Can you pick up an ally's Spiritual Weapon and use it as your own?

Question: If an ally summons a spiritual weapon, would you be able to grab it and attack with it? And if so, what would the damage and modifiers be?
Comment: Related: [How does the Spiritual Weapon spell work?](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/135809/how-does-the-spiritual-weapon-spell-work), [Would it be possible to grab my Spiritual Weapon and make a melee attack with it?](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/135439/would-it-be-possible-to-grab-my-spiritual-weapon-and-make-a-melee-attack-with-it)
Answer: No; the spiritual weapon is used by the caster
The text in the spell description is pretty clear on who makes the weapon attack: you (the spell caster).  It is also clear on who causes it to move.

When you cast the spell, you can make a melee spell attack against a
creature ... on a hit, the target takes force damage equal to 1d8  plus your spell casting bonus ... as a bonus action, on your turn, you can move the weapon up to 20 feet ....(PHB p. 278)

What happens when the spell is cast is that it creates a magical effect.  If someone else were able to use this weapon as you suggest in your question, they would be making a melee weapon attack, or a melee attack, not a melee spell attack. (Melee attack, PHB p. 195; spell attack rolls, PHB. p. 205).
Why is it important that this spell specifies a melee spell attack?  Attacks that are ranged (as opposed to melee) have disadvantage on when opponents are within 5 feet of you.  (PHB. p. 195 & p. 205).

A spell is a discrete  magical effect. (PHB, p. 201)

As another clue to the spell's function, the spell is described as being from the evocation school, rather than conjuration school.   Were a weapon to be created or summoned by this spell, it would most likely have been classified as   conjuration.

Some conjuration spells create objects or effects out of nothing (PHB p. 203, side bar, Schools of Magic)

Spells in this edition generally do what is in the spell text.  If this magical effect created a weapon that was transferable to another creature,  that would be mentioned in the spell's text.
Compare this to a different spell, like Goodberry

Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for
the duration.  A creature can use its action to eat one berry (PHB, p. 246)

In this case, a creature indicates that use of the berries is not restricted to whomever cast the spell.
For another example, see Magic Stone

You touch one to three pebbles and imbue them with magic. You or someone else can make a ranged spell attack with one of the pebbles by throwing it or hurling it with a sling.  (XGtE, p. 160; EE Player Guide, p. 20).

If the unofficial rulings from J. Crawford are of interest, he says this:

A pact weapon is a physical object that someone else can pick up. A spiritual weapon is a spell effect.
Comment: Jeremy Crawford has also said explicitly that [spiritual weapons are not physical objects](https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/659845291647070208)
Comment: @Rubiksmoose Thx for the link
Answer: No, you can't
If the spell created a usable weapon, the spell's description would say so. It does not.
Related question: "Is Spiritual Weapon considered a Spell or a Weapon for Resistance/Immunity purposes?"


Starting in the "Undead Parish" there is an armored boar. Is there a better way to defeat him than head on?

Question: He looks really tough and not to mention that there are a few hollow soldiers there as well. The hollow soldiers are easy but they might get in the way if I was to fight the boar head on. Is there an easy way to defeat him?
Answer: Well, depending what you mean by "head on", it is possible to melee the boar and perform back stabs. If you aren't heavily encumbered, it's pretty easy to maneuver behind him and it should only take 2-3 back stabs.
Another option is to throw an alluring skull on the bonfire. He'll damage himself by running into the flames.
Comment: Minor point for people from the future: I myself accidentally got him to set himself *without using the Alluring Skull*. It is possible to repeatedly get him to charge and miss in such a way as to set himself on fire.
Comment: You can also just go up the stairs and kill it with arrows, magic, or throwing weapons from the bridge overlooking the area - it can't fit up the staircase to get to you. Or go up the stairs, do a drop attack onto its back, then run back to the stairs and repeat. Fight dirty!
Answer: Essentially, this game is broken as the manner in which enemies reset if disengaged makes them incredibly vulnerable to attack for a short time. No enemy in the game will chase beyond a certain point, effectively allowing you to deal free damage while taking none. That is "if" you want to break the game. If you want the fight to be somewhat fair and more based on your skill as a player, it may take a little bit of trial and error, but every enemy has weakness.
We know the boar is quite heavily armored, which makes slashing and blunt attacks, more or less, ineffective. So you are left with Piercing type attacks and magic. If you didn't really get any magic the fight will be more dangerous as you are constantly within reach of those tusks. In this instance, backstabbing would be the way to go. The boar does, unlike most other enemies, have an incredibly small backstabbing gap so this may take some practice and a few deaths to get it down.
The only other real option for this fight would be magic. Again, some trial and error with different types of magical attacks would be required to see which is more effective and leaves you vulnerable for the shortest amount of time. I think at this stage you really only have a few magic spells available, including Pyromancy. So at least you wont need to do much trial and error.
Really the only other thing you need to worry about is dodging. If you can't get out of the way or fully block the charge of the boar, you are dead.
If I was to do this fight the fair way I would rush through the archway, past the few hollows near the stairs heading up to the terrace and rush the archers up there.
-Once you kill the two archers, back yourself against the wall on the far end of the archway the archers were on, facing back the way you came and which all of your enemies must now come.
-Take care of the hollows as they come at you, they should only be able to fight you one on one, so easy fights. Parry and riposte for the sword wielders, kick and fast combo attack for the spear wielders.
-As I've never done this fight this way, I don't know if this next part is possible. "IF" the boar is able and does in fact make it's way up to the archway where you have staked yourself out against the hollows, you jump the hell off before he starts charging you. Typically enemies will run back along the path they came to get to you instead of jumping off. This isn't always the case, but it happens the majority of the time.
Once you have taken out all the Hollows, you are really at your leisure to engage the Boar in any way you see fit. Hope this helped, and good luck!
Comment: I did a jumping plunge attack at him from the upper level (there's kind of a bridge above/behind him) and just barely landed the hit. It didn't one shot him but it got him low enough that he couldn't turn around quick enough to get me.
Answer: Valid ways to beat the boar:

Use sorceries like Soul Arrow and Heavy Soul Arrow from the bridge to own him outright
Use alluring skulls to lure him into the fire
Use a few plunging attacks from the bridge to take him out

Don't try to fight him head on as he is pretty strong and fighting him melee-style is not easy.
Answer: The stairs you first come up to the boar with the single shield and sword guy. Kill him, lure the other enemies nearby and do the same. Coming up the stairs there's a ledge on the left that goes back towards the wall. You can walk on it. Lure the boar and there's a point on that ledge is you go back far enough where the boar will just turn around and just go back from whence it came. You'll be barely above the boar so immediately hit attack after you walk off the ledge then hurry up and roll back up the stairs to the ledge and repeat.


Is there a tool like the Open Science Framework that can be run on a private server?

Question: I am very impressed by the Open Science Framework. Unfortunately, for some projects I cannot put any data in a cloud especially if it is not encrypted. Are there similar tools which allow me to keep my data in its present windows like folder organisation but with similar features ? E.g adding files by drag and drop and adding annotations, as well as a wiki, etc. They do not necessarily have to be free. Although I would appreciate an open source project and the possibility to donate.
Answer: Moritz,
Jeff here--I'm the co-founder and CTO of the Center for Open Science--developers of the OSF. First off, I'm happy to hear that you like the OSF. While this doesn't answer your question necessarily, you have a few options if you'd still like to use our service:
It sounds like you're interested in encryption of data at rest, which is something we don't yet offer for OSF storage, although all data is encrypted during transmission. Of course you could encrypt the data before uploading it, but that's probably not an ideal solution. With that said, Amazon S3 (one of the services we connect to) offers encrypted buckets (so you'd get encryption of data at rest in a cloud service), and we make that option available via the OSF. Alternatively, you could install Dataverse on your own server and connect that to the OSF. Owncloud and Gitlab connections are coming soon--both storage services you can also host on your own machines. These latter services don't offer encryption of data at rest, but they wouldn't be hosted in the cloud.
Depending on your needs re:storage, there are a few other options that I'd be glad to talk to you about. For example, I haven't tried it, but I think you could install the open source Minio server (which has an S3 compatible API) and connect to the OSF via our S3 add-on. We might need to make a few tweaks with regards to authentication, but we could look into adding that to the feature queue, or we always appreciate pull requests if you have developer time. You mentioned a donation, so if you did have some money for something like this, we could see if someone in the community would be interested in a bounty/grant. Alternatively, you could directly hire a developer or an intern to make the necessary changes and contribute code back to the code-base--making that add-on available to the rest of the community.
So, lots of options, and we're happy to help support community-initiated endeavors like this. Feel free to get in touch with us at support at osf dot io or reach out to me directly at jeff at cos dot io. Hope to hear from you!
Comment: Hi Jeff, thank you for the reply. I will talk with our IT about the options and get in touch.
Comment: Please do. Looking more at Minio, this might be a trivial change to our S3 add-on because the authentication API is S3 compatible as well.
Comment: We have holidays until monday. I will contact you next week.
Comment: @jeff I am from team  Minio & will be extremely happy to help with whatever way we can. :)
Comment: @koolhead17, that's outstanding. I'll shoot you an email.
Comment: @jeff just replied, happy to help. :)


Why didn't Uber's patents prevent Lyft from existing?

