back feed a generator through a secondary or sub panel

Question: if I have a sub panel in my outdoor shed is it possible to back feed my generator through the subpanel and if so how and where would i put the interlock. help
Comment: You want to connect the generator to the sub panel, but have generator power to the house though the main panel?  Do you want the sub panel to power the shed without the generator or the shed is just handy to hook up the generator?
Comment: What size is the existing conduit out to the shed? What's your generator wattage and what's your current load in the shed?
Comment: This is a duplicate. Let me find the dupe...
Answer: I'm afraid not. No way to do it.
This has been asked a lot, and we've searched at length, and there's no legal or safe way that we have found.
And it's exactly the problem you're seeing. You >>NEED<< a way to have the interlock work; so the generator can't turn on except when the utility main is off. And there's no way to implement that.
So the conventional way to do that is just put more wires in the conduit, or trench a new cable if you're doing direct burial.
At least in the cheap, simple, "cost IS an object" universe.
The PowerWall option
Now of course everything is changing in the 21st century with demand-side management, EMS, and all that.  Let's imagine you're installing a Tesla PowerWall, which is a sophisticated inverter that can be grid-tied (to sell solar production back to the utility) or off-grid (during grid-down conditions). It also needs an interlock.
The way the PowerWall and competitor systems do it, is to have a power-operated disconnect - not a transfer switch, a disconnect - on the utility side of the main.  Some of them are "meter collars" that sit underneath your electric meter.  On command from the PowerWall, that disconnect opens, and then, an interlock (mechanical switch) on the disconnect closes, signaling "the disconnect is open". At that point the PowerWall knows it's safe to spin up.
I mean if you were putting a Tesla PowerWall in the shed, that's just how you'd do it, but you'd still be having to wire that control cable, so unless the existing run is in conduit, you're still trenching.
So for your generator, I suppose something like that could be done.  And the disconnect switch could be manual.  But I really can't point you to any products on the market that would do that achievably.
And even if such equipment was readily available, we can't say it would be cheaper than trenching a second set of wires for the generator, e.g. 6-6-6-6 aluminum is a bargain...  which is the straightforward approach.


Are all swarming missions in xcom long war terror missions?

Question: When I see a mission marked as swarming in xcom long war, I usually think I have to save civilians and chrysallids are there. But once in a while I find that is not the case and there are no civilians to save and so the grenade laden engineer and rocketeer I bought is overkill for this mission. How do I figure out which ones are the real terror missions?
Answer: Terror missions should be marked as "Terror attack in x" on your Geoscape.  They additionally have an icon on the Geoscape that looks like a few skyscrapers on fire, compared to other missions which have different icons.


Thermocouple amplifier - single-ended vs differential?

Question: When connecting a thermocouple to an amplifier, what are the advantages of the differential versus the single-ended configuration?
Answer: The least expensive and fastest-response thermocouples have a grounded junction. If your circuit also has a common ground you can tolerate a non-zero common-mode voltage on the thermocouple when a differential amplifier is used.
An alternative, applicable if there is only one thermocouple, Is to isolate the circuit form ground and allow it to float with respect to ground.
Alternately, isolated-junction thermocouples can be used, but they are both inferior in response time(meaning poorer control) and more expensive.
Here is an example of a circuit that can be used for either type- the 1M resistor provides a path for bias currents of the differential instrumentation amplifier if an ungrounded type is connected. (Actually a seasoned designer would likely use a lower value in high temperature electrically-heated applications).
Comment: I was experiencing exactly that at high temperatures - signal was clean untill I hit around 700 degrees, then I would start to pick up a lot of noise.
Comment: "Actually a seasoned designer would likely use a lower value in high temperature electrically-heated applications" -- why so? Could you elaborate?
Comment: @miceuz Even a few uA at mains frequency will drive the inputs beyond the common-mode range of the amplifier. At elevated temperatures, insulators stop insulating so well, and bare heating elements are common, as are bare thermocouple elements.
Comment: @miceuz Even great companies like AD don't always have app notes that can be trusted.
Answer: Thermocouple circuits are just loops of wire, and in industrial situations may be rather long loops of wire.  In this case they are subject to what is called common-mode noise, in particular high-voltage induced AC.
The idea being any induced noise will appear essentially the same on both wires, and the differential amplifier will subtract it out.
Thus differential amplifiers provide a much cleaner signal than a single ended amplifier (with one side of the input tied to ground).  The ability of the differential amplifier to filter out common-mode noise is a parameter called the CMRR (common-mode rejection ratio).
Here is a thermocouple system using a number of Linear Technology parts.  The differential amplifier is the LT2057 (shaded).


Why are true headings followed above 73N in the northern hemisphere, whereas in the southern hemisphere the change is made at 60S?

Question: The question is in regards to the asymmetry of the changeover latitudes and NOT about why it needs to be changed.
Comment: Southern tip of South America is about 60S
Comment: Because there's a lot more *airports* between 60N and 73N than between 60S and 73S?
Comment: @expeditedescent I made that observation as well, but it doesn't seem like a consistent reason as the highest northern land mass extends to 83N.
Comment: At 65°S, wouldn't the pole be on the wrong side for certain longitudes? (as the South pole is at 64°S lat.).
Answer: Earth's magnetic field is not symmetric north to south.  In particular,  the magnetic declination can get significantly larger at a given southern latitude than it does at the corresponding northern latitude.  This can be seen by looking at a world declination map:

Curves of a given declination reach much lower southern latitudes than they do northern latitudes.  For example, the highlighted curve is 40° west of north declination;  its southernmost point in the northern hemisphere is at about 75°N, but its northernmost point in the southern hemisphere is at 35°S (!).  Another way this manifests is that the South Magnetic Pole is at a significantly lower latitude than the North Magnetic Pole (~65°S vs. ~85°N).
As to why the Earth's magnetic field is so asymmetric, that's a question for Earth Science.SE.  My understanding is that you may not get a good answer over there either;  the behavior of Earth's magnetic field is complex and not fully understood.


Can't access ftp server

Question: Before installing ubuntu I used windows.My internet provider has a ftp site.
In windows I just open a browser and visit the ftp site.But I can access the
ftp site in ubuntu.In firefox it says
Comment: Please update your post with the error message you get.
Comment: I get error 404 page not found. Thanks.
Answer: FTP should work in your web browser, you can also add FTP connections to Nautilus (the default file manager in Ubuntu) and Filezilla is also available in the Software Center (FileZilla in Ubuntu will be identical to FileZilla in windows).
Comment: how can i open ftp in browser. Tell me in detail.
Comment: You can access FTP in the web browser by putting the FTP URL into the address bar. Normally if you need a user name and password, your browser should be able to handle that, too. Generally speaking, opening FTP in the browser is `read-only`, although I'm sure there are browser add-ons/plugins available to do more than that with FTP connections.

Can't access ftp server


Is there a belt you can use to bypass the ac compressor on a 2006 Honda accord 2.4 4cyl

Question: Is there a belt you can use to bypass the ac compressor on a 2006 Honda accord 2.4 4cyl
Answer: Using the following routing, you can bypass the A/C compressor:

The belt needs to be ~55.875" long. Since it is a 7-rib belt, you'd need something like a Dayco 5070563 (which might be a tad long, but should work). (NOTE: I have no affiliation with Dayco ... it's just their website is the only one I could find which did lookup by size). This Dayco belt is 56.3" long. If from the site I linked, 55.875" belt length was very tight and a "bear to install", this length should make it easier and still work fine.
Answer: There may well be but it depends on two things:
1) a valid path for the belt including the adjuster
2) a belt of the correct length
You can measure the path with a piece of string and match that length - do check the tooth spacing and that the adjuster is fully retracted when you measure...
Comment: @Jupiter not needed for my vehicle (Jaguar) because a belt from a Renault works... Perhaps you should comment directly to the O P.
Answer: A dayco 5060555 or a bando 6pk1410 will work ,they are only 6 rib but by not running the ac a 6 rib will work ,we have done this a number of times with no problems


Printer Zebra, any idea why the DNS isn't updated?

Question: I have a bunch of Zebra label printers on our (global) network.
I have print-server located at one site that print to all of the Zebras.
The issue is, the printers are having there IP assigned by DHCP and gets there host name registered in the DNS.
If the printer hasn't been restarted before the DHCP lease is running out the printer or DHCP will not renew the DNS registration: result is that the  print-server can't see the printer by its host name anymore.
Any idea why the DNS isn't updated??
Comment: Not without logs or packet capture. Have you run a packet sniffer to see if the printers are even trying to renew their lease?
Answer: The lease will only expire if the printers don't behave properly because otherwise they would periodically renew the lease and you wouldn't have this problem. It's normal for the DHCP server to notify the DNS server to delete the entry once the lease has expired, which is what is happening in your case.
You have a number of options.

Configure DHCP to not delete DNS entries - this really isn't a good idea.
Configure DHCP reservations and static DNS entries - better but still not great.
Configure static IP addresses on the printers and static DNS entries - the best and most trouble free option.

Printer Zebra, any idea why the DNS isn’t updated?


Leaflet GridLayer Vector Slicer with GeoDjango GeoJSON DOM

Question: Overview
I am trying to use Leaflet's GridLayer Vector Slicer to split up a geojson with complex geometries being passed to my webmap via GeoDjango. I can't seem to get the tiled GeoJSON to display, however.
Documentation for VectorGrid is here: https://github.com/Leaflet/Leaflet.VectorGrid
I can tile the same vector layer from a static framework when I assign the geojson text to a JS variable in a separate geojson.js file, then load that script and tile the vector using VectorGrid.
Static framework that works:
For example, from geojson.js:
var soil_ph = {"type": "FeatureCollection",... }

Then, from index.html:

This works fine and the display of the vector is snappy.
What I need, but doesn't work:
When I try to call a serialized GeoJSON view in GeoDjango, however, it doesn't seem to work.
From views.py:
def soil_ph_view(request):
    soil_ph_json = serialize('geojson', soil_ph.objects.all(), geometry_field="geom")
    return HttpResponse(soil_ph_json, content_type='json')

From urls.py:
urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^soil_ph/', views.soil_ph_view, name='soil_ph'),
    ...,
]

From index.html:
var soil_vector = $.ajax({
    url: "{% url 'soil_ph' %}"
});

var soil_ph = L.vectorGrid.slicer(soil_vector2, {
    rendererFactory: L.svg.tile,
});

I have also tried the following to pull the geojson data from the Django view:
var soil_vector = new L.GeoJSON.AJAX("{% url 'soil_ph' %}");

But no luck in getting it to tile and display.
How do I resolve this?
Comment: are you calling the vector grid slicer on the callback of the ajax call? `$.ajax(...).done(function(data){ L.vectorGrid.slicer(data, {...})});`
Answer: On your view, change content_type='json' to content_type='application/json'
try:
var soil_vector = {{ soil_ph_json }}
I strongly recommend to change your configuration to use render and not HttpResponse https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/http/shortcuts/#render


DNS cname TYPE and IP address

Question: assume a website is aliased. for instance  www.sunnyweather.com is the alias and CNAME is xyzverycomplex.sunnyweather.com. After you query and get the CNAME you then need to query the A Type for the xyzverycomplex.sunnyweather.com . the question is: why do I should care about the CNAME? why I can't get directly the IP address of the alias from the name server?
Comment: Because it was designed to function in that manner.
Comment: given that we are always seeking the quickest way to get a full answer (query, or anything else) especially in Internet (still a best effort network), and given the number of queries possible per user, I guess there is a more motivated and/or involved answer.
Answer: You can do both.
If you use A records for all your ip addresses you must change each and every record affected every time you need to change the ip address, e.g., when you change the ip address of a server.
Using CNAME records enable you to group the ip addresses in a logical way so you often only need to change a few entries, e.g., an A record to change all the references to a server.

