asked but I'll make an attempt in case anyone else stumbles across it like I did.
You're using the DataFactory module which is great as it comes with the integration for Codeception out of the box. The two methods you've described are actually ways of integrating DataFactory with your data. By creating factory files, you've given DataFactory a means of generating data. But what if you have some data already in the database that you'd like to use in your tests as well? That's where you would use the Helper class. According to the DataFactory Module docs:

In cases you want to use data from database inside your factory definitions you can define them in Helper. For instance, if you use Doctrine, this allows you to access EntityManager inside a definition.

As for your issue of seed.php not finding the User model, you need to specify it according to the definition given in your factory. For example, if your factory file looks similar to this
<?php
use League\FactoryMuffin\Faker\Facade as Faker;
$fm->define('app\models\User')->setDefinitions([
        'name' => Faker::name(),
        ... // the rest of your properties here
    ]);

Then seed.php would look like
// tests/_support/factories/seed.php
use League\FactoryMuffin\Faker\Faker;

$user = $fm->create('app\models\User');

Once you have the DataFactory module installed and configured, you can simply call it within the appropriate testing suite via have, haveMultiple, or make. See the Codeception Docs


RIA Services: Is there a limit to the JSON deserialization?

Question: I'm using RIA Services in one of my silverlight applications.  I can return about 500 entites (or about 500 kb JSON) from my service successfully, but anything much over that fails on the client side - the browser crashes (both IE and Firefox).
I can hit the following link and get the JSON successfully:
http://localhost:52878/ClientBin/DataService.axd/AgingReportPortal2-Web-Services-AgingDataService/GetAgingReportItems
... so I wonder what the deal is.
Is there a limit to how much can be deserialized?  If so, is there a way to increase it? I remember having a similar problem while I was using WCF for this - I needed to set maxItemsInObjectGraph in the web.config to a higher number - perhaps I need to do something similar?
This is the code I'm using to fetch the entities:
<code>    // Executes when the user navigates to this page.
    protected override void OnNavigatedTo(NavigationEventArgs e)
    {
        AgingDataContext context = new AgingDataContext();

        var query = context.GetAgingReportItemsQuery();

        var loadOperation = context.Load(query);
        loadOperation.Completed += new EventHandler(loadOperation_Completed);

    }

    void loadOperation_Completed(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        // I placed a break point here - it was never hit
        var operation = (LoadOperation<AgingReportItem>)sender;
        reportDatagrid.ItemsSource = operation.Entities;
    }
</code>
Any help would be appreciated - I've spent hours trying to figure this out, and haven't found anyone with the same problem.
Thanks,
Charles
Answer: Maybe try adding/increasing this as well, the default is 8192
<code><readerQuotas maxArrayLength="5000000" />
</code>


Copy Sequential Files

Question: I have 12 files named dmp_000, dmp_001, etc, all the way to dmp_011. I would like to copy all of them to rdmp_000, rdmp_001, and so on, sequentially so the numbered files coincide. There must be an easy way to do this rather than individually?
Answer: I used this command to generate some sample data
% for  i in `seq 0 11`;do touch dmp_$(printf "%03d" $i);done

% ls
dmp_000  dmp_001  dmp_002  dmp_003  dmp_004  dmp_005  dmp_006  dmp_007  dmp_008  dmp_009  dmp_010  dmp_011

To duplicate the files and preserve the original files modify/create dates:
% for i in dmp*;do cp -p "$i" "r${i}";done

% ls
dmp_000  dmp_002  dmp_004  dmp_006  dmp_008  dmp_010  rdmp_000  rdmp_002  rdmp_004  rdmp_006  rdmp_008  rdmp_010
dmp_001  dmp_003  dmp_005  dmp_007  dmp_009  dmp_011  rdmp_001  rdmp_003  rdmp_005  rdmp_007  rdmp_009  rdmp_011

To move the files wdmp* to rdmp*
% for i in wdmp*;do newname=$(echo $i|sed 's/^w/r/'); mv "$i" "$newname";done