Question: There appears to be no difference between the 2 APPs. So how come Uber's patent didn't prevent Lyft from stealing its ideas?
Comment: Maybe because business methods are rarely patentable? Apps may be copyrighted, but the app as a whole isn't really patentable either. Perhaps an algorithm having to do with some process in the app might be patented. Lyft would then have to avoid that.
Comment: What patent are you referring to? Are you just assuming they have a patent on ride sharing?
Comment: Yeah, I am just assuming. Why won't they?
Comment: I did find this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9959512B2/en?assignee=Uber&oq=Uber. I'd have to analyze the patent to understand what is covered.
Comment: @EricS, Uber's '512 patent independent claims 1 & 15 patent a method over a computer network, not a business method/model claim per se.  Claim 15 is ostensibly a system/apparatus claim, despite leaning heavily on the implied means+function of the embedded claim-1-esque method within claim 15—so not a business method/model claim per se either.
Answer: This answer is my own speculation and interpretation, not based on any inside knowledge at Lyft nor from any litigation.  Patents are only as good as their claims, especially their independent claims.  In PDF of Uber's main-business-model patent, the claims 1 and 15 are the 2 independent claims that Lyft could conceivably infringe solely based on having an analogous business model.  Claims (especially independent claims that are not dependent claims deriving from an independent claim) can be bypassed by doing the same or similar outcome differently.  Unless explicit using an "or" conjunction, the various clauses in an independent claim default to being "and" conjuncted.  This means that if a(n Uber-assigned) patent stakes its claim by describing A-and-B-and-C-and-D, then a competitor(-assigned Lyft) patent or lack thereof could bypass the entire independent claim by figuring out a devious way to accomplish much the same outcome but by using A-and-X-and-C-and-Y without using B itself or D itself, as long as X is not isomorphic to B and Y is not isomorphic to D.
Given the sweeping breadth that Uber's claims 1 and 15 describe their core consumer ride-pick-up business model (which seems to at 1st surface-level glance be the same business model as Lyft) in Uber's '512 patent, it would at first seem difficult for Lyft to be able to bypass the accumulation of "and"-conjuncted clauses in claims 1 and 15 in Uber's '512 patent.  But for hypothetical devil's advocacy, let us delve into what might be the weaker portions of the "and"-conjuncted clauses in claims 1 and 15.  The "in response to receiving the triggered transmission of the transport request" limitation that precedes "initiating [programmatically, without human intervention] the selection process by programmatically selecting an available vehicle from the one or more vehicles assigned to transport the customer" a competitor (hypothetically Lyft) would have room in just this one clause to bypass the entire patent by (instead of programmatically having corporate servers automatedly pick a driver) sending out bid requests to the potential drivers to force the human-user drivers to place a bid in an auction of sorts to see which driver wanted that customer-pick-up badly enough, even if that driver was not quite optimal in distance or time (and thus would have not been the selected driver in Uber's '512 patent).  As witnessed by this hypothetical example here, by surgically replacing just one step in the method that is the heart of '512 patent's claims 1 and 15, the chain of "and" clauses is broken by not being a match, and those claims are bypassed, hence bypassing the entire patent by replacing the 100% automated selection of driver with a human-based bidding at auction among the drivers.
Again for hypothetical devil's advocacy, the a-posteriori "in response" could be another weak link in the "and"-clause chain of claims 1 and 15, where a Lyft-eqsue competitor could simply precompute a priori the driver selection (based on certain constraints/mathematical-formula) in a vicinity prior to the customer-to-be-picked-up requesting a ride; in my auction business model, the driver's could conduct an auction minutes ahead of time for who wants forthcoming customer-to-be-picked-up-within-this-vicinity badly enough, minutes prior to the customer ever having an inkling that they wish to open their customer-end app to request a ride.
I am not saying that Lyft actually conducts such bidding auctions among drivers; I am merely pointing out how a clever Lyft engineer and/or lawyer could find just one weak link in Uber's '512 patent's chain of "and" clauses to bypass both of the independent clauses, thus bypassing all of the dependent clauses too, thus bypassing the entire patent.  Any different-enough substitution of any weak link in the "and"-clause chain in each independent clause is enough to bypass the at-first-seemingly-onerous entire chain of staked-claim meaning's metes & bounds.
Comment: Interesting analysis.


How do I change what controller is used in MK8?

Question: I just started playing Mario Kart 8 and I can't figure out how to be able to use the Nunchuck for Player 1's controller.  I can use the pad just fine, but I don't even see an option menu for setting which controller I want to use.  Can I only use the nunchuck in multiplayer or something?
Comment: I just tried plugging in/unplugging the Nunchuck from the main menu (Single Player/Multiplayer/etc.).  It prompts for you to press A on the controller you want to use, and picks it up just fine. If that's not working for you, I suspect you have a faulty Nunchuk or connection between your controller and Nunchuk.
Comment: @Mag: I suspect that he entered the menu using the Gamepad (because that's what he had to use to get into the game) then started to look into where to change the controller
Comment: Ah! I misunderstood - thought he was saying the Wii Remote was working but the Nunchuk added to it was not.
Answer: The controller used by the first player is the controller that was used to pass the title screen, before the menu where you can select "Single Player", "Multiplayer", etc. You can pass this title screen with any kind of supported controller.
If the wrong controller has been used, you can back out to the title screen with the B button and start again with the correct controller without needing to reset the game entirely.


Hurdle model vs left censored model

Question: When dealing with response variables that have lots and lots of zeros,  is there a clear argument for when hurdle models are preferred and when left censored or tobit models are preferred?
Answer: My understanding is that the best option is to try to reproduce the data-generating model as closely as possible. The data-generating model for a left censored tobit is the following: a random value is drawn from a Gaussian distribution, and if that value is less than zero, it is given a value of zero. This implies it's theoretically possible to get a score below zero, but some mechanism recodes such scores to zero (e.g., the measuring instrument doesn't go lower than zero). The data-generating model for a hurdle is the following: 0/1 value is draw from a Bernoulli distribution, and if that value is 0, the individual is given a value of 0. If the Bernoulli value is 1, a value is drawn from a zero-truncated (typically exponential or Poisson-like) distribution.
In most applications, I think a hurdle makes more sense. It's unlikely that a theoretical variable could take values less than 0 but is censored at 0, which is required for a tobit. Though a possible example might be some health score, where 0 is death (i.e., had a person not died, they could have been even worse off than before they died). Another example might be GPA, where (in the US) a zero means failing all classes, but it's possible to fail with a 20% grade in all classes or a 40% grade, and clearly the 20% grade demonstrates less proficiency, but the measurement scale simply stops at zero and gives both grades the same value of zero. When discussing more natural scales likes counts or amounts, though, typically a hurdle makes more sense.
Comment: Thanks! The data I have are all GPS data and in integers. I have counts and durations. The counts are proximity given a certain threshold and the duration data are base on GPS fixes, but because the GPS is sampling at 4 min we miss any events that were shorter than 4 min. Both are gamma distributed and zero inflated, so I was debating between censoring the incomplete information or using a gamma-hurdle model. From your answer I think I'm going to try the hurdle model. Much appreciated!

Hurdle model vs left censored model


Does German have a vocative comma?

Question: Should one use a vocative comma in phrases like "Alles gut, Hans?" or (to open an email) "Hallo, Maria"?
Answer: Vocative is a grammatical case that does not exist in German as distinct case because the declension forms of vocative are always identical with that of nominative. But when there is a call to a person in a sentence where the subject or an object is in 2nd person, then you might say that this call is vocative. Like in this example

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, ich möchte Ihnen mitteilen, dass auch dieses Jahr Weihnachten wieder kurz vor Jahresende stattfindet.

The whole part before the comma (5 words) is the vocative part of this sentence. It is often at the beginning, but sometimes also somewhere else

Kannst du, liebe Brigitte, mir sagen, warum schon wieder keine Milch im Kühlschrank ist?

Wie geht es dir, Hans?

So this is also possible:

Ist alles gut, Hans?

or shorter

Alles gut, Hans?

Salutations are usually shortened versions of full sentences, so you also use the comma to separate the vocative part:

Guten Abend, Bernd. = Ich wünsche dir einen guten Abend, Bernd.

Grüß Gott, Herr Schuster. = Möge Sie Gott grüßen/segnen, Herr Schuster.

"Hallo", "Hej" etc. are also salutations, but not short versions of full sentences. But still you make a comma

Hej, Ilse, wie geht es dir?

But this is different when you write a salutation together with a vocative phrase in the first line of a letter. Then there only 1 comma at the end of the first line but no comma between salutation and vocative

Hallo Emil,
was hast du morgen vor?
Answer: German requires a comma to separate the main part of a sentence from vocatives, interjections, and any other phrases that aren't part of grammatical structure. I'm pretty sure it's the same rule as in English. I guess technically "Hallo, Maria" doesn't have any sentence elements at all, but the custom seems to be to include a comma in this situation as well. It seems like this rule would be in in the Wikipedia article on comma rules, but I didn't see it there.
Comment: There is no comma in "Hallo Maria" used as a salutation. There is a comma after it.
Comment: @Roland - Thanks, I missed that it was a salutation in the original question.

Does German have a vocative comma?


