Unable to copy and paste from Google Calendar App

Question: I have found that I cannot copy and paste from the Google Calendar app.  I use the calendar to alert me for bill payments, but under 14.04, I cannot copy information from the calendar window.  And, URLs that work as links in other OSes (Windows, for instance) do not work in 14.04's Calendar App, and I cannot copy the URL to a browser, either.  Does anyone know of a fix?
Comment: Google Calendar app? you mean chrome app for Google calendar? Or are you referring to Thunderbird?
Answer: This is a known bug in launchpad. I am experiencing the same problem - and it is present for all application based on the webbrowser-app package i am using in ubuntu 14.04.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/webbrowser-app/+bug/1264493
Therefore it is much better to use applications in chrome or chromium. These can also be launched as separate applications and can be present in your menu as standalone programs.
(If you do not have chrome or chromium you can search for chromium in the Ubuntu Software Center and install it from there)
To install the google calendar app in chrome/chromium:

Open your chrome / chromium browser
Click on the apps tab
Click on web store
Search for google calendar
Install it by pressing the "Free" button

Now you have the application installed. This guide is to make a standalone application for it:

Back in the Apps tab you see now that you have Google Calendar
Right click the application to see the context menu
Click create shortcut - and select applications menu

The application will now be searchable from your unity dash, and you can move it to your menu if you like.
Note that the names and icons for the old calendar application is somewhat similar so be sure to select the right one. The Chrome/Chromium one is called Google Calendar and the webbrowser based is called GoogleCalendar without a space.
This procedure also works for gmail, google docs and other google applications.
Good luck.


How to play vibrato on the clarinet?

Question: I've been playing the clarinet for some time now, and have wanted to extend my ability with it. While doing so, I ran into vibrato. Is there a good method to play vibrato on the clarinet?
Answer: Whether and how to use vibrato is a stylistic and personal question, and the most common answer for classical clarinet players seems to be just don't.
Jazz players sometimes have doubled on sax and clarinet, and so brought their vibrato over from the sax. The most common technique for vibrato on the sax is to move the jaw up and down, using the same technique as for adjusting your intonation. This can also be done on clarinet. There is also lip and diaphragm vibrato.
I've been cautioned that diaphragm vibrato can make you sound like Kenny G, which would cause you to burn in hell for all eternity.
Comment: +1 for the caveat about eternal damnation. Unwitting diagram vibrato horrors averted.
Comment: Just curious, where does Sidney Bechet get his vibrato?
Comment: David Shiffrin (classical) used vibrato as well.  (I double on sax and find myself doing it from time to time too.)  I'm self-taught in vibrato, and on both sax and clarinet, slight changes in pressure in the embouchure is enough for my tastes.

How to play vibrato on the clarinet?


What is the best photographic editing tool for iPad?

Question: I'm looking for the best photographic editing tool for Apple's iPad. There are many programs on the App Store, but I cannot test them without buying them. So what is your experience in the subject?
Answer: It depends a lot on what you want to do with it, and hence what your criteria are for "best", but I've used a few so here are my opinions:
Photoshop Express: 2/5
[US link] Free, nice interface and easy to use, but features are limited to basic corrections, effects and frames. Sharing to other services is very poor: just Facebook and a Photoshop Express online service.
Snapseed: 4/5
[US link] This one costs a bit (£2.99 in the UK, although that gets you the iPhone version too) but has a lot more features than Photoshop Express. The interface is nice again, especially the little pop-up menus that appear when you use the editing tools. (I know that sounds odd but use it and you'll see exactly what I mean: it's very slick.) It also has automatic localised adjustments a bit like the ones found in Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro and other tools. (Nik make Snapseed too.) On top of that it's got lots of built-in effects filters, most of them customisable: for effects it's probably the best app on the iPad. And sharing is better than Photoshop Express: it supports e-mail, Facebook and Flickr.
On the downside, I'd love it to include a few more features that I use often (such as white balance and vignettes) and offer sharing to other services (like Twitter). Plus the price tag is definitely off-putting.
Photogene: 4/5
[US link] I first saw this described as "Lightroom for the iPad" and it's certainly loaded with features, with the emphasis much more on serious editing than effects. It's got all the editing controls you'd expect in a desktop app (white balance, exposure, contrast, curves, channels, histogram, sharpening...). Amazingly, it also has retouching tools like a heal/clone and dodge/burn brushes! There really is a lot in there, and it'll share pictures with most of the online services out there (Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Picasa, etc.)
However, it's let down by an unappealing UI and the fun features (speech bubbles and effects filters) are disappointingly basic and unevolved. It's also an iPad-only product so you don't get to share the love with your iPhone.
Luminance: 3/5
[US link] Like a better Photoshop Express: it's all about effects, and has a fantastic set of filter presets, almost up to Instagram standards. It also has a decent set of editing tools (white balance, split toning, hue/saturation, brightness, contrast and vignetting) but bizarrely no crop or rotate (unless they're really hard to find). So it's another creative rather than corrective app, but again it's Universal so you get two apps (iPad + iPhone) for the (small) price of one.
PhotoForge2: 5/5
[US link] Only discovered this one recently and it's definitely The One! It has a stunning array of corrective features (including, but by no means limited to: white balance, levels, curves, channel mixer, colour balance, noise reduction, unsharp mask... the list goes on and on), as well as some nice auto-adjustment features. On top of that it has a good set of effects filters... and a Lightroom-style edit history... and layers. Yes, layers. It supports sharing to a huge range of online services (including Flickr, Facebook, Twitter/TwitPic, PicasaWeb, Tumblr and FTP). And best of all, all of this is presented in a really beautiful UI with a nice Mac OS dock-style effect on the menus. At the bargain price of £0.69 (UK) for a Universal iPad/iPhone app, it's a clear winner in my book. Definitely worth having.
Comment: For PhotoForge2, it should be noted that the current price (99¢ in the US) is described as being a "back to school" discount.
Comment: @mattdm You're right, I hadn't spotted that. It's described as a 70% discount in the UK store, so the regular price will be around £2.30 here (around $3.30 in the US??). It's definitely still worth it at the full price, but with this discount it would be rude not to!
Comment: One can find a price history [at appshopper.com](http://appshopper.com/photography/photoforge2); it appears to bounce around a lot.
Comment: There's also a fairly broad round-up of iPad photo apps on [dpreview](http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/appleipad2/).
Answer: I think the Photoshop mobile app is going to be one of the better options.
Comment: Looks promising - though the weird bug where it crashes if it's opened in landscape mode is deeply annoying. I hope they fix it soon...
Comment: Not really: it's very basic. My answer discusses a few much better options.
Comment: A newer version was released the next day: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-photoshop-express/id331975235?mt=8 (It also appears to be free)
Answer: Try Google Snapseed.
Here is dpreview's review of it: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/snapseed/
It has a very handy interface and a lot of features.


What's the services/running processes manager in Mac OS X?

Question: I installed MySQL but I am unable to see if it is running or has stopped. How do I see what are the currently running services corresponding to the "Services" interface in Windows?
Answer: For most of the "services" (called Daemons or Agents documented by Apple here and here) you can check:
In terminal: $ sudo launchctl list
For example only MySQL you can filter the output of the command above, like sudo launchctl list | grep -i mysql. Note -i is to make the filter case insensitive.
These also can be controlled with a GUI examples are  Lingon and Launch Control.
There are some other "services", that will install themselves in:
/Library/StartupItems

For those, there is a command like
$ ps -ef |grep /Library/StartupItems to view whether it is loaded and running. But there isn't a generic mechanism to stop, start or restart.
In which category your MySQL installation falls is impossible to say, as your question is lacking details on what exactly you have installed, what its source is, how it was installed, etcetera.
Comment: Manually deleting files from /Library/StartupItems folder worked
Answer: The application "Activity Monitor" is located in /Applications/Utilities and will display all processes similar to the Unix command 'top'.
Comment: Note: By default it'll only show processes you own. You should switch it to show all processes in the `View` menu.
Comment: This is not a valid answer. OP is asking for a list "corresponding to the "Services" interface in Windows". The Activity Monitor and top simply show the currently running processes. A process like Chrome and a service like sshd are very different and the essence of the question.
Answer: No, cat concatenates or displays /dev/null  which is the bit bucket or nothing
so cat /dev/null shows me nothing.
Try ps -ef on the command line. This will show you process status everything full
To just see MySQL run
ps -ef | grep -i mysql

Answer: you can use top in the terminal in osx… I am surprised there is no command line service manager in osx. Wow!
Comment: Doesn't `cat /dev/null` show you all windows services that run on OS X?


Assigning width of one control to other, asp.net

Question: Let say we have controls c1 and c2
I want c2 to have width of c1 (c1 doesn't have fixed with, It should stretch automatically).
<code>c2.Width = c1.Width;
c2.Width = c1.Width.Value;
</code>
These doesn't work.
Can this be done?
Thanks.
Answer: Where are you running that code?  When you assign to the width, it will assign the value at the time that you run the code.  This is an example of a value assignment.  If you want C2 to resize whenever c1 resizes, you need to assign it every time C1 changes.  You can do this in the control's resize event.
Answer: you can folllow this way
c2.Size = New Size(c1.width, c2.height)
Please also make sure that Control.AutoSize property has been set to false before setting new Size. If "true", it will not resize itself.
Furthermore, some controls like TextBox has not AutoSize property, thus cannot be resized as you wish. Only width of TextBox can be reset successfully.
For more information of specific control's AutoSize property, please refer to its MSDN document.
Thanks.


