Why won't Mac recognize Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDD removed from GoFlex Home FreeAgent Case via SATA/USB

Question: I purchased a Seagate Goflex home 3TB NAS system in 2012 that I now need to remove files from. I have forgotten the password sadly so after much research decided to remove the drive from the Goflex case to connect to my MacBook Pro via SATA to USB cable or the Insignia dual hard drive docking station. But the Mac won't see the drive on either of these. So, now I have a Seagate Barracuda 3.5" SATA drive that I still can't access because my Mac doesn't see it. I'm at a loss. Any help would be much appreciated.
Comment: Do you hear the drive spin up? A USB-SATA cable might not be able to supply enough power to spin up a 3.5" HDD, so I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't spin up there. I'm not sure if your Insignia dock has a USB bus-powered mode for when you only have laptop SSDs in it, but I imagine if you put a 3.5" HDD in it, you need to make sure the dock is getting power via its wall-wart power adapter. Do you know if your GoFlex system did any kind of proprietary full disk encryption on the disk? I've seen that problem when moving a disk from an external USB enclosure to an internal SATA connection.
Comment: Thank you so much for your response!  Yes, I do hear the drive spinning when connected via USB. Both the USB-SATA cable connector and dock are getting power through AC adapters.  I don't know if the GoFlex has proprietary full disk encryption but it's certainly possible. Not knowing enough about it, I had hoped removing the Seagate drive from the case (GoFlex system) would fix this problem. There's much inaccurate advice out there that prompted me to do this.
Answer: did the goflex have more than one drive? if so its probably raid and I've never gotten a drive apart from its raid controller to mount. if it was a solo drive then encryption is your issue.
this article http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/214075en
says the following:
Encrypted backups can only be restored using the Instant Backup software and your password.  If the password is lost, then the backup cannot be restored.
if the NAS was just one drive and wasn't a backup but just naked files, i am not aware of how you could have encrypted the entire drive a la file vault so this would be a question for the seller. Poke around seagate's site to see if they have any low level disk utilities. i once got a WD SATA drive to read after everything else failed to mount or recover it using their HD utilities but i had to use a windows VM to do it. i would imagine you would start with putting it back in the go flex case with its controller and then try any seagate tools from there. Good luck.


20.713316 intel-rapl: no valid rapl domains found in package 0 error and Ubuntu /Xubuntu does not boot..message is permanent

Question: I have managed to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on my MAC OS the first time. I used Virtual Box. However, when I upgraded my Mac to Mac OS Sierra I was constantly receiving this message 20.713316 intel_rapl: no valid rapl domains in package 0.
I was told that this was a power problem that maybe my laptop's processeur is unable to run this OS. I have closed all applications during installment but to no avail.
I tried downloading Xubuntu - first time it worked wonders then I noticed I had some missing packages and features so I réinstalled it and again the same problem appeared.
Do you think I should upgrade my Ram and processor if possible?
I have read the messages concerning this error but my system does not boot to Xubuntu or Ubuntu unlike what other users have experienced.
To my knowledge I have followed the disk partitioning to the letter - my system runs on 1.6GHZ and has 4GB Ram and 256GB hard drive....so now I'm opting for Xubuntu because the latest version of Ubuntu requires at least 2GHZ processor.
I have allocated 1.7 GB for my virtual Ram and 10GB for my virtual hard drive..
I appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks.
Answer: I may have found a solution for this bug. Try to enable the function "Intel Virtualization Technology", on the BIOS SETUP. Step by step in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886cH0E-T7I


How do I add a second POV to a book which already has one main character?

Question: I've been writing a book lately and it's about how this guy starts a family and he has a daughter, but the story starts before she's born. How do I segue her POV into the story without it sounding forced and weird?
Comment: The first thing that sprang to mind here for me was the film Psycho.  It follows Mation's story until it abruptly ends, and picks up with another character's point of view.
Answer: Does an event signal this segue? A change of setting? I would say that the main concern would be to give us a reason why we are now seeing the story from her point of view and not from his. Think of other stories that use multiple POV. A Song of Ice and Fire, for example, uses multiple POV's because we need to know what is happening at different points of the seven kingdoms. In The Lord of the Rings we see the division of the Fellowship and that leads us to follow two groups. A closer example could be Star Wars. We start the prequels with Anakin as our lead but after his fall we move to his children, Luke and Leia, as our main POV, with Vader taking a secondary role.
Basically I think the main question is why are we going to need to now see the story from that POV. If you have that then it should be no problem and wont be weird or forced.
In a more practical and technical answer, you could use the names as chapter tittles or divide the book in sections where that signal this shift (name them after places, seasons, time, or just words that associate with the character who we are following).
Answer: 1st-person POV is all about character.
The POV character isn't just relating a bunch of events they "see" in front of them like a GoPro camera mounted on their hat. They are telling their version of what happened, what was experienced from their perspective. They focus on the things that are important to themselves. Other things, which are important to the reader and the other characters, might only be mentioned casually if at all.
Once you jump to the new character's POV, the reader will naturally be looking for familiar things they already know through the other character, except now the familiar will be seen from a whole new perspective. It doesn't matter what kind of story (spy novel, romance, family secrets) the reader will be looking for common elements described from both POV to act as "signposts" for how these characters overlap.
In your story the father and child share the same house so almost everything in the child's world is included in the father's. Almost everything will be a "signpost" so what you can do, at least at first, is see these familiar objects in radically new ways. That comfort toy that the father uses to keep her quiet, has a very different significance to the daughter.
As she gets a little older her POV will start to introduce play and imagination to her descriptions. She can still communicate factoids to the reader, but mostly she will filter everything through the screwball brain of a kid. She will be an unreliable narrator but in very obvious ways which communicate her personality (the stuffed animals are always afraid but she isn't, or two dolls are best friends but one isn't very nice). As she grows up, her POV will become more aware of the real world but she will always fail to understand some things. She is never omniscient, and her imagination is still there but she begins to learn what to say and not to say long before she understands why she shouldn't say certain things.
Meanwhile the father, who up to a certain point in the story has been the only voice, is automatically granted authority through his POV. Everything he says is accepted by the reader as factual unless proven otherwise. There is no reason to suspect he is also an unreliable narrator (everyone is) until the second POV appears. It's not necessarily that he is "wrong", but he isn't concerned with the fantasies in his daughter's head so much as he just needs her to stop crying and go back to bed.
As we learn he is not omniscient, we start to see his limitations as a human being. I don't know how long your story follows these two, but the day a child realizes their parent has limits is the first day that child starts to grow up and become independent. You have an opportunity to parallel the daughter's growing understanding of the world with the reader's growing understanding of the father character.
Don't worry whether readers will follow the POV shift, they are not stupid. You won't need to spell this out for them, the change in POV from an adult male to a little girl will be obvious the first time it happens. You don't need to warn people with chapter titles or elaborate printing tricks. Let the character tell what is important to them in their own voice.
Develop each character's Theory of Mind, especially their opinions of what the other is thinking because these are specifically things that the reader will be allowed to know when one character got it wrong. 1st-person POV can be rich in character personality, but it becomes even richer when we can compare the same events through two different POV. Set yourself this goal of telling the same story from two different characters from the start, decide early on what each character doesn't know – the things that will be omitted from their POV. When the reader has to do some brain work to reconcile conflicting accounts which are stated as fact, the characters begin to feel multi-dimensional as if they exist outside of the words in the story.


How can you put new songs from a computer to an apple device after you wiped the computer and it counts as a new one?

Question: I recently wiped my computer without backing it up because it was overwhelmed by viruses, and I just bought a new CD, which I planned to put on my iPad 2. The only problem is that the computer is now recognized as a new computer, and wants to erase all my non-apple bought content. Is there any way to avoid this?
Answer: You can use a product like iExplorer to first copy your music off of the iPad on to the computer.  Then use the copied music to rebuild iTunes and then when the music on the iPad gets wiped it won't matter as it will get replaced with what you copied to the computer and added to iTunes.


Intuition behind neural networks

Question: I'm really interested in understanding the intuition behind multilayer perceptrons and neural networks.
I'm following the Caltech video which is excellent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih5Mr93E-2c
More specifically it goes through an example at 30 mins in where a circle classifier is approximated by intersections of straight lines. More specifically consider the lines
$l1: y-x=1$,
$l2: y-x=-1$,
$l3: y+x=1$, and
$l4: y+x=-1$
Now suppose that i split each space into 2 depending on whether a co-ordinate point is above the line or not call these regions $h_{i}$ and $\overline{h}_{i}$ respectively. Then i know i want to classify positive if i'm in the square intersection of all 4-lines and so if the variable
$\overline{h}_{1}h_{2}\overline{h}_{3}h_{4}$ evaluates to true. They didn't go through this in the lecture but how would i represent this in a neural network like they did at around 27 mins in for the XOR problem?
Any help would be appreciated i really want to try and get a feel for breaking these problems down.
Answer: Okay, It's been a long time since I tried to build neural network on paper, but I think it would look something like this:
(the red lines have negative weight, the blue ones positive, the threshold-neurons take the inputs and output zero if the sum is 0 or less and 1 if it's positive)

Intuition behind neural networks


What is the best way to delete all contacts on the handset?