Job Hunting for a postdoc

Question: I just finished my postdoc in Bimolecular engineering and I am hunting for a job, or a position.But my concern is that out of almost 80 jobs that I applied over the last two months, I have not received any feedback yet. I am not sure what the problem is, but there is even no notice of rejection! Could it be normal?
Comment: Many institutions wait to send rejection letters until long after the position is filled, even for candidates who were eliminated from consideration almost immediately.  Sometimes they never send rejection letters at all.
Comment: Out of more than a hundred faculty application I made over a number of years, I received exactly four notifications that I didn't get the job from actual human beings and about 25 automated notifications. I found out that I didn't get the job more often from rumor mills or simply seeing a new name on the department's faculty page than from any formal effort on the part of the employer.
Answer: It is becoming harder even for top schools graduates but you should check the status of your application, either by checking it online or directly contacting the professors who you plan to work with. Most rejections will come late in April or May. Try to check with the positions that are directly related to your research and continue to apply for new openings.

Job Hunting for a postdoc


input decimal type parameter for contract in ethereum wallet

Question: Is there any way to make ethereum wallet can input decimal type parameter for contract at "WRITE TO CONTRACT". For example, "sellToken" function, I want user can sell 1.23 tokens. I have see the method to use uint which let user to input 123 and handle logic in contract, but it is not friendly to user. Is there any way to make user just input 1.23?
Answer: @XLeo, it's great to see that you are thinking about the usability of Ethereum wallets - as this is how we will get more people excited about Ethereum and Dapps.
In the case of most Ethereum tokens - they have a large, integer, quantity, but this also represents a large number of decimal places (the standard is 18 decimals). This, constant, value is defined in the ERC20 standard and is, therefore, usually readable from any token contract.
In this instance where we have 18 decimal places the token balance of 1000000000000000000 can also be represented as 1.0 - one token. Similarly, 1.23 will be represented in the contract as 1230000000000000000.
An Ethereum wallet, therefore, could take a user's input of 1.23 and multiply it by 10^n where n is the number of decimal places e.g. 1.23  * 10^18 to find the uint value that should be entered into the contract's function.


build and release package in sharepoint

Question: I am new to config / build and release management.
We are using VSS for our config management tool and also we are using SharePoint in our project. In VSS we have lot of files like .cs, .snk, .dll, .pdb, .css, .js, .xml etc.
We want to make a build/release as a package for testing that should be an internal delivery. I don't have any idea how to create a build/release package. Can any body give me any suggestion/information how to do this?
One more thing: due to some internal reasons we can not use any free ware or any other software. Is it possible to do this with visual studio?
Comment: First thing I would do...is replace VSS....
Answer: I agree with Mitch, not possible with VSS only. But...if you don´t wan´t to use TFS (Team Foundation Server) which is the preferred option I would recommend looking at Cruise Control for doing your builds.
The other option is to use some sort of custom MSBuild project to package your stuff together, use WSP Builder to make that process a bit better. The best way to automate this is still to use TFS or Cruise Control to build your custom MS build project.

build and release package in sharepoint


Should blue & white stars appear red and inflated while observed on the lower part of the night sky for the similar reason as the Sun during sunset?

Question: Should blue and white stars appear red and inflated while observed on the lower part of the night sky for the fairly same reason as the sunlight during sunset? As these stars emit blue light frequencies along with other frequencies the blue component should be scattered the most even for stars shown on the higher parts of the sky... then the yellow and green so for the lower sky stars the only color that should reach us as in the case of the sunset light is the red color. But fot the stars the image of the star in our eyes should form a pattern similar as the sunset light on the very proximity of Earth surface where we spot a very long red bar along the horizon with the Sun in its center.If all the pressumtions in my question are wrong I kindly ask why in a possible answer to my question....
Answer: You're correct that the light from stars can be scattered in exactly the same way, such that some blue part is removed, leaving relatively more red.  But the exact optical effects that you describe are not common.
The flattening of the sun near the horizon is only possible because the sun is an extended object.  Light from limbs which normally are further apart in the sky can get compressed due to the atmosphere.  Stars are not extended objects.  While the light can be shifted around, it isn't normally blurred to our vision.
At lower light intensities, our eyes are less sensitive to color.  So the color shift from atmospheric scattering happens with starlight at times, but it harder to notice than it is with bright sunlight.
Without practice, few stars have sufficient color shift to be noticed as anything but "white".  Shifting the color just a little bit redder is normally less than can be perceived.
The sun is very easy to see within a degree of the horizon, where scattering is greatest.  It's often quite difficult to see stars that close unless you're in a very dark area.  Even 5 degrees of elevation will greatly reduce the amount of scattering.


How can I keep running?

Question: Even with sprint (X) turned on, I have to keep pressing W to actually move anywhere. Is there some way to let the character keep running by default, so that all I have to do is course corrections (with A & D) till I get to my destination?
Comment: There is an "auto-walk" keybind. I don't know what the default is because I reconfigured it for my installation of the game. But I'm sure that it exists in the options, I will have a look at the standard configuration as soon as I can access the game.
Answer: I should have looked into the "Controls"-section of the settings before asking this question (ty @Patrick) -  in the default mapping it's as simple as pressing the middle mouse button, or NumLock on keyboard.

How can I keep running?


Trying to use HPSG PET Parser

Question: I'm trying to use the PET Parser, but the given documentation for usage is insufficient. Can anyone point me to a good article or tutorial on using PET? Does it support UTF-8?
Answer: To use the PET parser, first you have to load a grammar for the language of interest. The grammar must be authored in the TDL language, as used in the DELPH-IN consortium (wiki here). Large, compatible grammars are available for several languages, including English, Japanese, and German. There are also smaller grammars available, and you can write your own.
For this--and for working with these grammars--your best bet is Ann Copestake's book, "Implementing Typed Feature Structure Grammars" (CSLI 2002). The book provides a thorough introduction to TDL and grammars such as these which function via the unification of typed feature structures. The grammars support bidirectional mapping between syntax (surface strings) and semantics ("meaning," represented according to Copestake's MRS--Minimal Recursion Semantics). Note that these are precision grammars, which means that they are generally less tolerant of ungrammatical inputs than statistical systems.
The English Resource Grammar (ERG) is a large grammar of English which has broad, general-domain coverage. It's open source and you can download it from the website. An online demo, powered by the PET parser, can be found here.
The PET parser runs in two steps. The first, called flop produces a "compiled" version of the grammar. The second step is the actual parsing, which uses the cheap program. You will need to obtain these two PET binaries for your Linux machine, or build them yourself. This step may not be easy if you're not familiar with building software on Linux. PET does not run on Windows (or Mac, to my knowledge).
Running flop is easy. Just go to your /erg directory, and type:
<code>$ flop english.tdl
</code>
This will produce the english.grm file. Now you can parse sentences by running cheap:
<code>$ echo the child has the flu. | cheap --mrs english.grm
</code>
This example produces a single semantic representation of the sentence in MRS (Minimal Recursion Semantics) format:
<code> [ LTOP: h1
   INDEX: e2 [ e SF: PROP TENSE: PRES MOOD: INDICATIVE PROG: - PERF: - ]
   RELS: <
          [ _the_q_rel<-1:-1>
            LBL: h3
            ARG0: x6 [ x PERS: 3 NUM: SG IND: + ]
            RSTR: h5
            BODY: h4 ]
          [ "_child_n_1_rel"<-1:-1>
            LBL: h7
            ARG0: x6 ]
          [ "_have_v_1_rel"<-1:-1>
            LBL: h8
            ARG0: e2
            ARG1: x6
            ARG2: x9 [ x PERS: 3 NUM: SG ] ]
          [ _the_q_rel<-1:-1>
            LBL: h10
            ARG0: x9
            RSTR: h12
            BODY: h11 ]
          [ "_flu_n_1_rel"<-1:-1>
            LBL: h13
            ARG0: x9 ] >
   HCONS: < h5 qeq h7 h12 qeq h13 > ]
</code>
Copestake's book explains the specific syntax and linguistic formalism used in grammars that are compatible with PET. It also serves as a user's manual for the open-source LKB system, which is a more interactive system that can also parse with these grammars. In addition to parsing, the LKB can do the reverse: generate sentences from MRS semantic representations. The LKB is currently only supported on Linux/Unix. There are actually a total of four DELPH-IN compliant grammar processing engines, including LKB and PET.
For Windows, there is agree, a multi-threaded parser/generator (and here) that I've developed for .NET; it also supports both generation and parsing. If you need to work with the grammars interactively, you might want to consider using the LKB or agree in addition to--or instead of--PET. The interactive client front-ends for agree are mostly WPF-based, but the engine and a simple console client can run on any Mono platform.
ACE is another open-source DELPH-IN compatible parsing and generation system which is designed for high performance, and it is available for Linux and MacOS.
The LKB is written in Lisp, whereas PET and ACE are C/C++, so the latter are the faster parsers for production use. agree is also much faster than the LKB, but only becomes faster than PET when parsing complex sentences, where overheads from agree's lock-free concurrency become amortized.
[11/25/2011 edit: agree now supports generation as well as parsing]
Answer: PET does support UTF-8, depending on how it was configured when compiled. In addition to the wiki page, also take a look or post a question to the mailing list.
Several input methods do exist, I would recommend FSC (XML) or YY(s-exp) for being the most modern. Im unaware of any short tutorials, but you could also look at Heart of Gold for a complete end-to-end NLP package, where PET is a component.
Are you parsing with the ERG?
Comment: The OP wanted some minimal example. e.g. given one sentence to PET, and how to get meaningful information out of PET (which options for which purpose with some simple examples). AFAIO this information cannot be found in the wiki.