NOTE: You could also have used @warl0ck's answer for that using the rename command.
Comment: In addition to that, what if I need copy wdmp_000, wdmp_001, etc to rdmp_000, rdmp_001? Where I have to rename the file itself? The duplication command adds the 'r' at the beginning, but I would like it to replace the 'w'.
Comment: Are you asking how to copy wdmp_000 to rdmp_000, but replace the r with a w? Use the unix command `mv` instead of `cp`. I'll add another example for that to the answer.
Comment: Thanks, that's works! warl0ck's doesn't work somehow. The fortran code doesn't read the new files.
Answer: If the use of zsh is acceptable, then:
autoload -U zmv            # load zmv
zmv -C 'dmp_(*)' 'rdmp_$1' # rename files

Or simply in this case:
zmv -C 'dmp_*' 'r$f'

($1, $2 expand to the corresponding (...) groups and $f to the whole file path).
See this link for more examples.
Answer: Posix compatible, short, and all your files can be referenced ( within the parens ) as positional params 1-12 if you want to expand on it.
% ( set -- wdmp0[0-1][0-9] ;\
> for f ; do cp $f r${f#?} ; done )

Answer: I'd do this
for f in dmp_{000..011}; do [ -f $f ] && cp "$f" "r$f"; done

Answer: Try rename command, and only rename those started with dmp_,
rename dmp rdmp dmp_*
To keep the files, try an alternate method like this,
for x in dmp_*; do cp $x r$x; done
Comment: Does that remove the original files? I would like to keep them, so rename won't work.
Comment: @GaryCai updated

Copy Sequential Files


Why doesn't Cycles have shader compile times like Eevee?

Question: Eevee compile times can get extremely long if you have multiple complex materials, such as procedural textures. I've had files with over 5 minute compile times. Cycles appears to have 0 compile time even on huge scenes. Both are using the GPU. I know these engines are different types (Cycles being a pathtracer), but what is the difference that causes this?
Comment: In my case it is because the version of compute I am using is new enough for the one, but not the other. Blender updates to take advantage of new hardware features, which is why sometimes computer works on older versions but not newer versions.  Cycles is far more woven into hardware because it has been around longer, so it is to be expected that it would perform better.
Comment: Cycles has been around much longer than Eevee, so most of the material nodes are set to function with Cycles. It's possible that the GPU doesn't like the specific material setup being used with Eevee.
Comment: I know its an engine difference. Eevee and game engines do an upfront compile. Cycles and other path/raytracers don't. But I don't get how they are getting the material info onto the GPU if they aren't. Or if there's some way to do it fast, why aren't Eevee/game engines doing that too.
Answer: As far as I understand it (and I could be wrong):
Ray tracing engines like Cycles compute shaders on the fly as they are needed during ray tracing. The time spend by the engine precomputing stuff is more in the realms of scene analyzing (like BHV building) and optimizing ray tracing algorithms, which aren't shader precomputing.
Rasterized engines like Eevee precompute shaders and other data, compiling them to low level code and formats faster to execute by the GPU (GLSL for Eevee), optimizing (like eliminating dead code, folding constants, ...), and maybe other things. But at the cost of accuracy and overhead performance, static effects (reflection probes, shadow maps, baked global illumination, ...) and lots of manual work to do in order to set these up in a way that looks good.
Overall, the differences in approaches come from differences of needs. One prioritize accuracy over render time, another prioritize render time over everything.
Comment: That's my general impression too. But I'm looking at cases where Cycles will build a BVH in a couple seconds, then render several hundred samples up to full quality in 10-20 seconds (I have a fast GPU and this is a low geo scene but with high material complexity). The same scene in Eevee has a 3+ minute compile time! So even if Cycles is doing the compiling as it goes, its still doing it so much faster.
Comment: Well, yes depending on your hardware and the scene, that can happen. On a complex scene where it takes hours for a small fHD frame on Cycles you could make several frames with Eevee.