Question: I was trying to clean up the contacts on my Droid X and part of the process (after turning off sync) was to delete all contacts on the phone.  I didn't have many, so I manually deleted each on (read: tedious).  Is there a way to bulk delete contacts on a handset?
Answer: From the home screen hit the menu button and go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications. Make sure yo are in the "All Applications" tab so you see the system apps and choose "Contact Storage" and click "Clear Data".  This will delete all your contacts without disturbing anything else.
Comment: I know what you mean @Matt.  Some members of this SE site seem to have a poor idea of what a downvote should mean (I have gotten more than one downvote for an acceptable answer, all without a comment to explain what the problem is).
Comment: Nobody needs to validate their vote. In fact, it has been seen that people who *do* comment when they downvote are often attacked for it. I suppose downvotes are just more noticeable here because we're a fraction of the size of Stack Overflow or Super User.
Comment: (but this is a meta conversation, so it shouldn't be continued here)
Answer: You can delete this file if you have root: data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db
You could also try clearing data for Contacts Storage (Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications).
Finally a factory reset will do this, but you lose all your user apps and data as well.
Note: As per Ryan's comment, you'll need to shut off contact sync for your accounts if you don't want the contacts to be repopulated.
Comment: I think that you have it @matthew-read (I mention turning off sync above).  The goal of the exercise is to get a fresh sync
Comment: read: Have you tried the second method? It does not delete any contacts for me.
Comment: If you have sync setup, won't the contacts resync?
Comment: I could be misunderstanding the question, but I think he's just trying to clear everything off the phone so he can do a fresh sync.  So that should be OK.  But a valid point; I'll add a caveat to my answer.
Comment: @Matt I forgot that Contacts had a separate Contacts Storage.  +1 to your answer.
Answer: Well, there's this app, imaginatively entitled Delete Contacts

Interestingly, doesn't work on the Droid. There are also, of course, some other apps in the "Related" area that would appear to do the same thing.
Answer: My phone is rooted. First I made sure all of my data was correct at www.google.com/contacts . Then exported the data (.csv file) from google's web site to my home computer for safe storage. I used the app Titanium Backup to "Wipe data" for the apps Contacts 4.0.3 and Contacts Storage 4.0.3. Next, waited (approx 1 min) for my phone to re-sync with google and all of the contacts were restored. Finally, I went back into Titanium Backup and preformed a full back up for apps Contacts 4.0.3 and Contacts Storage 4.0.3.


WCF service act as proxy for external web service

Question: I'm working on developing proxy WCF service. So tasks that I have to achieve as part of this assignment are:

I have to capture headers and content from an incoming request (from
a web browser).
Construct a web request for external web service with headers and
content from incoming request.
Execute web request.
Capture headers/cookies/content form the Response of external web
service.
Construct response, add headers/cookies and send response back to
browser.

I'm able to manage 1, 2 , 3 and 4 with help of web and stackoverflow. But not find any solution for task 5.
Questions:

Response message from external web service is a json. How to send the same message in json format to web browser?
Response from external web service has 'set-cookie' header. How to add this to web browser response?

I'm new to WCF and Web Service world. Using System.Net.Http.HttpClient to make a call to external web service. Open to change it to any other client library to achieve tasks 1 to 5.
Code blocks:
IService1.cs
<code>    [OperationContract]
    [WebInvoke(Method = "POST",
        RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
        ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
       BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest,
        UriTemplate = "client/api")]
    string ProxyAPI(Stream inp);
</code>
Service1.cs
<code>    public string ProxyAPI(Stream contentStream)
    {
        // Task 1: Capture Headers and content
        // Task 2: Construct web request with headers and content from incoming request
        HttpClient proxyClient = new HttpClient();
        Uri extWSuri = new Uri("http://router.sdc.com:8090/service/api");
        proxyClient.BaseAddress = extWSuri;

        // get input reqquest headers and add to httpclient onject
        WebOperationContext current = WebOperationContext.Current;
        WebHeaderCollection headers = current.IncomingRequest.Headers;
        string[] headerKeys = headers.AllKeys;
        foreach (string keyStr in headerKeys)
        {
            if (keyStr.ToLower().Equals("host"))
            {
                proxyClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add(keyStr, "router.simplifydc.com:8080");
            }
            else if (!keyStr.ToLower().StartsWith("cont"))
            {
                proxyClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add(keyStr, headers.GetValues(keyStr));
            }
        }

        // get input content data
        StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(contentStream);
        string contentData = reader.ReadToEnd();
        reader.Close();

        // create content for httpclient request
        StringContent contentRequest = new StringContent(contentData, System.Text.Encoding.UTF8, "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");

        // Task 3: execute web request
        Task<HttpResponseMessage> responseTask = proxyClient.PostAsync(extWSuri, contentRequest);
        responseTask.Wait();

        // Task 4: Capture headers/cookies/contnet from web response
        HttpResponseMessage response = responseTask.Result;
        HttpResponseHeaders resHeaders = response.Headers;
        Task<string> contentTask = response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
        contentTask.Wait();
        string responseMsg = contentTask.Result;

        // Task 5: construct response for incoming web browser request
        // ?????????????
        return responseMsg;
    }
</code>
Answer: If I get it right, the client application for your WCF service is a web browser. This means that it expects an HTML document as a response right? In this case, I would suggest to avoid using a WCF service.
Why don't you use an ASP.NET page which forms the HTML to return? In your ASP.NET code behind, you could execute the 4 four steps you describe. In your 5th step, you would adjust the HTML to contain the data you got in the previous steps from the external web service.
You could always construct the HTML response using the WCF service, but I cannot see why. You could use and HTML DOM parser (like this to construct the HTML response programmatically, but this would not be my first approach.
If your page requires pure data and not HTML, your WCF service could return data in JSON format. As you can see, JSON is a simple string which could be very easy to construct. It depends on the data you want to return, but it could be very easy implemented either manually, or using some specific library like Json.NET. Then your UI application would parse JSON and display data accordingly.
Hope I helped!
Comment: Yes, client is a web browser. The actual story behind this is, we have a existing service which has both frontend UI and api service. Now we are taking out frontend UI to new service and keeping the api service untouched. So new frontend service need to talk to api service to get data to show to the user. We have to achieve this without doing changes to frontend UI code base as well as api service. So to achieve this, I'm adding proxy WCF service to the new frontend UI service.
Comment: What does your UI expect from the WCF service? HTML or another format of response?
Comment: UI expects data (not html) from WCF service in JSON format. Example: How many servers assigned to current logged-in user and what is the usage etc... UI is a single html file, add/remove forms dynamically and show the data from WCF service.


How to capture Date (with pickadate) to use in a http get request

Question: I am using Angular 2, and the idea is for it to send request to a REST service I've done in api.
I'm currently checking the results in Plunker. I am having a lot of trouble capturing the date selected, so I can then use it to make the http request.
So I would like to know how this can be done, or if there is another, easier way of doing this.
I have tried everything seen here and a few other things but nothing works (and with that I mean, I don't manage to get the value in a variable that I can then use for the operations in the .get() and .subscribe() to make the request to the REST service.
This is the closer I've got:
Calendar.js:

function myCalendar(){
  $('.datepicker').pickadate({
        selectMonths: true, // Creates a dropdown to control month
        selectYears: 15, // Creates a dropdown of 15 years to control year
         onSet: function(context) {
        console.log(new Date(context.select));
 }
  });
}

calendar.ts
import {Component} from 'angular2/core';
@Component({
  selector: 'cal-inside',
  template: `<input value="Input date" type="text" class="datepicker" onclick ="myCalendar()" >
`,
  directives: []
})
export class CalendarioDentro {
  constructor() {
      }
}

And that selector is called here:
src/basic_usage.html
[...]
 <form>
          <cal-inside></cal-inside>
          <check-inside></check-inside>
          <boton></boton>

        </form>
     [...]

This all does work, I get a calendar inside a sidenav component, and now I would like to know how to keep going, since I can't get the syntax for the pickadate() function right, no matter what.
What I currently have only shows on console that I have indeed clicked on a date. I can't manage to get anything working other than that, and when I look arround for info it's like it's not done how the API says it's done (from what I understand, something like this var picker = $input.pickadate('picker')
picker.get('select', 'yyyy/mm/dd') ).
So is there some key concept I'm missing to not being able to use .get() right? Because no matter what syntax I use I get errors everywhere, and when I don't (using something similar to what I have managed with the onset: syntax, I get nothing displayed).
For example I see jquery being used, sometimes, like here How can I consolidate pickadate initializer for multiple inputs on one page? and I can translate that into what I need.
Answer: Doesn't seem like others have much trouble with this but since I went crazy trying to properly get it, I'll put it here just in case:
This currently works and displays the date in console. Pending work would be to do the http get itself.
 var foo;
function CalendarMaterializeCSS(){
$('.datepicker').pickadate({
    onSet: function(context) {
        foo = new Date(context.select);
        var curr_date = foo.getDate();

        var curr_month = foo.getMonth();

        var curr_year = foo.getFullYear();
        var dateFormated=(curr_date + "-" + curr_month + "-" + curr_year);
        console.log(dateFormated);

    }
});


I accidentally opened the back of my camera after taking 9 pictures. The count now says zero and the camera is stuck. What should I do?

Question: I accidentally pressed the button to open the back of my camera but held the cover so it didn't open and no light got inside. It winds automatically and I could hear the sound of film winding but not too long. There were 9 photos taken before the accident. Now the count says 0 and the camera won't open when I turn it on. It is a Canon PrimaZoom 65. Is there any chance of getting the 9 photos I took while also finishing the current roll (there should be about 27 photos left)?
Answer: It's probably pulled the entire film inside the canister, leaving you nothing to grab to re-spool it.
You have no option [short of dismantling the canister in total darkness to get the the leader back out - not recommended] but to get the film developed & see what comes out.
Answer: What do you mean it won't open when you turn it on? Do you mean that the lens won't extend?
It's hard to determine exactly what situation you have here. I can't find the manual for this camera online, but I found the manual for the Prima Zoom 85, which I am assuming is a similar model. It does say in the manual of that camera:

If "0" blinks in the frame counter, the film has not loaded properly.
Reload the film.
If the camera malfunctions while a film is loaded, do not remove the
film. Take the camera to a Canon service facility with the film still
inside.
If you force the film out of the camera, the camera or film may be
damaged.