Trying to use HPSG PET Parser


Why forces on bottom curved cylinder surface equal to the weight of water and weight of imaginary water?

Question: So basically in a video I was taught that, for a submerged cylinder the forces acting on the bottom curved surface is equal to the weight of water directly above + imaginary  water weight, if someone could explain me this thing, I would be grateful.
Answer: Just imagine there is water instead of cylinder. In such a case, the water is just sitting there in equilibrium (not moving up or down). You could still do the same force equilibrium with the water cylinder: force from pressure acting on the bottom part will have to be equal to the force from pressure acting on the top part combined wit the cylinder weight. Then you can go back to cylinder from other material than water and see, that the only thing changing in the equilibrium is the weight of the cylinder relative to water, which determines if the resulting force acting on the cylinder will point up or down.
Answer: I think the word "imaginary" is not helping here.
The force on the bottom of the cylinder is the weight of the round bottom column water above it, period.
And that weight can be calculated by breaking the volume of the round bottom column into a rectangular and a half circle. Exactly as you have sketched.
To show what you mean in another way possibly easier to envision, let's assume the cylinder was floating on the surface of the water so its center was level with the surface of the water.
Then the force applied to the bottom of the cylinder would be the sum of infinitesimally small columns of water. Let's say the cylinder with radius R starts at the origin.

R  radius of the cylinder
The force on the bottom is the sum of infinitesimally small columns of water with the width dx of the function

$$Y=\sqrt {R^2-X^2}$$
$$F_{bottom}=\Sigma Y *dx$$
$$F_{bottom}= \int_0^{2R} \sqrt(R^2 - x^2) dx $$
And we already know that integral is equal to $ \ \pi*R^2/2$, which is the are of half circle.
So if we move the cylinder dawn to the depth of D. the force on the bottom will be
$$F_{bottom}=2RD+ \pi R^2/2$$
The force on the top again is exactly as you have shown
$$F_{top}=2RD-\pi R^2/2$$
And buoyancy is
$$F_{bottom}- F_{top}= \pi R^2 \quad = area \ of \ cylinder$$
For simplicity, I assumed the axial length of the cylinder as one!
Comment: but the water *is* imaginary, since the cylinder is not full of water.
Comment: The hydrostatic pressure of water at any depth is equal to the pressure of the column of water at that depth.  this pressure is applied equally in all directions including downward,upward, and sideways. if you have an object it applies to any point on that object. proportional to the depth of that point. The pressure to the bottom surface of the cylinder is from the water around it.
Comment: and this column is imaginary, since there isn't actually a column of water going up from that point to the surface
Comment: @user253751, it's real, would not be there if the water was not there. this is not a chat blog. it ends here!
Comment: the cylinder is not full of water


What level of papal distinction does Prior General Gilles Wach hold?

Question: Prior General Gilles Wach is referred to as a Monsignor, meaning he must hold one of the three levels of papal honors. I'm not sure when he became a monsignor, but apparently it was before he founded the ICKSP (no confirmation though). His coat of arms has both the galero and tassels all in blue (consistent with his chapter's color scheme), so you can't tell from there what his papal honor is. He also wears a black cassock with a pellegrina and blue piping and fascia, while other canons from the ICKSP usually wear plain black cassocks on similar occasions. I've also seen him in one picture in a blue ferraiolo over the cassock I described above, which if I'm not mistaken is a privilege only granted to supernumerary protonotaries apostolic, but that's not conclusive evidence, so please help if someone knows!
Comment: Bishops are sometimes called Monsignor. It may a term conceded to the head of their institution according to their norms and constitutions. It probably has nothing to do with the honourary title of a Monsignor as given by the pope.
Comment: You have the inference backwards; the 3 levels of prelates are entitled to be called Monsignor NOT that being called Monsignor implies one is one of those prelates. Some clerical positions (like superiors) are entitled to be referred to as monsignor ex officio. This often means the resignation of the office entails returning to "father"
Answer: What level of papal distinction does Prior General Gilles Wach hold?

Monsignor Gilles Wach as a Monsignor "durante munere"!
Prior General Gilles Wach did hold the title of monsignor at one time not because he is the head of a religious institution, but because he was at one time a vicar general of a diocese.
When he was no longer the Vicar General of his diocese, the title of monsignor no longer holds.

Other monsignori
Under legislation of Pope Pius X, vicars general and vicars capitular (the latter are now called diocesan administrators) are titular (not actual) Protonotaries durante munere, i.e. as long as they held those offices, and so are entitled to be addressed as Monsignor.
The only privileges of dress that Pope Pius X granted them were a black silk fringed sash, black piping on the biretta with a black tuft,[6] and a black mantelletta. As a result of this they were in some countries referred to as "black protonotaries."[7] However, "Pontificalis domus" of Paul VI removed this position from the Pontifical Household, even though the title of "monsignor", which is to be distinguished from a prelatial rank, has not been withdrawn from vicars general, as can be seen, for instance, from the placing of the abbreviated title "Mons." before the name of every member of the secular (diocesan) clergy listed as a vicar general in the Annuario Pontificio. (Honorary titles such as that of "Monsignor" are not considered appropriate for religious.)

Wach was nominated Vicar General of the Diocese of Mouila, in Gabon, on 19 June 1989, by Cyriaque Obamba, which he was until 1995, when he became Vicar General emeritus. It is in theses years that he received the honorary title of Monsignor from his diocesan bishop in Gabon, Africa requests to Rome.
In general a Monsignor is a title of distinction that certain ecclesiastical dignitaries have the right to have such as archbishops, bishops, abbots and occasionally conventual priors (priors having the authority of an abbot). It is also accorded to some priests granted by the pope.

Monsignor
A title of distinction granted by the Pope to numerous prelates. All ecclesiastical dignitaries including archbishops and bishops have a right to this title.

Monseigneur
A French honorific appellation, etymologically corresponding to the English "my lord," and the Italian monsignore. It is, after all, nothing but the French monsieur; but, while the latter has become current as applied to every man who is in good society, Monseigneur has retained its honorific force. In ecclesiastical usage it is reserved for bishops and archbishops, and is chiefly employed when speaking or writing to them. It is used before the name (thus abridged: Msgr. Dupanloup). Formerly it was not prefixed to the title of dignity, but it is now, as "Mgr l'évêque N. . . ." The term Monseigneur is also used as the equivalent of the Italian Monsignore, and as the latter title is given to Roman prelates, some confusion results; in Italy, however, no inconvenience arises from this usage as in that country bishops have the title of Eccellenza, i.e., Excellency. In France, only the Archbishop of Reims, as legatus natus, has the title of Excellency (See Monsignor).

Instead of addressing patriarchs as "Vostra Beatitudine", archbishops as "Your Grace", bishops as "My Lord", abbots as "Gracious Lord" one may without any breach of etiquette salute all equally as Monsignor.

Monsignor Gilles Wach was named Vicar General by his local bishop, which carries the privilege of being addressed as a monsignor.
Alas, the Vicar General carries the title of monsignor.

Q: In Gabon, you have constructed three churches and restored others. You were there yourself as vicar general, which is why one calls you "Monsignor". CouId you tell us about your African experience?
It is quite true that I was vicar general during five years, under two different bishops. The first of them, Msgr. Obamba, a man of faith and great culture, invited our newly born Institute into his diocese. Our first days with Father Mora, and Father Audin were very difficult on a material level (missions without water or electricity, unusable roads, thousands of small and large animals unknown in our climates). On a spiritual level we had countless consolations such as Masses, sermons, catechism, and visits to missions which had remained without priests for several years.
The second bishop was Msgr. Basile Mve, a great servant of the church, and man of dialogue, who has recently been named Archbishop of Libreville. He has always been a great friend of the Institute. We are happy to have served him for two years. On several occasions he has ordained our seminarians, either in Africa or at Gricigliano. Today I am Vicar General emeritus, and my title was only durante munere. It is by courtesy that one still gives it to me, and those with whom I speak are habitually courteous.
Black Africa is a fascinating country, but today in a very sad state. The church has a great role to play, and I admire the missionaries, priests and religious, who consecrate their lives to it. They are witnesses to the Gospel in a world that is still very cruel. Our Institute has sent several priests and seminarians to Gabon. Their missionary work is without doubt a source of graces for all the members of our Institute. - Twenty Years of Priesthood, Ten Years of Foundation
Comment: "Today I am Vicar General emeritus, and my title was only durante munere. It is by courtesy that one still gives it to me," This is the important part to highlight. His title was only by virtue of being vicar general; that is, he was not independently made an honorary prelate
Comment: @eques Made appropriate edits.
Comment: Thank you for this very elaborate answer! It would indeed seem that in this case Wach no longer qualifies to be called a monsignor. Then again - in church precedence, people of his station (superiors general of religious societies, such as the ICKSP), do rank above protonotaries apostolic, and therefore all other papally distinguished prelates. For that reason I suppose he is still entitled to be addressed as Monsignor.
Comment: I've also noticed his propensity for wearing the pellegrina, which as your photo proves, he liked doing even before he was bestowed with his signature colors hehe.