DNS cname TYPE and IP address


sewer smell on cabin toilet

Question: Hello I have an off grid cabin with one bathroom and the toilet room smells of sewer pretty bad at times, esp with rain and colder weather. I looked under the crawl space for venting and there is a vent line installed but it appears to vent into the soffit and not through the roof. I'm sure this probably isn't the proper way but could I just cut that vent line off in the crawl space and add an AAV right there and eliminate the venting up through the walls and into the soffit ? If not is there another solution here?
Comment: Municipal/city sewer connection, or septic tank?
Comment: If it is vented(even badly though soffits) should not have a smell in the room(unless vented right by the window).  In the room I would check for loose P trap joints/leaking wax seal on the toilet.
Comment: It's a septic tank
Comment: And just recently put to use so it's basically a new system
Answer: Definitely replace that vent with an AAV. The sewer gases could be wafting the sewer gases down through a ceiling fan or some hole in the wall.
Also check the P-traps. They could dry out, or hair could drain them. If you have a floor drain, check that too. There are ways to keep traps full by maintaining a film of mineral oil on the water, for example.
You mentioned rain and colder weather. It seems like a temperature change affects the air currents in some way to bring the sewer gases to your nose. I'd expect it to create a "stack effect" where warm indoor air goes up and cold air goes in at the bottom of the cabin (if there are gaps or cracks). This brings up the possibility that plumbing cracks below your floor could be leaking sewer gas.
The toilet flange is at the floor so it's worth looking at as well. Even if the toilet-floor boundary is sealed with silicone, the sewer gases could leak down into the crawl space, which through the stack effect could make it into the bathroom.
Good luck.
Comment: OP doesn't indicate if there are any code authorities to deal with, but AAVs are often disallowed by code and when not explicitly disallowed are only allowed in very specific instances, like when there's a sink in an island. AAVs have a tendency to fail and need replacement _far_ more often than an outdoor vent. Since the venting was 90% completed, it seems to make more sense to finish that work than abort it and replace it with a maintenance headache.

sewer smell on cabin toilet


Is this a possible bug in Blender 2.78a?

Question: If you use Subdivision Set [Ctrl 0] it's seems to not be possible to undo this action using shortcut [Ctrl Z]
Answer: I don't have enough reputation to comment, so I'll post this here...
Undo seems to work fine for me.
Workflow:

New scene with standard cube
Press Ctrl-2, then Ctrl-0, then Ctrl-3 and watch how the cube changes
Pressing Ctrl-Z repeatedly goes through the stages of 3 subdivisions, then 0 (which is the cube again), then 2 subdivisions.

You may want to post a .blend file if your problem persists, or at least describe which kind of geometry you are having a problem with.


Now dual Canadian and EU citizen- Does ESTA need to know?

Question: I just became a Canadian citizen and will travel with Canadian passport to USA. Does ESTA need to be updated with this information?
Comment: Hello fellow new citizen! (I am taking the oath on Tuesday.) In a similar situation I asked [Dual citizenship passports and visas](http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/64790/dual-citizenship-passports-and-visas) -- the answers include "Canadian citizens are exempt from ESTA and do not need a visa for most tourist/leisure visits". This is a duplicate, really.
Comment: On which passport are you going ? Are you flying ?
Comment: Flying to USA with Canadian passport.
Comment: Congratulations to both John and @chx on your new citizenship!
Answer: The ESTA guidelines say:

Each approved ESTA application generally is valid for two years or until the applicant's passport expires, whichever comes first. A new travel authorization is required if: (1) the traveler is issued a new passport; (2) the traveler changes his or her name; (3) the traveler changes his or her gender; (4) the traveler's country of citizenship changes; or (5) the circumstances underlying the traveler's previous responses to any of the ESTA application questions requiring a "yes" or "no" response have changed. The associated fee will be charged for each new application submitted.

My interpretation of this is that your ESTA is no longer valid. This is no issue for you, though, as Canadian citizens do not need an ESTA to travel to the USA.
Answer: When you travel on your Canadian passport, you won't be using your ESTA authorization. You won't be using the visa waiver program. It's therefore not necessary to keep your ESTA registration up to date (if that's even possible).


Size of iron sphere with mass of our sun

Question: What would be the diameter of a sphere of iron with the mass of our sun? Use standard density of metalic iron.
I realize it would then collapse into a star in its own right and become much smaller as it's density increases.
How does this relate to the large diameter that our sun will have when at its red dwarf stage?
Thank you.
Comment: The last part of your question is unclear. The Sun is in its "red dwarf" stage *now*. Do you mean its final white dwarf phase?
Comment: @PM2Ring The centre of a massive star is roughly a 1 solar mass ball of iron, shortly before core collapse...
Comment: The first part of your question is simple arithmetic, not physics. What's the relevance of iron? FWIW, it'd take roughly 1000 stellar systems like ours to gather that much iron. I guess you could cheat & grab it from a large star in the silicon burning phase, but you have to be quick. That phase only lasts a few days, and generally ends in a type II supernova explosion.
Answer: The object would shrink to become an "iron white dwarf", supported by electron degeneracy pressure.
If you want to assume that you have a cold sphere of iron supported by electron degeneracy pressure, then you can use the Nauenberg (1972) approximation for the radius of a cold$^*$ white dwarf with $\mu_e$ mass units per electron and a Chandrasekhar mass $M_C = 5.816 M_{\odot}/\mu_e^2$.
$$ R = \frac{2.45354}{\mu_e} R_{\rm Earth} \left(\frac{M}{M_{C}}\right)^{-1/3} \left[ 1 - \left(\frac{M}{M_c}\right)^{4/3}\right]^{1/2}$$
Thus for $^{56}$Fe, $\mu_e = 2.15$, $M_c = 1.26M_{\odot}$, and if the mass of your star is $M=1M_{\odot}$, we have $R= 0.635R_{\rm Earth} \simeq 4045$ km.
The Sun will end its life as a white dwarf with a mass of about $0.5M_{\odot}$ and will be made of a mixture of carbon and oxygen with $\mu_e =2$ and $M_c = 1.45M_{\odot}$. Putting this into the Nauenberg approximation we have an estimated radius for the end-of-life Sun as a cold white dwarf of $R = 9700$ km.
$^* $ "Cold" in this context means that the Fermi kinetic energy is much greater than $k_B T$. In practice this means $T<10^9$ K. A contracting iron ball roughly in hydrostatic equilibrium will never reach such temperatures because of highly efficient neutrino emission above $10^8$ K.
Comment: FWIW, the radius for room temperature iron under no compression ($\rho=7.874 g/cm^3$) is just over 392,150 km. If you assembled this sphere from cold iron it would get very hot as it compresses into degenerate matter. (And even if there were no compression it could get hot from the heat of formation, unless you built it very carefully). But how hot could it get? I guess the total thermal energy can be calculated from the difference in gravitational potential of the initial & final spheres, but how long would it take to compress itself, and how much heat would be radiated away while it shrank?
Comment: @PM2Ring a 1 solar mass ball of iron would shrink and heat up, but of course it would not become hot enough to avoid degeneracy - it would start emitting neutrinos long before that. It is no different at all in that respect from a 1 solar mass ball of carbon.
Comment: Ok, and from your edit I see the temperature is under a billion K. (BTW, I wasn't suggesting the heat would be sufficient to prevent degeneracy).
Comment: @PM2Ring Cold and degenerate are synonyms in the study of compact objects.
Answer: Hint: I'm assuming you know (or can find) the mass of the Sun $m_\odot$ and the density of solid iron on Earth $\rho_{Fe}$. Now, you just need to know the relation between density, mass and volume.
Regarding what happens after someone created such a sphere, I don't know for sure. The mass is below the Chandrasekhar limit of $1.4 M_\odot$, so it will not become a neutron star. (If it was the case, the diameter would be significantly reduced because its density would become around $10^{14}$ larger than the density of the Sun.) Nevertheless, the extra pressure due to the mass would decrease the diameter of the iron sphere since it's density would rougly be $10^6$ the density of the Sun.
If it had enough energy (e.g, from approaching the iron to create a sphere), we may get a white dwarf. In time it would cool down and it's colour would go to yellow, red, and brown, since the colour depends on the surface temperature (hotter means whiter and brighter). However, red dwarfs and brown dwarfs are different types of object.
Comment: The answer has nothing to do with the density of solid iron on Earth. The object would not become a neutron star because it is below the Chandrasekhar mass for an iron white dwarf.
Comment: @RobJeffries: you're right, I was thinking about neutron degeneracy pressure. I'll edit my answer.


Sparing Sans before he asks to be spared?

Question: What happens if you spare sans in his fight before he asks you to?
What are the options and what happens when you select them?
Answer: Nothing different will happen and his fight will continue as normal.
Answer: Nothing will happen. If you try to spare him prematurely, he'll continue the fight as planned. The only time in which you can spare him is when he offers to spare you.
Answer: Nothing. He won't say anything, he'll just attack normally, as if you healed or ACTed. Also, when he tries to SPARE you, he will simply say "Friendship... is great, right? Let's stop fighting."
Comment: This answer adds nothing not already said by other answers. Duplicate answers are not helpful and may be deleted.