View a permanent warning

Question: How to display a warning message on all pages of the site, using rules.
When I created a rule with the action "Display a message on the site," it appears that a single time.
I hope it will display permanence and on all my pages.
Answer: It depends on what event you have subscribe your rule for.
If you choose event as 'Drupal is initialised' and then choose action as 'Show message on site',the message will be showed on every page request, only thing you would like to make sure is disabled the repeat behavior of message, so that message does not stack up on every page request.
Here goes the export of such rule, that might give you a good starting point.
<code>{ "rules_system_wide_message" : {
    "LABEL" : "System Wide Message",
    "PLUGIN" : "reaction rule",
    "OWNER" : "rules",
    "REQUIRES" : [ "rules" ],
    "ON" : { "init" : [] },
    "DO" : [
      { "drupal_message" : { "message" : "Site wide message", "repeat" : "0" } }
    ]
  }
}
</code>
Comment: thank you, that's exactly what I need except I wish the chips flags in the message. Is it possible ?
Comment: you can use html in the message body, if that answers your question. As an example Site wide message

View a permanent warning


How to break up rakefile?

Question: I'm trying to add some rake tasks to an Octopress Rakefile, and I'd like to put the tasks in another child rakefile, but when I import the child rakefiles, they can't access the constants at the top of the rakefile.
I'm importing the child rakefile with:
Dir.glob('rakefiles/*.rake').each { |r| import r }

This is the sort of config that I'm not able to read in the child file:
public_dir      = "public"    # compiled site directory
source_dir      = "source"    # source file directory
blog_index_dir  = 'source'    # directory for your blog's index page (if you put your index in source/blog/index.html, set this to 'source/blog')

Here is the error:

rake aborted! undefined local variable or method `source_dir' for
  main:Object
Answer: You need to use class variables like
@public_dir      = "public"    # compiled site directory
@source_dir      = "source"    # source file directory
@blog_index_dir  = 'source'    # directory for your blog's index page (if you put your index in source/blog/index.html, set this to 'source/blog')

or constants
PUBLIC_DIR      = "public"    # compiled site directory
SOURCE_DIR      = "source"    # source file directory
BLOG_INDEX_DIR  = 'source'    # directory for your blog's index page (if you put your index in source/blog/index.html, set this to 'source/blog')

Comment: That kind of breaks my goal of avoiding modification of the Rakefile from Octopress. But I do see how that would work. Any generic way to export the local variables?

How to break up rakefile?


T test not for proportion

Question: Why do we use Z test for proportions and why not T test. I have found a similar question here
but I am unable to get what the answer tries to convey. It would be of great help if anyone could explain the reason in comparatively easy words.
Answer: As this answer says in detail, the assumptions underlying the t-test only strictly hold when the individual data values are sampled from a normal distribution.
Proportions are limited to values between 0 and 1, while values taken from a normal distribution can be any real number. And unlike a normal distribution, where the mean and variance of a sample are independent, once you know the proportion you have some information about the variance. So proportions don't meet the assumptions needed for a t-test to be valid.
As you take more and more samples, however, the distribution of average values in most practical applications comes close to a normal distribution. The z-test is based directly on the normal distribution. So although the z-test might not be exact with very few observations it doesn't take very many observations for it to be a very good approximation.
Comment: @learnToCode that was an oversimplification; I edited a bit. If you have a probability _p_ of success in each of _n_ independent trials, you are working with a [binomial distribution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution). The mean number of successes is _np_ and the variance of the number of successes is known to be _np(1-p)_. So if you know the true probability of success and the number of trials, you already know the variance. (continued...)
Comment: How do we know the variance once we know the proportion. I didn't get that part.
Comment: @learnToCode You estimate the true probability _p_ from the fraction of successes in your sample of trials. The t-test assumes that the mean and variance of your _sample_ are independent. If your sample size is only 1 or 2 then examples on [this page](https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/320936/28500) show that the sample mean exactly predicts the sample variance for a binomial distribution. For larger sample sizes the relationship isn't so strict, but the mean and variance still aren't independent (as they would be for sampling from a normal distribution) so the t-test assumptions aren't met.

T test not for proportion


Programmatically monitor a webpage

Question: Every project on drupal.org has its own page:
http://drupal.org/project/marinelli
When a new release is made, it gets added to that project's release page
http://drupal.org/node/185969/release
I'm trying to monitor when the page, but of course I don't want to keep checking on it manually. I need to do it programmatically with php.

Do I have to scrape the page? Is this page scrapable?
I see an RSS feed, but not sure how that works or if it can help me with monitoring or how.
Does drupal.org offer a cleaner solution like an API? or is there a way to monitor the repository directly?
Other solutions welcome
Answer: There is a core module "Update Status" that checks if there are any updates available for your installed modules. You can either use that directly, if that fits your needs, or check the source how the module requests the data.
Answer: Instead of trying to scrappe the page, like you said, a better solution could be to use its RSS feed -- for example, in your case : http://drupal.org/node/185969/release/feed
The advantage is that RSS is a well-defined format : there are less chances of getting any un-necessary information in an HTML soup.

To extract data from that XML feed, you can use SimpleXML to work with the XML data "by-hand", or some library like SimplePie that knows RSS/ATOM.
Then, in you case, you have to keep track of the last update -- and each time you fetch the RSS feed, check if there is an update that's more recent than the last one you saw the previous time.

In the XML for your Marinelli module, you'll see that each entry contains a <pubDate> tag, that corresponds to its date ; for example :
<pubDate>Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:28:26 +0000</pubDate>

If today the most recent entry is from 2009-08-25, and, tomorrow, there is an entry from 2010-07-27... Well, it means the module has been updated ;-)
Answer: What about the site's own feeds? http://drupal.org/node/185969/release/feed Simply subscribe for it in any RSS reader (Google Reader for example)
What do you mean you need to check it programmatically? Is there a backend that download and installs the updates without user interaction?
Answer: You can get the releases for a project at http://updates.drupal.org/release-history/$project_name/$api_version, see for instance http://updates.drupal.org/release-history/marinelli/6.x
Comment: I don't know much. But it's pretty clear that updates.drupal.org links are not RSS but use some other XML schema.

Programmatically monitor a webpage


Where is the hardware write-protect screw on the Acer Chromebook 15 CB5-571?

Question: I'm trying to find the hardware write-protect for the Acer Chromebook 15 CB5-571. I believe its the same hardware as the C910, and should have the same screw but I can't find documentation for either of those anywhere. The ID is "Yuna".
Answer: Here's a picture of the write-protect screw:


How do I learn how to ask a properly formed question on SE when I have failed so many times?

Question: ??? Ironic that the tag I can use here is [Discussion] when my questions are wrong because they solicit discussion. I have said I would stop using SE several times, but I keep coming back because I don't know of anything better and I get bored and lonely.
Comment: We've previously discussed the issue with your posts on your [original meta question](http://meta.workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/3596/how-to-introduce-a-useful-topic-that-is-not-already-here). Your understanding of SE's purpose and scope seems fundamentally flawed. We are not an entertainment center or social circle for hire.
Comment: Have you tried reddit?
Comment: @Lilienthal I was offering *my* services as entertainment and social companion. "*Be the change you wish to see in the world.*" That is all that I really know how to do. I guess I will look for other sites, but I know zero about that. My attempts on Meetup to create, co-lead or participate with in-person groups are not really taking off.
Answer: That's the problem: you are asking because you are bored and lonely. That isn't what Stack Exchange is for; there are many other sites which would be a better fit if that's your motivation.
To ask a good question, ask one that can be answered directly, not one which requires discussion.
Since we are in the Workplace area, it should be a question specific to the workplace environment. Interpersonal issues, for example, are out of bounds unless the answer would be different in the workplace than elsewhere.
The best SE questions are ones which quickly draw useful, applicable answers, which are general enough that they are likely to be websearched for, and which elicit answers that will be useful to that person doing the search without requiring further discussion.
Note that the perfect SE question would immediately draw the perfect SE answer, with no discussiion. This is very incompatible with your desire to socialize.
If you don't have answerable questions, and aren't sufficiently entertained by trying to craft good answers (which is what most of us spend most of our time here doing), this really isn't going to be a comfortable place for you. No site can be all things to all people, and it sounds like what you most want just isn't what we offer.
May I suggest trying someplace like BoingBoing? They're all about discussion and debate for its own sake, and last I checked they were an interestingly informed and opinionated bunch. I left partly because they changed the UI in a way that made reaching conclusions harder; that might actually be better from your point of view.
Comment: I suggest playing Diablo 2, not only can you chat away, but you can then go chop each other up in Blood Moor with fancy effects. Something we're sadly missing here in SE
Comment: I really do like the "Great question - Great answer" concept, and I think I have sometimes given some good answers, and occasional good questions. But some SE sites seem much more focused than others. I wonder if there is anything other than Meetup for finding ways to meet in person? It is so scattered and uncoordinated.
Comment: Alternatives to meetup is ***wildly*** off topic here. Find another place, probably not on SE, to ask that question.