Solder Paste and Solder Land in Altium Designer / CircuitStudio

Question: I am designing a footprint for the SOT765-1 using Altium CircuitStudio, and I am a bit confused regarding the solder paste and solder land definitions found on Page 3/5 of this datasheet. For the bottom-left pad, should I make the pad 0.3mm × 0.65mm and set the "Solder Mask Expansions" to 0.1mm? And can I consider solder land to be a synonym of copper pad?
From datasheet:
Answer: This datasheet uses the term "Solder Land" to define the suggested size of the copper pad.  The manufacturer recommends a 0.4x0.75 "Solder Land" (copper pad) for the bottom left of the drawing (pin 1), as well as pins 4, 5, and 8.
The suggested solder paste shown by the drawing is 0.3mm in the X dimension, but is not given in the Y dimension.  You can infer that the manufacture is suggesting to make the solder paste 0.1mm smaller than the copper pad in both axes.  So, the solder paste opening should be 0.3x0.65mm.
In order to automatically achieve this, Altium uses the "Paste Mask Expansion" property for the pad in the library.  Altium interprets the value as the expansion if positive, or pull back if negative, from all edges.  In order to achieve 0.1mm smaller solder paste than the copper pad, the Paste Mask Expansion value needs to be set to -0.05mm.
I'm using Altium 19 as the reference.


Delta wing RC aircraft unstable

Question: I've been building and testing an tailed delta wing'd RC aircraft, but it has seemed that the plane is extremely pitch happy and tends to somersault when at high speed, is there some type of easy fix? More counterweight at the back?
Comment: Seems most likely you need to move the CG further forward.
Comment: How about a picture of it.
Answer:
pitch happy and tends to somersault when at high speed

The old saw is to move the weight, but the most time honored approach is to glide it unpowered first.  Make weight adjustments here.
This helps sort out stability and trim issues of the design.
Now add power.  Thrust angle must be correct or you wind up with a plane that is very difficult to trim.
I had a similar experience with a Delta Ray RTF model.  If the thrust line was not correct, the plane had to be re-trimmed significantly for low speed landing approach.
You may find that adjusting your thrust angle to push the nose down when power is applied works well.  Models commonly have a thrust down angle of 3 degrees or more.

pitch happy

If you are building an aircraft that will fly through a wide range of speeds, relaxing static stability can help.  Keep in mind that this will no longer be a "trainer", and expertise in piloting will be needed.
This is accomplished by moving weight back and reducing aerodynamic tail downforce.  Remember, moving weight back reduces longitudinal stability as well, meaning larger horizontal and vertical stabilizers may be required.
Answer: The center of gravity is too far back.
What angle do the elevons have when trimmed? Do their trailing edges point up or down? I guess they point down ... let us know more by adding to your question!

Delta wing RC aircraft unstable


Can the Arduino use this i2c LCD Panel

Question: Can the Arduino Mega2560 use the New Haven NHD-0420D3Z-NSW-BBW-V3 LCD panel by controlling it with the New LiquidCrystal library? What cable will you use to connect the LCD to Arduino, are there screw terminals on the LCD board to secure the connections? It seems like only 4 connections are needed, for GND, VCC, SDA, SCL.
Comment: The I2C in that library is expecting a IO expander ASIC. The display you use requires different I2C commands. Better look around for a different library.
Answer: Unfortunately you cannot control that display using that library; the library expects to be connected to a HD44780-compatible driver but the display uses a fully custom control scheme. You may be able to adapt the library to the scheme, but I have not looked at that specifically.
I2C itself only requires 3 connections: SDA, serial data; SCL serial clock; GND, ground reference. Since the display is not powered separately it also requires power, in this case 5V. Since the display can only communicate at 100kHz you don't need to be too terribly concerned about cable quality; Cat3 or even telephone cable is acceptable as long as you don't exceed a few feet in length. Don't forget the external pullup resistors though, on SDA and SCL.

Can the Arduino use this i2c LCD Panel


predicative and attributive adjectives?

Question: I'm reading Peter Geach's Good and Evil, and am struggling to understand what predicative and attributive adjectives mean, the significance of the words and how they be applied to good and bad.
Answer: See examples at the very beginning of Geach's essay (1956).
It is a grammatical distinction: a "small elephant" is not something that is an elephant and is small because elephants are big (speaking absolutely). A small elephant is small only relative to the elephants kind.
See Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value :

