Wood behind drywall near water shut off

Question: Some time in-between our inspection and closing, some idiot decided to drywall over the water shut off. Annoying, but I thought I'd just cut a hole and install an access panel. Only problem is, when I started to cut the drywall, I noticed whoever did the drywall seems to have put wood there. It's not very thick, or very wide so I've managed to get to the shut off valve, but it's quite hard to stick my hand in there to shut it off all the way. Is there anyway to know if this wood is safe to cut through, to bring the hole back to an accessible size?
Comment: The wood is probably just an aid to hold a drywall patch in place for mudding. How much drywall was installed?
Comment: That's what I figured. I'm not sure on how much, the original hole wasn't very large, but we had the seller fix some plumbing issues, not sure if they made it bigger for some reason before patching up the whole thing. If it's just for mudding, it's good to saw through?
Comment: Get a cheap borescope and take a better look inside to see how the wood is attach to anything else behind the drywall.  But I agree—odds are it's just a backer for the drywall patch.
Answer: That was just to hold a drywall patch in position for mudding. Just cut it as needed. After you get your access cut in, you can confirm that it was just for a patch by feeling around for the edges of the patch where mud squeezed through to the back of the drywall. Just be careful not to stab yourself with drywall screws sticking out the back of the board.

Wood behind drywall near water shut off


Is "missing person" considered a compound noun?

Question: In the phrase missing person, is the whole phrase a compound noun or would missing be considered an adjective that modifies person? It seems like in many situations when it is used with other adjectives, missing is not treated as an adjective. In addition, I have seen the phrase pluralized as missing persons rather than missing people, which makes it seem like the phrase is viewed as one whole word.
Comment: Also "*Missing person reports*..." suggests it's phrasal.
Comment: Defined "compound noun" first.  Do you mean a multiword phrase each word of which is itself a noun?  Or do you mean something else?
Comment: I mean is "missing person" a noun in and of itself, or is it just a regular noun modified by an adjective?
Answer: The difference between missing persons and missing people would be that missing persons means that the individuals that are considered here as persons are missing. Where it shows individuality. But missing people is more like a group of people missing.
Hence I would say that "Missing person" would not be considered as a phrase and "Missing" here would be considered as an adjective.
Answer: Some dictionaries (OALD, Cambridge, Collins) have entries for missing person as a noun. Consequently, missing is not considered an adjective here.
According to these dictionaries, the correct plural form is missing persons.
Comment: An answer with supporting references! Refreshing.
Answer: The fact that 'misper' is an acknowledged (if slang) shortened form of 'missing person', as shown in Wiktionary

misper English Noun (plural mispers)
(police slang, term of art in private investigations) a missing person

shows that compounding is accepted for this concept. Though the 'rules' can be rather arbitrary;

(5) I want a baked cheesecake not an over baked one.
All the items are baked.

shows that some structures seem intermediate between '[true]adjective + noun: collocate' and 'adjective + noun: open compound'.
This example, and further discussion of the debate, is given in the paper HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE ADJECTIVE PLUS NOUN COMPOUND
AND ITS ADJECTIVAL COMPONENT?.
Comment: There are lots of slang abbreviations for longer phrases.  This does not automatically turn the longer phrase into a "compound", however.
Comment: I was not claiming it did ("the 'rules' [for allowable compound nouns etc] can be rather arbitrary"). 'Compounding' is a term not at all restricted to linguistics (' ... compounding is accepted **for this concept**'); I'm just saying that a 'misper' shows that there is certainly an accepted single term used to compound the notions 'person' and 'missing'. The size of the paper I link to shows that the psycholinguistics / morphology (compound notion / compound structure) considerations involved are very complex. When should a collocation be considered a compound?
Answer: Since one can be on an official list of "missing persons", and it means something slightly different than a list of "missing people" or a list of "people missing", (either of which would probably mean that they were not in an expected place) I'd have to say that "missing person" is a compound noun - as it has a distinct meaning when phrased that way.
Answer: I'm not the best with stress, but it seems like there is only one stress on the phrase "missing person" which means that it is a compound noun. Regardless, it is a frequent phraseology.
Interestingly, "missing person" and "missing persons" are quite frequently used as adjectives. Missing people, however, always seems to be a noun.


Was a "divine wish" spell ever mentioned in any published game materials?

Question: Official or unofficial materials. Not necessarily a spell available to players; it could be a creature or item ability. Various people from the AD&D 2nd edition up to Planescape (primarily 90's) seem to remember such a spell, but I have not been able to find any TSR materials or endorsed / published materials with such a spell.
Comment: Ah! Actually, you underestimate the Internet. ;) Homebrew for AD&D was being shared on USENET before the web was popular. So it's entirely possible they saw a homebrew, and asking for officialness could be a red herring.
Comment: Someone should check Dragon Kings (for Dark Sun).
Answer: I've heard this rumour come up before, and, being curious, followed it to its source: Page 79 of AD&D's Manual of the Planes. (This is the only origin my research turned up, but there may be others I'm not aware of.)
This page specified that Wish spells are actually granted by the nearest deity with the ability to do so, and that that deity was free to interpret or refuse to grant the wish as they saw fit. This detail rarely comes up on the Prime, but if you happen to be on an outer plane, knowing which gods make their kip locally could be a matter of life and death.
In any case, while this didn't remove the 'Wish' spell from the wizard spell list, it did tie it to the whims of the gods, making it distinctly more "divine" in nature than most spells wizards have access to. This led to many players thinking of Wish as a "divine spell."
It's worth mentioning that the term "divine magic" didn't mean "spells that only priests can cast" until Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition. In earlier editions, the spells that priests could cast were called "priest spells." The term "divine magic" just meant "magic somehow associated with the divine," and so could be used to describe the few wizard spells that explicitly called on divine power.
Answer: The published 2nd Ed. Spelljammer module "Under the Dark Fist" includes wishes granted by a pantheon of gods upon being freed from imprisonment.  Although the module does not give these a distinct name, the text makes clear that these wishes are substantially more powerful that standard wishes.  From the text:

Each member of the party is granted a wish by the freed gods. This can be for anything up to divine ascension as a demi-power (if the PC decides to retire his character, of course). The DM should chose (sic) this moment to help focus the PCs in their future aims, now that they have reached a turning point in their adventuring careers. They might desire a new spelljamming ship, or clues about the legendary Spelljammer itself. A special trademark power can be assigned as well, like invisibility at will. For campaign balance, try to avoid giving anything more powerful than a demi-power ability to any PC at this time. And above all, do not permit the PCs to change any aspect of the previous adventure's events. The gods themselves fear for the ramifications of such an action.