An angular inequality

Question: In a triangle $ABC$, let $D$ and $E$ be the feet of the angle bisectors of angles $A$ and $B$, respectively. A rhombus is inscribed into the quadrilateral $AEDB$ (all vertices of the rhombus lie on different sides of $AEDB$). Let $\varphi$ be the non-obtuse angle of the rhombus. Prove that $$\varphi \le \max \{  \angle BAC, \angle ABC  \}$$
This is a problem from the IMO Shortlist. I have no idea about it. Thanks for helping.
Comment: Ah, from 2013 it would be harder to find a solution. Wait a few days and someone will post the pdf somewhere lol.
Comment: If it's from the IMO shortlist, it should be easy to search for a solution, since those are released. If it's from IMO SL 2014, you should not be posting it.
Comment: It is from 2013. I don't have any solution @CalvinLin so I posted it, I know also that we shouldn't post it on the web. :)
Answer: Just a first step, i.e. a way to inscribe a rhombus in a convex quadrilateral $ABCD$. Fix the direction of the diagonals of the rhombus, let them be parallel to lines $r$ and $s$, with $r\perp s$. Consider the segments parallel to $r$ having their extrema on $AB$ and $CD$: the center of the rhombus must belong to the locus of midpoints of such segments, hence it must lie on a certain line $t$. If we consider the segments parallel to $s$ having their extrema on $BC$ and $AD$, the center of the rhombus must belong to the locus of midpoints of such segments, too, hence it must lie on a certain line $u$, and the center of the rhombus is just $R=t\cap u$ (hence it lies on a hyperbola). Once we have the center, we can find the vertices of the rhombus by intersecting the lines parallel to $r,s$ through $R$ with the sides of $ABCD$.

An angular inequality


Is my Betta fish dying?

Question: Please help! My Betta fish has been laying at the bottom of the tank for a while now, and I have no idea why. I've tried changing the water to warmer water and cleaned the water. He did fine before but now he's just changed. He only moves up when I try to get him to move with my finger.(outside of the tank of course.) I have no idea if he's sick or dying. He doesn't even go up to  get food anymore! The past week I thought he was doing better, he was swimming up but then he just went down again. Please help! I don't know what to do.
Comment: Hi G.P.! Can you provide some details about your tank? Size, filter or no, heater or no, types of decoration, what you add in the water (to remove the harmful chemicals)... etc. etc. If you can, try to check things like the pH and ammonia levels in the tank.
Comment: It's a one gallon tank with some other number sorry I forgot. There is a filter (which I change everytime I clean the tank) no heater, some type of plants like one looks like a small leaf while the other is longer. I use a Betta fish clarifier I forgot the name.
Comment: how old is your fish ?
Answer: Thanks for providing details! It's hard to say exactly what's wrong with your fish, but I have some suggestions.
I would consider getting a larger fish tank, 5 gallons is the recommended minimum for fish.
Also get a heater. The water in a 1 gallon tank will cool/heat a lot quicker than a larger tank, so even though you added warm water, it would cool down quickly (think about forgetting your mug of tea for an hour after you've just boiled the water).
It sounds like you do a great job with water changes. Remember that the smaller the tank, the more frequently you should do larger water changes (try 50% once a week).
Also, don't change your filter each week, once a month is best (though I've waited up to 3-4 months). The filter will grow good bacteria that is healthy for your fish. So, replacing is each week is also "resetting" that cycle. Instead, rinse the filter out in the water you remove during the water change, and place it back in.
If you can, get some strip tests to test different chemical levels in your water. Strip tests are not as accurate as other tests, but they're affordable and will give you a good idea where you pH, nitrates, nitrites, and so forth are at.
I hope these suggestions help! Bettas are super resilient little dudes, so I hope he gets better soon. :)
Comment: Some fish are more resilient than others. @Gwendolyn
Answer: He may be affected by a disease or dying of old age. Being lethargic and sinking are definitely symptoms that something is wrong, so you are right in searching for advice on this. A fish that ate too much food might behave like yours. He could be constipated also. Maybe the water is too cold or too hot, etc.
What you can do first for a fish that is not feeling so well is to make sure to keep him in very clean water and feed it a strict minimum. Fishes like betta can go several days without eating. The water can be raised by a few degrees without exagerating. Also a small spoon of aquarium salt (not table salt) can help, it will act like a disinfectant. Don't add aquarium salt everyday, it doesn't evaporate, it stays there until you do water changes. Consider checking the ingredients in your fish food and checking online if it'S good or not.
One gallon can be a good tank to try to nurse your fish back to health in controlled water, but for living its life, it is far far far too small and sorry but it might be impossible to establish healthy conditions or good water chemistry long-term for a fish in such a small space. The first step would be to rehome him somewhere suitable like a 10 gallons with substrate and a filter, and cycled water (you could add the water and filter from your 1gal to help start the bacteria population). The small bowl is very likely to be the cause of the lethargy of your fish in my opinion. Also in a bowl shape, some bettas have difficulty to reach the surface, needing to manoeuver a lot.
Answer: When my betta got sick, I implemented many of the changes mentioned in Gwendolin's answer (which I believe were the most effective measures), and I also gave him some medicine.
https://www.chewy.com/api-bettafix-antibacterial/dp/121928
This is a link to a sort of catch-all medicine that can be used to treat most illnesses in bettas and also as a preventative when introducing new fish to each other. Just be very careful not to overuse this, and also be sure to follow the instructions on the package.
If your betta is not eating, you could also try a variety of food. When my fish was sick, I crushed up the pellets to make it easier for him to eat, and I also introduced blood worms into his diet.

Is my Betta fish dying?


Contact pad size for microprobe coaxial to planar waveguide transition

Question:
http://www.ggb.com/t-4.html
What size should one choose at minimum/maximum for the pads and what role the pitch plays (besides impedance matching)? If I order a 100 micron tip diameter Ground Signal Ground GSG probe for contacting a coplanar waveguide where I do via lithography big contact pads and then taper the this large structure to the final wished geometry (signal ground line width some few microns), how big has the contact pad to be? Is 200-300 micron edge length enough assuming I can hit the pads with the probe tips by using a micromanipulator and optical microscope. So mainly for reasons of adjustment, or does a too low size of the pads effect negatively the electromagnetic wave propagation? In software like HFSS, CST, Sonnet the ports are mostly modeled as areas perpendicular to the signal and ground lines, does this really compare to picoprobe transition correctly?
Answer: I assume you're asking about RF probes (like http://www.ggb.com/40a.html)-- the link you gave is for a single-pin DC probe.  There's a few concerns as to how large you would want the contact pads to be. If you make them too small it may be hard to get your probes on them, and if you accidentally damage parts of them, there's not much space left.  If you plan to eventually wire bond to the pads, it also helps to have ones that are at least 100 x 100 microns or so.  In my devices at least, any effect from the size of the contact pads is negligible compared to other impedance mismatches.  Everyone that I know of in my department uses the 150 micron pitch GSG probes just because it's a standard size, and leaves plenty of room for wire bonding or dc probes.


When did the military/Air Force start measuring fuel in pounds instead of gallons?

Question: Watching a training film for the B-47 from 1951, they mention (around 12:30) that the fuel is now measured in pounds instead of gallons on the instruments.   Was that a new concept with jet aircraft?  Did previous propeller aircraft instruments always measure gallons instead?
Comment: I don't think it's just military that measures fuel in pounds - I believe everyone does it. (Except for those who measure in kilograms, of course.)
Answer: Good question! It makes sense for the conversion to have been done in 1951, as the film you saw states, because that is the year when JP-4 fuel was introduced. JP-4 has a lower freezing point (-60C) than earlier JP-x fuels, which were all derivatives of JP-1, first introduced in 1944. Lower freezing point means the aircraft can fly higher, and the changes in volume would have led to the change in measurement basis.
The reason is that the weight of fuel doesn't change with temperature or pressure, but the volume does. Rule of thumb is about one percent change in volume for every ten degrees centigrade up or down.
A little experiment to prove this would be to weigh a glass of water, cool it in the freezer for a few hours, and weigh it again.
If fuel quantity indicators on jet aircraft were based on volume they would indicate different levels depending on the aircraft's altitude and outside ambient temperature. That would not be very useful.
It does also make weight and balance calculations easier, otherwise the loadmaster would have to compensate for temperature when calculating center-of-gravity.
Comment: While the information in this answer is useful, I believe the OP is asking about *when* as in what year / decade, and the question is tagged with "aircraft history"
Comment: As @kevin says, while this is great information it answers the question of "why" not "when"
Comment: Just as a matter of information, weight & balance software does typically compensate for temperature when calculating the c.g. I ran a quick test putting 344,000 lb of fuel into an empty 747-400. The results at 6.43 lb/gal, 6.7, and 7.1 were a zfw c.g of 14.3% mac, 15.5%, and 16.9% respectively. The c.g. of the filled portion of a tank changes with volume, and since the fuel volume is temperature dependent. a tank c.g. is temp dependent, and hence the aircraft c.g. is temp dependent. The 6.43 and 7.1 values are the minimum and maximum fuel densities allowed for the 747-400.


