A word that defines something that is valuable for its lack of function and productive value?

Question: I'm looking for a word that means "something valuable (intrinsically) because of its dysfunctional nature that makes it unnapealing for profit or production."
Comment: Sounds vaguely like a "blivet."
Comment: Difference is the one I need "has an instrinsic value," like art (not massive production art) but independent art which has no other function but to be itself and reveal meanings.
Comment: Such a weird question. Can't think of any word for this.
Comment: Please tell me why someone would pay for such a thing.  Once you tell me a reason I will say that that is it's function or purpose. Therefore anything that has value has a function otherwise it would have no value.
Comment: it doesn't follow nececessarily that that which has a function has value; just take a look at art. There is art that is not made into massive production for commerce and holds a value of its own. I don't want this to be marketable; I want the opposite; I want it to be purposeless that in this functionlessless it finds its true value. Yet it is true that there are art forms which start from function and adapt form to the end of the particular.
Comment: Are you looking for something that is a novelty? If I understand the question, then this is my best answer for you.
Answer: Sounds like you're putting

form over function
the design of something is given precedence over that thing's ability to get work done.
bloggingisaresponsibility

This is in contrast to

form following function
a principle associated with modernist architecture and industrial design in the 20th century. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose.
wikipedia

This never ending artistic debate centers around the fact that having a form can be an objects function.  Ignore that and you can argue either side of this.  Acknowledge it and this becomes a distinction without a difference.
Comment: Yes, true; this is an Adornian point of view on the value of art when centering on form and not on function; for independent art should be dysfunctional, for only in its "functionlessness" can it fullfill its lack of purpose. I need a word, for a novel I'm writing, that can coin a form of art that focuses on form as an eye opener on a cultural aspect, and not merely on the production aspect or a blended one.
Comment: Never heard of Adornian.  Google isn't being helpful either.  I have, however, heard a song lyric that goes, "You cannot go against nature, because going against nature is part of nature too".
Comment: Nice one a conflictive sentence out of conflict itself. But, is our nature, in this case to produce independent art? or to appeal to the masses? I'll probably end up coining a corny term like "Formians" and "Functionalists" for the other lot, for these particular groups of artists in my novel. lol.
Answer: From OP's comment

should be dysfunctional, for only in its "functionlessness" can it fullfill its lack of purpose

Consider:

kitch
kitch
Some questions to ask yourself when wondering if something is kitch are:

"Is it tacky?"
"Does it serve any practical purpose?" and finally
"Does it devalue someone or something that is extremely famous or valued?"

If the answers to these questions are: "yes, no, yes," then it is probably kitch.
urbandictionary: kitch

Being the pain in the butt that I am I would argue that any such things practical purpose is to make people stare at it and wonder what its purpose is.
That isn't to say I ascribe to form over function or form following function.  I think the two are in a never ending dead lock with neither being the beginning or the end.
I also think kitschy knick knacks are a fun way to annoy people.
Comment: (Kitch) Kitsch - "A form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style." This defenition suits it great! I think I will call this group of Artists the Kitsch. It even has a debasing air to it; sounds powerful as denigration coming from an opposing Vanguard artist "You call that art? you lousy Kitsch!"


How to do automatic card authorization during checkout process?

Question: I have a website that uses Drupal Commerce, we use Authorize.net for authorization and use AcceptJS as a plugin. When you put in the credit card information, it checks with Auth to make sure that you're using a real credit card and saves it as a payment method without authorizing the actual value. It gets saved in Auth, as well as the commerce_payment_methods table with a remote_id for Auth. Currently in our workflow, after you submit your order, in Commerce->orders->payments, you have to add the payment and manually authorize/capture the amount. I want it to automatically authorize the amount when you finalize checkout, however I'm running into difficulty figuring out where and how I do this. I know it must be something simple. Can anyone help?
Answer: Is this a Drupal 7 or a Drupal 8 site? That will impact the admin URL as noted below:
8: /admin/commerce/config/payment-gateways/
7: /admin/commerce/config/payment-methods/
You will want to edit the Authorize payment method, and look for "Default credit card transaction type" - that setting should be "Authorization and capture" as opposed to "Authorization only"
Comment: I set it to Authorize and capture and it's still not happening. The payment method gets saved to Auth, but the payment itself doesn't get authorized.
Comment: Do you have any code customizations applied to checkout? It sounds like the PaymentProcess checkout pane isn't running at all, which isn't default behavior.
Answer: So I realized the Payment Process step was broken and it was doing everything leading up to that. It wound up being a subclassed PaymentInformation class that was set up improperly. I added a hook directing to the subclass and set up the subclass the correct way and it's all good now.


Does it matter if I kill Amodar or Lightning first?

Question: So, I have been fighting these guys for like a day and a half, and so far I have only captured Lightning. So here's my question, since its easier to kill Amodar first, what if  I get him first then Lightning? Does the tamable monster depend on which one I kill last or doesn't it matter?
Comment: @Fredy31 This is referring to the Coliseum DLC, which has no bearing on the plot at all.
Comment: Oh, thanks.

I played XIII-1 and was thinking "WHAT? You kill Lighting in the XIII-2??? OMG SPOILER" but if you say so, that's means that the story has not been spoiled. For me, that is.
Comment: @Fredy31 Like a bad Sci-Fi plot, time paradoxes are a relentless deus ex machina in FF13-2, allowing you to defeat Lightning in the coliseum without actually affecting anything at all.
Comment: Anyway to hide this as Spoiler?
Answer: I killed Lightning first both times just because that guy is an absolute tank and got both of them. Helps if you have that mog extra to make turning enemies to crystal easier.
Answer: I killed Amodar and received his crystal first. It does not matter which order you kill them in. Personally I found the battle easier killing Amodar first because he can cause a lot of status ailments.
Answer: Kill Amodar first if you want Lightning's crystal vice versa for Amodar's.
Answer: I have reason to believe that by killing one of them first, you negate the possibility of retrieving his/her crystal/rare item. This aroused my suspicion when I was desperately trying to get Lightning's crystal and item. I always destroyed Amodar last, and kept on getting HIS things, so I decided to finish him off FIRST and right off the bat I received both Lightning's crystal and item.
Of course it must also help to be on Normal like I was, and this is just a hunch.
Comment: Considering the other answers already posted above, I feel that the order doesn't matter.
Comment: Monster crystal acquisition does not depend on the order in which you kill them: it's highly unlikely the mechanics are different for this specific battle.
Comment: I suppose that the odds just decided to favor getting my crystal the first time I decided to switch to killing Amodar first. Like I said, it was just a hunch, and no form of Internet research would have helped me speak otherwise, to be sure.


I have wrong header height when I'm logget Wordpress

Question: I have my own wordpres template where I have a header consisting of two parts and how scrolling the header is scraping up and leaving only the menu..the problem is that when i'm crawled in WordPress the header height is different than when i'm not logged in and i do not know what is cause That's why somebody had a similar case? I need help and I will be grateful for any tips.
enter image description here
Comment: Have you checked that the admin-menu is not interfering with the rest of the layout of the page? Because that layout-wise on a standard installation would be the only difference between beeing logged in or not.
Answer: Try putting the header in h1 tag and than:

h1 {
  font-size: 40;
}

My Header


What did 'bookseller' cover as an occupation on British census documents during Victorian times?

Question: I have been researching some of my husband's ancestors who lived in the poorest parts of Liverpool during the second part of the 19th century. Two of his female relatives who had been widowed turned to bookselling to make a living. The trouble is I suspect that these women were illiterate, I know for certain that the daughter of one of them was. Were they really selling books or was "bookseller" a euphemism for some shadier activity?
Comment: In poorer less literate areas, it seems to me books would have been heavily marketed with the narrative of "Encourage your family to read". I remember in the 1950s and 60s (long after literacy had become universal) there were a lot of encyclopaedia salesmen - trying to persuade parents of children who, perhaps had not got into grammar schools and who could not have afforded private education, to buy a set of highly priced Brittanica's - on easy payments terms, of course. "Encyclopaedia salesman" became a sort of a euphemism for "unemployed". (Think Avon, think Tupperware).
Comment: I don't think you have to be literate to sell books, though I'm sure it helps. Here in the Philippines, you can find people selling books in English who can barely speak the language.
Comment: Intriguing question.  Can anyone find _any_ examples of illiterate booksellers?  That might help to narrow the research.
Comment: While I've never met a car salesperson who couldn't drive, I'm sure there are plenty of aircraft sales representatives who don't have their own pilot's license.
Comment: Are there any historical instances of "bookie" (dealer in gambling bets) being called "bookseller"?
Comment: @MCW Not illiterate, but [Matej Hrebenda](https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matej_Hrebenda) was blind, and a successful bookseller (of "normal" books, not Braille or something)
Comment: I would have thought **some** level of literacy required to sell books, so you don't give someone Dickens when they've asked for Wilkie Collins! Could it be a cover for extra-curricular activities in the back room?
Comment: @MCW There appear to be multiple illiterate booksellers in India for some reason:

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/on-campus/The-bookseller-who-cannot-read/article20591460.ece

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq-Pllb2-OI
Answer: The job description of Bookseller in England was defined from 1800-1802 as "proprietor of circulating library" (see bookhistory.blogspot.com, [Exeter Working Papers in Book History] by Ian Maxted)

"Circulating libraries were commercial enterprises that rented books to patrons, typically for an annual or quarterly fee. Developing out of informal arrangements for renting books by a handful of booksellers during the later seventeenth century, these businesses flourished from the 1740s (when the term "circulating library" and trade practices became standard) into the mid-twentieth century. Circulating libraries played a major role in creating the modern popular culture of reading, in part by making books affordable to a wider spectrum of the public, but more importantly by increasing the number of books any single reader could afford to read. Between the 1740s and 1840s circulating libraries also contributed significantly to the production of books, with proprietors of the largest libraries consistently ranking among the most prolific publishers of their day, especially when it came to novels." Oxfordreference.com

In 19th century London, the Statute of Anne (Copyright Act of 1710) afforded independent Authors & Publishers the legal right to exclusively sell & publish their registered literary works.