The "Chest of the Aloeids" published in Dungeon magazine may also have had a "divine wish" as a reward, with some suggested enhanced scope of effect (because of its direct fulfillment by Greek gods).  Don't know if you consider that "official" enough for your purposes. Again, will provide details if I can find my copy.
"The Chest of the Aloeids" (by Craig Barrett) does mention a divine wish (italicized in the source, indicating a specific spell of that name), but in the setup, not as a reward, serving as the plot device that sets up the scenario.  The following description is provided:

A divine wish is an extremely potent version of a wish spell, possible only to the ruling god of any specific mythos.  It alters reality in an extreme way, with absolute certainty and without any detrimental effects to the god who grants it or to the person who uses it.  Because of its potency, however, the divine wish must be worded with special care to avoid unwanted side effects.  Ruling gods are generally reluctant to use such power even for themselves, let alone grant it to someone else.  No mortal will ever receive a divine wish.  If an immortal has a legitimate reason to ask for a divine wish, there is only a small chance that it will be granted.  The divine wish takes the form of a simple token (a plain ring, for example) that vanishes when the wish is used.
Comment: Welcome to RPG.SE!  Please take the [tour] and visit the [help] to see how this Q&A site works.  We are looking forward to your edit once you find your old Dungeon magazine (most of mine have disappeared) and the module to confirm/update your answer.  Happy Gaming, in any case.
Answer: I do not have my books handy, but I think that in BECMI DnD, at the Master rank (black book, levels 26-36), there was a Wish spell available to clerics and wizards. Both spells were basically the same Wish spell, even with the same writing if I remember correctly.
Comment: Oh, ok. Thanks for clarifying. I interpreted the question as "was there a _wish_ for clerics before _miracles_ were introduced as the divine equivalent of wizards' _wishes_?".  O:-)
Comment: Well, I guess technically a priest of Wee Jas could chose the appropriate spell domain and obtain a wish spell (at an appropriate level, of course). But I think this was limited to this one particular deity, in Greyhawk.
Comment: The spell I am referring to was definitely not a simple designation of availability for priests; rather, it was a more powerful wizard wish spell. But thanks for this trivia anyhow!


Character Transfer Overlap?

Question: I have been playing GTA V Xbox one since Christmas and I originally bought GTA V on Xbox one with a shark card included. I used that 1.25 million to become a CEO with a warehouse. Now I am missing my cars and other things from the 360. So I was wondering if I transferred my character would there be any way for me to keep my CEO office but get the cars and apartments I had before?
Answer: No. The transferred character and it's properties and cars would be in a different character slot. The money would be shared between all characters though. So you could try to sell the cars, and change the properties by a cheap house to get some more money back.

Character Transfer Overlap?


Increase Google GeoCoding API Limits

Question: I have 1 window service which uses Google geocoder. I will have 1,00,000 request for geocoding each day by 1 customer and also I will have more than 10 customers.
Every Customer will have their Business key for google and my window service will work only in 1 server system. So I will have only 1 IP address with multiple Google
Business Keys. But Google Api allows only 1,00,000 request per IP Address for Business client.
So Will google allow to geocode such all requests ? What is the solution to geocode all requests ?
Answer: Refferring to the usage limits google allows 100.000 requests/day per client-ID, it doesn't matter from which IP the requests come from, google should allow all requests.
These limits apply to each Maps API for Business client ID and are shared across all applications and IP addresses using a given client ID.
Answer: I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a "window service", but for distributed web applications where multiple customers are making the geocoding requests, it generally makes more sense to use the client-side Javascript Geocoding service, not the Geocoding web service.  This way your customers can talk to Google directly, instead of having to route all requests through your server.
See also: Geocoding Strategies: When to Use Client-Side Geocoding

Increase Google GeoCoding API Limits


Call dialer sound on start/end of transmission?

Question: I have a friend who has a HAM license and a ham radio, and when he first pushes the button to talk, I hear a "call dialer" sound. It sound like someone is dialing a phone number in. The tone starts in the beginning of the broadcast, it sounds a phone dial tone 3 times, and the same at the end of his transmission. What is this? Thanks!
Comment: We need more information to be able to answer this question, like what type of operation he's doing or a recording of the sound. (You'd probably get a faster and better answer by just asking him.) If you do get more information, please edit your question to include it.
Comment: I edited it. Check it out.
Comment: I suppose that might be enough information.
Answer: Between the clue in your original post ("sounds like someone is dialing a phone number in") and a more pertinent one in Joshua Nozzi's answer ("Maybe a shiny new Baofeng handheld?") that you seem to have acknowledged, my guess would be that Someone Who Isn't You® has accidentally enabled the Automatic Number Identification feature on the handheld:

In dispatch environments it's common to have a system in place that will allow radios to automatically identify themselves to the dispatcher. This is known as Automatic Number Identification (AIN), or sometimes PTT-ID since the radio sends a data burst containing the ID code at the beginning or end of a transmission. The Baofeng UV-5R uses DTMF signaling to enable ANI implementation.

The instructions there describe how to disable it via the PC configuration software, but IIRC it's also configurable through the menu via the handheld's own keypad.
Comment: On a Baofeng you can turn this on and off in the menu system but for reasons known only to weirdos you can't set the ID without using the programming software / cable.
Answer: Correcting my first answer after a re-read: It sounds like a "courtesy tone". I initially thought DTMF tones (like dialing a number) for accessig a repeater, but you mentioned "dial tone" (the steady tone on a land line before you start dialing) and it got me thinking it may just be a courtesy tone. More descriptive detaul would be needed. Or as Kevin said, you could just ask your friend.
Given your other recent question, however, I ask with a friendly grin if this "friend" is you trying to understand your radio before you're licensed by keying it a few times. Maybe a shiny new Baofeng handheld? ;-)
I'm sure it's a friend though. :-P
Comment: :-) Just make *sure* your radio is set to transmit on an amateur frequency (such as the 2M simplex calling frequency) so that if you do inadvertantly transmit (easy to do) you're not doing so over a police or fire and rescue (or other) frequency. This could get you into serious trouble. Accidents happen (esp. with an easy to press PTT button on a small radio) but "parking" it on a relatively safe frequency should minimize the risk.
Answer: I'd be pretty willing to bet you have a Yaesu. Press the button that looks like an atomic symbol. It's used for digital modes, that are almost never used, and this is a frequent issue.


Loop selection not including one edge

Question: I'm trying to select edges with loop selection, But there is part of edges isolated which seemed to be made when I bevelled.
But I want to them to be loop in order to bevel more.
There is no separated vertices so I cannot merge them by using Remove doubles.
How can I connect those three edges together?
Comment: I don't think that those edges establish an edge loop. Once the edgeflow reaches the corner, it has two possible ways, each one with the same weight. So it's expected, in my opinion, that the selection stops there and wait for user's decision.
Comment: Thank you for the explanation! now I understood better what is loop, right, it works only when the direction is clear. But I wanted loop because I wanted to bevel, otherwise part of the bevel gets mess though I did by hand eventually :) Thanks for your help!
Answer: The question you'd need to ask yourself is:

"How does Blender know where a loop is running along anyways?"