NetBeans background scanning projects takes too long

Question: NetBeans background scanning projects takes too long. Every time when I open netbeans it scanning for ages. I used NetBeans 7.2 and it works perfecly. Now I formatted pc and reinstalled windows, install the same version of NetBeans 7.2, and it works to slow.
Comment: During RnD your projects becomes messy sometimes. You try things. Before taking drastic actions like uninstall and reinstall, try to recollect: You didn't delete a directory with stuff you used for temp- write or read reasons in your project with Explorer or by terminal command? And you forgot you added that path also to the list of directories in project-properties. Check this first.
Comment: I've just installed Netbeans 12.5 in 2021 and I have exactly the same problem.
Answer: Having the same issue with 8.0.2 when a project has JS resources I tracked it down in my case to a problem with the javascript2 editor module which has been updated over the original version shipping with netbeans 8.0.2.
I simply solved it by removing the updated module.
On Linux:
rm ~/.netbeans/8.0.2/modules/org-netbeans-modules-javascript2-editor.jar

However, after letting the netbeans updater download the module a second time, the problem didn't appear again.
In Netbeans 8.1, the location of this file is at:
ide/modules/org-netbeans-modules-javascript2-editor.jar.
Comment: For me that module was in `~/netbeans-8.0/ide/modules` and it works, after upgrade reinstalls it! How did you know?
Comment: Same problem here since yesterday, but on Windows. Removing that jar helped in the sense that it didnt get stuck. I then traced the problem to a JS-file in my php project that had a multiline comment-block. Removing that solved the problem as wel for me. Strangely, when I create JS-file with multiline comment in Netbeans, this doesn't happen, when I add the multiline comment outside Netbeans, it happens. I will try and create a proper bug report for this.
Comment: I just looked at the thread stack of netbeans to see whats going on and found the class which may cause the problem
Comment: I have NetBeans 8.0.2 and I do NOT have a JavaScript module in ./modules/ at all.  Still, my startup background scanning took over 40 minutes.  It was apparently due to ~14,000 file changes/adds/deletes in a project that I mount over SSHFS. info at https://freephile.org/wiki/NetBeans
Answer: I have the same problem in netbeans but i found solution by unselect
the check from auto scan background
in your netbeans IDE go to tools and then Option and select then to miscellaneous and select  file tab inside miscellaneous and
you will find check as "enable of auto-scanning of the source
unselect that one and netbeans will be fast then i hope it will help you
in fasting your IDE too
Comment: Good move, but unfortunately not enough. I would add the "unnecessary" directories to the "Ignored Folders" list in the project's "Properties". Netbeans states the following "Note: Code analysis ignores Ignored Folders automatically."
I hope this help!
Answer: After latest update of Netbean 8.0.2 I have the same problem that scaning process did not stop and go forever with CPU usage on 25%.
When I replace javascrip editor files in C:\Program Files\NetBeans 8.0.2\ide\modules on Windows 7 with old one then scaning project process start work again. You can take those file from this repo.
Comment: Problem seems solved with this issue, but now netbeans ask me to upgrade the Javascript2  Editor from version 0.44.3 to 0.44.4.
I think that 0.44.4 is the buggy version, so we need to wait 0.44.5 or later, right?
Comment: You can try to update and see what hapened =) My netbean do not asked for any updates
Comment: Just tryed, it becomes unresponsive again! We need to wait the guys @NetBeans to solve it!
Comment: Now I check for latest update in my netbeans and take it. Have no problem with project scaning.
Comment: Wich JavascriptEditor version?
Comment: version: 0.44.4 (buggy version was 0.44.3 for me)
Answer: i'm facing the same issue, but it works fine after increase the heap size by adding -J-Xmx2048m in <NETBEANS_DIR>\etc\netbeans.conf
mine looks like this:
 netbeans_default_options="-J-client -J-Xss2m -J-Xms2048m -J-Xmx2048m -J-XX:PermSize=32m ......

Comment: That was curious. I've set my heap to 1200m and initially it didn't helpt at all. But after like 10 minutes it suddenly worked. Btw I've tried out uran1980's method, so I have his jars.
Answer: Try the following :
1) Go to Window-->Files. This opens the Files Tab.
2) In the Files Tab for each opened project open the nbproject folder and inside it open the project.properties file.
3) Now in this file below the property "excludes" there are file references listed for all your referred Libraries (JARs)
4) There might be some repeated file references with paths that may be old or on someone else's machine(if you are working in a group and transferred projects from someone's machine)
5) Delete those old path references.
Example -
excludes=
file.reference.xyz.jar=../not/correct/path.jar  //delete this line
file.reference.xyz.jar-1=../correct/path.jar    //remove -1
....
includes=**
6)Also locate the property "javac.classpath" and delete the unnecessary classpath entries corresponding to the deleted references as described above.
Example -
javac.classpath=\
${file.reference.xyz.jar}:\       //keep this line
${file.reference.xyz.jar-1}:\     //delete this line
....
javac.compilerargs=
7) So now the file reference mentioned in the file reference section and the javac.classpath property is same and points to a valid Library (JAR) address on your machine or network.
Example -
excludes=
file.reference.xyz.jar=../correct/path.jar   //the correct reference & path
....
includes=**
....
javac.classpath=\
${file.reference.xyz.jar}:\       //the correct classpath entry for reference
....
javac.compilerargs=
....
The reason the above procedure worked (in my case) is because it prevents Netbeans from scanning unnecessary Library paths that may not be present on your machine/network.
Comment: Strategy that I used: "Tools"->"Options" excluded files that I suspected were the issue using the "Ignored Files Pattern" regex.  Scanning completed.  Then removed the exclusions from the regex one by one, files scanned normally.  Also unclick "Enable auto-scanning".  But my project is yuge, 270K+ lines.
Comment: Voted down because you can't get to the file menu because NetBeans is hanging... seriously
Answer: On Windows 10 64bit I had the same problem with Netbeans IDE 8.1
I restarted Netbeans as administrator and the problem was solved. Then I closed Netbeans and started normally and the problem was still gone.
Product Version: NetBeans IDE 8.1 (Build 201510222201)
Updates: NetBeans IDE is updated to version NetBeans 8.1 Patch 1
Java: 1.8.0_60; Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 25.60-b23
Runtime: Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 1.8.0_60-b27
System: Windows 10 version 10.0 running on amd64; Cp1252; nl_NL (nb)

Comment: Somehow this solution  increased the performance on Netbeans 8.2 win 10.
Answer: OS: Windows 7 x64.
The following worked for me:
I fully uninstalled Netbeans (ticked all boxes in uninstaller). For those who couldn't you'll need to go to C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\NetBeans\8.0.2 and delete a file called 'lock'. This is normally removed when the program exits but if you need to force terminate it'll remain there.
After that I uninstalled JDK and JRE then downloaded Java Platform (JDK) 8u40:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html
And Netbeans 8.0.2:
https://netbeans.org/downloads/
Installed JDK (which installs JRE too), after that Netbeans. Once complete I loaded up projects where background scanning got stuck and it seems to have fixed it. Will post updates if it starts happening again.
Comment: I did these mostly-same steps just 2 days ago (different JDK) - NB 8.0.2, JDK 7_79, Win 7 64 bit. (I must use Java 7 for the project, Java 8 not allowed) The background scanning of projects occurs over and over again throughout the day. It does not get stuck but it uses up CPU. I've disabled it in the Options but it still happens.
Answer: I actually made a bug report for this issue. It was fixed and pushed to the update channels yesterday. So for anyone still having this specific bug, let Netbeans check for updates. :)
Bugfix: https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=250985
Comment: Your link is no longer valid.
Answer: On Ubuntu 18.04 / Netbeans 10.0, I had the same problem.

[FAIL] Deleted cache
[FAIL] Deleted project-specific "nbproject" dir
[FAIL] Closed the offending project (mouseover the progress bar to identify which one) --> restart NB --> create new project
[SUCCESS] Nuked the project from the F/S --> re-cloned --> restarted NB. I also renamed the directory itself, in case there was some other cache that pointed to the old dirname.
Answer: Please try NetBeans 8.0.2 from https://netbeans.org/downloads/
NetBeans 7.2 is too old and you will not get any support anymore.
Comment: I'm using 8.0.2 and the "background scanning of projects" has been going on for over an hour. Always at 100%.
Comment: With 8.0.2, I am stuck at 25%... It simply does not end... :s
Comment: Same here with  a new installation of NetBeans 8.0.2.
Comment: Same here with 8.0.2 when a maven project has JS resources.
Comment: I am using latest version too still this seems a common problem for all netbeans versions
Comment: Same here with NetBeans 8.0.2.  After looking at ps output, and inspecting /etc/netbeans.conf, I located my messages.log file. By this time NetBeans actually finished scanning my projects.  The scanning took over 40 minutes to inventory over 14,000 new/modified/deleted files over an SSHFS link.
Answer: I was having the same problem with Netbeans 8.1, Windows 10. It was also hanging when I tried to compile and refactor. It would sometimes say 100% done yet continue background scanning for hours. I closed the project in which this was happening, and switched to a simple project and the problem went away. So I examined my code. I had class A extending class B, then class B importing class A. When I changed this, the endless looping in Ant stopped.
Comment: Yes, it is specific to a single project, but could also be helpful to other users in that it was also "Every time when I open netbeans" because I typically leave the same set of projects up when I close the IDE, and the IDE therefore starts up with those projects open every time. If I opened it without any projects in place, I imagine it would not do any background scanning of projects.
Answer: Always I fix such Netbeans related problems by deleting cache directory.
Directory location can be seen on About dialog window.
For me, the path is
C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\NetBeans\Cache\YOUR_VERSION
Answer: This problem is related to one of the project opened in your IDE. As I had been facing the same issue but, after spending two hours on that issue I finally fixed that. Close project one by one or check and close the project where background processing is taking time. After closing the project delete the .nbproject folder and re-import the same project into your IDE.
Answer: It should be called foreground scanning of projects. Closing the program and restarting solves it for me sometimes.
Answer: I had the same problem but in my case I was on Windows 10 and running NetBeans 8.1.
Before I formatted my laptop I copied and backed up C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Roaming\NetBeans\8.1 and C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local\NetBeans\Cache folders
Then i followed the below steps:

Install NetBeans and run it.
Closed NetBeans
Go to C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Roaming\NetBeans\8.1 and C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local\NetBeans\Cache folders and replace them with the backed up folders.
Run NetBeans again

I hope this solves your problem!!
Answer: In my Laravel case ,got this "forever scanning" because the project was created in another IDE. I put the old IDE related folders .idea , vendor , node_modules into myproject->Properties->Ignored folders . Relaunched NetBeans as admin. It will scan a little bit  but next time wont stick on that.