Webcam and Cheese: Unbelievably slow

Question: I have a machine with 4 GIG of RAM on a 64 bit computer. Yet, Cheese is unbelievably slow in recording videos. To my surprise, even YouTube records videos faster than Cheese.
What would be an apt alternative for video recording on Ubuntu systems?
Comment: Was going to ask the same. I have a 1080p HP Webcam and the slow capture was not there in 12.04.
Answer: You may wish to give GUCView a try; it is in the default repositories of Ubuntu 12.04 and probably other version. The official website at sourceforge provides comprehensive information about the software but it is very simple to use indeed.
Here's a screenshot of GUCView in action:
Comment: Works better than Cheese and has more features. One small detail, it does not detect the webcam if it is connected in another port that is not detected as /dev/video0. In my case with my HP webcam in /dev/video1 it tells me it did not detect any webcam. I had to run it in terminal with the -d /dev/video1 parameter. Also there is no Unity integration and the fact that the options are in another window is annoying. Apart from that nice Answer Geppettvs since it solved the slowness problem and it gives options very advanced.
Answer: Testing a couple of Webcam tools because of the slowness of Cheese (Very slow indeed) as suggested by Geppettvs I have the following:
GUCView (As suggested by Geppettvs) which installs and works the following way:
The following line will add the PPA for this app, update the repositories and install the app:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pj-assis/ppa -y && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install guvcview
After which you can run the app with the command guvcview. Be warned that if your webcam is not in /dev/video0 it will throw a warning. You will need to change it to where your webcam is, for example:
guvcview -d /dev/video1 - In my case it was in video1, but it can be in video2, video3... Depends on what USB port it was connected to. guvcview does not automatically detect the webcam if it is connected in another one that is not video0.
This offers many options compared to Cheese:

Camorama - Much faster than guvcview and obviously MUCH more than Cheese
It has the same problem as guvcview in regards to finding the webcam device. You need to run it from terminal like this: camorama -d /dev/video1 if your webcam is not in video0.

There is also Kamerka but since it needed to download a lot of KDE libraries I tested this one in another Pc with Kubuntu and works excellent.
Comment: Camorama, is only capable of capturing images. No video recording services are available here. On the other hand, I tried GUVCView, and it is as slow as Cheese.
Answer: kamerka takes nice photos but it does NOT do videos as of the latest version I could find. Cheese,  not only is horribly slow but it can slow down your computer.
It just amazes me that no one seems to have a descent webcam capture for Ubuntu.  Skype works great so why not?
Joe

Webcam and Cheese: Unbelievably slow


How to scale desktop icons in 18.04

Question: How can I scale my desktop icons in Ubuntu 18.04? With Ubuntu 16.04 I could scale my icons under the screen size tab in Settings. With Ubuntu 18.04 I cannot do that.
Answer: The resize icons feature works perfectly in Files, but the resized icons may be the wrong size on the desktop if they are the right size in Files or vice versa. The only way that looks right on my Ubuntu 18.04 is to delete all the icons from the desktop. That way the icons in Files are the right size and the desktop looks uncluttered and neat without any icons on it.
Try it and see how it looks on your system. Open Files and click the 3 horizontal lines ≡ button that is located next to the three minimize/maximize/close window buttons on the toolbar. Then change the Reset zoom percentage.
Answer: Ubuntu 18.04 with Unity Desktop
If you are using the Unity Desktop the most comprehensive method is font scaling which includes icons, title bars and other UI elements. To install it use:
sudo apt install unity-tweak-tool

Then call it from the command line or Dash.  The settings I'm using for scaling on a 1920x1080 monitor are:

The Text scaling factor scales fonts and menu bars Icon size is preset but the text size under it increases giving the illusion the icon size changed:

In the .gif above scaling starts at 1.38 on a 1920x1080 monitor. Then it is changed to 1 and everything gets tiny, which is normal. Then it is changed to 2 which is ideal for the visually challenged. Once again the icons have fixed pixel size and the font shrinking or expanding under the icon gives the illusion their size is changing.

Others may be interested in the full suite of "tweak" tools available for installing under 18.04 LTS:
$ apt list | grep tweak
gajim-rostertweaks/bionic,bionic 1.0.0-3 all
gnome-tweak-tool/bionic,bionic 3.28.1-1 all
gnome-tweaks/bionic,bionic 3.28.1-1 all
mate-tweak/bionic,bionic 18.04.16-1 all
mousetweaks/bionic,bionic,now 3.12.0-4 amd64 [installed]
tweak/bionic 3.02-2 amd64
unity-tweak-tool/bionic,bionic,now 0.0.7ubuntu4 all [installed]

Comment: I'll put my reading glasses on and repeat again after work in both 18.04 and 16.04. I was certain icons were scaling last time but it may have been an illusion.
Comment: I'm unsure too. I read your question again and it's ambiguous whether icons sizes are affected. The UI labels are rather clear by omission that they're not.
Comment: @DavidFoerster Icons come prepackaged 16x16, 24x24, 30x30, etc. and are not changing size with fonts, title bars and menu bars. It was an optical illusion when I did it last time. I've added a `.gif` to demonstrate.

How to scale desktop icons in 18.04


how to change the pivot point of an animated object?

Question: I want to animate a cube that moves from right to left, falling from one side to the next, and so on. But to animate the cube, the pivot point must change. Because the cube falls first over edge A, then over edge B, then over edge C and so on. To change the pivot point, I tried to set the origin always to another edge. But that doesn't work because then the origin changes permanently. I would always have to move the origin to where I need it to make the animation work. How would you solve this? Thanks for your help!
Comment: On youtube there is some very good videos of how to approach this issue. The first one is using geometry nodes to animate the cube, and the second approach is using empty objects to set new pivot points. **Geometry nodes video:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXx7yZbX76w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXx7yZbX76w) **Empty objects pivot points Video:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1_6l9vxyKs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1_6l9vxyKs)
Answer: Add an empty. Place it where you want the pivot. Parent the cube to it. Rotate the empty and the cube will follow. You can then move the cube relative to the empty to change the rotation position b
Comment: Thank you, mr bill! how to move the cube relative to the empty? I just know how to move the children.
Answer: To add to Mr Bill's answer, you can parent your cube to an empty, and parent this empty to another one, and so on. Here the cube is parented to empty 1, and empty 1 is parented to empty 2:

Now you can animate empty 2, then animate empty 1. Don't forget to keyframe empty 1 just before its own rotation so that the cube correctly sticks to the the right position. Here is what it gives:

In a more complicated case, the best would be to change the parent of the object, for that purpose you can use the Dynamic Parent addon.


Does the Hubble telescope use a "simple" PID-controller for its pointing control system?

Question: I am wondering whether the Hubble Space Telescope uses a "simple" PID controller like this:

Or is it using another type of control system that may be much more complex?
Answer: Yes.
According to the NASA paper "Hubble Space Telescope Pointing Control System Design Improvement Study Results", in the first full paragraph on page 2, the author states

The nominal control algorithm is a standard proportional-integral-derivative (PID) operating at 40 Hz using the rate gyro assembly measurements.

If you want more information on Hubble control, I encourage you to read more of the paper. When Hubble originally launched, there were immediate complications with pointing, stemming from thermal effects caused by the solar arrays. In response to this, NASA looked at five different control algorithms to replace the standard law, which this paper goes into detail about. In the end, these five methods were never used, since

The troublesome solar arrays were replaced with a more well-behaved set and the world's largest contact lens was installed.

So instead of changing the control law they just fixed the problem from its source. Talk about a costly mistake.
Comment: @uhoh *Those five algorithms* were never used. Those five algorithms were intended to replace the simple PID control law that Hubble flew with. Instead, they kept that PID law and just fixed the arrays.
Comment: Basically, NASA considered changing the control law in order to compensate for the weird solar arrays, but instead opted to replace them. This meant that the control law was not changed from a "standard proportional-integral-derivative."
Comment: I cant `+1` twice, but I've cleaned-up comments, I understand now. Excellent answer!
Answer: When taking control theory graduate courses in the 1980's our reference book had an exercise that mentioned that the Saturn V (moon rocket), from a control model point of view, had 22 or 23 orders. And that was designed in the mid sixties. I would be very surprised if the Hubble control model was as simple as a straight PID, due to the complex bending moments and thermal effects that you need to control in an optimized way, from multiple sensors with and fine pointing accuracy requirements.


What is the difference between 做 vs. none in 这是我妈妈(做)的菜?

Question: What is the difference if we say:
这是我妈妈做的菜 and 这是我妈妈的菜?
With\without (做)
Comment: Well...what's the difference between **these are my mum's dishes** and **these are the dishes that my mum made**?
Answer: 做 is a verb for 'make'
我妈妈做 = My mother makes
的 in "我妈妈做的"  is an 'adjective marker' that marks [我妈妈做] as an [adjectival phrase] that modifies the noun [菜]
[我妈妈做的][菜] = [dish] [that my mother made]
~
的 in 我妈妈的菜 is a 'possessive marker' that marks the object 菜 belongs to the subject 我妈妈
我妈妈的菜 = 'my mother's dish' (she owns it by ordering it, made it or any other method)
It can also mean 'my mother preferred dish' (dish can be a metaphor for love-interest)
Similar example:
[我的][槍] = [my] [gun]
[我買的][槍] = [gun] [that I bought]
Comment: Okay, thank you very much 谢谢
Answer: Grammatically, 我妈妈做的菜 is a defining relative clause, whereas 我妈妈的菜 is a noun phrase (possessive).
In English, a relative clause is introduced by a relative pronoun, which/ that, and it comes after the noun it describes
Examples:
the dish that my mother made
the picture that my child painted
In Chinese grammar, a defining relative clause looks like an adjective, and it comes before the noun it describes.
我妈妈做的菜 My-mother-made 的 dish
我孩子畫的畫 My-child-painted 的 picture
Without the verb, it is a simple possessive xx 的 yy, where yy belongs to xx.
我妈妈的菜 my mother's dish
我孩子的畫 my child's picture
Comment: Okay, thank you very much
Answer: Literally,

这是我妈妈做的菜
This is my mom's cooking
This is my mom's (cooked) dishes

and

这是我妈妈的菜
This is my mom's vegetable
This is my mom's dishes

so the second version only indicates "possession".  The first one indicates the "cooking" action.
The phrase can be a slang:

这是我妈妈的菜
这是小明的菜

can indicate

It is my mom's favorite
It is 小明's favorite

or depending on the context, it can commonly mean

It is my mom's favorite guy
It is 小明's favorite (type of) girl

In this case, it is similar to "my cup of tea" in English. But since it is a slang, you may need to use it carefully, such as, if you say that in front of somebody's mom, there is a chance that she may view you as impolite.
Comment: Okay, thank you very much
Answer: It's essentially what dROOOze mentioned in the comments:

这是我妈妈做的菜。
This is the dish my mother cooked.