Basically, a loop can only be found if there is four edges connecting to a point. See this GIF for illustration:

I'm selecting the two edges first which are the loop that I intend to select, then the two perpendicular edges that branch off from them. Loop selection takes a single edge as an input (the one you click on), and follows the path along this direction UNTIL there is a case where a different amount than four edges are forming a vertex point. Along this path, the edge that is "in the middle" will be the one considered to form the loop. As your beveled edge gives you a corner case where only three edges meet, loop selection stops there. How would Blender know if you want to go left or right?
To do the selection you want, try either Shortest Path select by Ctrl + RMB clicking, like this:

or select the faces which are inside the desired loop, and use the boundary select tool from the menu like this:
Comment: Oh I see so the loop needs 4 edges! Thank you for great explanation :) So I cannot make bevel with current model unless I add more vertices... I kind of did without bevel function. It is difficult to make a clean model..!
Comment: @haruka.k oh yes, you CAN bevel. Blender supports n-gons on one hand, and has a very clever bevel algorithm on the other hand. Just try it  :)

Loop selection not including one edge


Articles on Care of terminally ill patients according to Halacha

Question: Can someone suggest a well-written article on the treatment of terminally ill patients according to Halacha?
Comment: See this *teshuva* from Igros Moshe https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=921&st=&pgnum=312
Comment: Thank you, will read, but can you find anything in English?
Answer: There is plenty of material available online, e.g.,

this summary on Jewish Perspectives on End-of-Life Care from MyJewishLearning
Treatment of Terminally Ill Patients According to Jewish Law by Dov Linzer in AMA Journal of Ethics
The Terminally Ill Patient from Prof. Avraham Steinberg of Shaare Zedek hospital
The Critical Role of Religion: Caring for the Dying Patient from an Orthodox Jewish Perspective by many authors incl. R Willig and R Tendler
a translation of all relevant responsa of R Moshe Feinstein from the book Care of the Critically Ill authored by R Moshe David Tendler, the son-in-law of R Moshe
Caring for the Terminally Ill: Halachic Approaches to Withholding and Withdrawing of Therapy by Joshua Kunin
Is There Patient Autonomy in Halacha? by R Zev Schostak
Comment: Thank you, mbloch!


KALI Image (with installed broadcoam drivers that work for macbook pro late 2013) for live usb usage

Question: Do you know if does exists a kali iso where bcm4360 drivers are pre installed for macbook usage? I installed the official iso from kali.org on my usb stick for live usb usage on my macbook pro. I had the problem that the wifi wasn't working. So I tried the many 'tutorials for fixing the wifi problem on mac like this one' but all of them didn't work since it gives me a fatal error when I type modprobe wl. So because of this I am searching for image where I don't need to do this procedure of installing bcm drivers.
Answer: No, unfortunately there isn't any! I've tried anything you can find around the net. I also emailed broadcom, I called Apple Inc, etc.
I recommend you use a WiFi dongle - for instance ALFA Dongles. That works great!
But if you are expert in kernel, you may want to write driver modules for your NIC.
Comment: @OrkunAtasoy My pleasure mate, I will keep you informed if I can find anything.


How to find co ordinates of a triangle after increasing the area by a factor of $\alpha$?

Question: i am given with a triangle $\{(x_1,y_1),(x_2,y_2),(x_3,y_3)\}$ and the area need to be increased by a factor $\alpha$. can i anyone let me know formula to find the co ordinates of new triangle? There are many possibilities but i want something as follows.
Answer: Well, in general, you can multiply all the coordinates by $\sqrt{a}$ and you have a triangle with $a$ times the area. But from the figure, I guess you need something like this.
First, move the center of mass of your triangle to the origin, i.e. calculate $(x_0, y_0) = (\frac{x_1+x_2+x_3}{3}, \frac{y_1+y_2+y_3}{3})$, and then consider the triangle with vertices $(x_i-x_0,y_i-y_0),\,i=1,\ldots,3$. The triangle with vertices $(\sqrt{a}(x_i-x_0),\sqrt{a}(y_i-y_0)),\,i=1,\ldots,3$ will have $a$ times the area of the triangle in the origin. Now move your triangle back to where it belongs to get the final answer $(\sqrt{a}(x_i-x_0)+x_0,\sqrt{a}(y_i-y_0)+y_0),\,i=1,\ldots,3$.
Edit: Let me also add that depending on what you want the little and large triangle to have incommon, the formula may change (e.g. It will be different if you want them to have a common incenter instead of a common center of mass). Well, even for a common center of mass, the formula is not unique, of course (rotations).
Answer: Area of a triangle is given by $S=\frac{1}{2}\begin{vmatrix}x_1-x_3\ y_1-y_3\\ x_2-x_3 \ y_2-y_3\end{vmatrix}$.
To multiply its area by $\alpha$ you can multiply each coordinate by a factor of $\sqrt{\alpha}$, i.e.
$$x_i^{scaled}=\sqrt{\alpha} x_i,$$
$$y_i^{scaled}=\sqrt{\alpha} y_i.$$
Having done this, you'll most likely get the triangle moved in the direction of its center, so you'll have to compensate for difference between new and old centers to the coordinates. Triangle center of mass can be determined using these formulas:
$$x_c=\frac{x_1+x_2+x_3}{3},$$
$$y_c=\frac{y_1+y_2+y_3}{3}.$$
So instead of doing $scale(triangle)$ you want to do $scale(triangle-center)+center$, or in coordinate form:
$$x_i^{final}=\sqrt{\alpha}\left(x_i-x_c\right)+x_c,$$
$$y_i^{final}=\sqrt{\alpha}\left(y_i-y_c\right)+y_c.$$
Edit: oops, while I was writing this, it appeared to have been answered...
Comment: it was a very nice explanation. Thanks a lot.


How to construct a DFA which accepts all the strings endig with aa and no two consecutive b (bb)

Question: I have to construct a DFA which ends with aa and does not contain any pair of b-s. A = {a,b}, {aa,baa,aaa,abaa,babaa,...}. I know how to construct them as separate DFAs but not together merged.
Answer: If you know how to construct DFAs for two languages separately, you can use systematic methods to build the DFA which recognises the intersection of the languages (e.g. https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/147457/intersection-of-two-deterministic-finite-automata). However to achieve a minimalist and elegant result (as well as for learning purposes) you may want to try and find ad-hoc methods.
NB: You can always apply a DFA minimization procedure to 'clean up' the automaton obtained via the above general method (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DFA_minimization).
Comment: Once you have any DFA implementing the desired behavior, you can create a minimal DFA from it via any of the well-known DFA minimization methods. This does not require any ad-hoc reasoning, and the computational cost is tiny for DFAs this small.
Comment: Yes you are right, my comment on minimality isn't really relevant. Still I think that it can be instructive to try and build a DFA from scratch, in preparation for the day where the DFA is too large.


Print text from terminal

Question: I would like to use a Linux distro without a desktop environment, but I need to print out homework that I type up.
I could always email it to myself and print from another computer, but it would be nice if I could just do something like print homework.txt from a bash prompt. Does anyone have a way of doing this?
Answer: CUPS understands many different types of files directly, including text, PostScript, PDF, and image files. This allows you to print from inside your applications or at the command-line, whichever is most convenient! Type either of the following commands to print a file to the default (or only) printer on the system:
lp filename
lpr filename

Use the -d option with the lp command to print to a specific printer:
lp -d printer filename

Or the -P option with the lpr command:
lpr -P printer filename

Printing the Output of a Program
Both the lp and lpr commands support printing from the standard input:
program | lp
program | lp -d printer
program | lpr
program | lpr -P printer

If the program does not provide any output, then nothing will be queued for printing.
More advanced options can be added to the print job with the -o options. For exampling stapling:
lpr -P printer -o StapleLocation=UpperLeft

Source and more Details.
Answer: Last time I was using such a system, I used to prefer enscript. It's been a while but I seem to recall it being a more sophisticated version of lpr which could do everything that lpr did and then some. It works like so:
enscript foo.file

It can either print directly to a printer or convert text to postscript. It should be available in the repositories of all major distributions.
Answer: Here's what worked for me:
I chose to install Manjaro "Full" which includes printer networking and printing support. From past experience, the "Minimal" install requires a non-trivial amount of effort to get anything printed.
I didn't know the name of my printer. I tried lpstat -t but that showed the following:
scheduler is running
no system default destination
lpstat: No destinations added.
lpstat: No destinations added.
lpstat: No destinations added.
lpstat: No destinations added.