Third party controls and scripts

Question: Looking for a good resource to find asp.net controls and such. I don't mind purchasing them so open source is not my only consideration.
I have a social site that I want to build but I do not want to reinvent the wheel. Things like membership and user managment, banner ad managment, forums etc.. are common features in most any social site so i was hoping to purcahase that code.
I have considered DotNetNuke but this is a learning project and not every organization uses DNN so I figure I can learn things about ASP.Net dev by writng my own app that I would not by using DNN.
Answer: I would check out Telerik, ComponentArt, Infragistics, and Karmasoft. They all make some great control libraries, many for more than just ASP.NET.

Third party controls and scripts


Cold and hot therapy

Question: First off I'm not looking for advice as I have no interest in using either of the I'm just curious about the purpose of them.
I've heard hot or cold therapies, and sometimes both, are used after exercise to improve recovery, but that raises some questions for me as it seems to be a contradiction.
Hot therapy dilates blood vessels and increases blood flow and cold therapy constricts blood vessels and decreases blood flow. If increased blood flow is good then, logically, shouldn't a decrease be bad, and vice versa? How can both be beneficial?
Answer: Both are similarly effective at reducing delayed onset muscle soreness.1 The most likely mechanism through which they have this effect is placebo, which would allow both to be beneficial, despite them being complete opposites of each other.
Maybe this guy was onto something.

Cold and hot therapy


Confusion about a result on Shimura and Teichmüller curves

Question: It is shown by M. Moeller (M. Moeller, Shimura- and Teichmüller curves) that there are only 2 Shimura and Teichmüller curves in the moduli space of curves $M_g$, namely, the ones given by $y^4=x(x-1)(x-t)$ and $y^6=x(x-1)(x-t)$ in $M_3$ and $M_4$ respectively. I have difficulties in understanding this result, because we know that it is true that families of cyclic covers of $\mathbb{P}^{1}$ branched over $1$ point in $\mathbb{P}^{1}\setminus \{0,1,\infty\}$ (square-tiled surfaces) generate Teichmüller curves in $M_g$ (for example by A. Wright, SCHWARZ TRIANGLE MAPPINGS AND TEICHMüULLER CURVES:ABELIAN SQUARE-TILED SURFACES). On the other hand, the Shimura curves arising from  cyclic covers of the projective line are already classified (By Moonen and other authors) and we know that beside the curves given above there are other examples of Teichmüller curves which, when considered in $A_g$ generate Shimura curves. I must have made a mistake somewhere in understanding this result, but can't figure out where! I would appreciate any help.
Comment: Perhaps the point is that $M_g$ is not closed in $A_g$.
Comment: I don't understand what you mean. If we have $C\to M_g\xrightarrow{i} A_g$, then since the Teichmüller curves are not compact and $i$ is an immersion, we get an open curve in both $M_g$ and $A_g$. The above Shimura curves are also non-compact, i.e., they have cusps. So I don't see the contradiction!
Comment: There could still be points on the (non-compact) Shimura curve that are not in $M_g$. (This is just a suggestion, I am not claiming that this is indeed the explanation.)
Answer: I think the point is that, when you have a family $f:X\to C$, then the induced map $C\to M_g$ is not necessarily one to one. It is not even generically one to one but in reasonably good cases it is generically finite. Now by a ST-curve completely inside $M_g$ we mean that this latter map is injective and the image $C\to A_g$ is a Shimura curve. These two conditions together are very restrictive. The families you mentioned are Teichmüller in the sense that the image of $C\to M_g$ is Teichmüller, not that the family completely sits in a Teichmüller curve.


how do I filter single_cat_title to remove all instances of a particlular word

Question: I have certain names in my category title (that need to stay there for other reasons). I am displaying all category titles with the blog name prefixed, but on categories that already have this name I would like to automatically remove the blog name from the single_cat_title. i.e. "My Blog My Blog Category" is what is showing using    but where single_cat_title allready has the blogname as part of the title, I would like to only show "My Blog Category". Can one do this with single_cat_title as I have used it everywhere and manually replacing these would be problemattic?
Comment: Related on this is that you can use wp_list_categories and pass it the 'echo=0' parameter. This lets you export into a string. You can then use PHP's str_replace() function on that string to replace what you want before you echo it back. This isn't exactly what you're looking for in your case, but is similar and may help others.
Answer: There is a filter with the same name (single_cat_title) you can make use of to replace a particular word all the time:
add_filter('single_cat_title', function($title) {
        return str_replace('word to replace', '', $title);
    })
    ;

This should basically do the job.


Is the total energy of the CMBR diminishing with time?

Question: Is the total energy of the CMBR diminishing with time? Since it's existence the volume of the Universe (at least the visible part) has grown by a factor three, which is to say, the number of photons per unit volume is diminished by a factor 27. But the wavelength of these photons has grown by a much bigger factor. So you should think the total energy of all the CMBR photons has become less over time.
Comment: The CMB was emitted at $z\simeq1100$, so the volume of the Universe has increased by a factor $1100^3\sim10^9$ since the CMB was emitted, i.e. much, much more that 27.
Comment: This question is ambiguous. Are you talking about total energy or energy density? They're not the same. You specifically say "total energy", but then mention photons per volume, indicating you're talking about energy density.
Comment: @pela-Since the emergence of the CMBR, about 300 000 years after the big bang, space has stretched with a factor 3 (that's why the radius of the visible Universe is now about 40 000 000 000 lightyears). So per unit volume the number of photons has decreased by a factor 27. I think you mean the radius of the visible Universe has increased by a factor $\  10^9$ since 300 000 years after the big bang.This doesn't change the fact that every unit of volume has increased by a factor 27, and the number of photons décreased by the same factor.
Comment: @zephir-II mean the total energy of the CMBR, and mentioned that the number of photons per unit volume has decreased by a factor 27 because if the number of photons in one unit of volume has decreased, the number of photons for the whole volume of the Universe has decreased by the same factor. It's like the number of atoms in a gas with volume V. If you increaese each unit volume by a factor 3, then the whole volume is also increased by a factor three, and the number of atoms per unit volume dercreases by a factor 27, like is the case for the whole volume V.
Answer: Yes. The energy density in the radiation field scales like $a^{-4}$, and the volume scales like $a^{3}$. Since the total energy is the density times the volume, the total energy scales like $a^{-1}$. Note that $a$ is called the "scale factor" and $a = \frac{1}{1+z}$, where $z$ is the redshift, assuming $z=0$ now.
Comment: @SeanLake-Why is z=0 nowadays? And if so, then nowadays the energy isn't diminishing, because the inverse of a is 1. I thought that nowadays there is still redshift.
Comment: Time and redshift are related. $z=0$ now purely by convention/definition. In the future redshift will be negative, and if the universe doesn't recollapse, will go to $-1$ in the infinitely distant future.
Comment: You need to make it clear that you are talking about a co-moving volume and correct the OP's misconception/confusion about the "size" of the universe.


How can I do inline encryption system wide?

Question: Inline GPG encryption in Mac OS is system wide. Having installed GPG app, you can select a chunk of text in any text editor and rightclick to encrypt. I am wondering if I am missing some software that would do the same in Ubuntu. At the moment Geany is the only editor that allows this operation (as long as the plugin is installed). I am using Gnote a lot and it is frustrating to have to repeatedly switch to Geany to encrypt.
Comment: What is 'inline GPG encryption'?  Did you mean 'online'?
Comment: I don't think you can encrypt kernel programs and drivers but you can keep your data on a separate portion and encrypt the whole volume. At least you could in Ubutu 14.04.
Comment: inline encryption is when you highlight a portion of your text and make it unreadable. The recipient of the text highlights the unreadable portion and uses a valid key to convert it back to plain text
Comment: I see what you mean. But I don't think you'll be able to have a right-click menu in all apps. But is a keyboard shortcut okay?
Comment: you are quite right, this solution is for gedit only. I forgot that my original question about system-wide  was a bit ambitious. I guess as long as we can copy/paste the text into gedit we are fine
Comment: If you're okay with select-text-then-press-keyboard-shortcut, I'll make one up within a few minutes.
Answer: This can indeed be done by gedit. Install gedit plugins and enable them from preferences.
Then go to Tools>Manage External Tools.
Then create shortcut keys for, one encrypting and one for decrypting.
For encrypting the script is as follows:
<code>#!/bin/bash
gpg2 -a -e  -r firstname.lastname@example.com -r firstname.lastname@example.com --no-tty
</code>
email1 etc are public key IDs to which you are encrypting, you can put one or as many as you like. They don't have to be email addresses. Any other form of valid gpg key ID could be used.
For decrypting, the script is:
<code>#!/bin/bash
gpg2 --decrypt --no-tty
</code>
In the lower part of the script window you can set your input and output options from dropdown menues.
For example your input could be a section or the whole of the current document, and your output might be to replace it by the converted text. You might like to save the converted text into another file. So the choice of where your input is and where your output needs to go is important and must be defined as part of the shortcut key action.
It makes sense to have different shortcut keys depending on your choice of input and output. This will save you having to edit the conditions everytime you have a different I/O.
For INLINE (or replacement) encryption/decryption, which was the original question for this post. I have defined S-ENCRYPT and S-DECRYPT shortcuts with these conditions:
Input: the current Selection
Output : replace The current selection
Of course I also have two other shortcut keys (ENCRYPT and DECRYPT) whose i/o conditions are:
Input: Current document
Output: Append to current document
The script for all these shortcut keys is identical (as given above).
The original thread abouthow to do all this appeared in:
How do I encrypt/decrypt file within gedit?
Sadly I could not replicate that result, perhaps due to old/new versions of both gedit and gpg. But that thread has good description of how the process works.
Answer: It depens of what you mean by "Inline encryption". On Ubuntu and other flavours, you have 2 types of encryption :

Encrypt home folder
Encrypt the whole disk

If it's only for files like text files, I know it exists some software that do the trick


Does an elliptical orbit of a satellite maintain its orientation as the Earth revolves?