Cannot Find Job Associated Active Email Notifications

Question: We have a email notification going via our SQL Server however I cannot find any job or setting associated with it. Its definitely the correct server and I am logged in as admin. The email is sent via the email operator as setup on the associated server. The email is definitely sent from the SQL server in question as when I query the msdb in the sysemail_mailitems the email the recipients received definitely exists as shown in the screenshot below. All we want to do is change the recipients for the notification but only if we knew where....
Answer: It is probably either coming from a job or within a stored procedure somewhere. If it's a stored procedure, then after you find it, use the job search from below to look for the job calling that sp.
<code>
---- Search Job Steps
SELECT
J.name AS JobName,
JS.step_name AS StepName,
JS.step_id AS StepNumber,
JS.command

FROM
msdb.dbo.sysjobs J
INNER JOIN msdb.dbo.sysjobsteps JS
ON J.job_id = JS.job_id

WHERE
JS.command LIKE '%XXXXXX%'

---- Search Stored Procs, might want to loop through all databases

USE XXXXX

SELECT
DB_NAME() AS DatabaseName,
SCHEMA_NAME(O.schema_id) AS SchemaName
O.name AS SPName,
MO.definition AS SPDefinition

FROM
sys.sql_modules MO
INNER JOIN sys.objects O
ON MO.object_id = O.object_id

WHERE
MO.definition LIKE '%XXXXXX%'
</code>
Replace the WHERE clause with a short bit from the email itself that you have confidence would be in the body of the definition. It's not obvious from your post if some of that content in the email is dynamic or the same every time.
Comment: Thank you the first query gave it away. I inherited this system from someone else and they have stored procedures all over the place. The job called on a stored procedure which had the code for the email notifications. Thanks a lot.
Answer: In addition to BCM's answer:
The subject of the mail is an indicator if it comes from a job. Just compare it to an email that you know comes from a scheduled job.
Also, if it isn't Agent, then it it can be a module (stored procedure, trigger).
But it  can also be SQL (sp_send_dbmail) submitted from a client. In that case, you would have to try to capture it through a trace. OTOH, since it is initiated outside SQL Server, you would have to change the recipient outside SQL Server as well.
Comment: Thanks for the tip.


Why does Spain have enclaves in Morocco?

Question: As in, why are they Spanish territory instead of Moroccan?
Comment: welcome to History.SE. However, you should do some prior research before you ask questions here. Try to find out: - When did Ceuta and Melilla become Spanish? Who owned it before? What did "Spanish" mean at the time?
- What is the history of the surrounding areas? What was the last time that those two exclaves had been part of Morocco? Is it accurate to speak of "Morocco" at that time?
- Who contolled Morocco a century ago, and how did that control end? What was the population of Ceuta and Melilla at the time? I think the answer to your question boils down to "typical messy European history."
Comment: Your comments are just semantics. I thought the way I phrased the question  implied I was asking "why do  Ceuta and Melilla belong to Spain and not Morocco" present tense.  But you bring up an interesting point.I have never seen a question here that couldn't be answered with a google search, but saying that kind of defeats the purpose of having this site. Please in the future just answer my damn question instead of being obtuse.
Comment: I wasn't quite sure if this was a homework assignment. So I wanted to help (and explain the close votes) without doing the homework. Sorry if that came across wrong.
Comment: It's alright. I'm sorry that  I got mad
Comment: If Spain has those enclaves, they are **not** in Morocco, right?
Answer: Long story short:

Ceuta was conquered by Portugal in 1415, and was "transferred" to Spain in 1640. Melilla was "acquired" in 1497. Other minor places like Vélez de la Gomera was conquered in 1508. So most of these places were conquered during the Age of Discovery, just at the beginning of European colonialism.
The population of these places are largely of ethnic Spanish descent, although there are also large old minorities of people of Arabs/Berber extraction, Sephardic Jews, and Indians (from India).
Ceuta was conquered by the Visigoths already in 675, but c. 710 it became the foothold from where the Arab conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was launched.

I can be wrong, but as a Spanish citizen I would say that Spain retains these cities mostly because of their strategic value (cf. Gibraltar), and because there is also some psychological involvement (cf. Serbs and Kosovo).


Cloning Node with Webform and Conditional Confirmation Message

Question: I currently have an "Event" content type with a webform attached to each event. The webforms use the conditional confirmation message module to display different confirmation messages depending on the input to the form. I'm using the node clone module to duplicate events and everything works well expect that the conditional confirmation messages are not being duplicated. What should I do so that every part of the event node (including the conditional confirmation messages) is duplicated?
Comment: The conditional confirmation messages seems to be not part of the node (field or node object property) so It won't be considered part of the node and not duplicated
Comment: Would it be possible in any way to achieve the desired behavior?
Answer: The node clone module gives you the tools to make this happen. You can have a custom module make use of hook_node_clone_alter then use the Webform Conditional Confirmation module's functions to load & copy the original messages, store them temporarily, then save them upon saving the newly cloned node.
Something like this...
function MYMODULE_clone_node_alter(&$node, $context) {
  $messages = webform_conditional_confirmation_message_load($node->clone_from_original_nid);
  foreach($messages as $msg_id => $message) {
    //@TODO: Store in some temporary spot until cloned node is saved
  }
}

function MYMODULE_node_update($node) {
  //@TODO: Retrieve messages from temp location and place into $messages
  foreach($messages as $msg_id => $message) {
    $message->nid = $node->nid;
    webform_conditional_confirmation_message_save($message);
  }
}


How to run Two Wordpress blogs with different themes and with single database and same content

Question: How do you run two Wordpress blogs with different themes using one database where the content remains the same in both sites? The issue that I am getting is at the Domain mapping in both blogs.
Comment: If you have multisite installed as per your question tag? then this should work just like what your asking. If multisite is not working can you be clearer on the issue and provide an example?
Comment: @Aryan Please use same name for the theme then you can see the different theme in different domain like if your site on domain1 have active theme is theme1 then change the domain2 active theme name to theme one there are 2-3 steps you need to perform to change the theme name
Comment: How can I customize the post status
Comment: Does this answer your question? [WP Multisite: load content from site X on site Y](https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/65560/wp-multisite-load-content-from-site-x-on-site-y)
Comment: More solutions: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32523635/two-wordpress-sites-using-diiferent-themes-on-the-same-database
Answer: I'll try to explain how it might be done, but not sure it will work:

Install 2nd website with single db (2 copies).

Create new table in your db. Call it wp_options2 and copy everything from wp_options into the new table

in second install in wp-config.php, before if ( !defined('ABSPATH') ) add
define( 'M7_OPTIONS_TABLE', 'wp_options2' );

in second install go to wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1054(for WP 5.6) and add this code:
if ( isset( $tables['options'] ) && defined( 'M7_OPTIONS_TABLE' ) )
    $tables['options'] = M7_OPTIONS_TABLE;

(This code should be added to the public function tables function, before if ( isset( $tables['users'] ) && defined( 'CUSTOM_USER_TABLE' ) ) )

Now you should be able to change the theme, plugins atc. for the second theme, but all posts, taxonomies etc. will be doubled in both websites (wich is bad for seo btw.)
Should you run into problems with links on your second install, add:
define('WP_HOME','http://seccond_website.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','http://seccond_website.com');

in your wp-config.php file .....
but it wouldn't solve the problem if you were to create some post on the 1-st website, on the second website it would link to the first website...
I'll still post this answer, even though it's not correct (because of the problem described above).
As a solution you could create 2 separate installs with different $table_prefix and add an action to each move (save_post, save_taxonomies, save_postmeta etc.) to save from 1 db to the other, but changing the necessary links.
Or you could create a cron job on the second install to parse every post, page etc from the 1-st db to the 2-nd (since you have the access to both of them, it would be easy)
Answer: Not sure if it will be enough but this two plugins should give you most of what you want
Any hostname - change the content urls to reflect the domain in which the content was requested
Domain Theme - change the them according to the domain name.
I haven't tested any of them but it looks like even if they don't work you can get useful pieces of code from them.
Answer: If you have two separate WordPress installations (one per domain), you can define WP_SITEURL and WP_HOME in wp-config.php to force a specific address/hostname. Add this code to each wp-config.php:
define('WP_HOME','http://example.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','http://example.com');

And change example.com to the name of the domain in question.
Answer: Let me repeat your question in my words: you want two wordpress sites, using the same database and the same content. Just having a different theme and a different domain name?
That's duplicate content an google will rank both your sites badly for doing so.
I highly encourage you not to do so.
If you just want to share parts. Have a look at the switch_to_blog() function provided by WordPress multisite.
Comment: This answer was understandably downvoted. I upvoted it, bringing it back to a score of zero. Not because of the opinion expressed on what and what not to do, but because `switch_to_blog()` is useful information on where to start when attempting to share some content between sites. A couple of other useful puzzle pieces might be the filters `plugins_loaded` and `template_include`.
Comment: Thank you, yeah, todays me would probably give a way better answer. 6 1/2 years ago I was a WordPress rookie compared to today.

Though my point "dont't do it, google doesn't like it" is still valid, more than ever.