At first, I was able to get lpstat working by connecting through Geany, but the printer would timeout after a few minutes.
Since I have a relatively new printer, it uses the "IPP" standard. I used ippfind -l thanks to this answer https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/490827/8234
For me the address was ipp://whatever.local:631/ipp/print
Then I found this answer https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/683993/8234 and that worked great lpadmin -p Cool -v ipp://whatever.local:631/ipp/print -m everywhere
Now lpstat -t works as expected:

Cool accepting requests since Sun 19 Mar 2023 02:23:37 AM CDT printer
Cool is idle.  enabled since Sun 19 Mar 2023 02:23:37 AM CDT

Then I can simply do echo "test" | lp -d Cool
PS: Perhaps there is an easier way. You can try ippfind -s and then change the spaces to underscores like echo "test" | lp -d Canon_Cool_series but I can't get this to work without the underscores, and I can't find any documentation explaining why this works. Basically, I cheated by activating the printer through Geany, and then I could see the printer with lpstat -t
For future reference, I would try the easier "underscore" method first, and if that times out or doesn't work, use the longer "lpadmin" method.

Print text from terminal


SP Library that embeds an image with a link

Question: I am trying to make a library that you would just need to put the image and url in and it would create a hyperlinked image that will display on our site. I feel like I'm really close but I'm missing something.
I used these instructions here: Adding an image link via calculated column on a list with HTML directory list solution
Basically creating a calculated column which works great! But...I want to be able to put my own picture there. I tried editing the formula to this:
=IF(ISBLANK([Site URL]), "URL Missing", (""))

But that doesn't do the trick. I'm not sure why it won't work. If you have any suggestions, I'd appreciate the assistance!
Comment: What is your SharePoint version?
Comment: I'm on version 2013
Answer: The "photo url column" is a column, so that you need to use the following formula.
=IF(ISBLANK([Site URL]),"URL Missing",(""))


How to discover unknown file system type from disk

Question: I pulled the hard drive from a *nix-based CCTV DVR so I could look at the contents and mount points, with the explicit intention of mounting a separate drive at the folder wherever the video is stored. I plugged it into an external dock and one 6 GB partition opened in Nautilus; GParted shows a larger unknown file system before the 6 GB volume. Is there a command I can run to discover the FS type of the unknown volume?
Comment: Try http://unix.stackexchange.com/q/235158/117549
Answer: If the CCTV DVR is *nix based, it might have a filesystem you can know about; for that you may get some good results just running:
<code>file -s /dev/xxx
</code>
on the device file of the partition. The fact you can open the second partition seems promising (there might even be data on the second partition as clues, like fstab entries).
However, depending on brand and vendor and such, it's always possible that the secondary parition is proprietary (not very common to invent a private filesystem though), or managed by a driver built locally on the DVR device, it could be a kind of logical partition created by the DVR firmware which embeds known filesystems within it, so gparted and such will only read the GUID partition table and not know anything more about the partition's contents. (More information may be available if you were able to post more detail about the DVR hardware and firmware, and possibly details about the known partition).
Comment: file -s reports that unknown partition as "data", The second partition, the 6GB one, reports an ext2 FS. blkid doesn't report anything for the unknown part., and reports ext2 for part 2.
Comment: gparted/parted might not have enough detail, what code does gdisk give for that partition? gdisk /dev/xxx and command "p" (for print)
Comment: Partition code is 8300, which corresponds to "Linux filesystem". I tee'd the output to a file, but it's too long for the comments section. https://www.dropbox.com/s/blxa89ng6wh6ek3/gdisk_info.txt
Comment: Hmm, I must have misread the original post and though this was GPT. fidsk might show different information, but gdisk at least thinks it's a linux fs. Short of hex dumping the header data to work out the filesystem, you might be able to guess at it - what output do you get if you try to mount it specifying the type, like: mount -t xfs /dev/xxx /tmp/mount (or btrfs or reiserfs or zfs or jfs)? I don't expect this to work, but might give info.
Comment: Theres a few other things to check, but my suspicion is that this data partition is managed data via proprietary software on the DVR. It may not be possible to read it without inside information on the DVR firmware and manufacturer, etc.


Shared Folders Space Usage

Question: I am a new user moving from Dropbox. The gripe I have with Dropbox is that it takes the shared folders size into account for your disk quota. Is it the same with Ubuntu One?
Comment: What is the question?
Answer: No, shared folders from other users do not affect your own usage quota. However, if you give someone else write access to a share you offer to them, they can put files in it, which will affect your quota (as you own the share).

Shared Folders Space Usage


Connection for beam very close to concrete wall

Question: The following picture is pretty self-explanatory. I need a connection for a beam that is coming in very close to a concrete wall edge (north/south beam in picture). The embedded plate with nelson studs in already in place. I was thinking a T type welded plate with bolts already fixed to plate (as drawn in purple), but they wont be able to weld both sides of the plate. Maybe with a full penetration backed weld? Any better ideas on how to fix this beam? Required shear for full beam capacity is about 175 kN and factored load is about 50 kN to give a quick idea.
Answer: Full penetration weld would be ok. I am more concerned about that bolts between the beam and the concrete edge. It could be difficult to tight them and inspection  would be problematic too. Also you loose a considerable part of the flanges, at the beam edge, and therefore you cause a severe drop of the moment strength. I don't know if this is acceptable for your design.
A more simple solution i came up, is shown in the figure below. The beam is cut a little shorter in order to be flush with the concrete face and thus avoid flange trimming. A plate (pink color) is fastened with fillet welds at the anchor plate. A filler plate (green) is used to fill the space between the pink plate and the beam web. With this design, access for inspection and repairs remains good. No installation problems too.
Another advantage from placing the pink plate parallel to the edge, is that no bending is transferred to it. As a result, you avoid any additional bending of the anchor plate, tension of the anchors and compression stresses on the concrete. But you may induce more shear to the anchors (not certain if it is worst, because shear is induced by your design too).

What verifications are needed:

Fillet Welds of the pink plate
Anchors due to the additional shear (there will be a torsional component)
Bolts (considering the filler plate)
Pink plate in bending/shear
Beam web
Comment: I had thought about this for a while, but I had in mind only using one thick plate (green and pink combined). Any reason why you opt for two thinner plates? I had brought the beam closer to minimize torsion to the plate and  and studs, but I agree with you it will be much simpler this way and recalculating is worth it.
Comment: two plates may be necessary if the distance up to the beam web is bigger than the available plates on market. If that's not the case, one plate is of course simpler/better.


Is the "to" required in "the person (to) whom I granted freedom"?