Question: Imagine a satellite in an elliptical orbit around Earth. As the earth travels around the sun, does the elliptical orbit of the satellite swing around Earth, as pictured in A, or does it maintain a consistent orientation as pictured in B? Are both of these options wrong?
Option A

Option B
Comment: I would suspect option B, since it would be weird if the motion of an object would both have an angular motion around its planet and the sun (with different frequencies). Also did a quick test in Algodoo (as a numerical simulation) and I can confirm option B with it. I do not have any mathematical or physical proof.
Comment: @fibonatic If the problem is *truly* hierarchical, then the sun's tidal forces are nothing and I think B should be provable.  Because you can apply any acceleration function over time, and if its done uniformly then the geodesic is a valid inertial reference frame.  So the moon maintains its orbital orientation as it would normally.
Comment: See also [Bertrand's theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand%27s_theorem)
Answer: Actually, both are quite possible. In the general case, for an arbitrary elliptical orbit, what you'll tend to find is that B is true (granted there will be some precession, but not usually in line with the Sun). However, it is possible to set up an orbit (such as a Sun-synchronous one) in which A is true. But orbits such as this require planning and precise positioning.
To understand why A does not have to be true (and in fact, why A is not the general case), you should bear in mind that when orbiting a body, your orientation is irrelevant.  The Sun ensures both Earth and the satellite will orbit around it, but it has very little influence over the specific way they are pointing.
Imagine that Earth did not rotate on its axis; you'd see the same stars in the same positions every night. However, you'd still experience the Sun rise and set (once per year). The sun doesn't drag the orientation of orbiters (at least, not in a significantly mention-able way). All that is important from the satellite's perspective is Earth, which has the dominant sphere of influence.
As I mentioned earlier, however, it is possible to establish orbits that follow the Sun. A sun-synchronous orbit can be very useful as it allows a satellite to always be in view of the Sun and thus continuously collect solar power. This is possible due to a combination of several effects including the small amount of sway the Sun's gravity has over the satellite. However, to establish this type of orbit requires the use of a specific angle of incidence (which varies based on altitude). In Low Earth Orbit, the inclination is around $98^\circ$.
An important thing to note is that while most orbits do not generally follow the Sun, they technically do precess (meaning they usually do not look exactly like B but it's a good approximation/generalization). This precession happens at different rates depending mostly on altitude, inclination, and eccentricity of the orbit. But that's just extra info in case you were curious.
P.S.
<3 rocket science
Answer: The orbit of a satellite is determined by 6 parameters, the orbital elements:

The eccentricity $e$
The semimajor axis ($a$)
The inclination ($i$)
The longitude of the ascending node ($\Omega$)
The argument of periapsis ($\omega$)
The mean anomaly at a specific time ($M_0$)

The plane of reference is the equator, and the reference direction is the Vernal Point.
If the reference frame of the Earth were an inertial frame, then these parameters would be constants, and your Figure B would be valid. However, the orbits of satellites are perturbed due to several effects:

The non-sphericity and non-homogeneous mass distribution of the Earth
The gravitational field of sun and moon
Solar radiation pressure
Atmospheric drag (for low-orbit satellites)
General-Relativistic corrections

The first effect is the largest. The non-sphericity of the Earth can be approximated by a quantity $J_2\approx 1.083\times 10^{-3}$, and it has two consequences:

a rotation of the line of  apsides: the position of the perigee varies as
$$
\dot{\omega} = \frac{3\pi}{T}\frac{J_2\,R_\text{e}^2}{a^2(1-e^2)^2}\left(2 - \frac{5}{2}\sin^2 i\right),
$$
where $T$ is the orbital period of the satellite, and $R_\text{e}$ is the equatorial radius of the Earth. Interestingly, one can choose the inclination $i$ in such a way that $\dot{\omega}=0$, namely by setting $i = \sin^{-1}\sqrt{4/5}$, so that $i=63.43^\circ$ or $i=116.57^\circ$. Such orbits are called critically inclined orbits or Molniya orbits.
a nodal precession:
$$
\dot{\Omega} = -\frac{3\pi}{T}\frac{J_2\,R_\text{e}^2}{a^2(1-e^2)^2}\cos i.
$$
One can choose the orbital parameters in such a way that the period of this nodal precession is equal to the orbital period of the Earth around the Sun, which implies $\dot{\Omega} =0.9855^\circ/\text{day}$. The result is a Sun-synchronous orbit, which means that the orbital plane of the satellite rotates as in your Figure A.

For more details, see also this link and this link.


How to enable or disable a mobilesubstrate via a preference bundle

Question: I would like to know that suppose I have a tweak how would i enable people to enable or disable it via a switch? I need help for a current tweak im working on. This is a mobile substrate  tweak made by logos in Theos
Comment: Here's [some information on using Preference Bundles](http://iphonedevwiki.net/index.php/PreferenceBundles)
Answer: Create a Preferences plist as exemplified in a lot of opensource MobileSubstrate-based projects and as documented here.
Then, decently check if your tweak is enabled in your hooks where you find this to be most necessary, and that's it.
Note that when checking for Preferences, do it right. This function is a great example of doing this.


How to Mount an NTFS Formatted SD Card with pmount (or other tool)?

Question: I wrote a script which transfers automatically pictures from the SD card (taken with a digital camera) to the harddrive and takes care of putting them in a subdirectory in the main pictures folder and renaming them.
The script does that via udev (execute script as soon as an SD card with a certain label is inserted) and pmount (mount the SD card). The actual transfer and the renaming is not interesting for this problem.
pmount works well with vfat formatted cards, but it doesn't with NTFS, which is the cameras choice of filesystem. I get the following error message:
Error opening '/dev/sdX1' read-write NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sdX1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdX1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?

I tried several options of pmount (read-only, specific filesystem, ...), but still it doesn't work. On the other hand, the card is shown in Thunar and Nemo and clicking on the entry there mounts the card without any problem. The card is then mounted like this:
/dev/sdX1 on /media/USER/NAME type fuseblk (ro,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096,uhelper=udisks2)

Any idea how pmount can do the the same, or what other tool I can use? Or how Thunar or Nemo do the mounting? Of course creating a /etc/fstab entry is possible, but that's not elegant.
Answer: Just after posting this question, I found the answer on StackExchange. Instead of pmount LABEL I need to use udiskctl mount -b BLOCKDEVICE. Replace this in the script and adapt the udev rule and it works.


How to build xuggler for Android?

Question: I need to split frames from video and get the different images in Android API for that I had gone with the help of SDK Mediamatadatareteriver.
Duration of video is 127040(2:07sec) I splited as 32 frames but the problem in that was it repeats the same first image for all my remaining 32 frames.
To fix that I'd tried a lot but their is no use now I just want to go on with XUggler Library file with the help of Latest Version by using Windows 7 (64 bit).
so if anyone have idea about this or any other alternative method to solve this issues please help me Friends.
Answer: There is an explanation on xuggler-users group from Art Clarke :
<code>       I have not attempted to port xuggler to android, but if someone is interested

`all jvm related code is in the 'ferry' module. Memory mgmt is particularly`

     complicated and hard, but in theory a port would be possible
</code>

How to build xuggler for Android?


Simulating values from a known probability distribution

Question: What does simulating values from a known probability distribution mean? For instance, what does it mean to say, simulate values from $\text{Unif}(0,1)$? Does is mean that we have to construct a random variable $X$ such that $X\sim\text{Unif}(0,1)$, and we have to repeat the experiment many times to note down the values $X$ takes?
Comment: Simulationg random variables usually means generating some numbers with the desired distribution and evaluate their mean or variance or other statistical properties
Answer: Yes, that's what it means. Well, not so much construct it as have a computer spit out pseudo-random values. Pretty much any random number library in any language has a function that spits out simulated independent U(0,1)'s . For instance, the rand function in Matlab or np.random.uniform in python. Then you can have it spit out a bunch and use them however you want.


Is it normal for an academic conference to ask for a revised abstract before paper acceptance?

Question: I applied for an academic conference and inquired about international travel stipends.  I later received an email stating that they were interested in accepting my paper but wanted an elaborated abstract.  I later sent a revised abstract but was told it was too long, I was sent a personal email asking for a concise summary of my research and was asked if I was a Ph.D student and in what discipline?  Is this normal for conference organizers, With so much effort do they really want to accept my paper?  Is this normal for conference organizers, I don't have any experience with this and conferences?  Does it mean they want to accept my paper?  I have never been asked to revise and resubmit an abstract and was wondering if this is normal conference behavior?
Comment: The abstract is basically used as the advertisement for your paper/talk.  So they probably want it tailored to the audience (general attendance vs. same area but not necessarily the same specializations vs. the same specializations).  Have you requested clarification and guidance from the organizers, or reread the conference guidelines and overview?
Answer: Having been on the other side of similar transactions, what I suspect is going on is that they think your submission is not up to their standards (of quality / focus / formatting / whatever), but that they think it is salvageable and are trying to work with you to help make it acceptable.
Comment: I received a comment stating that I cannot receive the travel stipend as I am not a Ph.D student but they have not said whether or not my paper has been accepted.  How should I go about questioning the status of my abstract submittal?
Comment: Wouldn't they tell you they that it was borderline in this case? I'm more worried that they're trying to figure out if he will register only if he gets the stipend. They can drop the talk if his attendance is contingent on the stipend if they're low on stipend funds. Either way, they should say what they're trying to accomplish.
Comment: @BillBarth Absolutely, they are not communicating clearly, and that's the root of the problem.  I think your alternate interpretation is possible too.
Comment: @Nick Just ask them if your abstract is accepted or not.