Also, he is wearing the episcopal amaranth piping in that pic. I thought vicars general were never entitled to those colors, only honorary prelates of his holiness / protonotaries apostolic were. Not to mention the pellegrina is a bit unorthodox for someone who is not a bishop. Did he just opt to wear these colors based on his role as Vicar General or Prior General before receiving the signature blue colors?


Stone or iron mortar?

Question: I need to buy a mortar. Should I get a stone (granite, marble, etc) or an iron one?
What pros and cons are there?
Answer: Stone is a much worse heat conductor than iron. It warms much slower from vigorous pounding than iron, and actually cools whatever is being ground. This is often desirable, as you don't want to warm whatever you are grinding - some spices contain fats which are viscous or solid at room temperature, but get liquid somewhat above it, so they would be seeping their aroma and converting to a paste if warmed while ground.
Another argument for stone will be the smooth surface. Seasoned iron isn't as smooth as marble or granite can be polished, and if left unseasoned, you will need to remove rust from time to time (another problem of iron which harwig already pointed out), disturbing the surface. The mortar surface should be as smooth as possible.
Also, the stone will require no maintenance apart from washing. Iron will have to be kept from rusting, so you'll have to season it. The grinding action will probably slowly eat away the seasoning layer, so you'll have to reapply it periodically, which is lots of work (well, the complete stripping first is what makes it lots of work, seasoning not so much). But if you use your mortar as seldom as I do, this shouldn't be a problem.
On the other hand, iron's density is about 3 times higher than marble or granite, resulting in a much heavier pestle. While this means some more fatigue for you, it will result in a better grinding result.
Another problem with stone is that it can crack if you happen to drop it on the floor. Luckily, a mortar is not easily dislodged from the counter, and granite breaks nowhere as easily as earthenware, but the chance exists. If you get stone, don't go for the tulip-on-a-stem shapes. While it may be convenient to grip the stem, it is also a weak point.
You must also consider possible chemical reactions. Granite won't be a problem, but marble is acid sensitive. So making a pesto with lots of lemon juice is probably a bad idea in marble. It won't cause a comic-book like Chinese syndrome, but it will attack the surface, making it less smooth. Seasoned iron has some acid resistance, but strong acids are bad for it too.
To me, the "tradition" argument isn't very strong. People have used abacuses for thousands of years, but I prefer a TI-42 simulator when I have to make a calculation too complicated for my brain. Both iron and stone will work. And as harwig says, aesthetics are individual - not that I need much of that in kitchen implements.
Comment: @ESultanik As I understand it, the point of using a mortar is that you don't want damage to the cells, you want your organic matter to break up along the cell borders (else you should use a system with a blade, like a blender). The best way to achieve that is to apply even force on a group of cells. Sharp edges of irregularities would crush cells instead. Also, coarse is harder to clean, and residues of the usually aromatic things put in a mortar will contaminate the next batch of (different) things to grind. Third, you can get finer particles with smooth, if somebody has the patience.
Comment: Why is a smooth mortar preferable?  Wouldn't a more coarse surface aid in grinding?
Comment: That is interesting; I hadn't heard the cell damage argument before, but it does make sense.  I wonder: Does it mostly apply to delicate, vegetal matter (*e.g.*, when making a pesto), or does the cell damage argument also apply to spice grinding?
Comment: @ESultanik, it is important for chilles, because they thicken chillis through starch. If the starch granules get out of the cells, you don't get a thickened liquid, you get goo. For spices, it depends. Crushing releases the aromatic essential oils. You usually want to keep them in the cells as long as possible. But if you are going to use the spice immediately, breaking them up first may be better, because the eater doesn't have to chew through the small particles to release the aroma. But for that purpose, a grinder is better than a coarse mortar.
Answer: I have never used an iron mortar before, so I can't speak directly about it.  I would imagine that one of the cons would be oxidation / rust.  Obviously you don't want to have rust ground up with whatever spices, herbs, etc that you're grinding.  Proper maintenance could alleviate this issue though.
For me, stone mortars are more traditional.  If people have been using rocks to grind things up for thousands of years, something's obviously working for them.  Why fix it if it isn't broken?
Another thing to consider is the aesthetic quality of the mortar.  I like the look of marble, but you should find one that fits your style.
Answer: I've been using a ceramic mortar for years. I tried a marble one that I was given, and it was poor compared to the one I have. I've used an iron one, and it was worse than the marble one.
One big tip with using a mortar - they work best if you only put a little material in at a time. If the mortar is a quarter full, that's too much stuff to grind easily. Work on a couple of teaspoons at a time and you get powder. More than that, and it is just a mess ...
Answer: Nobody before mentioned this: wood, ceramic, and stone (be it granite, basalt, or marble, at least - I saw once an agate mortar and there I don't know) are porous. That means flavors seeping in and out and the possibility of bacteria and mold growth. That may or may not be an issue on an iron mortar, depending on the finishing of its well. So the seasoning need is not really an argument, for you have to give either kind that sealing coat.
There are other materials that don't have that particular drawback nor the rusting, but they have some of their own: porcelain / glazed ceramic is much more fragile in both that it can break and the glazing chip off or crack, and I have yet to come across a stainless steel mortar that isn't hollow, and they seem to easily dent, bump, or might even crack too.
Answer: I use a Coors ceramic mortar and pestle in the kitchen myself. Iron seems like a poor choice, what with rust and all. If you go with stone, pay particular attention to the fit between pestle and mortar. There are a lot of poorly made units out there that'll turn a one minute grinding task into a five minute chore.
Answer: Resin…
Looks like stone, weighs [at least] as much as stone, keeps cool like stone, totally non-porous surface.
Inner surface can be totally smooth or slightly roughened, just like stone.
No rust, no absorption, can go in the dishwasher [though I don't with mine] or washed with regular dish soap.
Mine must be 20 years old now & still looks like new.

Stone or iron mortar?


Can a planet have 10x Earth mass, 4x Earth gravity and support intelligent life?

Question: In the Mass Effect series there's a terrestrial planet called Dekuuna with 10 times the mass of Earth, a surface gravity of 4G and a native intelligent race. I was just wondering if it was possible for a planet like that to exist in reality, and if yes, what are some factors that might lead to its formation assuming it formed around a Sun like star?
Comment: To a first order approximation: Volume grows by 8x when the radius grows by 2x, and (for large differences in mass in objects) gravitational attraction grows linearly with the larger mass. So it sounds like it could very well be plausible, if the planet is composed of slightly lighter materials than Earth.
Comment: He said the planet is not at G, but at 4G.
Comment: How dense would the atmosphere be on a 4G planet?
Answer: If $R$ is the planet's radius and $\rho$ is the planet's average density, then its surface gravity is $\propto \rho R$ and its mass is $\propto \rho R^3$.
Let's measure in units where the Earth's radius and average density are both 1. Then for Dekuuna we have $\rho R=4$ and $\rho R^3=10$. Therefore we get
\begin{align}
R &= \sqrt{\frac{\rho R^3}{\rho R}} = \sqrt{\frac{10}{4}} \approx 1.6\\
\rho &= \sqrt{\frac{(\rho R)^3}{\rho R^3}} = \sqrt{\frac{64}{10}} \approx 2.5
\end{align}
So that planet would have a radius of about 1.6 times the Earth's radius and an average density of about 2.5 times the Earth's average density. The radius is definitely possible, and I think the density should be, too. To begin with, the higher radius and mass would already cause an increased density, although that alone will not get a factor 2.5. But then, the planet could have a relatively bigger core, and it might have more heavy elements in its core.
I also think 4 times earth gravity should not preclude the evolution of intelligent life.
Answer: I'm going to work off of celtschk's excellent answer, which correctly comes up with a radius of $\sim1.6 R_{\oplus}$ and a density of $\sim2.5\rho_{\oplus}$, where $_{\oplus}$ denotes Earth. If we look at the mass-radius curves of Mocquet et al. (2014), we see that the planet lies very close to the line for pure iron planets:

Some fun facts about iron planets:

They're essentially just cores of terrestrial planets.
They likely cannot hold water.
They have no tectonic activity or magnetic field.
They may be close to their parent star, meaning surface temperatures will be extremely high.