In actuality, a Canon service facility is probably not going to offer service on an old point-and-shoot film camera at this stage. If you're lucky enough to find a local repairer of film cameras, it could be worth giving them a call to see if they could help you. I know it's disappointing, but you might have to accept that these photos may have to be sacrificed.
If you do manage to get the film cassette out of the camera, and the film has all been fully rewound inside, you can pretty easily retrieve the film leader and reload the film. You would need to shoot the first 10 or 11 photos in complete darkness, so that you are sure to advance past the frames that have already been exposed. By the way, skip the "DIY" methods shown in the video and just buy a proper film retriever – they work great first time, every time. Just don't yank too much film out of the film cassette.


What is offered for creating a SOAP server in WCF/services?

Question: I'm trying to develop an app that works with an existing soap client. I don't think it uses any WSDL/etc.  It just uses soap as a form of communication.
Example of what the client sends:
<code>POST /SNSR_STD-SOAP HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
SOAPAction: "someCommand"
Host: 192.168.0.17:12345
Content-Length: 487
Expect: 100-continue
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: Keep-Alive

<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <s:Body xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<!-- There is something in here obviously... -->
    </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>
</code>

Now I want to be able to write a server that fetches those messages, gets the SOAPAction in the HTTP header and also the soap envelope/xml conviniently so I could reach all fields.

I started reading about WCF and services, and also followed MSDN getting started to WCF and server/client software, but it demonstrates creating a calculator service that works with wsdl etc, which is not the case here.
So the question - what is the preferred way of doing this? WCF? Services? How exactly do I launch the server, via IIS, maybe something else which is more automatic?

In the same manner, I need to write a soap client that sends such messages back to the client (which is now also a server).  How do I do that?

I need the simplest most elegant way for doing this.
Thanks a lot.
Answer: You can do that, but you will have to work directly with the Message class (look at Message Headers too) and use Message Inspectors to "intercept" the message at a lower level.
Comment: Thanks, I'll look it up, but can't I use a maybe more convinient WCF service with no possibility of offering WSDL file?


How can I use Gmail to sync my calendar between Mac OS X and Android?

Question: I've recently bought an HTC Desire and I'd like to sync my calendar from my MacBook Pro (Os X 10.6.6) with the calendar from the phone. I suppose it would be easiest to do it over Gmail, but I'm not sure how. I checked their site, and there is a simple tutorial how to do it if you want Gmail calendar events in iCal, but I need the opposite. How to do that?
Comment: You might find this question on the Android site about syncing desktop Outlook calendars and contacts with Google and Android helpful: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1673/sync-setup-question-android-outlook-2010-gmail-calendar-and-contacts
Answer: The approach I took was to sync my phone with the gmail calendar and then sync iCal with google calendar. I don't sync directly between phone and mac.
I can add events on all three now and it will sync between all of them.
edit: I've been asked to post up a screengrab, but it honestly isn't needed. I've seen the guides on setting up CalDav but it's honestly not required, iCal has a really simply method to add an account which makes it extremely simple to do.

Launch iCal
Go to File -> Preferences
Delete any accounts you think you might have set up incorrectly
Add an account with the + button
Leave the account type as Automatic
Enter your google email address
Enter your google password

That is IT! I have a personal and work calendar on google calendar and it brought both in.
Comment: Thanks for the reply. You use Google calendar and you enter events to the Google calendar of iCal, or can you really sync events from the iCal to Google calendar and then have both? I hope you understand what I mean... Btw, I have three calendars in my iCal: home, work and holidays. I would like to have same thing on my phone and Gmail. I did the following: I copied all the events to Gmail calendar and then synced it to iCal. But then I had to delegate something and it looked really bad.. Can you explain exatly what you did and maybe put a screenshot of your iCal app?
Comment: Ivan, I have edited the answer with a few more pointers. Seriously, avoid the guides on the web, the current iCal software makes it very, very easy.
Answer: You are correct in thinking that the Google Calendar is the best way to go.
To sync between Google and your Mac you can set up the Google calendar as a CalDav, Google have a comprehensive guide for this. If you already have everything in iCal you may have to export them into the Google calendar web interface, this is just a case of selecting "Export" in iCal and "Import" in Google calendar. FWIW After using this hybrid approach for a while I've actually started using the Google calendar web interface rather than iCal as it is a bit more flexible and gives more are to work with.
I'm not too hot on how to set stuff up on Android, but I thought everything was linked to your Google account anyway? (Google do have a similar guide for Android, but I've not used it).
Comment: Once you've added your Google account on your Android device, it's dead-simple to sync the calendars.
Answer: If you're syncing Google Calendar to a Mac, be sure to checkout BusyCal.
(It's accurately referred to as "iCal Pro" and will sync to Google Calendars, MobileMe, or generic WebDAV calendars.)
There's a demo on their website.


What's available for livecoding music?

Question: I recently found out about livecoding where someone will program something on the fly to make music. Apparently there are special languages and libraries for this sort of thing. So I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with it and if they have any languages, libraries or tools to suggest.
Answer: Check these resources:

SuperCollider (Environment and programming language for real time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition)
ChucK (Strongly-timed, Concurrent, and On-the-fly Audio Programming Language)
TOPLAP (temporary organization for the proliferation of live audio programming)
Answer: I want to second the recommendation for Impromptu as well:

Wholesale utilization of your Mac: audio units, camera, openGL...etc (I actually ended up buying a Mac after playing around with this app.)
Very simple and easy to start : The tutorial gets to the fun fast.  Perhaps the clumsiest aspect is getting the keybindings installed : (you will need to install in ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict)
It uses Scheme(Lisp dialect) a highly iterative language, suitable for prototyping apps one line at a time.
Comment: [See also `extempore`](https://github.com/digego/extempore), the open source and cross platform cousin of `impromptu`...
Answer: Now there is also Sonic Pi which is a lot of fun.
It is an Open Source live coding environment based on Ruby that runs in a variety of environments including the Raspberry Pi and is build on top of the Supercollider synthesis engine.
Sonic Pi has been designed with the aim to find a harmonious balance between three core principles:

Simple enough for the 10 year old within you
Joyful enough for you to lose yourself through play
Powerful enough for your own expressions

Sample code:
<code>loop do
  sample :perc_bell, rate: (rrand 0.125, 1.5)
  sleep rrand(0, 2)
end
</code>
Answer: You should check out RTcmix (Real-time Cmix). I saw a great livecoding demo by one its developers, but I haven't been able to find any videos online.
I've been using RTcmix with its Python front-end module to experiment with algorithmic composition. It's very easy to use and has nice results.
EDIT
I've been investigating livecoding further recently, and RTcmix is not intended for this, but in some cases, it can work. It's much better for pre-processed scores. Sorry for any confusion. :)

What's available for livecoding music?


What part of a hurricane determines if it makes landfall?

Question: Watching the news for the US hurricane Harvey and they say it will make landfall soon. But what part of the hurricane are they referring to?
Answer: Hurricanes make "landfall" when the center of the eye moves over land.
From the NOAA National Hurricane Center glossary:

Landfall:
  The intersection of the surface center of a tropical cyclone with a coastline.Because the strongest winds in a tropical cyclone are not located precisely at the center, it is possible for a cyclone's strongest winds to be experienced over land even if landfall does not occur. Similarly, it is possible for a tropical cyclone to make landfall and have its strongest winds remain over the water.

Below is an example image showing when landfall occurred for Hurricane Harvey:
Comment: Note how this makes it consistent, as there's no other obvious way to track weaker storms, plus makes larger-scale sense. However it can certainly lead to occasional perplexed reactions by the public, as when a location battered by a big hurricane finally emerges into the eye, only to hear landfall remains hours away (on storms with slow motion).  And it also results in some peculiar circumstances where a storm fully batters the coast with its central core, eye even emerges onshore, yet never makes official landfall (as was the case with Hurricane Matthew near in SC\GA in October 2016)


Why is an $LC$ oscillator lossless, but $C V^2 / 2$ energy is lost to a capacitor connected to an ideal voltage source?

Question: It is mathematically proven that in an $LC$ oscillation that  all the energy gets transferred from the inductor to the capacitor and vice versa.
There is no energy loss as there is no load in the circuit.
However, in another case when a capacitor is directly connected to an ideal voltage source $C V^2 / 2$ of the energy gets dissipated via the capacitor.
What is the exact process involved in the latter case and why it does not apply to the first one?
Comment: The energy is stored in the capacitor, not "dissipated".
Comment: Only half of the work done by the battery is stored as energy in the capacitor.The other half is lost
Comment: Nope. You are getting confused because of the integration required. See my comment to your comment on the answer.
Comment: One way to reduce energy wastage is switched power supply.
Answer: A battery connected to a capacitor is an RC circuit in the limit $R \to 0$ (i.e., there is no resistor and the resistance of the wire is negligible). One might think that the energy loss is zero in this limit, but this is not the case.
For an RC circuit with a battery and an initially (i.e., at $t=0$) uncharged capacitor, we have
\begin{equation}
Q(t) = CV (1 - e^{-t/RC})
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}
I(t) = \frac{V}{R} e^{-t/RC}.
\end{equation}
As $t\to\infty$, the energy loss due to the resistance is
\begin{equation}
E_{\mathrm{loss}} = R \int_{0}^{\infty} I(t)^{2} dt = \frac{1}{2} CV^{2}.
\end{equation}
This accounts for the difference between the work done by the battery and the energy stored in the capacitor. Notice that the above result does not depend on $R$. That is, one cannot ignore the energy loss even if $R$ is negligibly small.
What if the resistance is strictly zero, say, if we made a circuit entirely from superconductors? Then, we should not ignore the inductance of the circuit. It is an LC circuit with a very small $L$. In this case, the capacitor never reaches a fully charged state (i.e., $Q=CV$ and $I=0$). The charge and the current in the circuit oscillate forever as would in any ideal $LC$ circuit. The difference between the work done by the battery and the energy stored in the capacitor should be equal to the magnetic energy due to the inductance.
Comment: Clear, concise and correct. +1.
Comment: One way to save $1/2CV^2$ is to use switched power supply.
Answer: An ideal capacitor never "dissipates" energy, it merely stores it. The amount of energy stored in a capacitor is given by the formula you mentioned: $U = \frac{1}{2}CV^2$.
In the case of the LC circuit, the energy stored in the capacitor moves into the inductor in form of magnetic field energy and then goes back and forth from them.
In the case of an ideal battery, the capacitor will keep getting charged until the voltage across the plates is equal to the voltage of the battery. Since we have no voltage difference anymore, there will be no currents anymore. The capacitor stores electrical energy, but you can harness it for example by disconnecting the battery and connecting a lamp to the capacitor. The lamp will light up for a moment.
Now what does dissipate energy is any form of resistance, e.g. a lamp. Ideal capacitors and inductors don't.
Comment: As I commented above only a half of the work done by tge battery is stored as energy in the capacitor,the other half is lost
Comment: What I want to know is that the battery does work=CV^2 whereas the capacitor stores only 1/2 CV^2.Where does the other half go?
Comment: @user2511145 Interesting. I wasn't aware of that. higgsss's answer nails it. One of those cases where multiple limits cancel each other (zero resistance, zero discharge time, infinite current). Thanks guys for teaching me something new.
Comment: no, you are wrong about that. The initial voltage across the capacitor is zero then final voltage is V=Q/C. The work at any point to move charge dq onto the capacitor is dW=dq V(q), where V(q)=q/C (i.e., it starts off zero and ends up V=Q/C). Integration of the qdq term gives the factor of 1/2 you are confused about.