Peter Geach (1956) argues that G.E.Moore [in Principia Ethica (1903) and elsewhere, Moore embraces the consequentialist view that whether an action is morally right or wrong turns exclusively on whether its consequences are intrinsically better than those of its alternatives] makes a serious mistake when comparing "good" with "yellow." Moore says that both terms express unanalyzable concepts but are to be distinguished in that, whereas the latter refers to a natural property, the former refers to a nonnatural one. Geach contends that there is a mistaken assimilation underlying Moore's remarks, since "good" in fact operates in a way quite unlike that of "yellow"—something that Moore wholly overlooks.
This contention would appear to be confirmed by the observation that the phrase "x is a yellow bird" splits up logically (as Geach puts it) into the phrase "x is a bird and x is yellow," whereas the phrase "x is a good singer" does not split up in the same way. Also, from "x is a yellow bird" and "a bird is an animal" we do not hesitate to infer "x is a yellow animal," whereas no similar inference seems warranted in the case of "x is a good singer" and "a singer is a person."

On the basis of these observations Geach concludes that nothing can be good in the free-standing way that Moore alleges; rather, whatever is good is good relative to a certain kind.
Answer: Just an add-on to Mauro's answer. Left to myself I'd say that 'predicative'/ 'attributive' is both a linguistic and a logical distinction:
Predicative and attributive

For Geach ...surface grammar is no sure guide to
the attributive/predicative distinction. He says,
I shall say that in a phrase 'an AB' ('A' being an adjective and 'B' being a
noun) 'A' is a (logically) predicative adjective if the predication 'is an AB'
splits up logically into a pair of predications 'is a B' and 'is A'; otherwise
I shall say that 'A' is a (logically) attributive adjective (op. cit., p. 33).
'Big', 'small', 'forged' and 'putative' are his examples of logically
attributive adjectives since 'x is a big flea' does not split up logically
into 'x is a flea' and 'x is big', 'x is a small elephant' does not split up
logically into 'x is an elephant' and 'x is small', 'x is a forged banknote'
does not split up logically into 'x is a banknote' and 'x is forged', and 'x
is the putative father of y' does not split up logically into 'x is the father
of y' and 'x is putative'. 'Red' and 'sweet' are his examples of logically
predicative adjectives since 'x is a red book' does split up logically into
'x is a book' and 'x is red', and, presumably, 'x is a sweet apple' does
split up logically into 'x is an apple' and 'x is sweet'. Thus although
'small' in 'Dumbo is small' is grammatically predicative, it is logically
attributive, and although 'red' in 'x is a red book' is grammatically
attributive, it is logically predicative. (Alfred F. MacKay, 'Attributive-Predicative', Analysis, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Mar., 1970), pp. 113-120: 115; references to Geach are to  P. T. Geach, 'Good and Evil', ANALYSIS, Vol. 17, December, 1956, pp. 33-4.)

Geach tries to show that 'good' is always an attributive adjective:

For 'good' the point is not so clear at first sight, since 'good' is not
alienans [GT - see below] - whatever holds true of an A as such holds true of a good A.
But consider the contrast in such a pair of phrases as 'red car' and 'good
car'. I could ascertain that a distant object is a red car because I can see
it is red and a keener-sighted but colour-blind friend can see it is a car;
there is no such possibility of ascertaining that a thing is a good car by
pooling independent information that it is good and that it is a car. This
sort of example shows that 'good' like 'bad' is essentially an attributive
adjective (op. cit., pp. 33-4).

There is no space to discuss the point here.
Alienans
'Putative' in 'putative father' is alienans, since a 'putative
father' is not both a father and putative. Indeed the point of the 'putative' is
that he may not be a father at all. (Charles R. Pigden, Geach on 'Good', The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-), Vol. 40, No. 159 (Apr., 1990), pp. 129-154: 131.)

predicative and attributive adjectives?