This implies that 我妈妈 cooked [做] the dish, and can be contrasted with dishes 我妈妈 didn't cook.  Perhaps they're at a family dinner where many people bring dishes, and the child is pointing out which dish 我妈妈 cooked.

这是我妈妈的菜。
This is my mother's dish.

The emphasis here is ownership: this dish belongs to 我妈妈 in some (unspecified) way.  Perhaps she purchased this dish, perhaps she cooked this dish, perhaps she invented this dish, perhaps this dish is adjusted to 我妈妈's taste (e.g. extra spicy).  I feel the context is most likely a waiter at a restaurant coming out with the dish, and the child is saying 我妈妈 ordered it.
(Note: we can't tell how many dishes there are; maybe one dish, maybe more than one dish.  For simplicity, I assume there's one dish.)
Comment: Okay, thank you very much
Answer: Though sounds similar, the latter sentence can lead to confusion - this is my mother's dish, does it mean her (favorite) dish or a dish (prepared) for her only?
So I won't omit the word "做", which clearly indicates the dish was made by your mother.
A side note, in these days, you shall avoid saying "那"是我妈妈的菜 unless your finger is pointing to that dish as well. As people might take the wrong way - "that is my mother's (favorite) dish" or worse "that is my mother's love(er)" :)
Joking indeed! :)
Comment: Okay, thank you very much


Why is my bisect tool not working?

Question: It says Report: "Error Selected edges/faces required". It might be because i am working on a metaball that has "Object> Apply> Visual Geometry to Mesh"
Answer: You can restart blender and then maybe it'll work fine.
If it still not working go and try this...
menu>mesh>bisect I know only these two methods.
Hope it'll help you.

Why is my bisect tool not working?


The potential at a point

Question: According to my book, 'The potential at a point is said to be 1 volt when 1 joule of work is done in bringing 1 coulomb charge from infinity to that point.' But I wonder how it is possible. As the charge is being brought from infinity, the work done = force * infinity, thus, the work done would be infinity indeed. Please help me out.
Answer: Work isn't $Fd$ when the force changes with position. It's an integral, and the integral is finite even over an infinite distance because the force goes to zero sufficiently rapidly at large distances.
The integral is a standard homework problem so I am not going to write it or evaluate it.
Answer: Loosely speaking, at great distance the force required gets infinitely tiny, so the two infinities largely cancel out.
Answer: The force between two point charges is an example of an inverse square law where the force is proportional to the reciprocal of the separation squared, $F\propto \frac {1}{r^2}$, as illustrated below.

As the separation increases so does the force decrease.
The area under a force against separation graph is the work done and as long as the area under the graph from $r=R$ to $r\, (=) \, \infty$ is finite, which it is,  there is no problem.
Answer: Force is dependent of distance $r$, so thing move like this
$$\newcommand{\newln}{\\&\quad\quad{}} \begin{align}&\int^{r_b}_{r_a}\mathbf{\vec{F}}\cdot d\mathbf{\vec{r}}=-(U_a-U_b) \newln \Rightarrow \int^{r}_{\infty}\mathbf{\vec{F}}\cdot d\mathbf{\vec{r}}=-(U_r-U_\infty) \newln \Rightarrow \int^{r}_{\infty}\mathbf{\vec{F}}\cdot d\mathbf{\vec{r}} =-U_r ~~~~~~~ [U_\infty = 0]\newln \Rightarrow  \int^{r}_{\infty}k\cdot\frac{q.q_o}{r^2}d\mathrm{\mathbf{r}}=-U_r ~~~~~~~ [\textrm{Coulomb's     Law}]\newln \Rightarrow kq\cdot q_o\int^{r}_{\infty}\frac{1}{r^2}d\mathbf{r}=-U_r\newln \Rightarrow kq\cdot q_o\left[\frac{-1}{r} \right]^r_\infty=-Ur\newln\Rightarrow \frac{-kq.q_o}{r}=-U_r\newln \Rightarrow U_r=\frac{kq.q_o}{r}
\end{align}
$$,
And potential energy is $(-)  work done by conservative force.

The potential at a point


Why is it important to recuperate between workouts?

Question: After intensive workouts muscle soreness is a common phenomenon. I heard, that it is important to recuperate before working out again.
However, I had the following experience: During a two week bike trip I continued the trip despite the soreness and lost a lot of weight and gained endurance. I am wondering now, if I should continue with what I know will work (working out despite the soreness) or if I should wait until the muscles recuperated.
Are there any references or articles that reflect this topic? Why is it important to wait until the muscles are not sore anymore?
Comment: The importance of recovery has already been largely addressed in this question http://fitness.stackexchange.com/q/96/501.
Answer: A lot of the answer depends on your goals and the exercise you are doing.  Our bodies are marvelous creations that can adapt to a wide range of stresses over time.  However, there are a few principles you can use to apply to your exercise regimen:

Muscle is torn down and exhausted while you exercise
Muscle is built back up when you rest--usually larger/stronger than before
Endurance is adapting your muscles to adapt to long periods of continuing stress
Maximum power is adapting your muscles to short bursts of maximal effort

In short, if you continually exercise without rest your body will break down until you are forced to rest.  However, since we still need sleep and we have jobs that require us to be present, we can't continually exercise.  The period of time when you are not physically involved in exercise is a period of relative rest.
If you bike for two weeks straight, your body is adapting to the stresses and periods of rest you are giving it.  In essence you are tuning your body more towards endurance, and dealing with shorter rest periods.  That means your body won't have the time to build bigger and stronger muscles, but it will be able to repair the damages done during the period of work and fine tune how it is getting oxygen to your muscles.
If on the other hand you are strength training, or some other form of exercise that requires short bursts of energy, your body's requirements for rest become greater.  In short, you are putting stresses that are at the edge of or slightly beyond what your body is equipped to handle.  During the periods of rest, your body is building the muscle up to meet those greater demands on it.  It is also fine tuning the energy sources that the muscle requires so it is less dependent on aerobic (with oxygen) sources.  By continually increasing the weight, you will eventually need longer periods of rest to fully rebuild and adapt to the new weight.  In the beginning however, you only need one full day of rest between sessions.
Comment: This pretty much sums it up. Any text book on training will indicate proper rest periods based on atheletic goal. Endurance training calls for very short rest periods. Typically 8-24hours.
Comment: The only other thing I can think of is that there is a difference between pain from muscle soreness and pain due to injury.  You can safely ignore muscle soreness while you are adapting your body to the new demands.  As it gets accustomed to the current rate of change the muscle soreness becomes lessened over time.


When i import a world in minecraft, which a previously joined in multiplayer, how do I play as my multiplayer character rather than original creator?

Question: My friend has a Minecraft Bedrock world which we played together. He exported it and I imported it, but I spawn as him. Can I somehow play as my character from our multiplayer sessions in that world?
Answer: A dedicated server is need.
Download dedicated server here: https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/download/server/bedrock/
Unzip and run bedrock_server.exe for a few seconds to generate the default world.
Open server.properties and set online-mode=false ( https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/support/minecraft-bedrock-support/2983414-authenticate-to-microsoft-services ).
Go into ./worlds/Bedrock level delete the content and past in you world.
Allow UWP apps to connect to localhost: Run PowerShell as admin and execute CheckNetIsolation LoopbackExempt -a -n="Microsoft.MinecraftUWP_8wekyb3d8bbwe" (https://pmmp.readthedocs.io/en/rtfd/faq/connecting/win10localhostcantconnect.html)
Open Minecraft Bedrock and add server ip 127.0.0.1 por 19132 (you can see the ports when you launch the server).


Notifications don't show up when phone is asleep - Samsung Galaxy s4 running CM12.1

Question: Ok so this is a curious little problem I have. I recently flashed CM 12.1 on my S4 and since then I don't receive any notifications from apps like Bleacher Report, Snapchat or Instagram when I'm not using my phone. However, when I am using my phone I see notifications on Snapchat at least pop up. I tested this my sending myself a snap and voila saw the heads up notification say I had one. But curious thing is, this notification would not arrive if I wasn't using my phone and had it set down somewhere else. I have again tested this by having a friend send me a snap while my phone was set down and when I picked it up later, didn't see a notification. Same thing with Instagram. It's driving me nuts. Can anyone help me with this? I have read around and some people suggest this may be a problem that happened while restoring using Titanium backup but I cannot see why it would only affect certain apps. Facebook notifications work just fine. Fotmob (a soccer score app) works just fine. It's just SnapChat, BleacherReport and Instagram (at least those are the only ones I have noticed).
Answer: Try installing Echo Notification Lockscreen. It is a decent third party app.
Check their official site here
Comment: I tell you notifications aren't showing up and you ask me to install an app that shows notifications on the lockscreen? Great.
Comment: I thought u were referring to notifications not appearing on the lockscreen


How do you say "What do you mean?" in Latin?

Question: I know "to mean" is usually translated as "significare", however, I feel like that in the question "What do you mean?" it means something completely different. In Croatian we say "Kako to misliš?" which literally translates to "How do you think it?".
Answer: It depends on the context. One option is to ask 'Quid dicere vis?' (What do you want to say?)
You would use the verb 'significare' as in 'Quid hoc significat?' (What does this mean?)
Answer: quid istuc est (lit. "what is that thing you mentioned"), possibly. I am drawing it from Paul Nixon's translation of Plautus's works.
Many constructions in a variety of contexts in this translation are translated as "what do you mean". They are all qui-constructions, and pick up a variety of interesting inflections and adverbs depending on what exactly is being referred to. I suspect the general answer will depend heavily on context.