Question: I had this phrase "the person whom I granted freedom" in something I wrote; a friend maintains that it must be "the person to whom I granted freedom."
Comment: That one is also correct, but it's the relative clause formed from _I granted freedom to the person_, rather than what you wrote, which is the relative clause formed from _I granted the person freedom_ (i.e, with the dative alternation, but without _to_, though you could also strand the preposition _to_ at the end, if you wanted to -- it adds nothing in any event).
Comment: No, _whom_ is allowed, but not required. _Who_ works just as well, "technically". But traditionalists will always say that _whom_ is preferred, which is false. Some prefer it (they do), but many don't bother with it at all.
Comment: @Lynn,John: I don't use *whom* very often in general, and in OP's exact context I might not even bother with *who* either (I'm quite comfortable with just *"the person I granted freedom [**to**]"*). But if I'm going to use either *who* or *whom* in this type of construction I would usually precede it by *to* - and ***if*** I did that, I would be much more likely to follow it with *whom* rather than *who*. My point is that the presence of the preposition calls attention to the fact that it's an object rather than subject. That nudges me into a "correct" usage which I otherwise largely ignore.
Comment: It's General Reference that [it "should" be ***whom***](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/who-or-whom) here. But some people *never* use it any more. On the other hand, those who use it at all will almost certainly get it right in *this specific context*, because of the giveaway preposition ***to*** (which they would normally expect to be present).
Comment: @FumbleFingers - I don't think he's asking about who/whom but about whether it's OK to omit the "to".  I agree that one would normally expect "to" to be present.
Comment: The person whom he manumitted
Comment: Simplify! *the person I freed*
Answer: "The person to whom I granted freedom" seems natural to me. Or "The person whom I freed".
"...whom I granted..." grates on my ear; it sounds as if you are about to give the person to someone else.


What are the oldest irc clients I can still use on linux ?

Question: I have a weakness for nostalgia and some interest in Unix history, therefore I would like to know which are the oldest still usable irc clients that can be run on Linux. In this context I value age over performance.
Comment: is `telnet` an IRC client?
Comment: The oldest still usable? maybe [ircII](http://www.eterna.com.au/ircii/)...
Comment: ircii 2.8.2 was in Debian 0.93, circa 1995. I wouldn't be surprised if you could get that booted in a VM... http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/Debian-0.93R6/
Answer: It depends on your definition of "usable", but... a version derived directly from the very first irc client and server (the page only mentions the server, but the client is present in the download) can be found at https://people.symlink.me/~rom1/projects/oldirc/?view=list.
It builds and runs on my system just fine (this is a release specifically modified to run on modern Linux systems), but with some caveats:
The protocol it uses is notably different from modern IRC. Channels are numbered rather than named, the client can only be in one channel at a time, and the protocol-level command to join is CHANNEL rather than JOIN (though /join works on the client.) Attempting to connect to a typical modern IRC server (which otherwise might theoretically at least allow private messaging to work) runs into problems since it doesn't answer a CTCP VERSION request.
It can connect to its own server (you must set up /usr/local/etc/ircd.conf for the server to work and accept connections), but getting it to connect to a modern server would probably take a significant amount of work, with even more modification required for being able to support being in multiple channels etc.
For a usable client set up for the modern protocol, it's likely the oldest one is ircII.


Getting Quickly to use Gvim instead of Gedit

Question: How do I get Quickly to use Gvim (or just vim in a terminal) as its default text editor instead of Gedit?
If this can be done, I must be doing it wrong...
Ubuntu 10.10 AMD64.
Answer: I assume you mean you want to change the editor that Quickly loads when you ask it to.
Well I did some sleuthing... I'll show you what I did followed by the answer.

I fired off this command:
sudo find / -name "*quickly*" -exec grep gedit {} \;

That searches for all files with quickly in and then greps them for gedit. It was a long shot -- I should have refined the search so it was any paths with quickly in but it matched!
Binary file /usr/share/quickly/templates/ubuntu-application/internal/quicklyutils.pyc matches
    editor = "gedit"

I opened up /usr/share/quickly/templates/ubuntu-application/internal/quicklyutils.py (not the compiled version) in nano, searched for gedit and saw:
def get_quickly_editors():
    '''Return prefered editor for ubuntu-application template'''

    editor = "gedit"
    default_editor = os.environ.get("EDITOR")
    if not default_editor:
        default_editor = os.environ.get("SELECTED_EDITOR")
    if default_editor:
       editor = default_editor
    return editor

From that you can see it asks for the environment value EDITOR!
Just run your quickly commands as:
env EDITOR=gvim quickly edit

or export it to persist
export EDITOR=gvim
quickly edit

Add the export line to your ~/.bashrc line if you want it to persist between sessions.
Comment: Just tested it and it appears to work for all the default templates.
Comment: Yes! I had this! Figured out it was a stupid mistake in .bashrc. [high-five] thanks!
Answer: After you install GVim , using Synaptic Package Manager, then it should be available in the Applications menu and you can right click on it and  add the application shortcut to your desktop.
Comment: Thanks for the answer! But, I can run Gvim quite well. The issue is running it through Quickly (it's like ruby on rails, but for python and developed by Ubuntu) which generally uses Gedit as default.
Comment: I answered this question before "brews" had capitalized the word "Quickly" in his question and provided a link.
Answer: What about sudo update-alternatives –config editor?
It will change the system default editor so you do not have to change individual program preferences..
From: Old article, but should still work..


Someone created a child theme, but I need to modify it to reorder content. How do I access the child theme?

Question: I'm fairly new at wordpress but I am currently trying to figure out how to access someone's child theme that they created from a parent theme. I can access the editor section but it just gives me the php. Is it possible to access the HTML? I'm wondering if someone can explain how come there isn't like an index then a post page. I just need to reorganize the content since the layout orientation isn't correct.
Comment: Do you have access to the themes files?
Comment: @Laxmana This is what I can see in the editor. I don't know if that means if I have access to the theme files. https://ibb.co/fmbZfa
Comment: I mean if you have access to the files where the site is hosted. FTP access. So you can open the index.php with an editor and not through WordPress Admin Panel
Answer: You are looking at the right files area.  The HTML is created through the php files.  These files can be accessed/edited through the editor as you are viewing or through FPT as Laxmana suggested.
Through ftp it would be in your public_html/wp-content/themes/your-child-theme folder.
It may not only be the index.php file that you're looking to change though, or you may need to change something other file entirely.
It's better to make the changes via ftp because you can back up your files before you start making changes in case something goes wrong.  If you don't have that option the editor works as well.  Just select all the content for the file you are editing and copy it to your desktop (word or notepad etc) so you have a safe recovery point.
Without knowing exactly what you are tying to change this answers your question as best as possible.
Comment: I got access through the files on the FTP and I was wondering if there was a way of editing the theme locally to see the changes without it being changed on the live site?
Comment: Unfortunately it's not that easy.  You would need to create a back up of the whole site to have it not be live unless you create a template.php and with the edits you're going to do and assign to a private page.
Comment: Oh okay, that makes sense. Thanks. It will be just a single template page that I will be restructuring actually. (Learning as I go through this process).


Does telling students to take notes in high school really help them learn better?