how to connect android with phpmyadmin

Question: How to connect android with phpmyadmin?
I used Android Studio and WAMP server, I searched relative information, but I could not know how to pick out which one is useful for me.
I could insert data into mysql with php.file, and query the data from mysql.  But I don't know how to connect Android with Phpmyadmin, how to upload/ download from mysql.
Comment: There is a google library called 'volley' available for connecting your android app to php files which will connect to phpMyAdmin. http://developer.android.com/training/volley/index.html Just use this library for calling phpFiles and you can send data to php file for inserting into your mysql and can also parse the data from php while which is fetched from mysql. For sample use of volley you can also follow this tutorial http://www.androidhive.info/2014/05/android-working-with-volley-library-1/
Answer:
Connect Android phone and Computer to the same network
In mobile browser, type the IP address of the computer with port number
Enter phpMyAdmin credentials and access WAMP projects
Comment: 1. Computer creates a wireless Network, then mobile add into it?
Comment: computers' wireless network might not be visible to android devices, I suggest to connect both to common network and adjust network sharing settings accordingly
Answer: Please change http://localhost/.... with http://10.0.2.2/.... in your urls configurations
EDIT : if you use a real Android device, search the IP adress of your computer in your router main page configuration and replace localhost by this ip adress, it will work
Answer: phpMyAdmin is not a database, it's a web-based application from which you can perform administrative tasks on a MySQL (or MariaDB) database.
If you're really trying to connect to phpMyAdmin, just enter the URL in to the web browser. https://example.com/phpmyadmin or https://192.0.2.52/phpmyadmin or something similar.
However, if you're trying to get an application on your Andriod device to talk to a MySQL database hosted somewhere else, you're not going to want to connect directly to it, you'll want an API running on the database machine to authenticate, handle incoming requests, and return appropriate responses. You can code that in PHP if you want, or whatever programming language suits you, then you access that URL from your Android app.
Comment: I wrote code in PHP to visit phpMyAdmin, then set PHP file's path as URL, like "10.0.2.2:8080/androidconnect/login.php", is it right ? However, how do Android phone distinguish the URL and visit?

how to connect android with phpmyadmin


Find a boundary from set of 3d line segments

Question: I have a set of n 3d line segments  [(p1_start,p1_end), (p2_start,p2_end),....(pn_start,pn_end)].
(I believe that they shod be nin-intersecting...)
These segments represent a (closed) boundary.  I am looking for effective algorithm to generate this boundary, i.e. to find the order of segments for boundary :  [pj_start,pj_end, ...p1_start, p1_end.....]
(segments can be connected via their ends: start to start , start to end, end to start, end to end)
I thought to start from arbitrary segment , say s = (pm_start, pm_end),
among all other segment find the one , which distance to pm_start or  pm_end is minimal, and add this segment end based on calculated minimum distance and continue this way for all segments
The complexity of this approach is not good
Can anyone propose effective algorithm for this problem
Answer: For each segment extract the two endpoints (remembering which segment they came from), now sort the endpoints by (say) lexicographical ordering. Any two endpoints that are the same are now adjacent. so, scan the sorted list, attache adjacent segments that share endpoints, and then read the cycle by following the resulting list like structure among the segments.
One can improve the running time to linear using hashing and the floor function, etc.
Comment: tahnks. how hash can be used?
Comment: See here for how grids help: https://sarielhp.org/book/chapters/min_disk.pdf


minimum information distribution given moments of its square

Question: Given constants $m_0,\ldots m_n$ and a measure $\mu$ on $\mathbb{R}$, how can I "recover" the integrals $\int f x^n d\mu$ of the maximum entropy distribution $f\in L^2(\mathbb{R})$ which satisfies $\int f^2 x^n d\mu=m_n$ ?
Answer: Let us consider the special case when $\mu$ is the Lebesgue measure on $\mathbb{R}$. The derivation then should be extendable to the general case without much effort.
We need to find the distribution $f$ that solves the following problem: $$\max_{f\in \mathcal{B}}-\int_\mathbb{R}f(x)\ln f(x) dx\\\Leftrightarrow\min_{f\in \mathcal{B}}\int_\mathbb{R}f(x)\ln f(x) dx\\\mathrm{s.t.}\quad \int_\mathbb{R}f(x) dx=1,\ \int_\mathbb{R}f^2(x) x^kdx=m_k,\ k=0,1,\cdots,\ n$$ where $\mathcal{B}$ is the set of Borel measurable functions on $\mathbb{R}$. The corresponding Lagrangian is $$\mathcal{L}\left(f(x),\{\lambda_k\}_{k=0}^n\right)=\int_\mathbb{R}f(x)\ln f(x) dx-\lambda_0\int_\mathbb{R}f(x) dx-\sum_{k=1}^n \lambda_k \int_\mathbb{R}f^2(x) x^kdx$$ The maximizing distribution is obtained by equating the derivative of the Lagrangian to $0$ $$\frac{\partial \mathcal{L}}{\partial f}=1+\ln f(x)-\lambda_0-2\sum_{k=1}^n\lambda_k f(x) x^k=0\\\implies \ln f(x)=\lambda_0-1+2f(x)\sum_{k=1}^n \lambda_k x^k\\\implies f(x)=a\exp\left(bf(x)\right)\\\implies f(x)=-\frac{W(-ab)}{b}$$ where $W$ is the Lambert's W function, $a=e^{\lambda_0-1},\ b=2\sum_{k=1}^n \lambda_k x^k$ Thus, we can express the integral $\int_\mathbb{R} f(x) x^k dx$ as below: $$\int_\mathbb{R} f(x) x^k dx=-\int_\mathbb{R}\frac{W\left(-2a\sum_{j=1}^n \lambda_j x^j\right)}{2\sum_{j=1}^n \lambda_j x^j}x^k dx$$ Beyond this point, the integral seems to be formidable, and probably a numerical approach is required, but in principle, this derivation produces some form of the maximizing distribution $f$, which one can then work with.
Comment: You also have to recover the $\lambda_i$'s somehow I suppose.
Comment: Yes, that can be done by solving the constraint equations, although I am not sure if nice closed form expressions are available for this. Numerically I think there will not be many issues.