Automatically tracing and keeping ViewPoints in a list while manually rotating 3D graphics

Question: I will need to make a video from the manual rotation of a 3D graphics. In order to do this, I will need to record the set of all view points that I made during rotation. There is method that we can use to get a single viewpoint, like discussed here, but can we find a way to use AppendTo or Sow and Reap to automatically store all the view points in a list?
Comment: @Szabolcs: I just hope to do as many things as possible from within Mathematica :)
Comment: Why don't you use a screen recording program?
Answer: Here's a start:
(* Recording *)

vp = OptionValue[Graphics3D, ViewPoint];
vv = OptionValue[Graphics3D, ViewVertical];

vprec = list[];
vvrec = list[];
g = Graphics3D[Cuboid[],
  ViewPoint -> Dynamic[vp, (vp = #; vprec = list[vprec, #]) &],
  ViewVertical -> Dynamic[vv, (vv = #; vvrec = list[vvrec, #]) &]
  ]

I used a linked list for O(1) appending.
Now rotate the graphic slowly using the mouse.  The view points will be recorded.
(* Playback *)

vpplay = List @@ Flatten[vprec, Infinity, list];
vvplay = List @@ Flatten[vvrec, Infinity, list];

ListAnimate@
 MapThread[
  Show[g, ViewPoint -> #1, ViewVertical -> #2] &, {vpplay, vvplay}]

For a better result you also need to record the precise time of each step (AbsoluteTime[]), compute the correct frame durations and reproduce them using a custom ListAnimate.  (When you export to GIF you can specify frame durations---check the docs on GIF exporting).
Comment: Amazing! I will need to go deep into Dynamic... Thanks!
Comment: Adopting Szabolcs's code, we can also write something like: vprec = {}; vvrec{}; then change the Dynamic[vp, (vp = #; vprec = list[vprec, #]) &] to Dynamic[vp, (vp = #; AppendTo[vprec, #]&]. This makes the code easier to read, but may decrease performance in complex situation.
Comment: @saturasl To be precise, the time taken by `AppendTo[list, ...]` is proportional to the length of `list`.  It'll slow down as the list gets big, but I haven't tried if it makes a difference in this application.  It might not.


mint multiple NFTs in single transaction (ERC- 721,1155 & 20)

Question: I'm developing an NFT Marketplace using the Moralis server. I'd like to know that is there any way to upload multiple nfts with different metadata in one single transaction? Can you please share the smart contract for that?
Answer: This is what i can recommend, but this is the implementation using alchemy.
https://docs.alchemy.com/alchemy/tutorials/how-to-create-an-nft/how-to-mint-a-nft
Just use a loop on your minting function.
for example if there are 3 NFT, loop it 3 times in turn it means to called your minting function 3 times.
from alchemy docs
:- To mint x number of NFTs in a single command, we can use a simple for loop running from 0 to x-1 within a function wrapping the minting process. This would allow us to effectively mint x NFTs every time the wrapper mint function is called.
Answer: On the contract side you just run a simple loop.
for (uint i = 0; i < _amount; i++) {
        uint mintIndex = totalSupply();
        _safeMint(msg.sender, mintIndex);
}

For the metadata you need to run a cloud function on you Moralis server posting the new metadata to wherever you're hosting your server.
Answer: Let us suppose, function safeMint(address to, string memory uri) is the function to mint 1 NFT
Then, the code to mint multiple NFT will be:
function MultiMint(address[] tos, string[] memory uris){
    uint i=0;
    for(i;i<tos.length;i++){
        safeMint(tos[i],uris[i]);
    }
}


Do all US companies have to follow GAAP reporting standards for profits and losses?

Question: Do all US companies have to follow GAAP reporting standards for profits and losses when reporting to the IRS and investors?
Answer: From the CFA Institute:

Companies that issue stock are held to this standard by SEC, which requires yearly external audits by independent accountants, but companies without external investors are not obliged to follow this standard.

So publicly traded companies are required to use GAAP, but privately-help companies are not, though many larger ones do anyway since it adds credibility to their financials and makes it easier to get financing from banks and investors.
Answer: Article from a CPA firm:

GAAP basis requires accruals

Small businesses often find it easier to use a cash basis accounting method than an accrual basis.
As of a 2019 tax law change, IRS accepts cash basis accounting for businesses having no more than $25 million in gross revenue.


Can I, with a single cut command, create two output files for the two fields of my input file?

Question: I could write a shell script to do it in a loop, but is there a one line solution using the terminal ?
Comment: Maybe with something else, but not with `cut`. `cut` just writes to stdout. There is only one stdout. Therefore you can't create 2 files.
Comment: There might be a way of doing this by combining `cut` and `tee` or maybe other tools but for that we would need some sample input data and required output. please be more explicit in your questions.
Answer: Not with one cut command. You could do it with awk:
awk -F '\t' '{print $1 > "file1"; print $2 > "file2"}' < file

Or for every field:
awk -F '\t' '{for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++) print $i > "file" i}' < file

Or to avoid reading the file twice, with pipes and 2 cut invocations, with a shell like AT&T ksh, zsh or bash with support for process substitution:
< file tee >(cut -f2 > file2) | cut -f1 > file1

Beware that ksh and bash don't wait for that cut command running in the process substitution, so in those shells, file2 may not be complete by the time you run the next command after that.
Answer: I think you can do like this:
cut -f1 input | tee output1 | cut -f1 > output2

If your desire filed is first and second columns.


Keep the retag link for 2k+ users

Question: I have not reached 2000 in reputation yet but I have been told that the retag link is removed for 2k+ users (and reintroduced again at 10k, but in a different shape). It seems to me like it would be a good feature to keep even for 2k+ users as it is a lot smoother than having to see the whole edit page for the post if you just want to retag. As the retag functionality also bypasses the review queue it simply does not make any sense to remove it for 2k+ users.
Comment: @Dennis Yes it does
Comment: @Dennis: Yes, it reappears at 10k but in a different shape which is just odd. This is what my feature request is about. Why does it have to go away between 2k and 10k?
Comment: @Doorknob: Mystery solved. It appears when you reach 10k. ([source](http://stackoverflow.com/privileges/moderator-tools))
Comment: @Doorknob: Yes, but there's a lot of extras on the edit pages, so that's why I think that the retag link still would be useful.
Comment: It doesn't get removed.
Comment: And @ Daniel: 2ks can edit without going through the queue
Comment: @DanielHedberg: At 2k (IIRC), there's no edit *page*. Inline editing is part of the privilege.
Comment: @Doorknob: OK, I don' see it on SO, but I get *edit tags* on SU and here. Not sure why.
Comment: @Dennis That's odd. I only have 2k on SO so I can't confirm, but this is sounding like a [bug].
Answer: The retag link is useful for users with at least 500 but less than 2000 reputation because of two reasons:

Clicking retag instead of edit bypasses the peer review.
The /edit?tagsonly=true page has information on how to retag, while the normal /edit page has information on how to edit, how to format, the peer review process and – of course – the Markdown preview.

Neither of the above is an advantage at 2000 rep, since you gain full edit privileges (i.e., no peer review) and the ability to edits posts inline. (screenshot)
Also, a close link gets added at 3000 rep, a delete link at 10k and a protect link at 15k. You could only delay the removal of the retag link, but not avoid it. There's simply not enough space.
Last but not least, having a retag link encourages retagging rather than editing the whole post. More often than not, an improperly tagged question has further problems.1

1 This could explain the edit tags button for 10k users, which should have learned to address all issues of a post at once.

Keep the retag link for 2k+ users


Should I include a title page and abstract if the journal does not specify anything at all?

Question: Novice here. I am looking to submit a manuscript to a journal, Monthly Review. The journal website does not specify any template whatsoever except for the instruction to use Chicago Style, 16th edition for referencing. Should I include an abstract and a title page with a short bio in the submission  (as is the custom in most social science journals I know of)?
Comment: Do other papers in the journal do this?
Comment: Published papers of the journal show a short bio of the author in the footnotes section of the 1st page of the article. No abstract is shown. As a contributing author, I have no idea how the manuscripts of others look like and have access only to the published papers, which have been already typesetted and everything.
Comment: When I've needed a bio blurb, it is usually requested at time of acceptance. But, I'm in a different field.
Answer: Papers aren't normally published in the exact form of their first submission. I suggest that you write the paper as you think it should be written and submit it. Let the editor and reviewers decide if you should make modifications.
The title page is unlikely to be necessary in a first submission as it can be added later if needed (unlikely here). But an abstract might be helpful to the editor in choosing reviewers and to the reviewers in getting a quick overview.
But they will likely, in this case, ask you to remove them for publication. It is a process. Flow with it.
Answer: I think that you should write the paper just like you would want to write the paper. If you have editors, then they will make the modifications and tell you if you should add an abstract.
If your paper is long, then you should add an abstract to help the readers know what your paper is about, and a title page can be added later, that doesn't need to be done first.
If you do feel like you should include a title page and an abstract page, then by all means do so. If it makes you feel more comfortable, then do it.


How secure is an Azure database within Microsoft?

Question: I am considering moving most of my Databases to Azure SQL server Database, but I am concerned that Microsoft will be able to snoop and look at the data inside the database, which is absolutely not acceptable.

Can Microsoft see any data in an Azure AQL DB?
What is the extent of Microsoft ability to influence a database in Azure?

Thanks for the help.
Answer: The only way to be secure, is to control your data. If someone else is running it on its own infrastructure, they are able to read, change or use them. Period.
For example: if your database is confidential one, you should not use someone else infrastructure.
Saying that ( which is completely obvious), you may assume, that as long as you not breaking the law, and USA is not in political conflict with your country, Microsoft is not interested in peeking at your data, exactly as any other company
So if you have something to hide, use your own server. If you have nothing special ( and putting it on the web is in compliance with local law) go on.
Answer: Community wiki answer:
Unless you actually give someone an account to your system, Microsoft cannot read your data.
They can see the configuration of items but security is one of their strong points.
See Compliance for Microsoft cloud services for all the various compliances they will help your organization with (HIPAA, PCI, etc.).
See also Responding to government and law enforcement requests to access customer data in the Microsoft Trust Center.

We do not provide any government with our encryption keys or the ability to break our encryption.
Comment: Not sure this true. Maybe they say they won't but, they could if they wanted to. Unless the data is encrypted.  But then the encryption script is probably owned by MS, and they probably share it with governments if they ask.


Pro-Israel lawmakers in the U.S

Question: Are most U.S. politicians pro-Israel? If so, why?
Comment: @user4012 for sure related but the question is more precise here.
Comment: It's a tricky question about sionism... Do you know anything about it ?
Comment: @GautierC nope.
Comment: Ok. If noone answers before 5pm I'll anwser it, will be a loooooong post.
Comment: @user4012 the problem with the other phrasing is that it's intended more to argue a point than as a sincere question.
Comment: @Guest - the general SE policy is that a question is a duplicate if an answer to another question fully addresses the first question. The questions themselves Do NOT need to be identical.
Answer: A large number of US politicians are probably pro-Israel in some sense because a significant number of US voters are either sympathetic to the situation of citizens of Israel or have friends or relatives there. Generally politicians tend to be pro-something if a larger minority of voters are firmly pro-something than any firmly opposing number of voters.
There are other reasons why US politicians and voters might wish to support Israel in some way

Israel is, like the US, a democracy.
Israel is a friend of the US in a region of the world that contains nations that are somewhat hostile to the US (e.g. Iran) or who are friendly to nations that are somewhat hostile to the US (e.g. Syria is friends with Russia).