Some science or graspable logic behind a whole new world below the ocean on earth

Question: So not trying to wander into flat earth theory here, But a hidden fantasy world (of elves) in the present day. How would we explain it. There is no contact whatsoever between the two world. Could there be some explanation having a tiny grain of reality / science/ logic in it without driving the whole thing into "on an alternative earth".
Comment: I feel like I *must* recommend Jules Verne's *Journey to the Centre of the Earth*
Comment: Check out the book Artemis Fowl for exactly that idea.
Comment: It is encouraged for posters to wait 24 hours before accepting an answer so as to allow more answers to be posted.
Answer: Before the flat earthers rose into the general consciousness, the crackpot theory of the day was the Hollow Earth.
This particular theory was suggested by the otherwise laudable Edmund Halley in the 17th Century and lasted around 100 years before being comprehensively disproven in the late 18th Century. It then lasted in pseudoscience well into the 19th Century.
Religion has long postulated the presence of hot underworlds where souls go after death. Halley formalised this into the concept of concentric shells separated by atmosphere.
This would leave you with plenty of space for a hidden land of the Elves beneath ours, along with notable historic references for people suggesting it was true.
Answer: Deep oceans are not very well explored, it is possible that a relatively a few small cities can be there without human knowledge.
You will need them to deliberately avoid exploration, and you need to eliminate accidental discovery.
To keep them from exploring, have religion (e.g. they were abused by surface dwellers in the past), or some survival constraint: UV rays hurt them, they have to stay near vents that provide them with some essential nutrient.
It would help if they are in the deep ocean, so they are far from shores, and cannot be accidentally discovered by fishermen or divers.
You also want both their bodies and their artifacts to sink to the bottom rather than float up. Giant squid were discovered mainly b/c they float up when they die.
In fact, make their materials and technology biologic in nature, so they rot soon after being discarded. This way you cannot have a stray fish swallow some broken or loose piece, and later turn up in a fisherman's net.
Answer: An extinct volcano.
During an Ice Age millions of years ago a volcano formed in the middle of the ocean and spewed billions of tons of lava along its flanks and which made its base very broad with a shallow angle. Over time the crust moved and access to the magma was blocked. The lava tubes though remained and created a vast underground cave. The ice receded causing the oceans to rise more than a hundred meters and cover all but the top of the volcano's peak which was about a mile wide. This peak allowed sun, rain, spores, seeds, insects, etc. inside the cave which began to support life.
A group of elves ventured away from their island to see what else the world offered and never returned home. They stumbled upon the remote volcano purely by accident, bringing with them domesticated livestock for eggs, milk, etc. and seeds for crops and fruit trees. They made a new home.
Meanwhile back on the main elf island a natural disaster wiped the entire colony of elves off the map (or maybe this small band of elves struck out after the disaster, or ...).
A one mile wide (or less if you chose) volcanic cone in the middle of an ocean with no other islands around would be very difficult to stumble upon if the currents and wind didn't usually go in that direction (perhaps a storm disrupted the normal currents and took the elves there.)
Take a look at Son Doong Cave which has a jungle and river inside.
Answer: I'd read up about Sentinel Island and it's native population.  They are believed to be a cannibalistic culture and highly isolationist.  They have violently attacked any members of the outside world who had the misfortune to be stranded off their island near India.  One of the few incidents with survivors details an incident where they tried to attack a rescue helicopter with spears and stones and were clearly going to kill the crew if they so much as landed.
If your hidden village is under the sea, it could easily be "Under the Bermuda Triangle" or the "Devil's Sea" (a Pacific equivalent) and have had contact that was a bit more hostile than first contacts aught to go.
Answer: Mass migration to avoid a global disaster. The original intent may have been to return at some point but the duration of the disaster was so long that all information was lost about how to do so.
As for disasters, that could be an asteroid strike like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, prior glaciation (global cooling), magical curse, etcetera.


Why do organizations and people try to convince others to vote in the US election?

Question: Many organizations (including Google on their home page) encourage people to vote in the US election without specifying a candidate or political party.  Why is this done?  Are they assuming that the users of the site are more likely to support their organization's political agenda than not support it thus making it a net positive for the candidate the organization supports?
Comment: Not claiming that they do, but Google probably knows enough about each visitor to know what they would likely vote for, so they *could* only show that announcement to those users who vote whoever they prefer.
Comment: @EricJohnson I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to tie an incognito user to their main account using things such as IP address, browser version, etc.
Comment: What is the benefit of encouraging people to "go vote"
Comment: To counter that point, by using incognito mode it is still shown and there would be no user data, but then they may prefer users who use incognito mode.
Comment: Are they specifically pushing their agenda (what ever that is) or just "go vote" ?
Comment: @philipp: could this mean that google might be able to make a very good guess about the outcome of the election?
Answer: I'll focus on Google, since as you noted, they were a prominent organization that was encouraging millions of people to get out and vote.
Assuming that Google does show the banner to everyone equally*, there are two possible rationales:
Google altruistically wants to encourage democracy
Since democracy only works if people vote, Google is encouraging us to do our civic duty and choose the candidates we think will best represent the country. Thus the banner is just a public service announcement, and not a way of swaying public opinion.
Google wants candidates from the Democratic Party to win
This banner is pretty much a "Get out the Vote" drive, which is something that Democrats have typically organized, but not Republicans. Shaun King from the New York Daily News described it pretty succinctly:

For decades, the "Get Out the Vote" campaigns and voter registration drives have been driven by liberals. The logic is this: the bulk of unregistered voters in the United States have Democratic leanings. The more people who are registered and the more people who vote increases the likelihood that Democratic candidates will win.

Additionally, voters who are younger and more comfortable with technology (i.e. those most likely to use Google) tend to have Democratic leanings. So if they can get their users out to vote, there will be more votes for Democratic candidates.
Note that according to OpenSecrets.org, Google has consistently donated more money to Democrats than to Republicans. In 2004, 98% of Google's political contributions were donated to Democrats. Take that as you will.
* As Philipp noted in the comments, Google does have enough data that they could selectively show the message to people they actually want to vote (e.g. if they see that you are searching for things like "Canidate X is stupid" and Google likes Candidate X, then they could choose not to show you the banner).
Comment: For Google specifically, they show the banner to everyone. I can tell you with 100% certainty if they wanted Democratic people to vote, they wouldn't show me the banner (which they do). I am also heavily into the tech field (have been 13 years)
Comment: This seems to answer specifically about Google, though not sure the question was actually that specific.
Answer:
Optimistically:  There is a point of view that voting is, in and of itself, a good thing.  For this reason, voting is mandatory in some countries, although questionably enforced in most democracies.

Cynically:  Democrats tend to do better in high turnout elections in the United States.  So someone who wants to support Democrats may very well do so by advocating that people vote.  Not necessarily exclusive with the optimistic view.
Another reason is that even without showing the message to just Democrats or tailoring the message to Democrats, a neutral message on Google is more likely to reach Democrats.  Democrats are on average more likely to use Google on a given day than Republicans.  This is because younger voters trend Democrat.

Realistically:  If they would say, "If you support Democrats, don't forget to vote!"  or similar, then it actually energizes non-Democrats more than Democrats.  Democrats see that message and either agree or think it's crass.  The people who agree, were probably voting anyway.  The people who think it's crass feel slightly turned off and may not vote.  Meanwhile, non-Democrats see that and get angry.  If they weren't voting before reading that, they definitely want to vote now, just to stick it to the partisan idiots who posted the message.

Chances are that all those reasons are true.  They really believe that voting is good in and of itself.  They want turnout to be high and Democrats to win.  They realize that a neutral message is more likely to achieve that.  Demographically they know that their users are more Democrat than Republican.
They may even feel a bit guilty about promoting more to Democrats than Republicans.  If so, perhaps they comfort themselves with the thought that if Republicans want the same encouragement to vote, they should use Google more.
All this assumes that Google feels closer to Democrats than Republicans.  And there is some evidence of that.  For example, in 2010, Google was the second largest contributor to the DNC (Democratic National Committee) but didn't make the top twenty-four on the Republican National Committee (RNC) list.
Answer: There are two ways you can look at it:
The rosy view would be that a larger turnount means that the result more accurately reflects the views of those eligible to vote. A low turnout, such as that caused by bad weather, results in only the most motivated voters casting their vote, which produces a biased result. Those with the strongest views are the most likely to vote, so encouraging a higher turnout tends to produce more moderate, and arguably fairer, results.
The cynical view is that a higher turnout produces a stronger illusion that the candidate has popular support. Those who support the existing system and who are generally in favor of greater government power would prefer that whoever get elected have a great turnout so they have a stronger claim to legitimacy. Low turnouts suggest that people don't trust the system.
Comment: I'm curious about motivated -> biased do you have data on that? And if it is more than an urban/rural thing. I'd also like to see part of an argue about moderate -> fairer too.
Comment: There's lots of data on both of these points. Putting keywords like "effect of rain on election results" and the like will produce dozens of studies.
Answer: In the US, voter turnout on a good day might hover around 50% -- which is pretty low. Encouraging people to vote is simply a good thing for a number of reasons.

higher voter turnout,  more representative the government will be
encouraging people to vote = encourages people to be more politically active
promoting civic participation is a message that most people would see as a 'good thing' (ie, good PR)
pushing a particular candidate might appeal to half or your customers. But would likely also turn the other half off (ie, that would be bad PR)

And, yes, most data shows that the more people that vote, the likelihood of there being more votes for democratic candidates. Do large corporations benefit most from democratic policies? That's highly debatable. But certainly certain industries very well may.
Answer: It seems like a neutral thing but its usually to either

naïve attempt to promote civic virtue.
An attempt to back democratic candidates because none voters are more likely to be dem than republican.
Comment: Your answer would be better if you explained why you think those two points are accurate.