Question: I don't feel like it actually helped me. I now sense long after high school that taking notes and reading them probably did not help. Now I understand why it could work. In theory, somebody who thinks for themself could use their own method of trying to understand the parts of a lecture they are interested in understanding, using a complex method writing down the results of what they figured out about their method of thinking and slowly improving their own method of thinking and writing. However, when I was in high school, I didn't understand why I was told to takes notes so I used linear thinking and just copied down what ever the teacher was writing on the board and then read my notes and I'm not sure it really helped.
Answer: The lecture is a very inefficient method of training.  Passive, linear, etc.  Working problems, reading texts, doing examinations is much more active and time-efficient.
If you really want to get max value out of a lecture, read the text ahead and work the exercises ahead.  The lecture then is refresher and an alternate viewpoint.  Your notes will only be of something unexpected (as the text is available and familiar for expected things).
P.s.  Of course, this as on oft written on topic and a Google search and review of the results would be a more active way to analyze it.  Rather than asking here or some other answer site.  Sort of analogous to the student in lecture, no?
Answer: I have no teaching or research experience. This answer is all guesswork. There's more than one way to take notes. One way is the proper way where a student happens to get their own natural desire to use their own method of writing things down based on what the teacher says and choosing which parts they're interested in picking out and remembering and with more experience improves their own method of writing down and interpreting what they wrote. The other way is the way I did as a result of my lack of understanding of why to take notes where I just copied down what the teacher wrote on the board and read it later. Maybe some other students did it the same way as me. I think the proper way actually can help as long as the person has the natural ability to do it. The way I did it on the other hand might not help.
I once heard somebody say that when he writes down what he reads, he remembers it better. That's probably because when he writes it down, he ends up reading it slower so it ends up easier to remember it. That doesn't necessarily mean that's the case for taking notes. There's a reason the first way of taking notes I described is better as I will describe later but not everybody has the natural talent for it when they're in high school so some high school students might adopt the method I used. When they take notes and don't have that natural talent, writing down what the teacher writes on the board doesn't slow down the lecture. The teacher is still talking just as fast and it's still just as hard to remember it. The teacher's writing on the other hand is slower so it should already be easier to remember so I'm not sure there's any use in copying it down.
I was also taught point form notes in elementry school and only way later did I figure out the real purpose of them with an understanding. I much later long after I was finished high school had my own natural desire to figure out how to explain things in an organized way that I probably would have figured out even if school had never tried to teach me how to write an essay in an organized way. It's basically planning ahead how to organize a message except my natural desire that just came was to do it in my head. Sometimes I write a bit then plan then continue writing more. Maybe a few times in high school, I had my own idea of how to organize a message for a specific assignment but I didn't get the marks for it. I think that schools are cramming too much material on their students and when they're taught too much, they learn less. That's because sometimes students cannot figure out why the teacher is saying what they're saying when trying to teach them skills and then struggle and then the teacher moves on before they're ready.
In addition, being made to struggle instead of using a student centered approach causes them to adopt a linear thinking approach and actually makes them less good at thinking their own thoughts and coming up with the idea of organizing a message and writing a plan for one on their own with an understanding. That could be another reason telling students to take notes in high school could be detrimental for those who don't have the natural talent to do it properly easily. I read on the internet that Finland uses a student centered approach and I also read on the internet that Finland has a really good education system.
Finally, another reason it could be detrimental to tell students to take notes in high school who weren't going to choose to. Maybe they already have more experience doing the creative thinking with their brain alone and it ends up better in the long run when they just continue their habits of finding it normal that they can only use their brain and have no written copies to get aided by in remembering the lecture.
There are totally different types of notes which can be useful. In my high school Environmental Management course, the teacher put up an overhead with text to write down in class. Maybe some people by writing it down are forced to read it slower so they end up remembering it better. Also in university, I had a statistics course whose textbook was very confusing but the teacher made his own power point notes to read online at home and I read them and learned a lot from them.


How to see Qt Source code while coding by Qt Creator?

Question: How to see Qt Source code while coding by Qt Creator ?
when I Debug my program and hit a break point, and when I press F11 over a Qt function , Debugger steps into source code of that function, it is very interesting stuff :D
now, I will see the source code of Qt functions in Qt creator while coding , not at Debug time :D
Comment: I don't think you can browse the Qt .cpp files unless they are part of a creator project (which is not what you want). Or in debugging mode of course, where the information is pulled from the executable. Browsing declarations, i.e. header files, works though.
Answer: You need a debug build of Qt, and you have to build it yourself. Building Qt is easy: see the Installation part of the documentation.
Adding the debug version to Qt Creator
The following instructions are for Qt Creator 2.0.0. If you're using a different version, adapt as needed. First, you need to add your debug build to the list of available Qt Versions.

Select the Tools > Options menu;
Pick the Qt4 page;
Click the + button;
Click the Browse button and select the qmake binary that is inside the bin directory of your custom-built Qt;
Click Rebuild to build the debugging helpers. This is important!
Click OK.

Now, configure the project to use your debug build during compilation.

Back in the Qt Creator main window, select the Projects view;
Pick the tab corresponding to your project;
Select Build Settings;
On General, change the Qt Version to the version you added on the previous part.

Rebuild your project from scratch with the new settings. You should now be able to debug into Qt code.
Comment: I have built Qt source code. Now please tell me what do I have to do ?
Comment: Doesn't work for Qt 3.3, if you can update the answer would be great.
Comment: Sorry, I wish I could help but I don't use Qt 3.
Answer: F2 is "follow symbol under cursor". That should get you to the right place, independently of whether the code was provided by some included header file or not.
Your own projects will most likely not include the Qt source files though, so you can not jump into them directly (they are not referenced from the project, so they are not there for creator). So during editing you will not be able to just jump straight into the Qt source code. Debugging will of course work (see previous answer, buit rebuilding your own Qt shouldn't actually be necessary).
You can open the projects.pro file found in the Qt sources as an additional project in creator. Then you can at least use the locator (Ctrl-K) to look up methods, etc.
Hope this helps...


Consistency between C# lists

Question: I am writing a small game engine for XNA. Right now my entity manager has a list of all entities it can update and render. Lets say, however, that I want to split this list up into 'sub lists'. Maybe some entities do not require rendering, and so we would like to separate the rendering entities from the non-rendering entities, while maintaining another list which shows ALL entities for updating. So thats 3 lists.
Is there a way to maintain consistency between lists easily? To ensure that the exact same objects are being referenced in both lists? (Not a copy of the object?). In C++ we'd just have an array of pointers to entities that render, and another for entities that dont.
The problem isn't really putting entities into these lists, its disposing them thats throwing me off. To destroy an entity, i simply set a 'dispose' bool to true in that entity. The entity manger, when looping through all entities, removes the reference to that entity if 'dispose' is set to true, and the garbage cleaner destroys the entity because there is no more references left to it. Would i have to manually go through each and every list that has something to do with Entities and remove that entity from those lists to keep things consistent?
another example of this 'problem' is with quad trees. I have a 2d game and i generate a quad tree for all the entities. The entities that lie in between 2 grid locations are in 2 branches of the tree. how would i remove it from the tree? search the entire tree for references to that entity? seems a little pointless to have a quad tree if thats the case..!
Answer: Consider instead of 3 lists, have one list and 2 queries of that list.
var list = GetYourMainList();
var renderableEntities = list.Where(item => item.IsRenderable);
var nonrenderableEntities = list.Where(item => !item.IsRenderable);

// work with the queries
foreach (var item in renderableEntities)
{
    // do whatever
}

Here, you can iterate over each query, the results will stream from the main list, and any update to that list will be reflected in the query results as they are iterated. The caveat is that the list cannot be modified (as in added to or deleted from) while the queries are being iterated.
Comment: @Chris, as opposed to maintaining 3 lists simulteneously, keeping them synchronized, resizing, etc? That isn't to say performance isn't a consideration, but I would want to see an unacceptable performance degradation that points to the Linq queries as well as proof that the multiple list approach is indeed faster.
Comment: This would be slow if they need to call this method frequently though, no?
Answer: As for your disposing problem, you could implement IDisposable. For your lists, you could make a class that contains the two lists, and if you need the entire list, implement an enumerator that would enumerate over the two lists.
Answer: You could put a wrapper around your entity that knows what lists it is in  so that when you want to remove it, you can remove it from all places at once relatively easily.
Answer: If you have items in multiple lists, then yes, if you want to remove them you must remove them from all lists in which they occur. A simple way to do this is to assign responsibility for removing items to the items themselves: for example, rendering items would remove themselves from the rendering items list when you call RemoveFromLists() on them.
The use of queries as described by Anthony Pegram eliminates this complexity but is inefficient if the lists are large, since they cannot be incrementally updated.
As for quadtrees, a straightforward thing to do is to have each item keep a list of quadtree nodes in which it occurs (or if you don't want to add a field to your items, use a Dictionary). It is then simple to remove them from all nodes in which they occur in constant time.
Answer: You could have your entity expose a "Disposing" event that is fired before it is disposed. Then you could have your list's Add method register an event handler with the entity being added that will remove the entity from the list before it is disposed.