Many US politicians and voters also have some sympathy for the situation of the 21% of Israel's population who are Arab. Their support for Arab politicians in Israel's Palestinian territories has a couple of obstacles:

Fatah had a history of terrorism. Including against US voters.
Hamas have aims that conflict with the interests of US voters.

Note: When writing about this, there is no avoiding some terms that are controversial: Israel, Palestine, Israeli, Palestinian, Arab. I am using these terms in what I hope is a neutral way - but you can't please all the people all the time.
Comment: @GautierC Half-correct. We are here to answer questions. We are not here to discuss. I think RedGrittyBrick's neutral language is very appropriate when one wants to inform people on a controversial topic like this.
Comment: don't forget to explain the sionism of the Evangelist, which represents 40millions of people in US !
Comment: It might not be politically correct to mention it, and some might exaggerate it and form crazy conspiracy theories based on it, but it is still a fact: Israel's media presence and therefore lobbying power is much stronger than of other countries.
Comment: @vsz are we here to do "politically" correct speech ? I think it is a reality (as a lobby) , let's not say it's a conspiration, just a big lobby.
Comment: @GautierC : I mentioned it because there are people who cry "Nazi" for even the slightest mention of a possibility of a Jewish lobby.
Comment: The difference is between saying a "Jewish lobby" and an "Israeli lobby." One is a political entity and one is a religion.

Pro-Israel lawmakers in the U.S


Storage in computers?

Question: If i want to save something in a computer such as a number 1 that would be 001 but if i save 001 in a computer how would the computer know that 001 is 1. Should we first save  the number 1 in memory and tell the computer that hey this is 1 and it is 001 in your language. Basically if we want to save something, how would a computer know what are we saving to determine its output. Like if i say the computer hey i wanna save 10011 and i actually intended it to be The letter A how would the computer know 10011 is A?
Comment: It looks like you need to learn [what is plaintext data and what is binary data](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1434885).
Comment: The computer doesn't know anything. It just follows orders.
Answer: Nowadays, all computers are built following certain conventions. One of those conventions is the use of zero and one (i.e. low voltage and high voltage): it's perfectly possible to make computers that don't use zeroes and ones, and in fact the Soviets did so (look into the Setun project). Another of those conventions is that text-based data comes in units of eight bits each, called "bytes".
Each byte holds a number from zero to 255, and more conventions define what each number means. The ASCII standard, for example, says that 65 means "A", while the UTF-8 standard says that 195 followed by 184 means "ø". But there's nothing intrinsically "A"-like about the number 65: it's just a convention people have agreed to follow, to make it easier for programs to work together.
(P.S. When two programs are using different conventions, you get a garbled mess called "mojibake". Nowadays most text data is stored in UTF-8, which helps avoid this, but there are still some holdouts (cough Windows API) who insist on using other conventions instead. It's a headache when you have to deal with that.)

Storage in computers?


/etc/cron.daily/apt and /etc/cron.daily/aptitude on ubuntu hardy

Question: I am a sys admin newb, otherwise I would figure this out on my own.  I have a slicehost slice and I noticed that there are a couple scripts that get run (the ones I mentioned in my question title) that look like they do system updating.  I am wondering if that is not such a good idea to have these automatically run without supervision.  The server runs an ecommerce site and any kind of upgrade that broke the server would be unfortunate.  Please advise on best practice?  Should I save those off somewhere and not have cron fire them unsupervised daily?  What exactly are they doing?  Thanks!
Answer: Short answer: both /etc/cron.daily/apt and /etc/cron.daily/aptitude are probably safe to leave enabled, and not causing you any unexpected upgrades.
Long answer:
/etc/cron.daily/aptitude on a default Hardy install just maintains a backup of your package state files in /var/backup as files named aptitude.pkgstates.0 through aptitude.pkgstates.6 (with files 1-6 being gzipped).
/etc/cron.daily/apt is more complex, and can do a variety of things based on your apt configuration settings, which are maintained in /etc/apt/apt.conf and the various include files under /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/
If you wonder if the daily apt script is performing unattended upgrades, check the output of this apt-config command. The following is default, and indicates that unattended upgrades are NOT being performed:
<code>$ apt-config shell UnattendedUpgradeInterval APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade
UnattendedUpgradeInterval='0'
</code>
For more information on the "unattended upgrade" process (which i would NOT recommend for a production system), see /usr/share/doc/unattended-upgrades/README -- if that file is not present, you probably don't have the package "unattended-upgrades" installed.
The daily apt script at /etc/cron.daily/apt is well commented, and by default it runs an "apt-get update" every day. This simply keeps the cache of available package files current. It does not install or remove packages.
You CAN configure it to download updated package files which you can then manually install later, and you can configure it to clean up the downloaded package files (which are not needed after being installed).
All of this behavior is configured via the configuration settings stored in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic -- these settings default to:
<code>APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";
APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages "0";
APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "0";
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "0";
</code>
I'd recommend verifying those settings and reading through the scripts that are in place in /etc/cron.daily, but you probably do not currently have anything performing unattended and unexpected upgrades.
Comment: if "apt-config shell UnattendedUpgradeInterval APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade" returns no output, then the /etc/cron.daily/apt script will use its internally specified default value for that variable, which is 0, meaning no unattended upgrades should be initiated by that script.
Comment: Wow!  Fantastic feedback Jeff, thanks!  I will try out your suggestions.
Comment: Running apt-config shell UnattendedUpgradeInterval APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade actually produces no output.  Not sure how to interpret that result.  Any ideas?
Comment: Well, I looked through the apt script some more and it looks like it is just keeping the cache updated, as you said.  I am not 100% confident about that, but nearly.
Comment: Ok, thanks for the info Jeff.  That gives me confidence.
Answer: That may not be enough info. You really have to read the scripts themselves to see what they are doing with that particular host. If they are indeed upgrading (vs just updating) you will definitely want to disable that on a production server. However just an update it fine as it is only updating the local cache of available programs from the repository. Some hosts even override the default distribution (hardy) repos with their own for more control. So check them out, but any decent host won't be updating any core components automatically on you. Sorry I don't have any personal experience with SliceHost to share.
Comment: Thanks for the quick response Ryan.  The apt script is fairly complicated.  It references quite a few externally defined variables that I hope to not chase.  Hopefully someone will weigh in who has experience on ubuntu hardy (and perhaps on slicehost).  I appreciate y our input though. I am hoping, like you, that it is only keeping downloaded packages fresh, but not installing them.
Answer: Since I can't just edit stuff, and didn't like the scattered style here, I went ahead and asked and answered more systematically at this question.


Naming notes - A specific song key and a chord from that key usually described with opposite accidentials

Question: when we have the key, for example, A (so with 3 sharps), I think that we mark the notes in this key as sharp (right side of the circle od fifths), except for alterations.
And what if we have a chord in this key, but it is a diminished chord Abo = AbCb(B)Eb(D), which is already on the left side of the fifth circle, so theoretically its notes we write (I think so) with flats. But since we write the piece in the key of A, we will write Abo also with the sharps, Abo=G#BD?
Comment: Eb is not D, as you call it. Maybe you meant Ebb.
Answer: Wouldn't that diminished chord be G♯ diminished, in key A?
In which case, its notes will be G♯, B and D. So there's no problem - all those notes are diatonic anyway.
The times notes may be written differently would be when there is a modulation, but generally, in sharp keys it's traditional (and clearer) to stick with sharps whenever possible.
Answer:
But since we write the piece in the key of A, we will write Abo also with the sharps, Abo=G#BD?

G#BD is correct. Abo7 has nothing to do in A major while G#o is the seventh degree of A.
(Btw. Ab dim would be AbCbEbb)
Answer: Why you have G# and not Ab in the key of A major
If you're in a key such as A major, you assume a scale with seven different letter-named notes. Each of the seven notes can be either natural, sharp or flat, but not e.g. flat and natural at the same time.
Seven notes in the scale:

C : natural, sharp or flat?
D : natural, sharp or flat?
E : natural, sharp or flat?
F : natural, sharp or flat?
G : natural, sharp or flat?
A : natural, sharp or flat?
B : natural, sharp or flat?

If you write a chord called "Ab" something, such as Ab dim, then it implies that the A slot in your scale has been set to flat mode. And that would be confusing from the "we're in the key of A-natural major" point of view.
But you can make your G sharp and still have your A natural.
Let's set the seven switches of this aircraft properly for an "A major" flight mode:

C : sharp
D : natural
E : natural
F : sharp
G : sharp
A : natural
B : natural
Answer: The answer to every interesting question is "it depends."
(First, remember that the circle of fifths is an academic exercise, outside the context of a musical composition.)
In some popular genres, particularly jazz, notators often deliberately and correctly choose notes and chord naming that don't really make sense in classical theory. For example, you almost never see a Cb or Ebb in jazz; you would just see a B or D.
Even in classical music, naming depends on the underlying harmonic progression. You may have a key signature, for example, in A major, but have modulated briefly into another key. In this case, you would generally name chords and notes based on the current key, without regard to the key signature. But even then, the best naming should also consider the "function" of a chord or note. In A major, an A# may be better written as Bb if it is acting as a flat-9th in an extended A dominant 7 (VI7/IV). Or it should be an A# if it is a leading tone to a B minor (II) cord.
In your example, the G#-B-D spelling is what you'd see virtually all the time. It's kind of a stretch but I suppose you also might use Ab-Cb-Ebb if it is acting as a VIIdim functioning to lead into Bbb.
Answer: There are two issues here.
One, as others have said, is that in A major it's almost certainly going to be G♯dim rather than A♭dim. The A♭ is the leading note of A, so it's logically as well as practically G♯. (But also remember, harmonic ambiguity is  a feature of dim and dim7 chords. Depending where it leads us, A♭dim just might be a logical naming.)
But your point about spelling for convenience rather than harmonic correctness still stands.   Let's take a simple example.  Key of C, a Cdim7 chord.We know the correct spelling is C, E♭, G♭, B♭♭.   But you'll see this often enough in published music.

Here's my rule for diminished chords.   Spell the root of the chord correctly for its harmonic function.  Allow yourself some slack when spelling the other notes correctly would result in something ugly. And some musicians would disagree with even that.
(But this is ONLY for diminished chords, and mostly for diminished 7ths.  C♯7 is C♯, E♯, G♯ B, NOT C♯, F, G♯ B.   Even D♯7 (it pops up occasionally) gets an F double-sharp not a G♮.  And the seventh note of F♯ major scale is NOT F!)