Unless someone has a precise plan of how to prevent this, it's still not a good idea to display content multiple times, no matter if the design changes or not.
Answer: You can change the theme based on the current domain like
function select_theme( $current_theme ) {
    if ( 'domain1.com' === $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']) {
        return 'domain1 theme name';
    } else {
        return 'domain2 theme name';
    }
}

add_filter( 'stylesheet', 'select_theme' );
add_filter( 'template', 'select_theme' );


Running Jupyter notebook on remote server with local files

Question: I would like to train my model faster and that's why would like to create a standalone remote machine with GPU support. The solution I am looking for is to have the data locally on my machine and to use the resources from the remote machine. Is this possible?
I am checking my project for example locally on my laptop. When I use some remote Jupiter notebook, then it needs the data also to be on the remote machine. But after the model is trained I would like to commit it in git from my local machine. How to make this?
Comment: Have you tried uploading the files onto dropbox and using wget command in your python script to download it?
Comment: What sort of virtual machine are you using? If you are using Google colab for example you can connect it to your drive and add data from your drive.
Comment: I don't use any virtual machine. I have my laptop and have a personal computer. I want to connect them to use the power of my personal computer for GPU.
Comment: What do you mean by a remote machine ?
Comment: my personal computer is a remote machine for my laptop.
Comment: In that case, you'll need to transfer the data to your personal computer or use a common drive
Comment: No, this is not a clean solution. I need to try to mount somehow my local drive or sync the files automatically on changes.
Answer: It is possible but not recommended. Storing data locally and performing compute on the remote server has the potential for increasing training time.
Two possible scenarios:

All data can be loaded into memory on the remote server. That would require a single trip between local and remote.

If data can not be loaded into memory at the same time, then there will have be repeated trips between local and remote. That transfer latency would greatly slow down training.

A better option would be to provision a remote server with enough disk space to store all of the data. Compress the data. Move all of the compressed data to the remote server. Uncompress the data. Then train the model.


LAG on one managed switch

Question: This may be a dumb question, but is there any benefit of using LAG on only one managed switch with 2 VLAN's? By default my switch, Netgear GS724T, assigns 8 LAG's to the default VLAN. I am using VLAN1 and a created VLAN20 that I am running a different subnet on each of these VLANs.
Should I just disable the LAG's altogether? By the way all ports are untagged.
Purpose here is to use one switch with two seperate subnets (192.168.1.x and 192.168.20.x).
Answer: Assuming you are talking about Link Aggregation Groups (please specify, because "LAG" can have many meanings), they only make sense when connecting two switches together, or two network ports on the same server, or in any other situation when you want to treat two physical links as a single logical one (this is known as "Etherchannel" in Cisco land).
This is useful for link aggregation, load balancing and failover; but it really doesn't make any sense if you only have one switch and you are only connecting single-NIC servers to it.
Comment: Think I figured this out. Use teaming on the Windows OS side. Easy since I am running Server 2012. Then my guess is I just setup the two ports on the switch on the same LAG.
Comment: Yes, I was referring to Link Aggregation Groups. I figured with only one switch, there was no need for LAG. I will turn it off. Thanks
Comment: I was just thinking this over. If I use two NIC ports from the same server for the purpose of failover. How does this get setup on the server side? I cannot have two NICs with the same IP.
Comment: Exactly. You can setup a link aggregation on the server, and a LAG on the switch.

LAG on one managed switch


Assessees or assessed patient?

Question: I am writing a report about an assessment, the subject of the assessment is a large group of patients and their health. The report refers to the patients repeatedly. my question is : how proper/common/fitting/understood the word "assessee" would be ?
Comment: Even though it might conjure up undesirable associations, _assessees_ seems (to my surprise) the more idiomatic choice [[GoogleNgrams](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=assessed+patients%2Cassessees&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cassessed%20patients%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cassessees%3B%2Cc0)].
Answer: Better terms would be "participants" or "subjects." Even "evaluees" is used more commonly than "assessees," but it would not be the optimal term (try searching for each of these terms on pubmed.gov for a very crude gauge of the comparative numbers). (I do not think I had ever encountered "assessees" before reading the question here.) Note that "participants" somewhat implies that participation in the assessment was voluntary, whereas "subjects" does not carry that implication. (For example, it would be inappropriate to use "participants" in a report discussing an analysis of cadavers, but "subjects" could be used in such a report.)
Another option, if a single word is not required, would be to use a phrase such as "evaluated patients," "assessed patients," or "patients available for assessment."
Take a look at some of the reports available through the websites for the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the Health Survey for England, or the Cochrane systematic reviews organization for examples.
Answer: This is a personal opinion, but as a native English citizen, I would avoid a word like 'assessees' completely. I would use 'assessed patients' or, possibly better in my view, 'subjects'.

Assessees or assessed patient?


Dumbbell for arms with different strenght

Question: I had bone fracture in my right arm couple of years ago and it is not same in strength as left one. While doing exercise like bicep curl I find while I can take 10kg on left I can take only 7.5 on right. Is it okay to do different weight on two sides or I should keep pushing right arm for same weights?
Answer: I'd recommend working with whatever weight and rep thresholds the weaker arm can manage.  Doing different workouts for each will only increase the disparity between the two.  Eventually, the weaker one will catch up.
Since you body doesn't just work only that specific muscle, in isolation, in normal, non-dumbbell functioning, I'd think an imbalance between sides of the body could lead to other, unforeseen problems, but maybe I'm paranoid about that because I had a bit of scoliosis, as a youth, in part to an imbalance between development between the two sides.
Again, there may not be a detriment, but my own bias is towards relatively equal balance, when possible.


I cannot use Point entry into Graphical Modeler in QGIS

Question: I would like to use a Point entry to get the point coordinates  in the map to add in the network analysis as a start point.
I have added the Point entry into Graphical Modeler, I can click on the map but I doesn't get any coordenates.
When I use the analysis network tool "Shortest path (point to layer)" I haven't any problem.
Answer: This is probably due to an open bug where the Point Input does not work properly unless the model is run from the Processing Toolbox: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/31969


ISO how high is right at night

Question: My only camera is my cell phone which is a good one however the ISO only allows up to 800 when I've seen plenty higher on other cameras.  Is that a sufficient number to work with once evening falls or am i gonna want and need a much higher ISO if I'm intering contest here n there?
Comment: Is the underlying question "should I invest in a dedicated high ISO camera for serious lowlight photography"?
Comment: FYI: For any given sensor, a higher ISO setting will give you a noisier/grainier image. Bigger sensors give less noisy/grainy images than small sensors. Cell-phone cameras tend to have smaller sensors than serious photography cameras. They limit how high the ISO can go so that users won't complain about noisy/grainy images.
Comment: "Bigger sensors give less noisy images" only if you let them collect more light. For which they need a bigger lens...
Answer: This is up to you, if it works, it works... Unless it does not work.
This depends on the subject, on the situation, on if you turn on an additional light or not; if you are using candles or the bat-signal to illuminate your night scene. You could use a flash or not, you could need high speed for action, or you can create artistic looks with motion.
You could use noise reduction software, or leave the noise as texture.
There are newer sensors, newer cameras, and older ones too. Some high ISO on some cameras are just a marketing gimmick, some are really useful.
This is too broad. You need to decide.
Answer: The ISO equivalent, you see on digital cameras, is ruled by the chip actual pixel size, chip sensitivity and amplification.

Pixel size: The larger the pixel is, the more light it can capture at time. It also averages the noise over the pixel area.
Chip sensitivity: The more charge it can gain from a photon, the more sensitive it is and can handle low-light scenes.
Amplification: The charge collected from each pixel is considered a continuous value, for digital processing one need to convert it to integer values. Amplifying the signal one can cover the bit depth of the image file. High amplification results in high noise.

Regarding your question "Is ISO 800 enough?" we shall look slightly deeper. The brightness of the resulting image is ruled by four factors: Lighting, Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO equivalent.

Lighting: The brighter the scene, the more photons on the chip, the brighter the image.
Shutter speed: The longer the time, the more light captured, the brighter image. Limits are: the longest - seconds, the shortest - milliseconds.
Aperture: The more open aperture (lower F-number) the more light passing through the lens, the brighter the image. Limits are: Speed of the lens - the lowest possible F-number and the smallest hole the aperture can close.
ISO equivalent: The higher value the higher brightness increment per captured photon.

Putting this all together, the answer to your question is strongly dependent on what you want to do with the camera in the night.
For stills, like you show in the question, you don't need to care for the ISO that much. Set it low (100 - 200), set the aperture to get the focal depth as you want and fine-tune the brightness by the shutter.
In action photo, you cannot play with shutter - you need to take it as fast as possible - so your only option is to open the aperture wide and try to get the rest with ISO.
If your question is more like rackandboneman's comment, My advice is:

Get as much as you can from your actual camera. Learn to push it to its limits. Write down what you (would) like shooting (portraits, landscape, macro, sky,...) and if your camera is honestly the limiting factor You will know what camera to buy and why.

Don't expect that new camera will automatically lead to "better" photos. You will need to learn how to use it (it is the old good fight among Nikoneers and Canoneers who is "better"). When doing significant step-up like going from iPhone to entry DSLR/mirrorless, you will lose a significant help from filters, presets etc. You will be responsible for the result. And that is the reason many photographers love their old gear.
Answer: As another answer said, I think it's entirely up to you and what you want to achieve.
In particular if you want to make night scenes look like daylight or something approximating it, then you are going to need very high ISOs and either live with the noise or have a fairly expensive camera.
But if you want to make night scenes look like, well, night you really don't need that at all.  Instead you need to persuade your camera (or phone) that it should substantially underexpose (by its judgement) the scene so it looks mostly pretty dark.  And to do this you don't need enormously high ISOs.
As an example: I shoot mostly film, and I don't really use film with ISO above 400.  One of my favourite images was taken at night, hand-held, using ISO 400 film and a yellow filter, so with an effective ISO of 200.  Now I'm sure it's not a sharp as it could be, but I made a bunch of small prints of it which I sent as postcards to people: it's an image I'm actually quite proud of.
Answer: In night if you will use high ISO it will not  capture perfect picture that can be taken on phone.
You should  keep it to 100 or less and increase shutter speed and hold the phone still or use tripod.