How to add multiple ip address in destination ip in acl rule

Question: Iam trying to block a certain host from sending any message to any host in the network
is there is a way to do that or i have to deny host by host ?
Answer: deny ip 10.10.10.10/32 255.255.255.255/32 should do it for e.g. 10.10.10.10 as source.
If you want to filter multiple source IPs you need multiple ACL entries unless you can fit a mask to all sources.
For instance, deny ip 10.10.10.8/30 255.255.255.255/32 filters all broadcasts from hosts 10.10.10.8 through 10.10.10.11.
Note that wildcard masks needn't be contiguous like subnet masks. You could use deny ip 10.10.10.10 255.255.255.251 255.255.255.255/32 for sources 10.10.10.10 and 10.10.10.14.
Answer: ip access-list acl-01
Deny ip <destination IP> <destination wild card> host <source ip>
permit any any

Implementation should be done in interface and direction should be in/out but we cannot tell it exactly without seeing diagram.
ip access-group acl-01 in

Answer: If you even want to block the host from talking to hosts in the same IP-network you have to put a firewall on the host. Another way would be Private Vlan to isolate it and force every communication to go through the next hop (which could be a firewall).
Comment: this is not an answer for question


Can someone explain Planck's constant simply?

Question: Can someone explain Planck's constant simply?
I know the math, however I don't understand the relevance.
To explain what I'm asking, what is the significance of it when doing quantum mechanical calculations such as getting Planck length or other such equations.
Comment: I clarified my question.
Comment: Considering the clarified form of the question, may I suggest a reopen vote?
Answer: Others will probably answer much more complex versions, and they will explain much better. But here is a very simple answer:
Its numerical value is the energy of a single photon with the frequency of $1 Hz$.
Comment: @Devin It's just a scalefactor, actually it can be made equal to 1 with proper choice of other units. So the h coefficient by itself isn't important qualitatively in QM really, the underlying structure is the same regardless, so even with h = 1 there will be waves and interference and the other strange QM stuff. You don't see it used in Newtonian physics, because it scales the size of QM waves. The simplest equation using it is probably E = h*f, that is, the scalefactor between energy and frequency for a photon as Peter writes above.
Comment: or rather its numerical value, in Joules, is that energy
Comment: @DepeHb Yes, of course. I extend my answer.
Comment: So why is this used for many QM equations?
Comment: @Devin As I know, the Planck constant isn't really a parameter of the light, but a parameter of our Universe (similarly to the "c", which is also a "speed limit" in our universe). It is only the feature of the light that it goes always with the "speed limit". As I know, if there are gravitons, they would also propagate with c, and a 1Hz graviton has the same energy as a 1Hz photon.
Answer: From another point of view, you can see $h$ as a spatial and temporal scale factor where quantum wave effects become more or less relevant. Changing h is like "zooming in/out"; if you reduce $h$, it's like zooming out, at which point quantum waves oscillate in such a small scale that their interference effects average out into a more classical world.
This way of seeing it can be useful for intuition.
Answer: After people understood that there is something wrong with electromagnetic wave (a classical concept and description), the photon came in (search for black-body radiation and ultraviolet catastrophe for details). Here is the rule of Mr. Planck, he stated that the energy of this photon is proportional to the frequency associated with it and the constant that relates these two is Planck Constant.
With this new condition, Planck had imposed the quantization of the energy of the oscillators, "a purely formal assumption … actually I did not think much about it…" in his own words.


Determine if hard disk was ever disconnected from MacBook

Question: How do I determine if my hard disk was ever disconnected from my MacBook Pro 2012 and then reconnected? Can I use the Disk Utility log or any other tool? OS X 10.8.5 is the version.
Comment: This looks like an [XY Problem](http://xyproblem.info), so can you describe in more details which problem you are trying to solve here (without already making assumptions about the cause)?
Comment: I got that part. The XY part is the "why do you want to know this", or "which problem will be solved by knowing"?
Comment: I am trying to get to see if my hard disk that comes with my MacBook was ever disconnected from my MacBook Pro and then reconnected. Is there a way to determine it? Thanks!
Comment: I just would like to ensure that it wasn't disconnected in my absence.
Comment: It's a little like wondering whether someone puts on a hat every time you leave the room, only to remove it before your return. Knowing if that was true or not would not gain you anything, in itself.
Comment: Except the knowledge that their data was accessed surreptitiously. A drive would generally be removed while the computer is off. There are no intrusion detection devices in a Mac Book other than looking for evidence of scratches on the case, screws and components surrounding the drive.
Comment: Are you afraid your Macbook was tampered with?
Answer: You can't.
There's no tamper evident devices in the Mac computers.  Once you turn off your Mac, there's no logging facility to detect anything by the virtue of it being off.
To draw a parallel comparison, how would you know that someone removed and reattached the transmission in your car after you parked it?
PCs, on the other hand have been using intrusion switches for many years (mostly in the enterprise), but this is just something that Apple hasn't implemented.
You have three options for detecting/preventing tampering with your MacBook:

Take it with you.  This is the most reliable option; people can't tamper with what they have no access to.
Turn on FileVault to protect your data.  It's close to impossible to decrypt a drive that's been encrypted and this option will cover you if you lose it if you've "taken it with you."
Use video to see who's (if there is one) the culprit.  Get a wireless camera to watch/record the area where your MacBook resides (I've used Arlo in my office to see who comes in and rifles through my desk)

Any/all of these will help protect you against malicious users.
Comment: The simplest answer: add tamper evident seals to the Mac. This is required by some policies (FIPS 140-2, for example). It has the additional advantage of acting as a visible deterrent to casual tampering. (Also works on your analogy: car companies put paint marks on critical bolts to show quality inspection, detect accidental loosening, but also as evidence of tampering)
Comment: @user71659 - I didn't add that because getting around a tamper seal is virtually one of the easiest things to do.  I've done it countless times.
Comment: Intrusion switches are even easier (and don't exist on laptops either). Some you just slide a card in the right place. One brand at work has the wires visible through the vents, just fish them through the vent and short them. Intrusion switches only cover the main case opening too, pop open a drive bay door, reach in and hold the switch down. FIPS policy requires all openings to have tamper-evident labels. Video is impractical if you have days of video in a high-traffic area, you'll have to watch it all. And of course, FDE has major weaknesses in integrity.


Why doesn't the autobrakes and ground spoilers deploy on the A320 if the speed is below 72 knots?

Question: I really can't understand the reason as to why Airbus has put a speed restriction of 72 knots for the activation of autobrakes and deployment of ground spoilers. Could someone explain why this has been imposed?
Answer: Not a definite answer: I imagine someone backtracking on a long 4000 m runway might actually taxi at around 71kts?
If armed, MAX braking will occur once the system detects that ground spoilers are deployed.
From the FCOM, ground spoilers:

If the ground spoilers are armed and the speed exceeds 72 kt, the ground spoilers will automatically extend as soon as both thrust levers are reset to idle.

Because of Airbus SOPs by the time you enter the active rwy, your autobrakes are on MAX and spoilers armed. Once armed&active, they will deploy the second the ADIRS will sense any deceleration. With thr lvl retarded to idle, the plane now thinks you are actually rejecting a take off, not knowing you are slowing down at the end of the runway for the 180deg turn to lineup. All hell will break loose as your plane insta-handbrakes on the spot with the activation of spoilers+max brakes.
Incidentally, my company used to have a 30kts speed limit for backtrack which has been recently removed.
Comment: Are they armed in takeoff config? Is that in case of rejected t/o?
Comment: exactly, they are part of T/O ecam memo (done during taxi) and thus active by the time you reach the runway. Any deceleration after reaching 72kts and the  plane thinks you are rejecting the takeoff
Comment: uhm yes.. (IIUC) question was why autobrake max and auto spoiler extension is not active if plane never reaches 72kts. My (attempted) answer was: to prevent a wrongfull deployment after taxiing at high speed. I need to stop posting late at night...