This doesn't seem like a very pleasant place for life.
Answer: The earlier answers have done this better, but I found a mass/gravity/distance-from-center calculator at http://www.ajdesigner.com/phpgravity/gravity_acceleration_equation_planet_mass.php#ajscroll and ran some rough numbers through it.  After a little trial and error, it looks as though a planet 10x as massive as Earth would have as surface gravity of 4G if its radius was approximately 10,106 km.  That would make it about 2.55 (again, rough math) times as dense as Earth, at about 13.85 grams per cubic centimeter.  That falls between the elements Americium (13.67 g/cc) and Berkelium (14.78 g/cc).  Both of those are radioactive with relatively short half-lives - not sure if they degrade into something just as dense?
My guess is that such a planet couldn't exist in reality, unless it was created and maintained by some highly tech-advanced race. Even so, I would think that the probable radioactivity of the thing would preclude the existence of intelligent life as we know it.


error: The requested URL returned error: 403 Forbidden while accessing

Question: I have a git repository . I have a GUI client in Windows and EGit in Eclipse ADT. Generally I edit in Eclipse ADT and use the GUI Client to update the Github repo. First I commit (which creates a buffer) and then when I sync it uploads it to my actual repo.
Now I have clone my repo on Linux(CentOS 6.4). Everything is setup. I changed some file. Then I used git add and git commit -m "message" -a command and it worked fine. But my actual github repo was not updated. After bit of googling I figured out that we have to explicitly provide git push command. After which I am getting
[aniket@localhost Android]$ git push
error: The requested URL returned error: 403 Forbidden while accessing https://github.com/aniket91/Android.git/info/refs

fatal: HTTP request failed

What is going wrong? There is no firewall or proxy and I have close by iptables service. Has anyone encountered this scenario before? What should be done?
After following this answer (which kind of worked I got following error)
[aniket@localhost Android]$ git push origin master
The authenticity of host 'github.com (22.214.171.124)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 16:27:ac:a5:76:28:2d:36:63:1b:56:4d:eb:df:a6:48.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'github.com,220.127.116.11' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

Any suggestions are appreciated.
Answer: The answer you mention suggests to change the url from an https one to an ssh one.
That would only work if you have a ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub, with the latter (public key) published in your GitHub ssh keys.
Check your Egit ssh configuration.

For step by step procedure as of how to generate SSH key and set it in your GitHub setting here is the link.
Comment: I want to do it command line using **git push origin master**
Comment: @AniketThakur then check your ssh config: http://stackoverflow.com/a/7927828/6309
Comment: Thanks the main part was generating SSH key and storing that in your github settings. Step by step --> https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys
Answer: I had the same problem and the cause was that I was using https git access under my linux box. Pull was ok, while push ended with error. The solution was to switch to ssh access, ex:
So first read remote url:
$ git config --get remote.origin.url

https://github.com/yourname/project.git

if you see https then change it to ssh, copy proper url from your github project www, and call:
$ git remote set-url origin firstname.lastname@example.com:yourname/project.git

you might still need to put (and maybe also generate) .ssh public key to github. For that look into VonC answer.
Answer: So i faced the same problem with git to push the content to repository.

Error info:
error: The requested URL returned error: 403 Forbidden while accessing https://github.com/bhanurhce/rhel6-exapmpleserver.git/info/refs
fatal: HTTP request failed

Work around for me:
This error is majorly due to the LOGIN credentials from your local machine in the git hub.
You have to provide the username & password of github
Add username: $ git config --global user.name "bhanurhce"
Username should be github's user account.
Confirm the username: $ git config user.name
once you try to push then it will ask for password:
$ git push -u origin master
Password:(provide your github's password.)
issue will be solved.
Even if you still get error for askpass:
Error info:
[root@virtual-master git]# git push -u origin master
(gnome-ssh-askpass:47356): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
Then just solve it by command: $ unset SSH_ASKPASS
All will work fine. Hope it helps..
Thanks!!


When should I watch The Sarah Jane Adventures alongside Doctor Who?

Question: I know that there are certain times to watch Torchwood alongside Doctor Who (ie season one finale coincides with the start of "Utopia") but I'm just wondering is there certain times to watch The Sarah Jane Adventures? Or do they not tie in together at all?
Comment: Opinionated reply: Don't. Apart from the pilot, there were no ties. I was quite disappointed with the quality.
Comment: One of the answers [here](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/33103/20774) offers some advice on when to watch the show alongside Dr Who and Torchwood.
Comment: Yeah, mostly I agree with Verdan. I would recommend only the episodes where the Doctor actually appears (10 and 11), and leave it like that.
Comment: @tilley31 And Enemy of the Bane...
Answer: The SJA series begins at some point after the events of School Reunion but before the events of The Stolen Earth / Journey's End. She explains that the K-9 that appears (occasionally - bit of another story there) in the series is the repaired one The Doctor left her after School Reunion, and her new Sonic Lipstick was included in a small panel on his side. When Sarah Jane appears in that second adventure, she has already adopted Luke and gained access to Mr. Smith the computer.  It may be safe to assume that the entire first series takes place before TSE/JE.
The series takes place during a period of time between The Doctor's tenth and eleventh regenerations, as both appear on the show.
There are no specific episodes of one series that tie directly to those of the other, so there's no "you must watch this first" situations.
Answer: You could always go by the original broadcast dates of The Sarah Jane Adventures and Doctor Who. You will find that:

The Sarah Jane pilot is between Doctor Who 2006 Christmas Special and the start of Season 3.
Sarah Jane season 1 is between Doctor Who season 3 and the 2007 Christmas Special.
Sarah Jane season 2 is between Doctor Who season 4 and the 2008 Christmas Special.
Sarah Jane season 3 is during the Doctor Who specials that followed season 4. Most are between Planet of the Dead and The Waters of Mars, but the last story of Sarah Jane season 3 is between The Waters of Mars and The End of Time.
Sarah Jane season 4 is between Doctor Who season 5 and the 2010 Christmas Special.
Sarah Jane season 5 is between Doctor Who season 6 and the 2011 Christmas Special.

However, there isn't much need to coordinate watching the two shows, there are only a few cross references between them.

Sarah Jane meets the 10th Doctor in the Doctor Who season 2 episode School Reunion. This is before the Sarah Jane pilot Invasion of the Bane.
In the first Sarah Jane story, Revenge of the Slitheen, Sarah Jane encounters the Slitheen who were introduced in the 9th Doctor (season 1) episodes Aliens of London and World War Three*.
Between seasons 1 and 2 of Sarah Jane, Sarah Jane joins the 10th Doctor in Journey's End, the final episode of Doctor Who season 4.
The Last Sontaran, the first story of Sarah Jane season 2, features a survivor of the Sontaran force from the Doctor Who season 4 episode The Poison Sky
Enemy of the Bane, the last story of Sarah Jane season 2, includes the final appearance of Brigadier Sir Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart played by Nicholas Courtney. In The Wedding of River Song (the last episode of Doctor Who season 6), the 11th Doctor is told of the death of the Brigadier.
The 10th Doctor appears in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith (the 3rd story of Sarah Jane season 3).
Before regenerating, the 10th Doctor says goodbye to Sarah Jane in The End of Time (the last of the specials between Doctor Who seasons 4 and 5).
The 11th Doctor appears in The Death of the Doctor (the 3rd story of Sarah Jane season 4).
The Impossible Astronaut, the first episode of Doctor Who season 6 was dedicated to Elizabeth Sladen who played Sarah Jane. Elizabeth had died 4 days earlier while filming Sarah Jane season 5 (the three completed stories of Sarah Jane season 5 were broadcast after the end of Doctor Who season 6).


Why has Trump's approval slowly risen starting in August?

Question: According to 538, Trump's approval has risen a little less than 3 percentage points since August 1st and is currently at 43.8%. It has not affected head to head polling. Why has this happened?
Comment: A 3% change could be doing something as trivial as e.g changing the music on an advert on TV.
Answer: Fluctuations in polls are difficult to analyse, especially when polls just report a headline figure, rather than drilling down into specific topics, and it can be hard to tell whether an increase is significant or not. However, there does appear to be some evidence to suggest that this rise in approval you have observed is in part related to an improved view of Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic during August. Some observers suggest that more recent fluctuations relate to his response to the Supreme Court vacancy in September, as well as his debate performance at the end of the month, although only a few polls have been conducted since that event.
Although Gallup maintains that this increase is not statistically significant, it does seem to hypothesize that President Trump's response to the Supreme Court vacancy may have affected his approval rating:

Although the increase of four percentage points in Trump's latest
rating is not statistically significant, the poll's internals suggest
a rise in his support the second half of the Sept. 14-28 field period
coincident with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death and lying in
state, as well as Trump's announcing that he would quickly make a
nomination to the Supreme Court. This suggests that some viewed his
handling of the situation positively.

Looking at the full tables from Gallup, we can see that since the beginning of August, Trump has improved his approval rating across all categories - with regard to the economy (+6), foreign affairs (+5), the COVID-19 pandemic (+8), relations with China (+6), race relations (+1) and crime (+2).
The October 1st daily approval ratings analysis from Rasmussen Reports, however, makes the opposite observation to Gallup - that Trump's approval rating dipped following his SCOTUS nomination, but is now on the rise again - apparently as a result of his debate performance:

This survey is the first to include a night of polling following the
first presidential debate between Trump and Democrat nominee Joe
Biden. The president's approval ran in the low 50s for 10 days through
the end of last week but dropped as low as 46% in the first three days
of this week following his nomination Saturday of federal Judge Amy
Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now his approval appears to
be on the rise again. By next Monday morning, all 1,500 voters in the
daily tracking survey will have been polled following Tuesday night's
contentious debate.

On a more issue-specific level, the September 2020 Executive Approval Update from the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public's Policy Preferences Across States found that during August, Trump's approval with regard to his actions on the pandemic rose despite gubernatorial approval ratings falling, suggesting that he has made up some ground on this issue.