Consistency between C# lists


I need some help on this Chemistry question can any one help please!! I need to find the cost of a single atom of aluminum

Question: A 75 ft2 roll of aluminum foil costs $3.79.  A 12"x12" pieces has a mass of 1.0 g.  How much does a single atom of aluminum cost, in dollars?
i need to show all my work i am so lost.
Answer: We are given that 75 square feet costs \$3.79, so 1 square foot costs \$3.79 divided by 75, or just over 5 cents. We are also given the mass of one square foot as 1.0g, so from the atomic weight of aluminium, one mole costs approximately 27 times this, or \$1.36. One mole is $6.022\times10^{23}$ items (in this case atoms), so how much does an atom cost?
Adjust significant figures to taste.
Comment: could you show me how you got the 27 times and $1.36. im sorry im so  lost
Comment: The atomic mass of aluminum is $26.98 \text{ g/mole }\approx 27$
Comment: thanks for fixing the formatting, MaxW - I tried the "/$" but that kept messing up for me.


Origin of "idiocracy"

Question: Did the word "idiocracy" exist prior to the release of the movie of the same title, or is it a neologism coined by its screenwriters?
Comment: If you look at Ngram, the term goes back 200 years, with changing meanings.  It's hard to tell from context in many cases, but the term was definitely used in the sarcastic sense prior to the movie.
Answer: Interestingly, the word already existed as far back as 1681, and originally meant:

Peculiarity of constitution; that
  temperament, or state of constitution,
  which is peculiar to a person;
  idiosyncrasy.

So it was basically an alternative form to "idiosyncrasy" and was just re-appropriated for its other meaning.
However, even more interestingly, I see a reference from the OED to the use of this word with the current interpretation of "idiot form of government" (made by an author named Thomas Sinclair) from all the way back in 1878 (and my sincere apology for the unfortunate fact that the cited quotation is antisemitic):

No Jew of them all would..set up a
  theocracy, or *idiocracy, for this is
  the exact word, more eagerly and
  remorselessly.

Great question; I was surprised by what I discovered.
Comment: The original use you cite makes sense if you know the origin of the word "idiot". In Ancient Greek, `idiṓtēs` means "private citizen", which contrasts with something public or shared, with no (direct) implication of stupidity. Though most likely the screenwriter thought of the government of a state ruled by fools, which I think is a banal use of the word.
Comment: Actually, the part that I found interesting was the fact that the original use of the word had no connection to a form of government.  The *-cracy* in the old "idiocracy" therefore came from the Greek *krasis* (mixture) rather than *kratos* (rule, strength). To add another interesting fact about *idio-*, we also get the linguistic term "idiolect" from that same root, and it means, a way of speaking particular to the individual -- like the way you might speak to your cat or your significant other. (Really just a lot of interesting things about this word!)
Answer: Dictionary.com reports the words derives from idio-, and a word that is mixture of French, and Greek.
The New Oxford American Dictionary reports that idio- means "distinct, private, personal, own"; its origin is from Greek idios (own, distinct).
Answer: The term derives from two Greek words:
Idiotis, which means private person and in ancient Greek had a negative connotation as a selfish individual that does not care about the common matters and the collective good.
Kratos, which means power, rule, dominance (Similar to democracy power of the demos/people)
These two words together basically mean: "The rule of the idiots"
Comment: This explains what the word means but doesn't address the question which was about the word's origin in English.
Answer: I was sure that one of the men present when America was establishing itself as a democracy said such a system could only result in an idiocracy. That celebrity and  popularity would become the criteria for presidents and this would be disastrous. Whoever it was had very little regard for the general populous, thinking them unworthy of a vote equal to that of one of the ruling class. Good prediction for maybe the wrong reasons. Hopefully I'll be back to cite the quote and name the author.
Comment: Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer).
Comment: I tried to find the alleged quote with [Founders Online](https://founders.archives.gov/index.xqy) but came up with nothing even with wildcard searches.
Answer: It is a combination of idiot and democracy, and meant to refer to a democracy of idiots.  There are similar examples like meritocracy (a democracy based on merit) or autocracy.
Comment: Also, I would want to see some supporting evidence for the claim that it is based on "democracy". "Autocracy" is certainly an independent formation, and I believe that "meritocracy" is as well.
It's quite possible that the coiners of the word for the film had "democracy" in mind, but it's equally possible that they were just basing it on the range of "-cracy" words.
Comment: @Colin: you are correct. The ending *-cracy* or *-crasy* comes from Greek *kratia*, which means *power*. The word *demo* comes from Greek *demos*, meaning *the people*, giving us *power of the people* for the word *democracy*. The same applies to *meritocracy*, which has nothing to do with *democracy*, and *idiosyncrasy* (Greek *idiosunkrasia*). PS: I'm not 100% certain of the transliteration from Greek (I'm not native English), but the meanings are correct. See also the note of Kosmonaut under the answer above.
Comment: I didnt downvote, but you were likely dv'ed b/c the question was about prior origins beyond the simple combination of the two words.

Origin of "idiocracy"


Wrong size while exporting png from Illustrator?

Question: I made a file size 320*370, however they become 321*370 while I export them into png?? Things happen to every files unless there is only one artboard in the file. Always 1 px more from what I originally set. Any idea how can this be fixed?
Comment: Is your artboard exactly on the pixel or is it ioffset?
Comment: There is a chance your inage is not pixel perfectly aligned, and the extra pixel is an anti alias column.
Comment: My exports were also 1 pixel off in some of my images.  Aligning my artboards to the pixel grid as joojaa recommended resolved the issue.
Answer: This is caused when the artboard has decimal value in the X and Y coordinates, and also when the size of the artboard is decimal as well. Make sure that your artboards have whole values for the X and Y coordinates, as well as the Width and Height dimensions.
Try to rearrange them by putting a whole integer value between them and see if that helps.
Comment: This is the answer that solved my problem, and should be the accepted answer.
Answer: Your art is outside your artboard. Export but don't use the artboard size, rather draw a square that contains all boxes. So if, for example, you have a text box and your text is 320, but the text box is 324, then the export will be 324.
Use "Save for web" and choose Artboard Size when saving for PNG.
Answer: My exports were also 1 pixel off in some of my images.  Aligning my artboards to the pixel grid as joojaa recommended resolved the issue.
Answer:
Make sure each object you want to export is in separate artboards.
Select all the objects.
Go to File -> Export Selection.
Go to 'Artboards' tab, Tick off the 'Include Bleed' box under the artboard range.
Set the artboard range and choose your desired format.
Click 'Export Artboard'.