Setting a default skin for a custom component in Flex 4

Question: How do you set the default value of skinClass for a custom component in Flex? I've extended the DropDownList with my custom component, but I would like to specify a default skin to go with it instead of always setting the skinClass value for each instance.
Answer: You can use css to apply a skin to a component class like so:
<code>@namespace component "com.domain.project.view.component.*";

component|CustomComponent {
    skin-class: ClassReference("com.domain.project.view.skin.CustomSkin");
}
</code>
Or if you want it within your component code, you can set the style in the constructor:
<code>public function CustomComponent()
{
  super();
  setStyle("skinClass", CustomSkin);
}
</code>
Comment: This would work, but I'm more looking for how to set it in the ActionScript code so that the skin become part of the component (e.g. like DropDownListSkin is for DropDownList).
Comment: Excellent! You have no idea how much seeing this can actually be done is making me start to warm up to Flex 4. Initial knee-jerk reaction was not good at all.
Comment: fyi - All the default skins are set in defaults.css in the SDK folders.  this is how they get different look & feel/behaviors for spark, wireframe, mobile, etc.


linear regression predicts lower than expected

Question: I am trying to predict first term GPA for college students based on a number of incoming factors (high school gpa, placement test, year). This isn't the overall model just a simpler one. The first term GPAs are on the interval 0 to 4, however the predictions from the linear OLS model (i'm using sklearn) never go above 3.6 (see picture). Is this some sort of gotcha that I am missing? There are certainly data in the training set with first term GPA that is between 3.6 and 4.0. I didn't expect perfect performance but this is odd to me.
Comment: Can you show us the model diagnostic plots?
Comment: i added model diagnostic plots. i think the cooks distance is wrong though because i had to calculate it myself because i didn't find any function outside of statsmodels that implements it and i havent written tests or compared it to output from R, statsmodels, etc.
Comment: Just by looking at the first (diagnostic) plot you can see that your model is fu****. Your dependent variable is limited to 0 and 4 so a regular linear model is not valid.  Look into beta regression. Also, do you have repeated measures in your data? As in, do some students have more than 1 score? Is there any kind of correlation going on?
Comment: yeah this is my thinking as well and will check out beta regression. students should only have a single score although some are averages (e.g., the output variable is the first semester GPA which is the average of several scores).
Answer: Predictions like these don't include the 'error' in your model: that is, you expect that even if your model is very good, a student with some combination of predictors will not be exactly the prediction, they will be above or below it. The only way you would get a prediction of 4 would be if a combination of predictors gave an estimate that the average GPA for that observed combination would be 4. If the average GPA for that observed combination is 3.6 with a range of 3.0-4.0, your model would predict 3.6 even if you would expect some fraction to have 4.0; your best guess for each individual student is the expected value, the mean. If you instead imagined your predictions as probability distributions you would find that these include 4.0.
However, it looks like your model itself is not very good: there is a lot of difference between your predictions and outcomes and very little slope between them relative to the variance.
Comment: Yeah I agree that the model is not very good. I guess I got stuck on maximum prediction value, and wondering why it wouldn't be higher than trying to tune it into something that is predictive.
Comment: @Krause I very much need a formal citation for the argument you make clearly, about variance of predictions being lower than variance of obs.  I have tried hard to find a paper(s) but so far without success.  Suggestions please?  Does the concept have a name on which I might search?  Thank you.


How to sense snow and ice?

Question: We are building an outdoor snow melting system for the pavement. It would be nice if it could turn on itself only when it is needed: if there is snow, ice in the surface or the pavement is wet and the temperature is below the freezing point. Is there a good way to detect if the surface of something is snowy, icy or wet?
Answer: If the pavement is black, you could detect snow by infrared reflectivity. You might detect wet by resistivity. That leaves ice. Reflectivity might work there, too, at a different threshold. You'd need to experiment.
Another possibility might be a short-range sonar. If the measured distance changes, something is there. Ice would probably read as nearer. You'd probably need to average a number of measurements to increase the measurement resolution; you care about very thin ice coatings. Snow might well read as no return - but again, experiment.
A combination of the reflectivity and sonar might be the most reliable.
Answer: I may experiment with a simple photocell used to turn lights on or off, and a light source for night time.  Mount the photocell so that its lens is upwards towards the sky, at night you'd need a light source shining on the photocell, I'm thinking a very low wattage led light to reduce power consumption, or even another photocell or astronomical time clock to turn the light source on or off, depending on how complex you'd want to make it.  When the photocell can no longer detect light you know it is covered.  You'd have to experiment with the opaqueness of the snow, and how much coverage would block out the light.  Seems like a cheap, easy, pretty much "out of the box" solution for snow anyway.
Answer: cheap video camera with snow detection software. See this article for a start
Comment: Please summarize the linked content because if it goes down your answer will loose its value.

How to sense snow and ice?


Why is instant coffee powder not as dark as the coffee resulting from it?

Question: Instant coffee granules generally are of a light brown colour, while coffee made from it is a deep black. Pigments are far more concentrated in the dry form, to add water is to dilute them. Still, this results in a much deeper colour. Why is it?
Comment: Many solids are darker when wet than when dry. Might not be a matter of concentration, but some other physical effect regarding light scattering or something. I am sure some physicist can explain this. Also, consider than many things like foams (even coffee foam, actually) are lighter than the liquid they are made from, because they incorporate air.
Comment: @andselisk  I think the observation is somewhat trivial. I will see to add two pictures anyway.
Comment: Also, please refrain from introducing new tags like `coffee` or `melanoides`, especially when it has a typo and refers to a [snail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanoides) instead of an actual chemical compound [melanoidin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanoidin).
Comment: How do you determine "darkness", and, more importantly, compare optical properties (Which ones? Are the lighting conditions the same?) of the liquid and solid (consider the amount of light reflected back at observer)? I suppose you would agree that there is a certain concentration threshold when you even subjectively would agree that the powder is darker than the diluted coffee.
Comment: @andselisk  I thought the funktion to add new tags was there by intention. Was that as far off as the compound name?
Comment: As @user6376297 states, the difference is likely that between a *surface* phenomenon and that of the whole amount, dissolved in water. Salt is *opaque*\ white as a powder, and clear in large crystals and when dissolved.
Answer: It's not actually a chemical reaction (so this question is more appropriate for Physics.SE, not Chemistry).
You can see exactly the same phenomenon when you spill water on your coloured shirt; the wet spot appears darker.

…
The light blue cloth reflects a lot of the light that hits it.
That's caused by the high index of refraction of the cloth.
The reflected light of course can't get absorbed by the dye in the cloth.
Water has an intermediate index of refraction, between air and many solid materials.
That reduces the reflection, allowing more light to get to the dye where it's absorbed.
The material looks darker.
This seems particularly effective on porous materials, perhaps because much of the light is reflected at various angles several times before bouncing out.
Water reduces the reflection at all the surfaces.
On my glossy white paint, the water doesn't matter since the paint surface reflects the light anyway.
I think the black cloth has so many dye molecules within a wavelength or so of the surface that it absorbs almost all the light that hits it even without a water layer to help.
(The boundary between the outside and inside of the material is in effect a bit fuzzy, just as the images of things seen in a light microscope are fuzzy by about a wavelength of light.)
— Q & A: why are wet things darker? | Department of Physics | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


why is my keyboard not working?

Question: My computer is a year old desk top running windows 8.1.  A few weeks ago I was typing a message and just as I was hitting enter a dialogue box flashed on the screen but before I realized it and read it I had already selected something and my keyboard promptly stopped working.  Pressing the keys caused it to beep but not type.  on restart it worked for my login but beeped after that.  device manager said it was functioning properly so I looked in ease of access and toggled off sticky and filter keys, uninstalled and reinstalled the keyboard, tried another keyboard , bought a new one, used system restore and now half of the keys  work- I made sure it was set to US English and still only half the keys work.  some keys bring up right click menu.  I've also tried holding down the shift keys. any suggestions?
Comment: It's always a good idea to create a second account on the box (with admin privileges) for this sort of thing.  Likely whatever it was was some stupid Windows mode setting on a per-user basis, and the second account would have allowed you to see if this was the case and at least access your data.
Answer: Does it work with another computer? do you have access to a linux bootable live disc? they work wonders to troubleshoot hardware related issues (if it works on other OS on the same machine then it's a software issue, if it doesn't then it's a hardware issue). I need more information about the state of the supposedly faulty keyboard.
Also, chances are that you got some annoying malware there, run a check using adwcleaner it's freeware and portable.
Good luck.
Comment: after a frustrating live chat with a moronic windows rep who insisted I had to fiddle with the BIOS before telling me my support had run out- apparently she didn't like that I had already trouble shooted it and knew it wasn't a hardware problem nor a serious software issue- the thing had been toggled off, prompted by a windows response box- I finally got it working by holding down keys- not sure now which ones, I mashed a bunch and held them and it started working- I think there is a filter key lock or something.  No malware, no BIOS issue, nothing wrong with the hardware, a simple solution
Comment: That sounds strange, I haven't had a similar issue, but I'm glad you were able to solve it. Things like this happen. Good luck.

why is my keyboard not working?


Java portable media detection

Question: I would like to write a piece of java code that synchronizes files between local hard drive and a usb storage. I would like to have a different synchronization configuration depending on which usb storage is plugged in and I would like to have apropriate configuration to be selected automatically rather than chosen by the user.
I've just read the JSR-80 and jUSB documentation as well as a bunch of articles and SO posts, but all of those are very old and it seems that since that time (around 2005) all the efforts have been abandoned especially for Windows platform, while the OS-independence is quite important to me (at least Windows and Linux need to be supported).
Do I really need to use any of the USB APIs to recognize external drives that are connected to the system? I need something that is more unique than file path, drive letter or drive label... And if yes which one would you recommend (unless I missed something jUnit is actually the only for which Windows support exists).
Answer: There has been more recent activity than that on the jUSB sourceforge project.  Sure, he/they haven't released a snapshot since 2000-ish, but the last commits were in 2005, and someone was changing project information in August this year.
If you are serious, consider donating some effort to help get the project moving again.