Is there a Netbeans ruler

Question: Heres a quick questions for all you folks out there:
Is it possible in the Netbeans IDE to show a ruler on top of the coding window - like in Microsoft Word or the Context code editor? If so, how?
I have tried googling it, but to no avail...
Answer: I am fairly certain that the answer is no, as the editor stands right now. The only thing remotely related is the right-margin line, which can be set in Options, under Editor, then Formatting. It, by no means, serves as a ruler, but at least gives you a hint that you've reached a particular column.
In order to get this functionality, either a module would have to be written that adds the functionality to the editor, or the development team would have to add it to the core editor code. A feature request can be made on Netbeans.org's issues page. Be sure to search first, as someone may have already made the request.
Answer: If by ruler you mean you want to show which character/column you're on, you can get that information from the looking in the bottom right hand portion of the editor window (shown as "row | column"), but if by ruler you mean grid, it isn't doable with Netbeans out of the box.  You only get the character limit line, which is still defaulted to 80 characters for those required to print their code for review or delivery artifacts (...shiver...)  That limit line can be set in NB 7.2 (et al) from menu Tools -> Options -> Editor -> Formatting then look for Right Margin.  The color can be set on the Tools -> Options -> Fonts and Colors then look for Text Line Limit.
I don't add this next possibility without a bit of eye rolling, but given Netbeans' great horizontal splitting, you could always mimic a top ruler by creating a ruler.txt file with this as the text:
<code>***|***1***|***2***|***3***|***4***|***5***|***6***|***7***|***8***|***9***|***0
</code>
and then grab that file's tab and move it to the top split.  I'll say this now so as to save all those who are at this very moment reaching for their mouse to click on the comment link to blast me, but this is totally hokey and really unnecessary for practical purposes : )

Is there a Netbeans ruler


what are methods to compare PID controller performance?

Question: If there are input and the sensor measured outputs. What are the objective methods to compare performance besides looking at inputs and outputs matching or not?
Answer: Controllers in general are judged typically by 3 criteria -

Rise time, or how quickly the output gets to the input,
Percent overshoot, or how much the output oscillates around the input, and
Settling time, or how long it takes the output to stabilize at the same value as the input.

Typically you measure these with a step test - from an initial condition of zero, give an input of 1. The time it takes to get from 10 percent to 90 percent is rise time, settling time is generally how long it takes the output to stay within 2% or 5% of the input value, and percent overshoot is the farthest beyond the input that the output got.
Allowing some overshoot improves rise time, which means the system responds faster, but at the expense of a longer selling time.
Some more explanation,
Because of inertia, rise time and percent overshot are competing goals. What is the fastest way to drive 1000 feet? Go full throttle, of course. If you start slowing down to stop right at 1000 feet, you won't get to the mark as quickly as the person that is still going full throttle with no braking.
Conversely, while the person who doesn't start braking until they hit 1000 feet may have got there first, it will take time, some distance, to stop. They have overshot the 1000 foot mark. If they overshoot by 10 feet then go in reverse as quickly as they can, they get back to the mark, but will probably overshoot again, but not as much as the first time because they travel a shorter distance and thus can't get to the same top speed. This process repeats and is called oscillation.
This trade off, getting there quickly vs not overshooting, is typical. All of engineering is defining criteria and then finding the best trade off to meet the established criteria.
Comment: what are some examples to generate step input?
Comment: Have the system at rest, then provide a constant new input, like going from 0 to suddenly 100% throttle on an RC car, power off to power on for a circuit, etc. You can do a step test for an input of any magnitude if you normalize the results, normalize meaning you divide everything by whatever the input was.
Comment: I would just caution that you compare apples to apples in that you measure input and output in the same units. A gas pedal in a real car is actually a *torque* input, and the output would be engine *torque*, not engine speed or vehicle speed. In RC cars the input and output might actually be speeds, but it's something to consider (does the throttle command control motor current, i.e. torque, or does it control motor speed, as in an input to an ESC)


Why is my Field/Object visible on a Visualforce page in Salesforce but not when the page is a public site?

Question: I have a Visualforce page that displays a parent object and a list of related child objects. The page works when run inside Salesforce; the parent object info and list of child objects are visible. When the page is public/external access, the child objects do not appear.  I want the child objects to be visible internally and externally.
The parent object has default external access of "Private".  There are numerous sharing rules for the parent object.  The relevant one for us is that if the visibility is set to "Public", then the record is shared with group "Tracker Public Site User".  The child records have default external access of "Public Read Only". The profile for the group, "Tracker Profile", has Read permission for both the parent and child object.
The field visibility for the fields in the SOQL query is at least "Read Only" - with one possible exception.  One formula field on the child record (see formula below) references a field it does not have access to, Filer_Ct__r.Full_Name__c, a field on the contact record.  The SOQL query does not use WITH_SECURITY_ENFORCED.
Also, some of the fields in the SOQL query are part of a field set, but the field set appears to be used only as a means of querying for the fields needed in the query. The field set is not referenced in the Visualforce page.
IF(ISBLANK(Filer_Org__r.Name),Filer_Ct__r.Full_Name__c,Filer_Org__r.Name)

The Apex class for the page has the "with sharing" keywords.
What is the behavior of a formula field that is part of a SOQL query?  Does the running user/site user need to have access to all fields referenced in the formula?  Or is access to the formula field enough?
What is the behavior of a SOQL query when some of the fields are not accessible to the query?  Does the query fail or do the missing fields get a blank or null value?
Answer: Answering to your questions:

What is the behavior of a formula field that is part of a SOQL query?:

They behave as a normal field

Does the running user/site user need to have access to all fields
referenced in the formula? Or is access to the formula field enough?

No, they do not need to, access to formula field is enough. You can check this

What is the behavior of a SOQL query when some of the fields are not
accessible to the query? Does the query fail or do the missing fields
get a blank or null value?

SOQL does not enforce Sobject and field level permissions unless you are specifying WITH SECURITY_ENFORCED in your query. In that case, if lack of permissions, an exception will be thrown. (with sharing only applies for record level access, not sobject or field level access)
Comment: The SOQL query does not use WITH_SECURITY_ENFORCED.


In which context is "lignicolous" used?

Question: Is lignicolous a word used in a specific context, or is it common to say "that is a lignicolous bug"?
Answer: As an adjective, lignicolous is appropriate to describe anything growing or living on or in wood. However, I would suggest considering whether your audience has experience with that word, or handy access to a dictionary.
You could just as easily say "That bug lives in wood."
Answer: The Corpus of Contemporary American English doesn't have any match for it, nor does the New Oxford American Dictionary, so it's not that common.
It means "that lives in or on wood or wood debris". It is mostly used in academic or scientific writing, so you mean learn more about its usage from the Google Scholar search. Apparently, it is mainly applied to fungi, as in "lignicolous fungi of the forests of New Hampshire".

In which context is "lignicolous" used?


Are the $N_f$ quarks in the coefficients of the beta function massless?

Question: Consider the running of the strong coupling in QCD
$$
\mu\frac{d}{d\mu}\alpha(\mu)=-\frac{1}{2\pi}\beta_0\alpha^2+\dots
$$
there I have written the perturbative expansion of the beta function to leading order. The value cited in the literature is
$$
\beta_0=11-\frac{2}{3}N_f
$$
where it is indicated that $N_f$ is the number of fermions in the theory. Now, I wonder, are this $N_f$ fermions supposed to be massless, or all massive with different masses?
Comment: "cited in the literature" where? Can you please include at least one (reputable) reference?
Answer: The value of the coupling $\alpha_S (Q)$ depend on the energy scale $Q$ we consider. And $N_f$ here are the number of active fermions in the theory, which means fermions whose mass is smaller than $Q$. So, at some points of calculation, you can approximate some fermion's masses to be zero, but generally, $N_f$ is the number of massive fermions with $m<Q$ in the theory.


How does one create this vintage look?

Question: What program would I need or manual adjustments in order to create a photo like this? What is this filter called? I typically use Aperture as my editing program but would be open to using others.
Comment: possible duplicate of [How to get a vintage/dreamy look?](http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/39431/how-to-get-a-vintage-dreamy-look)
Comment: Use film and leave it on the dashboard of your car for a whole summer in Phoenix.
Answer: I can hint you:

Reduce contrast and saturation
Apply a blue tint
Add noise
Add vignetting
Answer: There is no single way to produce an "effect", as there are many ways to produce effects very similar to the one you're referencing.  The first step would be to properly expose the photo in order to facilitate the rest of the edits.  What I mean by that is the photo has blown out white areas and what could be image noise.  In order to create those two effects one would:

Expose for the darker parts and increase the ISO instead of slowing
the shutter speed.  This will help produce the noise you see - but
may not always work.  Alternately you can expose for the bright white
pages, keep a low ISO and increase the shutter speed.
Now that you have the proper exposure and noise, you alter the
exposure in Aperture.  Adjust the exposure to blow out the white
area's details and expose the rest of the image to the desired level,
which brings out the noise that was likely not visible until now.

As has already been noted, some of the other obvious basic adjustments would be to:

reduce the contrast
adjust the color curves (notably the blue is stronger in your
reference, so is the red)
OR manipulate the saturation instead of color curves for specific
color channels to increase the blues and reds
add a vignette using Aperture's vignette tool

There are also Photoshop actions or presets in other programs, apps that give effects, layers, filters, etc., but this is as close as I can imagine doing it with just Aperture.
Answer: like I know, there are many way can achieve this look, try search "lomo effect" on youtube
Comment: Would be better if you could answer with some information rather than suggesting they search elsewhere.

How does one create this vintage look?