Block all outgoing connection attempts as per application via ipfw

Question: I need to block all outgoing connection attempts made by a particular app in order to prevent it from downloading updates automatically via ipfw?
Comment: any suggestions regarding the issue but Little Snitch?
Comment: Also see [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1105896/block-application-access-to-network-via-a-cocoa-api-littlesnitch-apis). Doesn't sound like ipfw can do what you want.
Answer: You could try to edit the hosts file and redirect the application's requests into the void that is 127.0.0.1.
Answer: If you want a graphical front end to ipfw (it's still installed on 10.5 and 10.6, though not as prominently), I'd recommend Flying Buttress (Shareware). If cost is an issue, Wikipedia has a list of alternative user interfaces for ipfw, many of which run on Mac OS X. Alternatively, you could go all old school and configure ipfw by hand.
Ipfw is, however, only an IP packet filter - you'll only be able to block access for all applications or none and only for a specific host and port. If you want to block all connection attempts by a particular application, you need an application-level firewall, the best-known of which is probably Little Snitch.
Answer: Are you trying to block a phone home or an automatic update because i've seen very few programs that don't let you disable automatic updates .
Comment: Google Chrome, Chrome OS, Safari... to name a few.
Comment: osx updates safari so you just have to turn off auto updating for osx.   This worked for me. for chrome " Go to 'Library' at the root level of your hard drive. In Library you will find a folder called 'Google'. In this folder there is another folder called 'Googlesoftwareupdate'. Delete it. Next time you open Chrome you will get a message saying that auto updates may not work and asking if you wish to enable them. Respond to this in the negative. No more auto updates."  this worked for me.  i have no clue about chrome os but i'm sure if you kill googles updater it'll kill it.


Adding the letter O onto the end of root words like - friendo, fatso, f*cko, weirdo, etc

Question: I have seen these type of words both in movies and on the net. Now, I am trying to understand, what is the point in adding the letter O onto the end of root words? Does it act as a intensifier of the negative meaning of a root word (in case a root word per se has a negative connotation)? If so, then what happens if a root has a neutral or positive connotation? What would be the meaning then?
Comment: Related: [What purpose does an -o serve?](https://english.stackexchange.com/q/78292/8019)
Comment: Here is a list of Aussie words: https://www.australiablog.com/culture/favorite-australian-slang-add-an-o.html
Comment: And the Aussies do it all the time: journalist, journo. It does not seem to connote negatively for them. In AmE, it can be negative or positive. One positive one is "no problemo", which I personally cannot stand. :)
Comment: @Lambie understando!
Comment: I'm absolutely certain that *no problemo* came to us (where I live) from Spanish language influence. Not sure about the others.
Answer: Michael Quinion, Ologies and Isms: Word Beginning and Endings has an interesting suggestion regarding the origin of -o as an attachment to freestanding nouns or adjectives:

-o Marking informally shortened or slang nouns. {Perhaps from the interjection oh!, or the use of -o in ballads to terminate lines; its use has been reinforced by shortened forms ending in the linking vowel -o-}
Though a wide variety of nouns in English end in -o, this suffix occurs only in words that have been formed from other native words in one of two specific ways. One method is to informally abbreviate a longer term, of which a few examples out of many are ammo, condo, hippo, limo, and photo.Others are based on an adjective or noun, to which the suffix is added to create a colloquial or slangy terms, which is often but by no means always derogatory: beano (from beanfeast), boyo, cheapo, pervo (from pervert), pinko, righto, sicko, weirdo, wino.