Java portable media detection


smart contract exclusive for an app

Question: I created a Smart Contract and a Dapp that Mint some NFTs, however I would like to be able to create: interact with my contract, only through my application. Does anyone know if it's possible? I didn't find any reference about it.
Answer: It is not possible to limit the direct interaction with smart contract in any manner. But you can achieve what you want within the smart contract by having an access logic. The simplest access logic is what is called onlyOwner.
contract Access {
  address private _owner;

  constructor() {
    _owner = msg.sender;
  }

  modifier onlyOwner {
    require(msg.sender == _owner, 'only owner');
    _;
  }

  function pub() external {}
  function priv() external onlyOwner {}
}

In the above contract pub function can be called by anyone, but priv function can only be called by the _owner, which is the address of the wallet which deployed this contract.
It is not possible to restrict the access via domain. With above method, you should be ok as long as you don't reveal the private key of the account you are using.
Comment: Great to know, and you mentioned something important: access logic. Thank you for you time, but with your logic, only my address can 'create', but in fact any address that connects through my App should be able. But I will do what you like said, create a logic, maybe some password by ChainLink inside the contract, idk yet, but thanks for the attention. I don't have 15 reputation to upvote your answer, but thank you very much.
Comment: I think I got something, check it out:
https://blog.chain.link/2fa-authentication-smart-contracts/?_ga=2.152999793.959451619.1664366613-300248138.1664366613

smart contract exclusive for an app


Sorting by Received and THEN Subject

Question: Can Outlook 2003 sort by received and then subject so that I can always see the newest mail first? So if it's 5:30pm now and I get mail at 5:31, it shows at the top. then if I get mail at 5:35 and it is a response to an existing subject, can it show next at the top of my inbox with all related conversations/subjects with it. Gmail can do this and this is what I'm looking for an Outlook.
Answer: Lifehacker has an article on how to make Outlook act like GMail:

To mimic Gmail's threads we need a way for Outlook to group by subject, but ignore the FW: and RE:. Luckily, it has just such a feature. It's called Conversation, and it's an optional column just like date received and subject.
In your Inbox, go to the pane that lists your emails. Right-click any of the field headings, like From, or Subject, and select Field Chooser. You'll get a list of additional fields that pertain to your emails. Click and drag Conversation to the other field headings. You'll notice it looks just like subject, but ignores FW: and RE:.

Sorting by Received and THEN Subject


Magento 2 Customer Scope Global and shipping countries

Question: I have a Magento 2.3 website that has many websites created, and I want to set the Customer Scope to Global so they can log into all websites with one login. But I still want to limit the shiping counties to each country. Is this possible? it seems like when I change customer scop til Global, then all countries are available from the dropdown list on the checkout page.
Answer: On the Admin sidebar, go to Stores > Settings > Configuration.
In the left panel, expand Customers and choose Customer Configuration.
Expand Expansion selector the Account Sharing Options section.
Account Sharing Options
Set Share Customer Accounts to one of the following:

Global   Shares customer account information with every website and store in the Magento installation.
Per Website  Limits customer account information to the website where the account was created.
If necessary, clear the User system value checkbox to make the change.

When complete, click Save Config.
If your Magento installation has a hierarchy of websites, stores, or views, you can set the context, or "scope" of a configuration setting to apply to a specific part of the installation.


3-Arm pergola corner bracket for 4x4s?

Question: How can I reproduce the functionality of these 3-Arm pergola corner brackets for 4x4 wood posts? My concern is that it will need to securely hold the weight of the treated 4x4.

They would be used for this:
Comment: I'm not sure what you mean by "reproduce the functionality". Are you asking how tops are normally joined to pergolas support brackets? Also, there are enough typos in your 2nd sentence that I'm not sure how to correct it.
Comment: Are you saying that the ones you found are the wrong size? Such hardware would need to be _very_ robust to do the job on a larger pergola.
Comment: Sorry about the typos. I'm usually very careful with that.
Comment: No worries! As isherwood noted in his answer, I still think you're thinking about it the wrong way - more than the weight of the horizontals, it's the racking forces that you have to worry about. These would need to extend a fair bit down and across and be pretty darn thick to resist enough racking to keep your pergola upright in a strong wind or earthquake.
Comment: The ones I found are steel with minimal rust protection. I'm sure they'll show some rust after a few weeks. They're also $80 each.
Answer: You'd reproduce that function with knee braces, which is what nearly everyone else does. Such hardware would need to be very robust to do the job on a larger pergola, making it cost-prohibitive (and somewhat ugly). You can find heavy-duty pergola hardware kits online, though they won't be exactly what you've shown.
However, three simple L-brackets on each corner (two on the faces and one on top), properly sized and with adequate bolts, would probably do. You'd need at least four bolts through each bracket, for a total of 12 at each corner. You can see how this gets messy in a hurry.
To rectify your apparent misconception, the challenge isn't carrying the weight of your beam. It's dealing with the racking forces applied to the corner joints. There can be a ton of torque on those points in the wind.

3-Arm pergola corner bracket for 4x4s?


Is there a library in Blender 2.76?

Question: I am a Scenic/Set Designer and was wondering if there was a library that I can save a drawing of a 2x4 to so I can insert/add it to a drawing as many times as I want without redrawing it?
Comment: [How can I reuse existing materials, objects, etc from an existing .blend?](http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/81/2217)
Answer: There are a few addons 1 2 3 and external solutions for this around, but the truth is in recent versions Blender's native builtin  tools have improved considerably in the area of asset management.
You have always been able to link (remotely references data) or append (import from other file) data from any other Blender file into the current one by going to File > Link or File > Append.
You can do this for most data like models, groups, materials, lighting and animation.
In recent versions asset management got considerably improved by making the file browser able to display Blender image thumbnails even for Blender internal data, and making Blender able to generate per data-block thumbnails.
Just go to File > Data Previews > Batch-Generate Previews and make sure your file browser is set to display thumbnails.
Comment: Thanks. This is what I was looking for. Now I figure out the best one for what I am doing.
Answer: In a way, Yes, you can Either use File>>Link OR File>>Append.
You have to manage your own library structure through the file system though, and when you do this, you want to make certain that you group your objects in a group with a descriptive name. The group maintains a lot of things (including keyframe and material information - So there are pros and cons to this, so you have to manage these assets understanding that things like this also come along for the ride).
That way after you select one of the Link/Append functions, you browse to your desired asset blend file, and then you get presented with the internals of that file. Now all you have to do is double-click the Group folder, and pick your named group.

Is there a library in Blender 2.76?


Install Debian from the hard disk replacing the host Linux system

Question: I have a old computer that i want to re-purpose into a storage server running debian, as i'm already used to it, but the problem is that the computer is runing Ubuntu and the BIOS only reads floppy disks and CD's. As my only solution is to install from the HDD, but i have a problem since GRUB 2 doesn't load the installer, i made the /boot/newinstall folder on the partition, added the kernel, the ramdisk and the iso image, also modified the grub.cfg to add a new menu entry to start the installer, but when i choose it, the screen goes black and restarts, maybe because i changed the extention to the image from boot.img to boot.iso.
Comment: Did you try to follow the instructions linked into http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/222260/bootstrapping-up-from-an-old-debian-4-installation/222387#222387?
Answer: Your options are:

Burn one of the Debian Net Installer CD images to a CD and boot and install from that.
Boot from any CD/DVD installer image stored on a local file system.

The first option is probably easier. You can even use a re-writable CD, if you're concerned about that.


Penalties for forgetting to draw/discard cards

Question: What is the penalty when a player forgets to draw card?
What is the penalty when a player forgets to discard a card and has six (6) or seven (7) cards in his hand?
Answer: Irregularities like this are rarely covered explicitly in a ruleset, so most of this comes down to "use your judgement."
For the first situation, since everyone always draws and plays 1 card, it makes the most sense to let them draw the card once they have realized their mistake. Since there's nothing more than draw 1 play 1, the only way a player would have less than 5 cards is if they forgot to draw afterward, so that would be the best way to resolve the situation in a casual game. (Of course, they don't get to "undo" any of their previous turns due to "I would have played that card instead", that would be the penalty for forgetting to draw.) Even in a competitive game, I cannot think of any reason why someone would benefit from not drawing, waiting for a while, and then claiming they had too few cards and drawing one to refill, so this would probably work then as well.
For the second situation, either they played a card and then picked it back up by mistake, or they didn't play a card and therefore didn't take a turn. If it's the former, then they should discard the card they shouldn't have (and if it's a competitive setting get some sort of formal warning, as they should know better.) Should the card already have been played...well that's a bit of a predicament, as you can't really recover a legal game state. (Bear in mind that that since all the cards are unique, the opponents should have noticed it, so all parties are somewhat at fault.) In a super casual game, perhaps just discard a random card, and ensure this doesn't happen again. In anything even somewhat competitive, a game loss is the fairest outcome.
For the latter (drawing, not finishing the turn by playing and moving, and therefore having an extra card) in a casual environment forcing the player to discard a random card is a decent option. They've already served their penalty by losing a turn, there's no need to make it worse. It should be a random card due to the fact that the player might have gotten a possible "combo" that they wouldn't have gotten if they actually played. However, this option should not be used in a competitive game, as there are situations where a player would want to "pass" (because they like their current position,) but the rules would force them to play and do something. The safest option would be a game loss (although again, both sides are at fault for not paying attention and letting things get to this point.)


What is the difference between 'I almost completed...' and 'I have almost completed...'

Question: While having a conversation, my friend said 'I almost completed...', but when I heard that line, it sounded to me like 'I nearly did something, which I should not have done, and thank god for that' although what he actually meant was he had little work left to do then. Am I missing something? Or is 'I almost completed...' grammatically incorrect?
Answer:
I almost completed

Indicates an action in the past, which you were doing, and is all gone now. So you say "I almost completed the running race, but had to stop half-way through."