The August wave of our COVID States survey indicates a continued
gradual decline in approval of governors' management of COVID-19, and
a small improvement in President Trump's management of COVID-19. The
average governor saw their approval slip another 3 points in the last
month, to 48% approval (versus 63% in late April). President Trump,
who started from a much lower point, rebounded slightly from his low
point of approval of 32% in July to 34% in August.
Answer: First point: most polls aim for a margin of error of around 3%, so rising or falling by that amount is indeterminate: it might reflect a real change, or might merely be a statistical artifact (i.e., a random fluctuation of the distribution of the sample chosen, not of the underlying population).
But giving the statistics the benefit of the doubt, it's worth nothing that:

Roughly mid August (see this timeline), Trump began changing his messaging on Covid-19, promising a quick vaccine and acknowledging the severity of the pandemic
In late August, the Republican National Convention began, giving Trump significant positive air-time, and reaffirming his role as the GOP choice

Either of these could be expected to boost Trump's approval rating (at least within his base, and among those who are still undecided). In fact, it's somewhat surprising that Trump did not see a more significant boost from the latter. Conventions are typically the high-water mark for incumbent approval ratings before the election, since the remainder of the election season generally becomes a protracted critique of their term of office.
Comment: This is aggregate aka polling average so it might have smaller margin of error
Comment: @NumberFile: I don't know 538's methodology, but generally speaking aggregating disjunctive polls increases uncertainty. technically speaking, there is an increase in sample size which tends to reduce error. But the various polls may not use the same sampling methodology (they might choose participants through different means, weight underrepresented groups differently, group participants idiosyncratically) and may have other methodological differences (differences in question wording or ordering, different ways of handling non-response), which tends to drive accumulation error terms up.


Which comes first: The Sarah Connor Chronicles or Terminator 3?

Question: I'm trying to figure out the progression of the Terminator timeline. It's pretty clear up until the end of T2. Afterwards, we have two Terminators in different timelines sent back by Skynet to influence the timeline- the TX (in T3) and Cromarty (in TSCC). Potentially either of these timelines could have happened first, causing the other- there's room in both for time travel development in the future. So does anyone have a definite answer as to which caused which, perhaps by hints of the past by people from the future?
Comment: Two very good answers here, but I prefer in-universe explanations so I'll upvote Richard's and mark Moogle's as the answer.
Comment: It's too long since I saw the series, but as far as I remember, the characters made the time jump forward in episode 1 with the _specific purpose_ of avoiding the events leading up to Sarah's death. Yeah, it was a bit of a lampshade, but that's what they did. In other words, they created the alternate timeline themselves. And it's no paradox, because changing timelines is what Terminator is all about.
Comment: Yes, but Cameron didn't appear in the T3 timeline. I think it makes some sense that, in-universe, Cameron was sent back from John Conner post-Salvation to guard against Cromartie, sent by Skynet. Assuming the films are all in the same timeline, that slots together nicely

Out-of-universe, it also makes sense that they wanted to do separate universes.
Answer: There is no causality between the two, both happened in separate, independent timelines.

So they happen in separate timelines, and are not related to each other.
In terms of dates, TSCC happened first. TSCC begins in 1999 (but they then travel 8 years into the future to 2007). The T-X from T3 was sent back to July 24, 2004
There has been some speculation that the two timelines can be forged together. Please bear in mind that this is pure speculation, and in no way canon evidence.

After the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines the war starts between humans and machines. John becomes leader of the resistance. Skynet manage somehow to make advanced robots earlier than the previous timeline (maybe from the remaining parts of the T-X and T-850), which lead to creating the "Cameron"-model and using it on the battlefield. After the previous attempts of killing Sarah and John Connor (T, T2 and T3), the war still goes on, and it's getting tighter. Skynet now use all resources on the battlefield. In a last effort they send a T-888 (an older model) back to 1999 to kill John Connor. As a counter attack, the Resistance are able to catch a terminator from the battlefield (a "Cameron"-model) and send it back to protect John Connor. Sending terminators back before the previous timeline results in "erasing" the Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines-timeline completely (or, alternatively, creating a separate parallel timeline).
Answer: Josh Friedman, the Producer of The Sarah Connor Chronicles addressed this point in an interview with IGN in 2007.
The short version is that TSSC takes place in an alternate timeline which means that there's no continuity between it and T3.

IGN TV: Are you working within the continuity of the Terminator
  movies, specifically Terminator 3?
Friedman: We're gonna go off on our own. I think the thing about T3
  is, obviously there was just no Sarah Connor and that's something the
  fans were never happy with. I don't even think the people who made T3
  were happy with that. It just wasn't a choice of theirs. You know,
  Linda Hamilton was going through some things and didn't want to be a
  part of it. They had a script at one point I know; there was a T3 that
  had Sarah in it. I've never read it. I don't know anything about it.
  But I know that they did and they wanted to do that. They wanted it to
  be kind of her trilogy, and it never could be. So I think that my
  feeling was this TV series to me sort of serves as the third act to
  that trilogy - what could have happened had we followed that after T2.
  So I almost think of this as T3. To me it takes the place of T3.
But
  also I think that sort of in the spirit of Terminator, it's an
  alternate timeline. I know a lot of people get very worked up about
  the continuity and the canon and all that stuff. What I try to do is
  stay very, very true to the first two movies and then sort of take it
  from there. But always remain true to the spirit of everyone's intent
  and again, take some time with this woman and explore what maybe would
  have happened.
Answer: Well, alternate timelines and craziness involving time travel aside, technically speaking SCC is before T3. Only that the events of T3 on the SCC timeline would happen further in the future and would change a lot.
Comment: You're not thinking fourth-dimensionally!
Comment: True. That is something that is hard for me to do.


Video capture in VPF

Question: What is the best way to capture video in a WPF application? I am looking for a way to detect the video devices, and then capture video from the selected one.
Answer: There is no WPF support for this. You need to use the traditional, expected windows APIs for video capture, such as DXVA.
Answer: If you are OK with using ActiveX controls in WPF app, you can use VideoCapX from http://www.fathsoft.com/videocapx.html

Video capture in VPF


Why does Oleg keep attacking me?

Question: Whenever I call Oleg to come help me out in combat, he fights the other gang just fine for a while, but when all the gang members are killed and I'm waiting for more to appear, Oleg sometimes starts attacking me (it's kind of random). I've never had this problem with my other Homies. It doesn't seem to matter what he's equipped with either. If he has nothing, he'll just slam on me, or if he has a flamethrower he'll set me on fire. I can't figure out why. Anyone know what causes this?
Comment: Do you cause team damage on him? Have you updated to the latest patch? Does this occur in missions only or only as homie? Xbox? PC? PS3?
Comment: @ColeBusby I don't generally shoot in the direction of my Homies but it can be hard to tell when things get crazy. I have The Full Package on PS3 so it's the latest version with all DLC. I haven't tried using him during a mission; I've only been using him during the Survivor missions because some are rather difficult to complete without help.
Comment: Does the same thing happen with different homies or just Oleg? Does it only occur during a moment with other giants? If it happens with just Oleg and ONLY with other giants, it could be a programming error in Oleg where they didn't separate him from the others.
Answer: This actually happens with all homies: If you shoot them enough, they'll turn hostile and attack you, then leave after some time (they'll still show up the next time you call them, though).
It's just much more prevalent with Oleg because:

He's much larger than everyone else, so much more likely to catch a stray round;
He invariably charges into melee with the enemy, so any time you blow something up or set someone on fire, he'll likely take collateral damage because the big honking idiot is standing right next to the thing.

Why does Oleg keep attacking me?


inherit_doc attribute Lean 4

Question: This is a rather simple question which I cannot find an answer to in the Lean 4 API or anywhere else online. What does the @[inherit_doc] attribute do?
Answer: The syntax is @[inherit_doc declaration_name]: it adds the doc-string of declaration_name to the following declaration.
In the example below, I assume that you use VSCode.
/-- I am a doc-string. -/
theorem hello : True := trivial

@[inherit_doc hello]
theorem byeDoc : True := trivial

theorem byeNoDoc : True := trivial

#check hello    -- hover on name: see a doc-string

#check byeNoDoc -- hover on name: do not see a doc-string

#check byeDoc   -- hover on name: see a doc-string

Comment: This passes on the docs of the structure to the notation.  In that case, you can hover over \R and see the doc-strings of the structure `Real`.  I do not know exactly under which circumstances, but the attribute makes an educated guess as to the provenance of the docs, when you do not specify it, failing if it finds no good target.
Comment: Ahh okay, so it allows you to carry on down those comments connected to the theorem. What about, say, in Data/Real/Basic when we claim the notation \mathbb{R}? It is preceeded with `@[inherit_doc]` with no declaration name included. What is the function of the attribute in this case?

inherit_doc attribute Lean 4


One Rescue Disk to rule them all?