The attachment of -o endings in ballads goes back centuries, as for example in the ballad "The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie," which in one version attaches -o to  no fewer than sixteen normal English words, as well as to the proper names Fyvie and Peggy. All of these -o words fall at the ends of lines (in fact at the end of the second and fourth lines of each of the ballad's quatrains) corroborating the notion that -o plays a line-terminating role in at least some ballads. Nevertheless, citing that use of -o endings as the source of current -o words, even if it is correct (which is not beyond question), doesn't explain why people chose -o for that purpose way back then. It basically just kicks the can a few centuries down the road.
As Quinion observes, wordos are inherently slangy and often have negative connotations. But in the examples that Quinion lists, some -o words aren't negative, and some that are negative are informal alterations of words that are themselves negative (cheap, sick, weird—to which we can add dumb, creep, lame, stink, and so on). To my mind, the crucial function of -o in modern usage isn't to render a neutral word negative; it's to slangify and informalize a staid, sober, reputable word—often in tandem with converting the word from an adjective into a noun.
Answer: Slang Words Ending in "O" Daily Writings
These have been around for a long time.  Some actually make it into the registries: condo & cheerio. In slang use they call attention to the base meaning of the word: f**ko doggo beardo and the list goes on. One frequent U. S. use is 'wrongo -dude!'
Interesting example:

There used to be a famous cigarette lighter named "Zippo". There was
  also a Japanese bomber code named "Betty". Betty would catch fire
  easily when hit by allied fire. The Yanks took to calling them zippos,
  and even the Japanese crewmen called these planes the same.

And more from the Aussies:  Aussie Slang
Comment: @Lambie with your permission adding aussie blog link
Comment: Ah shucks. Where are our Aussie friends? If I were younger, I would go to Australia or New Zealand and never come back. :)
Answer: The OED attributes use of this slang -o suffix to three factors.

the final syllable of words of chiefly Romance origin

Think bongo, mango, and calico.

the vowel that became final after the shortening of a word by dropping the syllables following a medial o , especially in compounds truncated after a prefix or combining form ending in -o

In this case, think of slang words cut short after a medial o, like using the word psycho instead of psychopath.

ho int.1, O int., and oh int., occurring as a second element in various exclamatory phrases. The suffix is attached both to full words and to truncated forms of words and phrases.

Here the OED is referring to derivatives of words followed by Ho! like Righto, which derives from Right ho.
Answer: Weirdo is just the slang abbreviation for someone who is being weird. That's what adding the letter O is for.
Comment: Then why add the O to friend? Friend already represents a person who is, well, a friend, how do you explain the added o?


"occur to" vs. "happen to" what is the difference

Question: What would be the right choice in this context? Until it occurred to me or happened to me?
Comment: What context? They mean different things.
Answer: It's true that occur and happen are more or less synonymous, but in English there is an idiom occur to someone, which has a different meaning, and would get in the way of understanding it as happen to someone.
"An accident occurred to me" unambiguously means "I had the idea of an accident", or "I suddenly thought about an accident".I don't think any native English speaker would understand it to mean "I had an accident" on first hearing,they would probably come to that meaning after rejecting the other possibilities.
Comment: Thank you, sir.
Answer: "To occur" has also meanings different from "to take place", which is shared with "to happen".
When this happens :-) they are not interchangeable.
For instance, in the construction "to occur to ...", when it means "to come to mind", as in:
It occurred to me that I forgot my umbrella at the store.
(Another meaning of "to occur" is also "to appear", "to be found to exist".)
Comment: Thank you for your split-second answer. Britannica Dictionary Validate part of the idea: https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/happen-to