ISO how high is right at night


Database modeling tool

Question: Do you know a free tool to model databases in uml?
Answer: Here is a link to a SourceForge project for UML/ERD modeling of databases:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dbuml/
Here is software that has a free community edition:
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/
Answer: Personally, I've always found that UML poorly handled designing databases. Entity-Relationship Diagrams always seem to better describe a database.
I would check out Open System Architect (OSA) at http://www.codebydesign.com/
Answer: UML class diagram is an object approach while data is not.
Omondo has done a try to use a database profile and synchronize the stereotypes with the java persistence annotations. It means that if you create a class diagram you also create java persistence in the code. You just need a good mapper to create your database later.
Answer: In fact, you could use a standard class diagram to model your database. I know it's not the same underlying philosophy but concepts in Extended ER models and in UML CD are quite similar.
True, if you want to explicitly model everying (like pks or unique identifiers) you´ll need to use a UML profile. However, if you are happy with using some conventions (like adding a surrogate pk for each table, deducing automatically the fks from the associations,...), then you can even skip the profile. For an example of this approach read this

Database modeling tool


What is the relation of guitar chords to actual notes in the measure?

Question: Often only 1 chord is played in an entire measure (sometimes more than 1 measure), but the sheet music may show a variety of notes other than the chords being played.
Comment: Are we talking about generic rock here?
Comment: A google search for harmonic rhythm may provide some good info.  For example some good stuff in here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_rhythm
Answer: TL;DR: In sheet music, chord symbols are not a harmonic analysis of the song. Chord symbols are a guideline for accompaniment. It says "accompany this song with these chords". It does not say "after a rigorous and thorough music-theoretical analysis it is hereby declared and guaranteed that the following chord symbols are a complete and correct view of which notes should be felt as so-called chord tones".
It's a multipurpose vehicle, and different writers and readers have different ideas of what should be done with chord symbols. Quite often, chord symbols are used to only deliver a rough approximation of essential harmonic changes. Sometimes, people try to use chord symbols very literally and try to squeeze all aspects of the music into them, but in my opinion this is not very practical. Chord symbols can also be used in music theory classes and in composition and arrangement work, for writing down and discussing chords in a theory-oriented way. But an actual song is not a theory class.
Perhaps in this particular case, the person who wrote the sheet music thought, "the guitarists reading this will only be able to play so many different things in a single bar, so let's keep it simple". And frankly, that's a good way to think. For pianists, it's easier to change chords very fast, but if the song is to be played by a guitar pop/rock group, writing fewer chord symbols works better. In my own experience, the arrangements that I've written sitting on the piano and for groups where I'm playing piano myself, tend to have too many chord symbols for a guitar rock oriented band. For a guitar-oriented accompaniment, one or at most two chord symbols per bar is about right, except maybe for special hooks. It's a choice and a trade-off: I need to think about what sort of band will be reading the music.
Compare the chord symbols and the notation: If you play from the chord symbols on the guitar, and a pianist plays from the notation, it still works, right? You could think that the additional notes not reflected in the chord symbols are just extra stuffing and texture. However, if the sheet music's notes don't go together with simple chords played from the chord symbols, then the sheet music wasn't done very well.
Like Supercat says in a comment: "Unfortunately, publishers seldom give any indication of how their chord symbols should be used", and this is so true. Too much is left for guesswork. If the written-out notes have a iv minor chord halfway through a bar, but the chord symbols only show a IV major chord for the whole bar, than that's just plain laziness and bad quality from the publisher.
As an interesting example of how chord symbols might be used, here's one bar from the written sheet music of the tune Paint The World by Chick Corea:

And on the recording the "E7" chord symbol is done e.g. like this: (1 minute 6 seconds into the video)

In the beginning of the song book, there's a two-page guide titled Use of Chord Symbols, Philosophy, where Chick Corea explains his principles for writing chord symbols and the reasoning behind the principles. For example, he writes:

I use chord symbols as a direct invitation to the player to improvise and add his own notes and embellishments. ...
I find it confusing to try to "write out" a voicing by only adding extra numbers and signs to the chord symbol itself. ...
I never include in the chord symbol altered notes that are in the written melody, (i.e. if there's a C♯ written in the melody and it's a G7 chord, I never add "♭5" to the symbol, as it's already written in the melody).

This of course demands the player to be able to read notation, which cannot be assumed in many other situations. But the point is, every song book should come with such a "how to read this" guide, but unfortunately too few do.
Comment: @RobertSoupe: I was thinking more of situations where a keyboard part might use a IV iv I progression but the chord symbols might simplify it to IV I.  In many places where a IV iv I would work, omitting the iv (holding the IV instead) would sound okay (albeit boring) if nobody plays the iv, but having one part play the iv while another holds the IV would sound bad.
Comment: Another thing to note is that guitar chord symbols may use a simplified harmony that would sound fine by itself, but not be incompatible with that of a keyboard part on the same page.  Unfortunately, publishers seldom give any indication of how their chord symbols should be used (e.g. if using both keyboard and guitar, have keyboard follow the melody and play a bass line using the chord symbols, rather than using the keyboard harmonization).
Comment: @supercat Indeed with Vivaldi you might often find that a harmony is meant to persist through different inversions without an explicit indication in the figured bass, e.g., E with 7 #3 followed by G# with no figures at all.
Answer: Let's look at an example of sheet music...

In that sample...

blue is for the guitar chords
green is for the vocal part
red is for a piano accompaniment

...the sheet music may show a variety of notes other than the chords being played

Yes. In the example, in the bar with the G7 guitar chord on beat 3 the vocal part has an A and the piano part has E and A and those notes are not part of the G7 chord.

What is the relation of guitar chords to actual notes in the measure?

First, let's point out the the preceding G chord is held over and played on beats 1 and 2 then the G7 is played on beat 3.
Those guitar chords match the basic harmony of the measure.
The E and A in the other parts which don't "match" the basic harmony are called non-chord tones.
There is a mix of chord tones and non-chord tones in the vocal and piano parts. Of course those non-chord tones are there because they are part of the original melody and part of the this particular piano accompaniment. The guitar part doesn't have any non-chord tones, because it isn't notation on staff, it's just short hand chord diagrams.
Here is the rub: sheet music like this isn't necessarily intended to be an arrangement for an exact performance. It's more like a condensed reference sheet. Chord diagrams are given for guitarists, because so many don't reach staff notation, most pianists who read will read staff, so that's given for piano, same applies to vocalists who read.
In actual performance players might deviate from what is actually notated in the sheet music. I don't think the intention with this common format of sheet music (vocal + piano staff + guitar chord diagrams) is meant to be interpreted to mean vocalist and pianists play strictly what is notation, but guitarists are free to improvise their part. The notation choices for the different parts are simply using what is most convenient for the different instruments. Many songbooks that use this format include piano parts that don't even exist in the original records of songs! This kind of sheet music is neither a definitive score like a symphonic score nor an authoritative transcription of a performance or recording.
How an actual performance is executed will depend a lot on the actual performers and instruments. A solo guitarist/singer might just strum basic chords or they could get fancy with finger picking and adding non-chord tones. A solo keyboardist/singer might play the notated piano part exactly, or they might just read the guitar chord diagrams and improvise the accompaniment. In a group setting with a guitarist and keyboardist the guitarist might simply strum while the keyboardist plays as written, sort of realizing the sheet music close to it's original design. Or, the two might work something out before hand that one or the other might play a more elaborate accompaniment while the other hangs back with a basic chord vamp.
Regardless of all those details, the guitar chord diagrams in most sheet music simply outline the basic harmony of the song.
Comment: I HAVE ASKED THIS QUESTION OF MORE THAN A FEW PEOPLE - HERE ARE THE ANSWERS  -  thanks very much!
Answer: One chord in one bar is a sort of compromise. Yes, every single note in that bar could have its own chord, but that, in the more listenable music, just makes things so busy that it's not listenable any more.
So, looking at the main notes in a bar - 1 and 3 in 4/4 time - chord tones often appear on those notes. In a bar of C, the notes C E or G may well be the 1st and 3rd beats of the bar. That's the basic idea of notes fitting chords - and chords fitting notes. Not always, mind, but quite often. It's been said that if they don't fit each other, obviously one of them is wrong!
That's not always the case, though. Take the 3rd bar of Moon River. In key C, it's an F bar, but has a B note as the main one, and in fact, the chord tones (A and F) play on the weaker part of the bar. But, it works. Writing that tune, most would have made that bar a G, or perhaps an Em chord for guitar. If they were working from what I said earlier. But it works.
Your best bet is to study many melodies, and see what chords are put to them. There is no hard and fast rule (it's music theory!), but you'll find that there are patterns of chord tones suggesting melody lines, and vice versa.
You can also try re-harmonising simple songs, and taking a chord sequence, putting a different melody over it. Jazzers make a living doing just that! So there is no magic formula, or scientific reasoning behind it. It will also depend on the thread of the melody, and the chords either side of the bar in question. So - no absolute reasons. Try, listen, like or throw out.
EDIT: you may be curious about which version (inversion!) of the chord stated may be played. If there's a chord window, usually, it shows the basic, simple, open version of that chord. But as a guitarist, you can play any inversion - a 3 string chord - the full six strings - or what you think fits best.And some will be a better fit than others. That's where experience comes in. Seeing a chord symbol, and going to the version of that chord that will sound the best.
Answer: Chords harmonize a melody - but that's not the same thing as every melody note being a chord tone.  You don't need to (or want to) change chords on every beat or fraction of a beat.
So choosing a chord/harmonizing a melody is a compromise.  You want most of the notes to be chord tones, and you want the ones that aren't chord tones (which are called non-harmonic tones) to make sense.
They tend to make sense when they immediately resolve to chord tones.  They might be passing tones, which move from a chord tone to another chord tone by step, or they might be neighbor tones, where a chord tone moves by step to a non-chord tone and then right back to the chord tone, or you might leap to a non-harmonic tone and then immediately resolve it to a chord tone by step in the opposite direction of the leap.  (That's not a comprehensive list of how you can handle non-harmonic tones, but they're the three most common events).
It's good if the chord tones are longer than the non-chord tones.  It's good if the strong beats are chord tones. Stuff that's short and happens between beats doesn't really have to be part of the chord.
If you harmonize enough melodies you'll get a feel for where chord changes should happen.  But in choosing what chord to use in your harmony you'll often find that you have many choices that work - because not every melody note needs to agree with the harmony.
Comment: This makes it seem a bit as if writing chord symbols was an exercise in theoretical thinking and analysis... chord tones and non-chord tones etc. In practice, the chord symbols are interpreted and acted upon by real people with various instruments and skill levels. Consider your target audience - the players. It's actually a very challenging compromise to make - if I write something, will it result in better performances and a better musical experience in practice. I've been trying to do this for decades and have yet to find a perfect compromise that would work in all situations. :)
Comment: @piiperi - setting a chord progression to a melody is an exercise in theoretical thinking (whether active or "internalized" through experience). To understand why all melody notes don't match the chord, you have to step back and look at how those chords were chosen in the first place - that's the perspective I was trying to give.