Question: I have multiple systems on which I want to implement whole-disk encryption using TrueCrypt.  However, I'd rather not have to store a Rescue Disk for each.  Is it possible to create one TrueCrypt Rescue Disk (or, to manually consolidate multiple Rescue Disks) that will work for all of these?
Comment: @Ramhound What other information do you need?  As you said, every system will have a unique key - this is the nature of how TrueCrypt generates keys during volume creation.  Even with the same passcode for each, the keys will be unique.  I don't expect any single *key* to unlock all the systems.  I'm looking to have one disk that has all the keys.  How would this break license agreements with Windows any more (or less) than a single, standalone Rescue Disk would?
Comment: More information is required. Since each system will likely have a unique encryption key, a single "rescue" disk will be difficult. Furthermore this would likely break license agreements if you are talking about Windows installation.  I have to downvote for the lack of information.
Answer: This is anecdotal, so take it with a grain.
We tried for something similar, and after a lot of testing determined that it didn't work.  TrueCrypt seems to be built pretty strongly towards individual users. In the end, maintaining a library of a hundred rescue disk images was just too much of a hassle, and we couldn't figure out a way to just use one. You could always just use the same keyfile to unlock everyone's hard drives, though that would be vulnerable to end-users de/re-encrypting on their own with new key data, and would open the security hole of one-keyfile-that-everyone-has-can-unlock-everyone-else's-computer.
I eventually convinced my company to just upgrade everyone to Windows 7 Ultimate so we could use BitLocker.
There are also a lot of other commercial centralized-disk-encryption solutions which we tried. BitLocker integrates the most seamlessly with windows, but if you don't want to pay for Ultimate/don't use Windows, try out the offerings by Symantec and Sophos.
Answer: It appears TrueCrypt will not natively permit consolidation of Rescue Disks.  Also, because TrueCrypt requires (and verifies) that you create a Rescue Disk during the system encryption setup process, there is no way to avoid having at least one Rescue Disk per system.
However, since TrueCrypt does conveniently put the Rescue Disk in an ISO format for you (and they're less than 2 MB apiece) a similar, though not quite so efficient, setup could be achieved by burning all the ISOs (as files) to one disk along with a copy of your favorite portable DVD burning software.  This way, you have one disk which has all the data needed to create a Rescue Disk for any of your TrueCrypt-protected system drives.

One Rescue Disk to rule them all?


Is there a way to hide and show the timeline in blender 2.8 series?

Question: Just like the way the tools hide with "T" or the "N" for the propeties. I know ctrl+space hides everything but the the one your cursor is, but sometimes i need to unhide just a especific tab.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Answer: The blender opens with the Layout Tab as default.
I think you are in the Layout Tab and there is a timeline of course. If you go to the Modeling Tab you will see that there are no timeline there.
This is the Layout Tab with timeline:

And this is the Modeling Tab without timeline:

If you don't see the Modeling Tab at the top you can press to the plus icon wich is at the top too. Then General -> Modeling.
I hope I could help :)
Comment: Yeah, i forgot that now it's different in blender and have different tabs for different purposes, i was hoping to work without worrying for pressing alt-a by accident or adding keyframes like sometimes happens to me, i'm kind of new
Answer: The Timeline is not part of the 3D Viewport, but it is a Editor Type with a window of its own. In the default start up file you can get rid of it by clicking on a bottom corner of the 3D Viewport and hold and drag it down over the Timeline.
(Alternatively you could also right click on the edge of two windows an select Join Areas)
Click and drag the corner back up to make the window appear again. Only now the window is another 3D Viewport so you'll have to change the Editor Type back to Timeline.
This for instance can be done to mouse-over a window and press (by default) Shift-F12 twice.
I'm not aware of any quicker way to do this : )
Answer: You both are right, there are tabs where the timeline is not necessary and is not part of the 3D viewport. i found and addon where you can open it like a floating window: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyOX8uB_HtQ


How to OTF export the font I created in Indyfont?

Question: I've created a custom made bullet and used the indyfont script to set up the export but I'm not able to click on the the OTF export button. I'm not sure what to do.
Answer: OTF Export will be greyed out if there's nothing on the glyphs pages that is valid for use in a font. It's not very clear in the Indyfont manual but the criteria seems to be:

Black fill, using only [Black] from the InDesign swatches (no other type of black)
Must have a fill. Outlines/strokes are ignored, only fills count
Not text (text within text... eep)
Must be on the (green) "Outline" layer

If the OTF Export button is greyed out, probably the artwork doesn't meet this criteria in some way.


Is it possible to have an image be picture-in-picture and just tell FCPX to keep it at its original size?

Question: By default, when I drop an image into the timeline, it fills the full width of the video. Which I don't want. Is it possible to say, "adjust yourself to your actual size"? And if so, how?
Answer: By "actual size" I suppose you want to conform your footage pixel to pixel instead of frame to frame. For this you will need to change Spatial Conform to None in the inspector.
The new default behavior in FCP is to scale your footage to either "fit" or "fill" the project's frame, the difference being only relevant when your footage doesn't have the same aspect as the project's. This conforming defines the actual 100% Scale in the Transform panel. So make sure the scale is also set to 100%.
You can find more information about Spatial Conform in it's documentation.
Comment: Welcome to Video Production on Stack Exchange.  Thanks for stepping up and answering this question.  If possible to add a few more details summarizing what Spatial Conform is, this would be an even more helpful answer.  I doubt the Apple link will go dead anytime soon, but it's nice to have a little detail in the answer so that the link is mostly just further reference.
Comment: Thanks for the warm welcome and the up vote AJ. I added some more explanation.


Set name of related list on contact

Question: I have Opportunities that link directly to a contact with a custom master detail field, and that link to a contact via a Contact Role. One Opportunity record type (general) will use the custom Master-detail field. The other record type (department) uses the contact role. This means on my contact that we have two related lists for Opportunities. I'm wondering if there way a way to rename only one of them, preferably the contact role one. I'd want to name it something like "Departments".
Answer: The documentation for renaming related lists can be found here.
As you wish to rename a standard object, it looks like this won't give you what you want because if you rename the Opportunity object to something else, then you will still have two Opportunity related lists on the contact page, just with a different name.
If there's a valid business reason, you could use contact record types and page layouts to just have 1 Opportunity related list.
Another approach, if you really wanted to, would be to grab the data from one object, and automatically insert it into a custom object, and you would have the autonomy to rename the custom object related list whatever you wished and display that on the contact page layout too. Process Builder should suffice here, you no coding required.
Answer: To rename related lists resulting from a custom relationship (Object Relationships Overview), we will need to locate the custom relationship field on the child object:

If the child object is a custom object: From Setup, go to Create > Objects > (Name of Object).
If the child object is a standard object: From Setup, go to Customize > (Name of Object) > fields.
Locate the custom lookup or master-detail field referencing the parent object.
Click the "Edit" link next to the relationship field.
Rename the "Related List Label".
Remember to "Save" when finished.

To rename related lists resulting from a standard relationship (Object Relationships Overview), such as Opportunities and Accounts, we will need to rename the child object:

From Setup, go to Customize > Tab Names and Labels > Rename Tabs and Labels
Click the "Edit" link next to the name of the child object.
Rename the Singular and Plural labels.
(Please note that only the Plural label is used to title related lists)
Remember to "Save" when finished.
Comment: Nicely done, and welcome to SFSE!
Comment: Unfortunately this doesn't quite do what I need.  As Andy pointed out, I am wanting to change the label for a standard object. Either way I will have two objects with the same name.
What I really want to do is to be able to rename the Contact Role relationship, but that's not an option, and is probably not something that will ever be an option.

Set name of related list on contact


Story Identification - someone with silver eye

Question: Science fiction story with a girl with silver eye, trying to find someone at some arcades... probably taken place at japan... something involves artificial organs... a teenager programmer staying at the rooftop of a building in the city...
Comment: Can you provide any more details surrounding this story, perhaps the year do you think it was made?  Where did you read/watch it?
Comment: What is this, a book, a short-story, a film or a cartoon?
Answer: This very much looks to be William Gibson's Neuromancer:
Japan
Most of Gibson's stories take place in Japan, or have a Japanese link. Neuromancer starts off in Chiba City, a suburb of Tokyo.
Girl with Silver Eyes
Here's the description of Molly Millions, one of the main protagonists:

She shook her head. He realized that the glasses were surgically inset, sealing her sockets. The silver lenses seemed to grow from smooth pale skin above her cheekbones, framed by dark hair cut in a rough shag.

Searching in an Arcade
Near the start of the novel, Case, the main protagonist, is looking for Linda, his girlfriend, whom he met at an arcade:

He'd found her, one rainy night, in an arcade. Under bright ghosts burning through a blue haze of cigarette smoke, holograms of Wizard's Castle, Tank War Europa, the New York skyline.... And now he remembered her that way, her face bathed in restless laser light, features reduced to a code: her cheekbones flaring scarlet as Wizard's Castle burned,
  forehead drenched with azure when Munich fell to the Tank War, mouth touched with hot gold as a gliding cursor struck sparks from the wall of a skyscraper canyon.

Artificial Organs
Case is a hacker, but starts the novel off with his nervous system shot, unable to connect to the Matrix. He is repaired by private surgeons, which included extensive neurosurgery and a new, artifical pancreas, which had the (unfortunate for Case) property of making most drugs ineffective.
Rooftop Hacking
After Case is fixed up, neurologically, he's recovering in a loft in an industrial building, high above the Sprawl, an American city, and is given a shiny new cyberspace deck to go online with. He's no teenager, but it seems close enough for your recollections.
Comment: Thanks! Neuromancer. I totally forget about the plot. Now I can read it again.