Dc motors for controlling wheels of a wheelchair

Question: I am doing a project on controlling wheels of a wheelchair.
The diameter of the wheel is about 25-30 inches, the weight which the wheelchair is supposed to carry is upto 80 Kgs and it should run at a speed of 0.5-0.7 metres per second.
I thought of using a 24V dc motor, what speed and Power must the dc motor provide to move a wheelchair at above specifications.
Comment: "Supposed to carry up to 80kg" - the motors must move both the weight of the human *and* the wheelchair itself.
Comment: Criss posted here : https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/349100/152903
Answer:
What speed and Power must the dc motor provide to move a wheelchair at above specifications.

Wheel RPM = chair_speed / Wheel-diameter x 60
Motor speed = wheel speed/Gear_ratio.
Motor power = hard_without_more_data.
Factors include: Friction, gear train efficiency, motor efficincy, carpet-lino-concrete- ..., slope or flat, ...
Look at existing chairs.
2 x 500 Watts seems good in many cases.
Lower or even much lower may be OK in your case.
In a demonstration version on a smooth hard floor with a good motor and gearbox and smooth hard wheels I'd expect that 100 Watts would probably be acceptable.
At your target speed losses from windage are minimal.
Adjust (increase) any of the following for losses due to motor efficiency (say perhaps 80-90%) and gearbox efficiency (90-95%?)

"Windage"
Power due to air resistance can be determined from the drag equation.
Drag = 0.5 x Air density x Area x Coefficient-of-drag x velocity-squared
Power = Drag x velocity.
Whence:
Power (Watts) = 0.5 x 1.2 kg/m^3 x A x 1 x V^3.
A in m^2
V in m/s
Cd = 1 = flat plate drag - about right for a wheelchair
At 1 m/s and 1 square metre area  Power = 0.6 x 1 x 1 x 1^3 = 0.6 Watt!
At 2 m/s (7 kph) Power 5 Watts.
At 5 m/s (18 kph) Power = 75 Watts
ie in a "still air" environment or where minor air movement occurs power loss to windage is liable to be under 10 Watts. In external gusty wind" environments substantial power peaks may occur.

Climbing:
If the wheelchair travels on an ascending (non level) surface then extra power will be required to provide the potential energy thus achieved by the gain in height.
Energy required to move m kg upwards against gravity g a height h
E = mhg
g id about 9.8 m/s/s which can be approximated to g = 10 for this sort of working. In SI units m kg, h m, v m/s, g m/s/s:
Energy = 10.m.h Watt,seconds.
To achieve this in time t seconds
Power = E/t = 10.m.h/t.
Power required = 10.m x the height increase per second.
For a wheelchair travelling a V m/s up an incline of d degrees,
Height increase per second = v.tan(d)
Power due to slope = 10.m.V x tan(d)
For eg a 5 degree slope at 1 m/s and a 100 kg all up load
Watts = 10.m.v.tan(d) = 10.100.1.tan(5) ~= 90 Watts
 ie power required to ascend a slope is non trivial above a few degrees.
For a 1 in X slope
x = 1/(tan(d))
So a 5 degree slope = 1 in 1/(tan(5)) = 1 in 11.4
Comment: @SolarMike He adumbrates thus. If it was for cross country / Olympic / parasports / ... then he would need to have added that to the spec OR grossly underrepresented his requirement. | His description is "I am doing a project on controlling wheels of a wheelchair" and his questions are ", ... what speed and Power must the dc motor provide to move a wheelchair at above specifications" [?]. || If his need is more complex he'll need to expand his question. Responders could otherwise spend semi-infinite time proposing solutions to mostly irrelevant use cases.
Comment: Losses from windage are minimal : have you tried pushing a wheelchair against the wind or even walking against the wind....
Comment: I guess he won't be using the wheel chair outdoors when there is a hurricane. :)
Comment: @JemEripol doesn't need to be a hurricane - a strong wind makes a significant difference...
Comment: @SolarMike See addition to answer. In indoor environments loss to windage will usually be minimal.
Comment: Fine in fact great, but does the OP say it is an indoor wheelchair?
Comment: @SolarMike See addition to answer for non-level surface cases.


ADC of ATmega32

Question: I want to use an ATmega32 ADC in its 4 channel single-ended mode to convert four analog signals into digital (one at a time). I have written the C code but what I cannot figure out is what I should do with the ground pins of those four analog signals. Should I common them and connect to the controller ground? Also why are there two ground pins in the ATmega32  (11 and 31) - is one of them an analog signal ground?
Comment: Can I have a look at your program?
Answer: The ground side of the incoming analog signals needs to be connected to the ground of the microcontroller.
Multiple ground pins on a microcontroller very conveniently allow greater current load to reach ground with reduced pin impedance (by paralleling): For instance, if a microcontroller can sink 40 mA per GPIO pin, and has a total current limit of say 200 mA, then if 4 or 5 of those GPIOs are sinking current at any given time, that amount of current would necessarily have to reach circuit ground through a single ground pin of the microcontroller.
Adding a second, sometimes third or fourth ground pin allows this cumulative current load to reach ground distributed through multiple pins. No one pin gets overloaded or heated up, the load gets distributed.
An added benefit of multiple ground pins is convenience in routing on tightly packed boards - ground traces do not need to wriggle between other pins to "get to the other side". While this practice of having disconnected ground traces is frowned upon, sometimes it is just the way it's done, for convenience or out of necessity.
Some microcontrollers and other ICs also have different types of ground, such as Analog Ground and Digital Ground, explicitly named as such. There the purpose is different: The Digital ground is used as the "common" pin(s) for all digital signals, while the Analog ground is the common pin(s) for all analog signals.
Comment: Thanks that was very thorough but are the two grounds of atmega32 are alanalog ground and digit or are they the same digital ground?because the pin label only says GND
Comment: They are the same.

ADC of ATmega32


Unable to cross-compile GNU screen for ARM

Question: I'm on Ubuntu, and trying to build GNU screen for an old ARM device running Busybox. I have a custom cross-compilation toolchain installed in /usr/local/toolchain. I downloaded screen 4.3.1 (from 7 years ago, seemed appropriate considering my toolchain is from that era). screen's configure script assumes my host PC is the target and detecting all sorts of features which do not exist on Busybox, so I had to set some options to make it use the toolchain files instead of the host. My final command and its result is:
<code>$ CC=/usr/local/toolchain/usr/bin/arm-linux-gcc ./configure --host=arm-linux-gnueabi --prefix=/usr/local/toolchain/usr
this is screen version 4.3.1
checking for arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc... /usr/local/toolchain/usr/bin/arm-linux-gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking for suffix of executables...
checking whether we are cross compiling... yes
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether /usr/local/toolchain/usr/bin/arm-linux-gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for /usr/local/toolchain/usr/bin/arm-linux-gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
checking how to run the C preprocessor... /usr/local/toolchain/usr/bin/arm-linux-gcc -E
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /bin/grep
checking for egrep... /bin/grep -E
checking whether /usr/local/toolchain/usr/bin/arm-linux-gcc needs -traditional... no
checking for library containing strerror... none required
checking for ANSI C header files... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for memory.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking minix/config.h usability... no
checking minix/config.h presence... no
checking for minix/config.h... no
checking whether it is safe to define __EXTENSIONS__... yes
configure: error: in `/home/user1/dev/playground/screen-v.4.3.1/src':
configure: error: cannot run test program while cross compiling
See `config.log' for more details
</code>
Relevant parts of config.log:
<code>...
 292   │ configure:3633: checking whether it is safe to define __EXTENSIONS__
 293   │ configure:3651: /usr/local/toolchain/usr/bin/arm-linux-gcc -c -g -O2  conftest.c >&5
 294   │ configure:3651: $? = 0
 295   │ configure:3658: result: yes
 296   │ configure:3674: error: in `/home/user1/dev/playground/screen-v.4.3.1/src':
 297   │ configure:3676: error: cannot run test program while cross compiling
 298   │ See `config.log' for more details
</code>
A configure test called cross_compiling fails but it's not clear why. I found this question how to disable test programs in cross-compiling glib , which taught me how to use site files to disable a test, but when I disable cross_compiling it then fails with "C compiler cannot create executables", which is not a test I can disable.
I've definitely crosscompiled with this same compiler, so there's no issue there. screen's configuration just seems too complex for novice use and I'm stuck. Any advice?
Answer: As mentioned on Cannot run test program while cross compiling - cross compiling Firebird you could "improve" the configure.in file by removing all "AC_TRY_RUN"-function blocks. This kind of workaround could work.
Otherwise you could use a build-container and run everything inside of it.


Is there a 'South Star'?

Question: The star Polaris is commonly known as the Northern Star because it always points North. This being said is there a South star that always points south?
Answer: There is a "South Star" called Sigma Octanis located in the constellation Octans, but it is so dim that virtually nobody calls it the south star.
Just another side note: Polaris doesn't always point North. The reason is that our Earth has a precession effect which make the North pole circulate around the sky. This picture illustrates my point.

EDIT: Just to clarify, the picture is showing the circulation of the south celestial pole around the south ecliptic pole.
EDIT2 : References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_star#mediaviewer/File:Precession_S.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_star
Comment: Please attribute sources of external information you include in your answers. This is where the image is taken from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Precession_S.png Thanks!

Is there a 'South Star'?


Installling supported version of SAGA to work with QGIS on Windows

Question: I'm running into issues with SAGA processing algorithms in QGIS 3.18. QGIS tells me that SAGA 7.8.2 isn't supported, but doesn't tell me which versions are.
I've seen a suggestion that 2.3.x is officially supported, but how do I make QGIS aware of the version I've installed? I've tried downloading and installing SAGA 2.3.1, but QGIS still tells me I'm using the unsupported 7.8.2.
Answer: Uninstalling all versions of SAGA and then QGIS, followed by reinstalling QGIS 3.18 did the trick - it installed SAGA 2.3.2 linked to QGIS.