SQL Server 2008 R2 - Rebuild Log

Question: I'm trying to rebuild a log file for my database. I want to know if what is happening is normal. This is what I'm doing:
<code>use master
ALTER DATABASE my_db SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE;
ALTER DATABASE my_db REBUILD LOG ON (NAME=my_db,FILENAME='C:\MSSQL\Data\my_db_log.ldf')
ALTER DATABASE my_db SET MULTI_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE;
</code>
It's been running for over 30 mins now and the messages that are provided are a whole bunch of these:

Nonqualified transactions are being rolled back.
  Estimated rollback completion: 100%

Those messages continue to get produced, but is that normal when rebuilding a log?  Is the rebuild expected to take a long time when the previous log file was 147 GB?  Or is this in a continuous loop?
I didn't create the environment. The customer has very limited space available. The log file was causing disk space errors due to it continuously growing. The database for the log file has recovery set to Bulk_Logged.
The original log file was moved to a different server (not copied).  When I realized that was done, I had more space created and moved the file back onto this server.  However, that was not being recognized, so I had to rebuild one.
So the rollback is necessary. Is the rebuild actually taking place?  If I have a db backup scheduled for later tonight, should I pause that so the log file can continue to get rebuilt or should that be completed by then?  Remember, the original log was 147 GB.
After nearly 20 hours, it is still running.  It is in single user mode. Also, when I attempt to look at the properties of the database, I get denied because the database "is in transition". Technically, it's in Emergency mode.
On the actual server, it shows single user (person icon on the database).  From a remote server SSMS, it says Emergency, as it should be when rebuilding a log file.
Answer: According to your analysis, the only thing going on is the ROLLBACK from forever.  Although the command in question works just fine on my test computer, or it just might be a machine state problem.
Every once in a while, a SQL Server transaction will ROLLBACK for infinite time.   It is good to let it roll back if at all possible, but sometimes you have no choice but to (brace yourself) Restart the SQL Server service.  (If this is a production server, schedule the restart for an off time.

SQL Server 2008 R2 - Rebuild Log


MS Project Predecessor Path in Gantt Chart

Question: In MS Project 2010, is it possible to show the entire predecessor path driving the start of one specific task in a Gantt Chart?
Answer: Sadly not built-in to Project 2010.  It is in Project 2013 through the "Task Path" feature.  You can create your own Task Path Manually.
Add the Marked field (or a flag field) to the Gantt table.  Using the Task Inspector you can view the driving predecessor to the selected task.  Set the Marked field to "yes" for the task and "walk" you way backwards in the file using the predecessor hyperlink in the Task Inspector.  If you have used the Marked field, you can then apply a highlight filter to show all marked tasks.
If you want to add different colors to the actual Gantt bars you can accomplish this by creating a new bar style and setting the "Show for....tasks" to marked.  If you need more detailed information, post back and I'll go a bit deeper.
Answer: You can do this easily if the specific task you are interested in is in the critical path. A short video demonstrating how to do this is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2nfc3-7Cc8
Answer: Thanks for the answers.  I was able to view the path for a specific task (non-criticle path) by adding a text column and manually entering the unique ID for the task of interest in each of the prececessor's task lines, then filtering on that column & UID.  Kind of clunky and a little time consuming, but it got the results I was looking for.
"If you can't beat the system, trick it."
Comment: Great glad you found the work around.  This is a nice feature built into Project 2013.
Answer: I have used the freeware "trace" vba macro to perform this task. Available at: http://masamiki.com/docs/trace-task-dependencies.html


Where are the OpenVPN connection logs and configuration files?

Question: I have problem connecting to OpenVPN server. Where are OpenVPN log files and how do I find the connection details?
Comment: in general, you can found configuration files on `/etc/openvpn/` there was contained log files and your openVPN configuration
Comment: Here's the [documentation page](https://openvpn.net/vpn-server-resources/troubleshooting-client-vpn-tunnel-connectivity/) you need
Comment: Are you interested in troubleshooting the client, or the server? I think it's useful to ask for both, but it's just nice to know. (I know this is an old question)
Answer: If you are using the network manager plugin (network-manager-openvpn), look into /var/log/syslog
This should give you the last logs of openvpn:
$ grep VPN /var/log/syslog

Connection details are to be found in /etc/openvpn/
Comment: `grep vpn -i /var/log/syslog` is better to use.

grep is case-sensitive by default and in my case it was missing an important warning : `Jan 11 22:12:06 blablabla-nix nm-openvpn[3890]: WARNING: Your certificate has expired!`
Comment: This was good in 2014 and searches might lead to here. In 2021, many distros switched to systemd and the logs are accessible via journalctl, see https://askubuntu.com/questions/885383/where-are-network-manager-logs-16-04.
Comment: Could also be called `openvpnas.log` in `/var/log/`
Comment: even better, use `less` to browse easily in your terminal:
`grep -i VPN /var/log/syslog | less +G`
Answer: By default, in most distros, OpenVPN log output goes to the syslog, which is usually at /var/log/syslog
However, your config files can set the logfile location explicitly, e.g.:
log-append /var/log/openvpn.log

This works for both OpenVPN clients and servers. OpenVPN config files are usually located in /etc/openvpn and usually named *.conf. server.conf is canonical; client config filenames are usually like <client name/>.conf.
Answer: Log file location
On servers, OpenVPN is usually run as a system service, i.e., started with the
--daemon option. According to the OpenVPN man page, using the --daemon [progname]
option has the following effect:

Become  a daemon after all initialization functions are completed.  This
  option will cause all message and error output to be sent to the syslog file
  (such as /var/log/messages), except for the output of scripts and ifconfig
  commands, which will go to /dev/null unless otherwise redirected.  The
  syslog redirection occurs immediately at the point that --daemon is parsed
  on the command line even though the daemonization point occurs later.  If
  one  of  the --log options is present, it will supercede (sic) syslog
  redirection.

Use either of the --log file or --log-append file options if you want OpenVPN
messages to be logged to a different file. The --log option causes the
specified log file to be over-written each time the OpenVPN daemon starts
while the --log-append option adds new entries to the log file. These
options can also be set in the OpenVPN configuration file, e.g.,
log /var/log/openvpn.log

Verbosity
The --verb option can be used to set the log file verbosity from 0 (no
output except for fatal errors) to 11 (for maximum debugging information).
The man page specifies levels of 1 to 4 as the appropriate range for normal
usage. This behaviour can be set in the OpenVPN configuration file, e.g.,
verb 3

Comment: I changed to `verb 2` from the default 3, but there was no noticeable difference. I then `rm openvpn.log` thinking of restarting a fresh log. But openvpn.log didn't get created and I now can't find the logs. Where has the log gone to now? I created a new openvpn.log but it remained at size 0.
Comment: @OldGeezer That would best be asked as a new question where you can provide specific details about the configuration of your OpenVPN and OS logging (systemd/syslog) configuration.
Answer: Use the -l or --syslog argument calling openconnect. Now you can check with tail -f /var/log/syslog
Answer: For people from 2023 who googled this, here is how you can view OpenVPN logs in modern Ubuntu with systemd via journalctl:
sudo journalctl -u firstname.lastname@example.com

Then by pressing Shift + G you can scroll down to the most recent lines.
You can also activate follow mode by specifying -f to automatically scroll down as new entries come:
sudo journalctl -u email@example.com -f

Comment: I can confirm from 2024. Also `-e` makes it more comfortable
Answer: It is supposed to be in your home directory (home directory of the user whom executing it), eg ~. Running an ls -l command will perhaps reveal it. On the other hand, you may start openvpn with --debug option to capture what's happening realtime on the terminal.