I have almost completed

Means something is still ongoing, and you expect to finish soon.
"I have almost completed the race, there are only 500m to go."
(The tense names give these two away - "almost completed" is past tense, "have almost completed" is present perfect.)
Comment: This is exactly what I thought. *I almost completed* implies that it's final (and will always be incomplete); *I have almost completed* implies that you're still working on it.
Comment: I get you, but what I meant was:
Can "I almost did something" imply "I almost got into a mess by doing something"?
Its fine if you don't understand me, its because I'm trying to match the sentences using 'almost' with how I can use it in my language to mean the later sentence.
But if you can help that would be great!
Comment: You can certainly use it that way, as in, for example, "I almost fell down a hole today" (but I didn't) or "I almost ate all my friend's chocolates, but thought I'd get in trouble, so I didn't" -- if you say "I have almost eaten all my friend's chocolates" that would mean that you have started eating them and have now pretty much eaten all of them (although this phrase is not one that one would normally/naturally use, it's just for a fictional example).


Where can I find historical data on arrival and departure times of a particular flight?

Question: Where can I find historical data on flights, specifically Delta international flights?
I need to find out about cancellations, diversions and any other flight data pertaining on particular route at a given time.  This source has to be official and stand up to legal scrutiny.
Answer: The two best sources for this type of data are FlightAware and Flight Stats. Although these sites both get data from the FAA, I don't know that either would be considered "official".
The nearest to official source would be the FAA data available at https://transtats.bts.gov/ONTIME/. However, this data is always several months behind (eg, they currently have up to June 2019 as of August 2019), and not as easy to search for specific flights as either of the above two sites.
For both Flight Stats and FlightAware, you'll need to create an account and buy a subscription, unless the data you want is only a few days old.
Comment: Please be aware of the fact, that for instance flightrights does not allow to use their data for any passenger claims, see https://developer.flightstats.com/about/terms_for_paid_accounts
Comment: The URL has changed to https://www.transtats.bts.gov/Fields.asp?Table_ID=236
Comment: FlightStats historical flight data are now paid subscription only.
Comment: What about non-FAA sources?
Comment: I came here to say flightstats, def agree with @Doc's answer above.
Comment: Thanks, I got the info I needed after signing up for a free account.
Comment: @domen some airlines provide on-time, cancellation data for specific routes in their apps.  Other than governmental aviation regulatory bodies, you would probably have to inquire of the airlines directly.
Comment: The airlines are a bit hesitant to do that. They will often have a conflict of interest, since passengers want that data for compensation claims.
Comment: Flightradar24 is an other source. You see also the track, so you may have better estimate is arrival time were correct. But AFAIK historical data is paid only (different options)


DC regulator ground with Arduino

Question: If I wanted to control several ICs that exceed the current rating of an Arduino 5V supply pin with an external DC regulator (which also would power the Arduino itself), should the ground planes of the DC regulator be be connected to the Arduino GND pins?
Answer: Yes.
Not much more to be said than that...
Answer: The "ground plane" can also be considered the "reference plane". Without all devices using the same reference, they will not see the same voltage on other connections.
Answer: What we call a Voltage of 5V is really a Voltage Potential of 5V. The difference is that a Voltage Potential is the difference between one Voltage Level and another Voltage Level. 5V can be +3V to -2V, +12V to +7V, or 5V to 0V. They are all the same. Ground is also a relative term. It's the lower voltage level used as a reference to the higher voltage level (or vis-versa when using negative voltages).
Since the voltages are relative, two arbitrary voltage sources could be different. To make them work together, you tie the ground reference voltages together, so that all the circuits have the same reference.

DC regulator ground with Arduino


Maximum number of alarm clocks

Question: My HTC One (Android 4.3) told me that I can only have 10 alarm clocks at maximum and that I should delete one before adding a new one. Why, and is it possible to have more than ten?
Comment: There are a _ton_ of alarm clock apps in the Play Store.
Comment: Why: That's the number they decided on. Can you have more, possibly, there are paid alarms that claim to allow more than 10, but I can't vouch for any.
Comment: Okay, if it is a constraint of the app than I could just switch to another. I thought that it possibly is a constraint of the android system cannot handling more alarms.
Comment: Oh don't worry, it's *definitely* not a constraint of the OS. That'd be paramount to Windows setting an arbitrary limit to the number of web bookmarks you can save in Firefox.
Comment: There's the alarm app, then there's HTC's modified version to further muddy things. I'd say try the Play Store as the others have said.
Answer: Get Timely Alarm Clock. I've never tried more than 10 alarms but I guess it should be worth a try. It's free after all & extremely sexy.
Also you should try adding calender events instead of alarms and change the sound to something loud.
Comment: This app is amazing. I tested it and it accepts more than 10 alarms. Don't know how reliable it is, but I will see. thx for tips and hints
Comment: I use Timely. I rather like it and even ponied up for the ability to sync alarms between my devices.
Comment: It is owned by Google now, afaik it only does 10. I haven't used it in a while though so worth a test. The calendar idea is also a good one!
Comment: My bad! Good to know. I figured once Google got their hands on it the usual restrictions would apply!
Answer:
Is it possible to have more than ten (alarms)?

Maybe not with HTC clock, but yes it is possible.
As mentioned by dotVezz in the comment, "it's definitely not a constraint of the OS".
Android doesn't set any restrictions regarding how many alarms they can store/handle, even on per-app basis. A counter-example to OP's case: a stock clock on Nexus 4 (Android 5.0) can have 15+ alarms (I stopped adding after 15 alarms).
If you want to have more than 10 alarms, then you can just search it since "there are a ton of alarm clock apps in the Play Store." As already mentioned in other answer, Timely Alarm Clock supports more than 10 alarms.

Why (is it impossible to have more than ten alarms with HTC clock)?

I can't really answer this without speculating as this is a decision made by HTC. Some possibilities that I could think off:

Less alarms are easier to manage
Less alarms won't hit the OS performance.

But for the technical part, Android is open-source and anyone can customize it as they like, including adding the alarm restriction on the clock app.

Maximum number of alarm clocks


How can I determine the pound-force behind a punch?