A simple Windows photo viewer that provides latitude and longitude that can be copied to clipboard

Question: Windows Photos pretends to provide location under Info but it almost never actually does. Some others claim to, for example IrfanView but you have to drill down a bit to find it. There are online EXIF viewers and I may have to settle for that, but I'd actually prefer a Windows application.
Comment: https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/49767/map-of-pictures-on-my-computer-by-exif-geolocation/49773#49773
Answer: On Windows (with Cygwin installed or with WSL), you can get the latitude and longitude in your clipboard with this command:
exif DSCN0025.jpg | egrep 'Latitude|Longitude' | putclip
Without Cygwin or WSL this would probably work too
exif DSCN0025.jpg | findstr /I "Latitude Longitude" | clip
In both cases the exif command is the one from this project: https://libexif.github.io
Answer: https://www.digikam.org/, might be overkill, but this FOSS app has everything under the sun for photo management (including facial recognition, database and metadata sync) as well as geo-tagging.
More light-weight options (also FOSS) dedicated to handle GeoLocations in photos could be on of these:

http://www.photoplace.io/

or

https://github.com/FrancoisSchnell/GPicSync
Comment: DigiKam specifically, shows the location embedded in EXIF on a map - I'll add a screenshot from my machine. I'd like to help, but I'm unclear of what you are looking for. Could you elaborate what it is specifically that works or doesn't work in other tools?
Comment: IIRC it showed location on their map, but that's not useful. Lat / long in the clipboard is useful. Then I can open the location in a mapping app (e.g. Google maps) for further usage (sharing, determining route to/from, whatever).

Windows Photos is close. Location doesn't work, i.e. they often interpret the location and give a street address or just the state you're in, or nothing at all. I don't want their interpretation. Just the lat / long, which rarely appears. (I also want finer rotation resolution but that's not critical.)
Comment: Thank you. None of those did the job, however.
Answer: If you do not mind two shortcuts instead of one, then
GeoSetter
can ease up copying coordinates like this:

while photo selected hit CTRL + E (alternatively right click and select Edit Data)
select either Decimal or Sexagesimal value and you are free to CTRL + C

As a bonus (if you are applying image data to another file), you can copy the whole image data content (right click and select Copy Data to Clipboard) and paste over another existing file (right click and select Paste Data from Clipboard). In next step, you are selecting what will be really replaced.
If you are really after a simple shorthand, I would recommend to stick to any image browser/editor where you can write a simple script (like this one) to output these extracted data to a clipboard (like this).
I am choosing the Python way, because I like it, however I believe you can follow this approach in any programming language, so its just about the image browser and their scripting support.
For example GIMP can support Python scripting.
Above mentioned way can be harder to set-up but you have then script shortcut, that will copy GPS coordinates at one click.
Comment: Thank you. I may be able to use these, if I dust off my Python a little. It just blows me away that the simple image viewer/editor I want doesn't exist. Crop, rotate to 0.5° resolution, extract lat / long to clipboard, and some saturation and brightness adjustment. That's it.


Battery start for generator

Question: We recently acquired a 20 year old Honda EM3500SX generator for use with a manual transfer switch when the utility power goes out. My wife would like to be able to operate the generator when I'm away, but pulling the starter might be beyond her abilities. The owner's manual (see below) mentions an optional battery kit, the installation of which involves connecting a battery ("rated 12V-18-35AH or more") to an existing starter motor. I have a portable car starting box, basically a big battery with jumper cables, which matches the voltage. Can I simply connect the red (positive) jumper cable to the bare screw (with red wire attached) on the starter solenoid (see photo, below), the black (negative) jumper cable to the frame, and have that function as a temporary starter battery?
Comment: Is the starter controlled with a button or something?  Some of those jumper boxes need to be connected to a battery with _some_ voltage for them to work, so you need to make sure it will output 12v without being connected to anything.
Comment: It'd work, but even though the other terminals on the solenoid are protected, there's a lot of bare metal around, and the clamps typical of those jumper boxes won't grip that terminal too well. If your generator is like mine, the engine can jump around a bit when starting, so there's a risk of contact with grounded metal. I'd suggest attaching an extension cable to the terminal you can clamp more solidly to the far end.
Comment: Or a lawnmower battery.  A used $20 car battery might suffice.  Or a used golf cart battery, it's not like the load is huge.
Comment: You're right, @JPhi1618. I hooked the jumper leads to a voltmeter, and it didn't even jump when I turned the box on. I might have to get me a car battery instead...
Comment: @Harper-ReinstateMonica - That depends on the voltage required. Golf cart batteries as typically 6V deep cycle so inappropriate for 12V CCA applications; I'm not too sure about lawnmower batteries.
Comment: @Jeeped True, but two will work just fine. As far as the CCA issue (engines draw very high current on starting), that's an issue for a full-size engine, but not a big issue for an engine this small.
Comment: @Harper-ReinstateMonica - I only mention CCA because that is more important than Amp/Hrs for starting purposes, particularly in cold wheather when a generator is more likely to be needed. It doesn't have to be 1000CCA and could be as low as 60CCA.
Answer: Not all of those "portable car starting box" products are suitable for being permanently connected to a system with a trickle charger, which is what you would have to do. The batteries will cease to accept a charge if not sufficiently discharged periodically. So you need a system that can be on a trickle charger all of the time to be ready for action when called upon.
Normally on a piece of equipment that is used on a regular basis, like a lawn mower or tractor, the starting battery is re-charged by the alternator once the engine is running. But on a backup generator you don't run the engine often enough (you SHOULD test it monthly, but hardly anyone does...). Hence the need for the trickle charger to keep the battery ready to go. That then also adds the necessity for periodic battery maintenance as well, so keep that in mind. These are the reasons why a lot of backup generators are pull-start; all you need to start them is some Wheaties.
Comment: It really depends on the type of "portable car starting box".  If they are nickel-cadmium, those do have memory effects you must periodically clear with a deep discharge.  But a lead-acid battery should never, ever be discharged unnecessarily; it is always damaging to it, especially a starting battery.
Comment: I appreciate the thoughts, but I'm not too worried about charging the battery from the generator. I just want to get the generator started when we're desperate. If I have to purchase a battery that I can only use once for this purpose, then so be it.
Answer: Since the "portable car starting box" apparently doesn't deliver anything unless it's attached to a battery, I'm going to get a dedicated 12V battery for this. It can live on a trickle charger until I need to start the generator.
Comment: For battery start, that's the way to go. Nice and simple and will work reliably. That said, you might want to see if your wife can pull-start the generator. My experience is that well-maintained Honda engines are really easy to start, and pull-starts don't really require much effort. It'd be good for her to at least learn the non-battery technique and verify she can do it, just in case the battery craps out at just the wrong time (e.g trickle-charger stops working and no one notices for months, or maybe the starter motor or solenoid fail, or whatever...lots of things to go wrong there).
Comment: Got a 35 AH wheelchair battery ($85 at a local battery specialist; can prolly get cheaper elsewhere), some jumper cables ($12 online) and a trickle charger ($12 online). That does the trick!

Battery start for generator


What is the smallest snippet of code that can be copyrighted?

Question: Obviously something as simple as int i = 0; or for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) can't be copyrighted, but an entire function could be. Where is the line between copyrightable and uncopyrightable?
Comment: This is a legal question, and if there was a functioning Software Law site should go there.  This is also one of those details of copyright that can vary between countries, so specifying a jurisdiction or asking for differences would be a good idea.
Answer: In order to be copyrighted, a something must be an original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression.  See 17 USC 102. The originality requirement is going to be key when talking about code.  Your code must do something.  I'm not sure that the courts have ever decided this particular question, but basic algorithms are not likely to suffice.  You need a program of some sort that does something meaningful.
Comment: Note that this means that code required to implement an interface of some kind (like an ABI or API) is uncopyrightable by any standard. (IANAL, but this is what the Copyright people tell me.)
Comment: +1 - but last time I checked, people seemed to consider all those "I can call that library too" programs to be copyrighted. Hard to call that meaningful, but an implementation of a basic algorithm non-meaningful. There are details in *how* you implement a basic algorithm that are significant.
Comment: @greyfade - yet presumably the API itself *is* copyrightable? Hard to separate that from the API documentation, but there is a clearly meaningful design issue involved.
Comment: @Steve314: Yes, but I'm speaking specifically of the *public* interface. The code that is required for interoperability and/or compatibility. The functionality of the library is copyrightable, but its API is not. Sorry I wasn't more clear on that.
Comment: @greyfade - actually, I think your reply translates as "no". I thought that things like choosing good function names, deciding what goes in what struct etc would be covered by copyright. Maybe it depends on the country (and maybe this explains ReactOS, Wine, the MinGW Win32 headers, ...).
Answer: IBM copyrighted a mainframe program called IEFBR14 which was originally 1 machine language instruction. Amusingly this program would have the highest defect per LOC ever. Wikipedia has a more detailed description.
Comment: Just because a copyright was applied for and received doesn't mean it would hold up on court challenge.


How to serve custom ads for clients on my site?

Question: Are there any ad serving systems, that allow webmasters to serve ads from their clients on their sites? The client provides an image/text and a link and the website displays the ad in designated spaces. The website would display only ads from their own customers (nothing from a public ad network like adsense).
Can you please provide examples of such ad serving solutions? Preferrably free/opensource.
Answer: Openx
Comment: free, and awesome
Answer: You can use an ad server like AdSpeed.com to manage, serve and track ads provided by your advertisers/clients.


ubuntu one shutting down message

Question: Every time I boot my computer, I get the auto pop-up in the upper right notifying me that Ubuntu One is closing June 1, 2014.  I can't figure out how to get it to stop showing that message.  I have disconnected all of my devices from Ubuntu One, and clearly June 1 has already past, and I still get the pop-up.  Any advice?
Comment: try remove ubuntu one
Comment: Why was this downvoted?
Answer: You need to remove the Ubuntu One client, I could not find any other way, not that the Ubuntu One client is of any use anymore.
Comment: Removal did not seem to work for others having the same issue http://askubuntu.com/q/480928/89515

ubuntu one shutting down message


Fork leaking oil?

Question: After finishing my last two rides on my second hand bought bike, I've noticed both stanchions appear as if they are leaking oil
Could it be just WD residues or excess suspension oil?
Comment: Full seals replacement in the service center fixed this... no need for bushings replacements though.
Answer: Alternatives what this liquid can be include:

Suspension oil (as you found out). Once I had a similar case of a suspension fork leaking oil due to worn-out seals.
Accumulated rainwater / oil mix. Sounds strange, but I had this once with a used MTB I bought in Kathmandu :-) It had a Suntour fork that had a kind of empty upper compartment in the stanchion tubes. Seemingly this had filled up with rainwater over time, which mixed with some rust and oil from cleaning and normal (?) losses. When I turned the bike on its head, it all came out, maybe 150-200 ml per tube. The suspension fork would operate completely normally afterwards.
Comment: Water used to accumulate in late 90's RockShox Judys. It once got so bad on a rainy ride that the shock stopped moving and I had to pop a screw and evacuate the water just so I could finish the ride.

Fork leaking oil?