Music recording

Question: I have an acoustic treble with a fishman electric amplification system. I want to know how to record audio from the treble with my computer. What cables and what software would I need for that?
Comment: What is an acoustic treble?
Comment: More than cables, probably an external sound card?  (I'm sure there is a similar question not so long ago, sure will find it, maybe you :)? )
Comment: @Tom - it's a possibility, but it's not easy to give definitive answers using guesswork.
Comment: @Tim Is an Colombian instrument
Comment: If you search this stack for `ASIO`, you will probably find everything you are looking for.
Answer: Depending on what kind of instrument it is and what kind of output technology is available, you will need an interface that allows you to connect to a computer. The instrument, if it has no output cables, can always be recorded using a microphone, much like you would see an acoustic guitar mic'd up. Then you would connect the microphones audio cable into the input on the interface.
In order to record to a computer you have to have an audio interface that allows you to interface with the computer and your musical instrument. In your case using the fishman electric amplification you can mic the output there or run a mic directly into an audio interface that allows you to connect to a computer via, USB, USB-C, Thunderbolt, or Firewire, etc... Then play directly into the mic and record the misc output using the interface.
Most interfaces come with a driver for the operating system you would be using; ie Windows, Mac OS... You will need to download the driver and install it to use the interface with the operating system you are using.
Many audio interfaces come with recording software as a package. Some have templates for recording and will automatically set up the audio IO or in/out routing for you if you have a popular audio interface.
My suggestion would be to go to your local music store and talk to someone in the audio recording department and tell them what your needs are and look at some recording options they have for sale...
In short you will need a third party audio interface to connect your acoustic instrument and/or amp to that can interface with a computer via whatever connectivity technology your computer has available, ie; USB, Firewire, Thunderbolt, etc...
Answer:
I have an acoustic treble...

Ok. Forget about the pickup system, acoustic instruments are generally best recorded with a microphone. Even relatively cheap condenser microphones can easily give a more natural sound than the most fancy pickups.
The easiest option for mic is to use a portable recorder with USB-interface option, or a USB microphone. This way you skip needing a dedicated audio interface, so it's not even more of an investment.
Though an audio interface is certainly a good investment regardless, and then you can connect both microphones and electric signals.

Music recording


CTRL J on my mirrored object is creating a duplicate

Question: For some reason, when I use Ctrl + J on my model selecting first the helmet (which is mirrored) and then the rest of the other parts of my model (which some of them are mirrored too), the result is my model being together yes, but also having a duplicate inside of it as well as the images below show. The first is before Ctrl + J, the second is the result.
Comment: I think the mirror modifiers on your objects might be shifting due to the main object your joining having a different origin point causing some deviations, perhaps try applying all the modifiers first before joining
Comment: so should i change the origin points in my objects or i should apply the mirror modifier in all of the objects? if so, how could i do it? i don't think applying the mirror modifier to objects that don't have it to be the solution, i mean, even objects that do have the mirror modifier are being duplicated.
Comment: Your mirror modifier objects get duplicated even if they get applied by themselves? Might need to check out the blend file to get a better idea of whats going. Could you add an image of an example objects modifiers?
Comment: If the object that you are joining all the other objects **to** has a modifier on it, all the other joined objects will inherit that modifier.  And please delete the duplicate question you asked first!
Comment: sorry if i'm violating some rule of blender forum, but why is that i need to delete the duplicate question? it's literally the problem i'm having, i need people to answer it because it's just the thing i need help solving.
Comment: Because some people might see the other question first and add a comment or answer to that while there's already an answer to this one. So you'll get fragmentation of comments and answers to an identical question.
Comment: Hello please don't ask twice the same question  ;)
Answer: I now know finally how i can solve this issue, and it's something that many people have already told me but i never knew or understood what was being told to me. Basically, all that it's needed to do is apply the mirror modifier on the object that it has to be mirrored, by going to the object that has the mirror modifier, and there will be an arrow close to an X on the tab of the mirror modifier applied. Then click on the arrow, click on "apply". And then, when you use the mirrored object as starting point when you want to join all the meshes together, the other objects will not encounter any problem. I would recommend applying the mirror modifier in all objects that do have it before joining meshes, just in case ;)
Comment: You can just hover the mouse over the modifier on the panel and hit Ctrl-A to apply it. In fact, if you join all the objects to one which has **no** modifier on it the modifiers which were on the other objects that you're joining to it will be removed without being applied.


How are satellite operating modes implemented?

Question: It is pretty simple to find documentation about satellite operating modes behaviour when trying to develop satellite onboard software (example of safe mode behaviour on wikipedia, or on researchgate), but implementations are commercial and it is difficult to find reliable information about the implementation details of satellite modes. Most notably, mode switching sequences and error handling are mission-critical details for which open information is very sparse.
Comment: *Welcome to Space!* Hopefully your question will be better received here. It might be a good idea to incorporate some of the information from your responses in comments back into the original post. Also you can look around this site to see if there are related questions and answers you might want to link to.
Comment: Your link simply refers to a "concept". As such the question is too broad.  There is no common satellite OS for which there is some well defined procedure or API to set "safe mode".  Each manufacturer will develop their own implementation of the concept.  If you have to ask the question, you are clearly not a satellite developer and as such why are you asking?  That is to say, if you need to know you would not need to ask - you'd have in-house experts, policies and procedures.  Whoever has voted to re-open had better have an answer ready, it still does not look answerable to me.
Comment: Your approach to the problem doesn't take into account the lot of students and small companies who try to open up the space environment for everyone (New Space !). This information is not reserved to specialized companies anymore, and I believe helping the spread of it is important. I understand this question cannot be answered by non-experts, but that's why we're here, isn't it ?
Comment: What I meant by "do what you like", is that if it is your hardware that you are protecting or controlling,it is for you to determine how that might be done.  There is no Windows for Satellites, and no standard architecture or platform.
Answer: No experience of satellites here, but I used to do real-time software development. I believe that the point is to discover "normal" from "abnormal". You would have several different "functions" that monitor parts or the whole system.
One typical solution for monitoring software is one or many watchdog timers. The software is supposed to reset the watchdog timer periodically. If too long time, the watchdog kicks in and forces the system into safe mode. The software will "trap" some hardware errors, maybe with help of a memory management unit (more or less complicated). One type of check might be to have "guard" areas in RAM initiated to known values and periodically checked. This might discover run-away software. ROM content can be checked periodically by background checksums monitoring.
There would be monitoring of different parts of the hardware. Memory will be checked by one or more parity bits. There will be monitoring of voltages, temperature, power usage and so on. Outside of limits might trigger safe mode. Complicated stuff, say a CPU, could be doubled and the two halves run the same software and compare the results. (I believe this was used in the engine F1 controller for the Saturn V).
And of course, when the software finds itself to be "lost in space" it could trigger safe mode. Losing track of position, direction or speed might be triggers. Safe mode might be different in different phases of the flight.
Comment: @Magix:  could be a variable. Or booting into a different set of software. Or killing the main computer and running on the backup hardwired logic. Or … well you do what it takes. There is some nice Reading here: https://history.nasa.gov/computers/contents.html
Comment: I understand. Would a mode be implemented using a global variable and the different modules would be handled based on its value ?


Why does Facebook return null end_time for event?

Question: When I query Facebook for the 256996217750754 eid using fql, it returns end_time as null:
SELECT eid, name, pic_small, pic_big, pic_square, pic, host, description, start_time, end_time, creator, update_time, location, venue, privacy from event where eid=256996217750754
returns:
...
"start_time": "2012-09-01T22:00:00-0400",
"end_time": null,
...

However, when I query the graph it returns accurate:
https://graph.facebook.com/256996217750754?access_token=<access_token>
returns:
...
start_time: "2012-09-01T22:00:00",
end_time: "2012-09-02T01:00:00",
...

Does anyone know why?
Answer: end_time is null when the event doesn't have the optional end time defined.
Moreover, when I query the graph for that event, I do not see end_time which is consistent with FQL returning null:
{
   "id": "256996217750754",
   "owner": {
      "name": "Buffalo Wings & Rings Morrisville, NC",
      "category": "Restaurant/cafe",
      "id": "136674116345739"
   },
   "name": "UFC 151 on Pay Per View - Jones vs. Henderson",
   "description": "Main Card -\nJones vs Henderson\nJohnson vs Castillo\nMizugaki vs Hougland\nSiver vs Yagin\nLineker vs Urushitani\nPrelims - \nCruickshank vs Martinez\nRoller vs Volkmann",
   "start_time": "2012-09-01T22:00:00-0400",
   "timezone": "America/New_York",
   "location": "Buffalo Wings & Rings Morrisville, NC",
   "venue": {
      "id": "136674116345739"
   },
   "privacy": "OPEN",
   "updated_time": "2012-08-02T14:37:21+0000"
}

I used:
https://graph.facebook.com/256996217750754?access_token=AAACEdEose...

Answer: I believe Donn Lee is partially correct. According to a Facebook developer article, the "end_time" is always defined for an event. However, this will be going away by October 30, 2012.
Notice the difference between Donn Lee's response from the graph and my own.
My response, which has "Events Timezone" disabled:
...
"start_time": "2012-09-01T22:00:00-0400",
"end_time": null,
...

Donn Lee's response, which likely has "Events Timezone" enabled:
...
"start_time": "2012-09-01T22:00:00-0400",
...

This setting can be found under "Migrations" on the "Advanced" settings page for a Facebook application:

Conclusion
It looks like I need to migrate my code to support Facebook's new event time conventions:

handle ISO-8601 with offsets
to expect no "end_time" if none is specified.


How long does Googlebot take to crawl a page?