Question: I am a martial arts instructor always looking for the next best way to enhance the performance of my students. However, I'm having difficulty understanding how to determine the pound-force (ibf) of a punch delivered to a heavy bag. I understand the formula which is F=m*a is Force = Mass times acceleration. First of all mass is measured in Kg which I get but in the formula which mass is being used, the weight of the student or the weight of the bag? I understand the results of Force is measured in Newtons which I know can be converted in pound-force. I know the acceleration is measured in m/s/s but how can I determine their acceleration ? I've been told that I could use Kinetic energy which is KE= 0.5mv2 but I would get a result in joules which is also kg m/s/s. Please help me determine the right way to determine pound-force as well as to how I can go about performing for my students. Thank you all in advance for your participation.
Answer: The answer is, you'll have to be more specific.
When a fist hits a bag, the force varies a lot in terms of time. If you imagine trying to punch a bag as slowly as possible, there is a slow onset as your fingers just graze the leather, followed by something more "meaty" as your bones start to press against your skin which is pressing against the actual padding in the bag. Speeding that process up, all of these nuances continue to be there.
Improving peak force
You might want to improve, say, the peak force. This is hard to measure; you'll need some sort of "force plate." To give you a sense of what a force plate does, imagine a plate attached to a rail, so that it can move towards you or away from you relatively freely. Now put a spring on it so that it takes more effort to compress. Now the distance that the plate moves correlates with the force on the plate--so that's how that works. In practice, real force plates are very thin so it's not a distance that you can "see".
You can find force plates sort of easily in the form of bathroom scales, but those will not be as configurable as, say, piezoelectric transducers paired with a microcontroller. In particular, getting a bathroom scale to "stop" at the maximum weight it registers may be prohibitively difficult. For that matter, if you can attach the ball to an air piston and then attach the piston to a pressure gauge, you can figure out the peak pressure in the piston. The formula is the peak change in PSI times the square-inch area of the round inside cross-section of the piston.
Probably the easiest way to do this is ultimately a peak-force calculation: you can buy "shock pads" which burst visibly if they register a force greater than some pad-specific threshold. These are used on crash-test dummies etc. to figure out whether they've experienced, say, G-forces which would be lethal to a human. Put some of those on the ball and see which ones burst to get a crude idea.
Time-averaged force
You might want to measure the speed of the ball instead, if, say, it's connected to a rope hung from the ceiling. This is a very easy calculation, done often on Mythbusters, which requires a high-speed camera with known frames-per-second. Have the student punch in front of a "ruler" (often alternating black-and-white stripes work best) and count the number of frames that the ball requires to travel a certain known distance. This has a great bonus for your students: you can show them the tape, which shows them their form in slow motion.
If the ball has mass $m$ then the momentum imparted is $m v$. Count also the time $T$ that the fist is in contact with the ball, to find the time-averaged force as $m v / T$.
Transferred kinetic energy
You might want to measure the kinetic energy of the fist. In theory this is as simple as asking someone to punch a ball which is hanging from a fixed pivot by a stiff bar. The bar can also be weighted down to make the "punch" as realistic as you need (I imagine the above solution with the ball hanging from a rope on the ceiling might "feel wrong" when you're punching it.) By allowing the bar to rotate freely, the maximum height attained should give you the energy that was transferred to the ball+bar ensemble.
As for measuring its peak rotation, you'll want to think about how the normal "pen"-style air pressure gauge (for car tires) works: the air pushes out the gauge a certain distance, but then friction prevents it from returning. You can do this for the angle of the bar, too: on the same pivot, have a plate which can rotate independently of the bar. Put a little friction on that plate. Stick out a strut from the edge of the plate, so that the bar runs into the strut on its way up. Then when the ball is going "up" it pushes the strut which rotates the plate; but at its peak, the bar and the strut detach, so the plate stays rotated to the maximum rotation $\theta$. (Safety precaution: install another strut on the other side of the bar with some padding, at a fixed rotation relative to the ground, so that the returning ball does not accidentally whack someone.)
If gravity is the only factor slowing down the machine, then the kinetic energy of the punch was $E = E_0 (1 - \cos(\theta))$ for some constant $E_0$ which depends on the masses of things involved, which you'd have to determine experimentally. Once you've determined that constant, you can use this formula to simply label the plate and you won't need to do any complicated cosines in front of your class. Notice that this will be an energy, so you'll have to use e.g. foot-pounds instead of pounds. There is no good way to turn this energy back into a force. Roughly speaking, this is because you can expend the same energy travelling forwards on a bicycle (low force) or climbing upwards on a rock wall (high force), so we need to know the time-scale and distance of your overall exertion. For bicycles and climbing those parameters aren't too hard to figure out, but microscopic measurements of a ball as it's being punched will be difficult without the aforementioned high-speed camera.
Comment: Alot of interesting information but to be more specific ultimate I want to determine a student's acceleration which I know 1.0 m/s = 2.2 pmh and their pound force then help increase their acceleration. So I could I capture their acceleration without using a accelerometer and which mass is being used the weight of the student or the weight of the bag?
Comment: Again, if you want to capture their acceleration without using an accelerometer, use a force-plate or high-speed camera. For the high-speed camera, measure the velocity of the fist with a background ruler, then measure the contact interval, and measure the speed afterwards (which ideally should be 0 but if people punch "through" the bags maybe it's not).
Comment: There is a caveat.  A child and an adult could punch a ball with low mass at the same speed and cause the ball to move by the same amount because the low mass results in nearly zero recoil to the incident fist.  This is why Drost's suggestions of using force-plates are important and using them on something very heavy like a punching bag.  A fast fist will not necessarily result in a powerful punch.  Most of the force actually comes from the torso and leg muscles.
Answer: I was just thinking how this could be done accurately, which lead me to this website. I came up with a good idea.
First attach a block of clay to a wall,
then punch the clay on the wall and measure the depth of the indention.
Next, set a block of the same type of clay shaped to the same dimensions on the ground,
then drop a fist sized hard heavy ball on the clay block. A hard mold of your fist would be ideal but a shot put ball would be good.
Then measure the indention of the ball in the clay.
If you want the indention to look the same on both clay blocks (without casting a mold of your fist) wear a thin piece of leather over your knuckles.
The goal is to find the distance you have to drop the ball to create a depth in the clay equal to the depth your fist caused in the clay.
Then measure the distance the ball traveled to get the velocity of the ball at impact, and get the weight of the ball. With this information you can get figure the kinetic energy the ball had at impact, which will be the same as what your fist had.
Answer: The force of an object is a product of that object's acceleration and mass. English physicist Isaac Newton introduced this fundamental identity of classical mechanics with his second law of motion, F = ma. F represents force; m represents mass; and the variable a represents acceleration. A fighter's fist or a boxer's glove when it reaches a punching bag will have a force dependent on how fast the fist or glove is speeding up and the mass of the fist or glove and arm. The unit of force is typically the Newton (N), which is one kilogram meter per second squared.
STEP 1
Weigh the boxer or fighter on a bathroom scale. For example, the boxer weighs 147.7 pounds.
STEP 2
Multiply the boxer or fighter's weight by 0.0345 using a calculator, to determine the mass of the boxer's arm. For example, 0.0345 x 147 = 5.0715. The estimated mass of this boxer's arm is 5.1 kilograms.
STEP 3
Station the boxer in front of a punching bag. Place two assistants to the right and left of the boxer. The assistants should be facing each other with a line of vision perpendicular to the direction in which the boxer will punch. Equip one assistant with a digital stopwatch and the other with a velocimeter.
STEP 4
Instruct the assistant holding the velocimeter to hold the device immediately to the left of the surface of the punching bag, opposite the boxer. Instruct the assistant holding the stopwatch to time the boxer's punch, starting the stopwatch when the boxer begins his punching movement and stopping the stopwatch when the boxer's fist strikes the punching bag.
STEP 5
Instruct the boxer to punch the bag, allowing the two assistants to take their measurements. For example, the assistant holding the stopwatch measures a punch time of 0.1 seconds; the assistant holding the velocimeter measures a velocity of 19.0 mph.
STEP 6
Multiply the punch velocity by 1.61 to convert the velocity to kilometers per hour, using a calculator. For example, 19 x 1.61 = 30.59. Multiply your answer by 0.277 to convert the punch velocity to meters per second. For example, 30.59 x 0.2778 = 8.49. The boxer's punch velocity was approximately 8.49 meters per second (m/s).
STEP 7
Divide your answer by the measured time of the punch. For example, the measured time of the punch was 0.1 seconds: 8.49 divided by 0.1 = 84.9. The acceleration of the boxer's fist and arm was approximately 84.9 meters per second squared (m/s^2).
STEP 8
Multiply your answer by the calculated mass of the boxer's arm in kilograms. For example, 84.9 x 5.1 = 432.99. The force of this boxer's punch when it reaches the punching bag is approximately 433 kilogram meters per second squared, or 433 Newtons (N).
THINGS YOU'LL NEED
Bathroom scale
Assistants
Velocimeter
Stopwatch
Calculator


What to answer when asked to rate team members?

Question: If we're asked to rate each of our team member in a group activity interview, what is the ideal response expected? Will they want something like "equal rating to all members because I value each of them"? This was in an interview , where we were a fake team and one of us was the manager but everyone including the manager was asked to rate others. Even though it was a group activity and a presentation, (there were multiple groups) not all of us in the same group even, could be selected, so I am confused how to proceed in such situations, give good ratings to others, increasing their chances? Or giving less ratings showing yourself as a miser/unfair person? The ratings were supposed to be 1 to 10
Comment: Did you ask for clarification? Did they just say "rate X with a number" or give any other context? In general the best source to tell you on what merits to rate are the people who asked you to do the rating...
Comment: *...not all of us in the same group even, could be selected...* This part is confusing. Are you saying you were being asked to rate people you weren't doing the activity with? Is the issue that you didn't have an opinion because you lacked information? *...give good ratings to others, increasing their chances...* Was it made explicit that your rating would affect their chances of being hired?
Comment: Hello and welcome to the Workplace.SE. Can you give us more context? Are you a manager or part of the team? Is this something that is asked to everyone in the team or just you?
Comment: I added some details to the question
Answer: You haven't provided a lot of context. In most cases, there is no benefit to you or anyone else in providing an overall numeric (3 out of 5, 8 out of 10 sort of thing) score for your team-mates.
If you are doing a job interview, and were asked to do something together as a group, then providing a rating for the other members of the group, just about their performance in the group task, may be helpful. For example, if one of the people goes for "strategic" rating, where they give a good person a low score in the hope of beating them and getting the job, I can spot that (if the others give accurate ratings, or if I observed the activity and can rate them myself) and avoid hiring a dishonest candidate who puts their own desires (to get the job) ahead of the company's (to learn about all the candidates.) Candidates who give the only minority candidate a low rating may similarly be revealing their prejudices. Giving simple honest ratings is the best strategy here.
In other contexts, like your own performance review, tread more carefully. People should be evaluated on many axes: how helpful are they, how smart are they, how hard working are they, how much X do they know, how much Y do they know, how willing are they to step up and do what has to be done, and to boil all of that down to a single number without any comment or explanation is rarely useful.
Answer: "Scores" for something as subjective as human interaction are virtually useless. It is far more important to explain in words and details your evaluation of the other participants.
Think of it like rating an uber driver. The only two scores that anyone should responsibly give are either a 1 or a 5. Did you get to your destination? 5, no? 1. Uber will deactivate any driver that averages below 4.6, so giving someone a score of 4 because they failed to provide white-glove treatment is cruel towards the drivers who are in a precarious job.
The same idea applies in a workplace setting when evaluating others. You can't use a 1-dimensional measure on an activity that involves so many factors. OK, perhaps trained psychologists running a careful experiment might be able to draw conclusions from such measures, but we're talking here about HR people-- that's as likely to be successful as trying to fix a watch while wearing baseball gloves.
Of course, you've got to play by the rules. Unless it was an utter flop, just give a nominally high score, like 9-10, but then provide a detailed and honest prose explanation. If it truly matters, your explanations will speak louder than a silly number. If you really are reduced to just giving a score, make some personal notes about the experience, give a number as instructed, and if they follow up refer to your notes.


how to buy apple developer membership outside US?

Question: I'm trying to buy one-year membership of apple developer program for 99$. I can shop everything else from Apple store. but when I try to buy ADP there is a field that needs zip-code for a state in the US and I don't have it!
I have VISA and I can buy everything else but ADP! so how can I buy it?
Comment: and I forgot to mention that I'm from UAE
Comment: Is your Apple ID account a US account or a UAE account?
Comment: @NoahL point made :) they need to be the same! Thanks
Answer: Why are you trying to register as an Apple Developer in the US? You only need the one Apple ID, so assuming your Apple ID is based in the UAE you should be registering from there.
Regardless of where you're registered you'll still be able to sell your apps in all App Stores.
If the registration process takes you to the US site, you'll find you can click on the US flag icon at the bottom of the screen. This will open up a screen displaying all countries and their flags. You should find that the first grouping is for Africa, Middle East, and India. You can select United Arab Emirates from there.


Pull Requests in CodeCommit

Question: Is there a similar concept or workaround for Pull Requests inside AWS CodeCommit? I'm trying to implement CI using a CodeCommit repository and help us avoid broken head in our repository (master branch should always compile and run all tests successfully).
Answer: Such a feature does not exist, at least yet. But I have passed your feature request to the team for further review and consideration. Your feedback is very much appreciated.
Paige@AWS
Comment: Good to know. Is there a recommended practice that we can use for now?
Comment: This is now inaccurate. CodeCommit now supports Pull Requests: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2017/11/aws-codecommit-supports-pull-requests/
Answer: CodeCommit now supports Pull Requests:
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2017/11/aws-codecommit-supports-pull-requests/
Answer: Still no such feature, but we can always follow some best practices for Git itself. Things like making changes in branches and only merge it to master after it passed unit tests and code review. This link provides some more details. It discussion was based on the ReviewBoard tool but you don't have to use it to apply the same approach for code review.

Pull Requests in CodeCommit