Question: Googlebot crawls a certain number of pages daily, depending on the size of the site. However, how long does it take for a particular page. In other words, how many seconds or minutes does it spend on the current scanned page before it goes to the next page it will scan. Is there a set time for this? Or can we think of it as spending 10 seconds while scanning one page and 50 seconds depending on the page's resources? Does it have an average?
Comment: See this related question:  [For how long does the google bot wait after document ready before taking a snapshot of the webpage?](https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/82459/for-how-long-does-the-google-bot-wait-after-document-ready-before-taking-a-snaps)
Answer: Google aggressively caches resources so it can load pages faster than a regular browser. It also honours robots.txt, so it has to load fewer resources.
Tests I made show Googlebot waits about 5.5 seconds to render a page before taking its snapshot.
I also believe it has a very tall viewport to help it pick up content on pages that dynamically load content like with infinite scroll.
Comment: So, do the cache times we give to the files have an effect, or is Google doing the scanning from the cache itself?
Answer: Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. When you make changes to your site, you are at the mercy of Google searchers to detect those changes and make changes to the overall search index.
Googlebot only scans the first 15 MB of the content of a supported HTML file or text file. It extracts images, videos, CSS and JavaScript code and other resources from the HTML file separately. After 15 MB, Googlebot stops scanning the file and only considers the first 15 MB of its content when indexing. The file size limit applies to uncompressed data. Other restrictions may apply to other search engine crawlers.
Use the Google Ping function. The Ping function is to tell Google that there is new content on a given page. It has recently been replaced by Sitemap XML files, but Ping can still be a useful utility. When you publish new content or when edited content is updated, Ping Google about it and they will know to index it quickly.
Comment: Do you know if the Google Ping function is still available? I am trying to look for it, and this question was one of the first results.
Answer: Sometimes it takes several passes, especially for deleted pages. Google wants to make sure that the missing page has actually been deleted and is not just missing due to a server or site failure.
At the moment, Googlebot only scans the first 15 megabytes of the page and leaves it. So I think you should not think about how much time the bot passes a page, and you need to watch as he scans and how many pages are indexed after the bypass, these parameters is better to watch :)
Answer: The number of pages that Googlebot crawls daily depends on more than the size of the site.  It depends on:

The speed of your server. If you have a faster server Googlebot is willing to crawl more.
The size of your pages. Google will crawl more smaller pages or fewer large pages.
The reputation of each page on the site (in PageRank.)  The higher the PageRank of a page, the more often it gets re-crawled.
How often the content is updated. Frequently updated content will get re-crawled more often.

There are also multiple Googlebot crawl modes:

Fresh crawling -- Googlebot finds new pages on a site and crawls lots of them (up to several thousand.)
Return crawling -- Googlebot returns to check for updates on pages based on how popular the page is and how frequently it is updated.  This is the vast majority of crawling that Googlebot does.
Old URL crawling -- Googlebot batch checks URLs that have no reputation and haven't had content in some time (often years.)  Googlebot typically checks hundreds in a row, and usually in length order starting with the shortest.
Page rendering -- Googlebot downloads the JavaScript and CSS and applies it in a virtual browser.  This step may happen seconds, minutes, hours, or even days after the HTML for the page was crawled.

Googlebot is a huge distributed crawling system. It runs on hundreds of thousands of computers across multiple data centers. It is a mistake to think that Googlebot crawls your site page by page.  Rather:

Googlebot may crawl several pages from your site simultaneously.
Googlebot may crawl your important pages many times before some pages on your site get crawled at all.
Googlebot never stops crawling your site or starts over. Once your site is up, the crawling will be continuous. Each page gets revisited on its own schedule.

The amount of time that Google spends crawling a page is mostly going to be governed by the speed of your server and the size of your pages. Googlebot crawls each page as quickly as your site can serve it. If your server is fast enough to serve Googlebot everything it asks for, the crawl rate of your site will be limited by the size of your site and the PageRank of your pages.
Because Googlebot's crawling is so customized to your site, it doesn't make a lot of sense to talk about overall averages. The amount of crawling that Googlebot does will increase dramatically as you grow your site.


Cross-component Communication within a View (MVC)

Question: What are some best practices to orchestrate the interaction between complex components that are in your View?
I'm not talking about simple widgets like a combo box or a grid control but components that are made up of multiple widgets and that may deserve being unit tested on their own.
Would you:

Define abstract interfaces for each component, let the Controller hook them up via dependency injection to let them directly talk to one another via method calls? The components are therefore aware of other components' interfaces.
Define events that each component can fire and let the Controller directly hook them up via event listeners on one another? The components therefore have event handlers attached to other components' event sinks.
Define abstract interfaces for each component, define events that they can fire and let the Controller listen on all events and perform method calls on the interfaces? The components therefore are completely agnostic towards other components.
A classic application of the Observer pattern?
Anything else?

Update: I've stroke out "let the Controller ..." from #1-3 because it's not necessarily the Controller that has to do the routing/orchestration in those cases. It could be the View itself.
I've adopted method #3 in a recent project and I was happy with the decoupling and individual testability of the components. However, I have a feeling that I could streamline the wiring up of the components. In my case, the main View object has to add multiple event listeners on each component and then call methods on appropriate components, after sometimes doing some local processing (like talking with the Model). The code for adding the event handlers looks a bit messy and I'm particularly looking for a clean way of doing that.
Answer: Option #3 sounds like the Mediator pattern and is often the best approach when the update logic and communication between the objects is complex. It also has the added advantage of keeping the control logic and initialization centralized which tends to make tracing through and debugging these types of cases easier.
Answer: It sounds like you have the knowledge to answer your own question on this one but maybe just lack the confidence to dive in. Are you just exploring or are you stuck somewhere?
I would add that one extra thing you can do is place a component manager in between all of the objects to facilitate the communication. In the past when I've done something similar, the management object ended up just taking data from each component, merging the data together, and passing it along to the model as one big request. Each of my components had a delegate they would call and would pass data into and of course the implementation of that delegate was on my component manager.
I also let that manager object act as a proxy to the network I was waiting for the complexity to get higher before I adhered to SRP and made that responsibility its own class.
Basically everything you said sounds good. I'd recommend to just dive in and explore.


How do I interpret a Godox error code?

Question: My Godox flash is giving me a cryptic error code on the LCD, but I can't figure out what it means. Is there a table or something that tells me how to interpret the error code?
Answer: Not all the error codes are known, but in the TT685 II-C manual, I found the following table. With a little rewriting:

Code on LCD
Description

E1
A failure occurred with recycling the flash and it cannot fire. If restarting the flash doesn't clear the problem, it needs to be serviced

E2
The flash has overheated. Wait at least 10 minutes for it to cool down.

E3
The voltage across the bulb connectors is abnormally high. The flash needs to be serviced.

E9
You loaded an incompatible firmware image for a different flash. You need to reload an image specifically meant for your device.

For Sony users with the WL circle/slash error: see Why is my Godox V860 III-S showing a weird WL/circle symbol?

How do I interpret a Godox error code?


Resistor that changes resistance with clock input

Question: I am making a 555 a stable connected to a 4510 and 4511 and an led row. I need the led row to get faster and therefore the 555 astable to get faster, the more times a button is pushed. I am thinking a resistor that changes resistance with a clock input and a reset function but I am new to electronics so anything is appreciated! A video of the circuit so far is here: https:https://goo.gl/5luzl1, and data sheets for the 4510 (I can only post two links so no 4511 pinout) is here: https://goo.gl/1UMyLg. Any ideas? Thanks
Comment: No schematic means no answer. I'm too lazy to look up what 4510 and 4511 are, provide links to their datasheets. I have plenty of ideas but no clue about what you're doing.
Comment: @FakeMoustache 4510 and 4511 are standard 4000-series CMOS ICs. See: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/cd4510b.pdf http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/cd4511b.pdf
Comment: @FakeMoustache The 4510 is a BCD up/down counter and the 4511 is a BCD to 7-seg display decoder. None of that makes sense to me regarding "LED row". And I don't know what "get faster" means, either, quantitatively.
Comment: A 555 astable is connected to the clock of a 4510, which is connected to a 4511, 9 of the outputs of which are connected to nine LEDs, and the other output is connected to reset. This means that the first LED comes on for a split second, then goes off at the same time as the next LED comes on. 'Faster' means that I want each LED to be on for less time, making the whole cycle shorter. This can be done by altering the resistance of the 555 astable resistors, but I want it to happen the more times that the button is pressed.
Comment: Have a look at [DS1804](http://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/DS1804.pdf) ... Does not have a reset.
Answer: There are 'digipots' which are designed for a simple up-button/down-button type of interface (rather than SPI or I2C).
Unfortunately the ones which pop up in a quick search are packaged in small SMD footprints, but you could probably 'dead-bug' them if you're careful.
Digikey Search
Example:
Answer: You can use an analog multiplexer such as a 4051 to select one of 8 resistors using a 3-bit input that you can connect to a counter or whatever strikes your fancy.
If the resistances are relatively low then you might have to use a more expensive analog multiplexer, but the concept is the same.
Answer:
I am thinking a resistor that changes resistance with a clock input
  and a reset function

Your thinking is good, but how to convert that idea into a realizable circuit? Break it down into elementary functions. You will need:-

A counter with clock and reset inputs. If 10 steps are enough then a CD4510 would do the job, otherwise choose another IC which counts to the number of steps you want (eg. CD4024).
A method of switching in different resistor values from the outputs of your counter. One way to do that is with analog switches. The CD4066 has 4 switches which can be controlled from the four Q outputs of a CD4510.

As the count increases you want the 555 capacitor charging time to decrease, so the individual resistances should be switched into the timing circuit in parallel. Since the counter outputs are in binary, the resistors should be binary weighted, with eg. 100k switched in from Q1, 50k from Q2 etc., halving the resistance value for each 2^n counter output.

Clock and Reset pulses generated by push-buttons.

The reset circuit is obvious, just connect a push-button to VDD or GND (depending on whether the reset pulse should be high or low) with a pull up/down resistor to the opposite supply rail. To make the counter reset on power up, wire a small capacitor (eg. 100nF) across the push-button.
The clocking circuit is not so easy. mechanical switches bounce. If you use a simple push-button with pull up/down resistor, the counter may advance several counts each time you push the button. So you need some kind of debouncing circuit that guarantees only one clock pulse per button press. An SR latch would be ideal, except that it requires a switch with contacts for both up and down positions. Alternatively you could use an RC circuit to filter out the glitches, and a gate with Schmitt trigger input (eg. CD4093) to square up the output.


What does the math symbol $\propto$ mean?

Question: I came across this symbol in my engineering class and I have never seen it before. Anyone know this?
Comment: Well.. More like reading it in my book and came across it :)
Answer: As others have pointed out, this symbol means "is proportional to."  That is, $$a \propto b$$ means that there is some constant $C$ such that
$$a = Cb.$$
That being said, in the interests of "teaching a man to fish", it is worth pointing out that it is often possible to "reverse engineer" the meaning of specific mathematical symbols using DeTeXify.  In this case, drawing the mysterious symbol gives

Either \propto or \varpropto seems to give the correct symbol.  TeX often uses "var" to indicate a variation of a symbol (for example \epsilon $\epsilon$ vs \varepsilon $\varepsilon$; \theta $\theta$ vs \vartheta $\vartheta$), so "propto" seems like a reasonable guess as to what this symbol should be called.  Googling this term gives a large number of results, many of which are relevant.
Comment: This is awesome! I'll use this in the future if I come across more mystic symbols!
Comment: Glad I could be of use.  Honestly, DeTeXify is one of my favorite things on the interwebs.  There is also a free-to-use desktop version (you can pay something like 8 bucks to remove shareware reminders, if you desire---I think it is worth it to support a snazzy bit of hardware).
Answer: It typically means proportional to. Such that
If $$y=cx$$ for some constant $c$ we say
$$y\propto x$$ so that when x grows, y grows proportionally by the ratio $c$
Alternatively inverse proportionality is when
$$y=c\frac{1}{x}$$ so that when x gets smaller, y gets bigger proportionally by $c$
$$y\propto \frac{1}{x}$$ to my knowledge there isn't a symbol specifically for inverse proportionality and $$y\propto \frac{1}{x}$$ is used instead
Comment: Is there a symbol for inverse proportionality as well?
Comment: No I don't think so typically $$y\propto \frac{1}{x}$$ is used
Comment: This solved my question. Thanks
Answer: $\propto$ means "proportional to."
Answer: This symbol is often used, primarily in physics, to denote direct proportionality. so the RHS and LHS of your expression only differ by some scalar multiple.


Why can't I harness normal force?

Question: Lets say I have my palm flat with a book resting on top of it, and I have my feet on the ground. I extend my arm so that now it's kind of difficult to keep the book up. Why doesn't my hand just produce normal force on the book, cancelling out the force of gravity, and costing me no effort whatsoever?
Answer:
Why doesn't my hand just produce normal force on the book, cancelling out the force of gravity

It does. Since the book doesn't accelerate downwards, another force is compensating for the weight. That is the normal force from your hand.

and costing me no effort whatsoever?

You are right that the normal force does not require energy to withstand the weight. Like the normal force from a table. The only reason you feel tired is because of the work of muscles in your body. Their stretching and contractions are energy consuming. It's not the normal force that makes you tired, but rather what the body does to produce that normal force.
And now to your headline question:

Why can't I harness normal force?

Essentially, you can harness work while something is moving or exchanging heat. As said above, the normal force of any object does not require nor absorb energy to keep itself up. You could ask the same question about the weight from gravity. Why can't we harness energy from that? Because something must move or exchange heat for us to extract work. A book lying on the table is of no power-use in that state.
Answer: The force it needs to hold the book in its position is the same in both cases.
This forces is caused by gravity.
The book doesn't move (accelerate) which means there must be some other force, working against gravity. The sum of all forces is 0.

I extend my arm

And this is what makes the difference here. You are not just talking about your hand, but your entire arm. Newton is not enough. You also need Archimedes' torque to explain what's going on.
It's not just the sum of all forces that has to be 0, but additionally, the sum of all torques has to be 0. A torque is a force on a lever. That lever is your arm.
If you extend your arm, you extend the lever.
By extending the lever, the torque of the book increases (remember: the force remains the same). You have to compensate that bigger torque, because the sum of all torques has to be 0 if the book should not move. That's what makes holding the book with an extended arm more difficult.
Answer: Name has a really great answer, but I'm gonna try to clarify it a little. If you hold the book, its very unlikely that our arm is perfectly at 90 degrees, perpendicular to the ground. That means you will have to counteract the book's torque. But even if you held your arm perfectly at 90 degrees you would still get tired. It's not like the book is perfectly above your center of gravity, and that is also causing some torque. Also, think about all the joints in your body from the top of your arm to your foot, they are not all perfectly aligned so the muscles need to do work so that you don't collapse.
Answer: I haven't seen this mentioned yet: this normal force is in the context of classical mechanics (high-school or early university physics). That theory only deals with (perfectly) rigid bodies. So you can put a weight on a hypothetically perfectly rigid table and the table does not have to do any work to support it. The table doesn't compress even the tiniest bit. So in this model, work only happens when there's a displacement of the body.
Your body is not perfectly rigid. You could model it classically as rigid parts, connected by springs. In that case you'd see that, yes, you do need to input energy to the springs (muscles) in order to hold a pose when there's a weight on your hand. This more closely matches what you "feel". Holding up a weight takes effort, even if you're not moving the weight.
The core of the problem is modelling a non-rigid body as a rigid body. Same as spherical cows and point-mass planets.

Why can't I harness normal force?


Real world challenge: how to predict without training data

Question: For one campaign, I have X as independent variable, Y as dependent variable, i.e., X is income, Y is credit score. I can use X to predict Y with proper model. Now I want to know how Y would perform if I added one more independent variable Z into the model, i.e., age. The challenge is I don't have any data on Z, that is to say, I don't know the relationship between Y and Z for this campaign. But I do have data that illustrates the relationship between Y and Z for other campaigns. Is there any model that can be used to answer this question? Any thought is helpful.
Answer: A possible solution is to pick a set of Z data available from other campaigns and use it for this one. If you believe that there is a relationship between Y and Z and there are theoretically sound reasons for it, then the particular sample of Z you use is irrelevant, assuming the sample is large enough.
Now, if this bugs you and you don't want to pick a set of Z data arbitrarily, just use an average of all sets available.
Hope this helps,
Arman


User Has Hat For Something He Never Did Earn

Question: So here is a user name Frank Thornton who has a hat that said that he had earned a silver badge (Werewolf Hunter). I looked at his account and it said that he only has bronze badges, 9 to be exact. I can't seem to find the silver badge that he earned. So my question is how did he possibly have that hat with no silver badges? If he somehow did, where is that silver badge?
Comment: There is nothing wrong with being curious. That was just plain old rude to me.
Comment: Why would you even care about something like this? How does it matter to your life or the integrity of this site? Hats are nothing more than a lark, and even if he got a head that he "didn't deserve", all I can say is, what the heck. Have fun with it guy.
Answer: The hat was earned on Super User, not Stack Overflow:

You can always see where someone earned hats by clicking on the hats counter in their profile, then selecting individual hats.
They received a Notable Question badge (silver) on December 15 (the first day of the Winter Bash).
Hats, once earned, can be worn anywhere on the Stack Exchange network.


Add driver menu in osx

Question: I wanted to create an ik switch in blender, but I'm using a mac. At some point I have to right click on my influence bar under the bone constraints tab to add a driver, but the typical mac simulation of a right click (ctrl+left click) doesn't work.
Does anyone know how I can bring up the influence menu.
Thanks.
Answer: In order to bring up the influence menu to add drivers in OS X, press the command key + click. Make sure that your user preference is set to right click and tick on "emulate 3 button mouse".

Add driver menu in osx


How do i break these legs apart?

Question: So i trying to separate these two legs made from blocks. I want them to be able to move separately but NOT make them independent pieces. I tried using the rip tool but it told me that was an error. Here is a video of me trying to break them. https://webmshare.com/LPOVe
Answer: Try selecting the vertices along the middle part using shift, left click and then rip them using v, make sure to select both the back and front vertices
Comment: i already did that and it told me there was an error like i said in my original post
Comment: Make sure the all the faces were filled
Comment: i did. did you watch the webm?
Answer: reddit helped me https://www.reddit.com/r/blenderhelp/comments/7z5nrw/how_do_i_break_these_legs_apart/
Delete the faces in the middle then rip them. Hide vertices for one side at a time. then creates inside faces for each leg.

How do i break these legs apart?


Can I be in Australia on an ETA while my Subclass 457 in under review?

Question: My employer is going to be sponsoring me to transfer from Canada to Australia under a Subclass 457 visa and will be lodging it shortly. Before this even came to be, I was planning a trip to Australia in January and would be leaving for New Zealand in February. I had bought a one-way ticket to Sydney this past April, but still haven't purchased my ETA yet. My question is, can I still make this trip to AU under an ETA while my 457 is under review, or is that not permitted? Any help understanding this would be much appreciated.
Answer: Yes, you can.  However, it's usually not recommended, since an ETA is explicitly not a working visa and by lodging a 457 application you've stated that you want to work in Australia.  You can (and people have) overcome this with clear evidence that this is just a tourist trip (clear vacation plans, wedding invitations, what have you), but expect some extra scrutiny.  A one-way ticket is not going to be a great look for this.
The other potential issue is that if your 457 is issued while you're in Australia, your ETA will be cancelled, which is likely to cause some confusion on departure.  Again, nothing unsolvable, but expect some extra hassle.
All in all, I'd suggest waiting until the 457 is issued before you come over, and that way you're (almost) guaranteed to have no problems.