Done! Now every images that you exported will be as the same as the artboard sizes you set.
Answer: All of the answers here are partial. For consistent results you need to use all the techniques listed here:

Your artboard must be exactly on X and Y coordinates (eg: x:270 y: 179, not x:269.96 y: 179.21). Turn on your pixel grid (View > Pixel Preview) and turn on Snap To Pixel (View > Snap to Pixel) when drawing new artboards, or just type round numbers into the Artboard Properties panel (for x, y, width and height).

Either make sure none of your artwork could bleed outside the edges of your artboard OR (better) turn OFF "Include Bleeds" when you use Export for Screens. Remember that for most strokes, if the stroke aligns with the edge of your artboard, chances are it actually spills outside the boundaries of your artboard because strokes by default are centered on the line.

If all the above isn't working for you, you can always fall back to Save for Web (Legacy) where you can clearly see the pixel dimensions while exporting and there are no surprises.
Answer: Does the same thing happen whether you Save As or Save for web? The Save for web is much better because it gives more options (exact sizing and image quality). And Save for web offers previews of the final PNG with pre-calculated file size.


How to reduce the glossy noise?

Question: I am using a lamp with shader glossy, without the lamp the scene is good, but when I bring the lamp with the shader increases the amount of noise. what do I do?
Answer: You can render less noisy image increasing the render samples, you can also use set clamping to reduce fireflies (very bright pixels, getting brighter with more samples). If you have glossy / metallic surfaces don't set the clamping too low (below 1.5) because it makes the metallic surfaces dull.

Answer: In the render window at the right go to the "Light Paths" and set Filter Glossy to 0.5 or 1.
You can also turn off Reflective Caustics but then you wouldnt have any bounce lights.

How to reduce the glossy noise?


The first iPad iPad one?

Question: I have the first iPad ever made not the actual first iPad ever made but the first version and I can't download apps because all the apps are out of its legal how do I get a older versions of the apps? Onto the iPad
Comment: Buy the app (Netflix say), on a newer device, and you may be able to download it (for SD content).
Comment: Not a duplicate, please read both questions again. Suggested duplicate is an OS restriction. This is an unclear question but seems related to the device support.
Answer: You can't get those apps to run. Just make sure that your iPad is as up to date as it can possibly get.
Many apps have updated to support the new hardware and software.
I recommend to try using a browser for things like social networks and etc.

The first iPad iPad one?


spark MLLIB alternating least squares recommendation

Question: How do we use spark MLLIB ALS (alternating least squares) to recommend products to users? Basically we need to give ratings to products which are not rated by user. Example given is with ratings what if rating is "NA"- "not applicable"?
Comment: I'm not sure about what do you mean by not applicable. Would you care explaining your use case ? I think that I might be able to help you with more information.
Answer: Matrix factorization methods for recommender systems decompose large user-item matrix into lower dimensional user factors $p_u$ and item factors $q_i$. You can estimate the user rating by taking the inner product $r_{ui} = p_u^{T}q_i$. So if you have NaNs present in your rating data you can fill the NaNs with zeros.
There is an excellent tutorial on how to apply Alternating Least Squares (ALS) to a recommender problem using the MovieLens dataset. The training RDD consists of (userId, movieId, rating) tuple. Once new user movie ratings are added the model is retrained and generates new user ratings for all movies.


How can I find the loocation of a break in a 240V underground circuit to an outside storage building

Question: I have an underground 240V circuit that the two hot legs are both broken, and the neutral is still intact. I have verified this with a meter. I need to find the location of the break (or burnout) so it can be repaired. I don't want to trench for a new cable because there are many other water lines and wires for a irrigation system in this area of yard. I tried a method I saw on youtube which involved using a wire connected to a lawn mower and to the underground wire and picking up signal with a portable AM radio. It works, but even thoug I had it connected to one of the broken wires, the signal bled over into the intact wire and continued to be picked up by the radio. I would like to know if anyone knows if a signal tracer available on Amazon such as the Noyafa NF-816, or something similar, would work, or would the signal bleed over through the intact wire.
Comment: Has there been any landscaping or digging, new fence,  in the area in question?
Comment: Is there a part of the yard that has been driven over with vehicles around the time of the break?  Is it a 4-wire feed?  Is it buried to mandatory depth (24" for direct burial)?
Comment: The trenching for the irrigation pipes and control wires was done about 13 yrs. ago, and I suspect that they may have nicked the line or may have cut and repaired it. But these trenches crossed the underground electric cable in several places.
Comment: ...When we advise using conduit, this is one of the reasons why we do.
Answer: You need a cable locator this is very much like a wire tracer but it uses the ground as part of the circuit. You transmit a signal over the cable and the signal returns through the ground to your receiver.
You normally use it to trace where a cable is located but you can use it to find a break in the cable as the sound will drop out suddenly where their is a break in the cable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP_-TEKMNXc
Comment: Signal tracers like this can be rented from most rental stores. They do work very well I have several models 1 for walls and one that will detect to +4' prior to purchasing I used to rent for the sub surface but for a pro an hour to the rental place and back plus rental will pay for one quickly. You may find a used one on line also. +
Answer: The short/open test set ECT3000 is not always giving enough information to find the location in case of interruptions. Maybe it is similar to the Noyafa.
An alternate option is a reflectometer.
Maybe a test set could be rent for 1 hour.
A (digital USB-connected-) oscilloscope may also work.
It has a rectangular waveform generator, whose signal can be fed into the cable.
The time lag of the echoed signal gives the distance to the interruption (factor 2 is involved).
Either measurement should be done from both sides.
But the light/signal speed can be different from the vacuum light speed.
The cable manufacturer should be able to provide that info.
Or a measurement with a second identical straight cable could serve to measure the speed.
See
reflectometer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-domain_reflectometer
Comment: Or if you check from both sides and compare, you should be able to locate the break without knowing the signal speed. This is assuming there is a single break only.


"Juxtapositions" of moon,stars and planets in the sky,

Question: What are "Juxtapositions" of the Moon, stars and planets called? When the Moon, stars and planets take exactly the same position after few or many years, how to describe the positions and what is called to describe the position?
Answer: There are several words to describe two celestial bodies being in the same place on the celestial sphere.
A conjunction is when two bodies seem to pass close to one another, as seen from the Earth.
A transit is when a celestial  body passes between the observer (us) and a bigger body. For instance, Venus can transit in front of the Sun, when it passes between the Earth and the Sun.
An occultation is when a celestial body in the foreground hides a celestial body in the background. For instance, the Moon occults the stars it passes in front of.
An eclipse designates what happens when one body passes in front of the other for an observer, as a result of a transit or an occultation.
A syzygy is simply when three celestial bodies are roughly aligned. One of those three bodies can be the Earth, in which case, the two other bodies will either be in the same place on the celestial sphere (a conjunction) or at the antipodes.
Comment: Wikipedia says the conjunction *symbol* is not not used in astronomy (and even that's not properly sourced, and I believe it's false), but the word conjunction certainly is used in astronomy: https://blogs.nasa.gov/Watch_the_Skies/tag/conjunction/


How to calculate kinetic energy of emitted particle using Q-value?

Question: Suppose a nucleus of given mass number, initially at rest emits an $\alpha$-particle. How can I calculate kinetic energy of the $\alpha$-particle using no other data except the $Q$-value of the reaction? Now $Q$-value of a reaction is $$(m_{product} - m_{reactant}) c^2$$ But the masses(not mass numbers but exact masses) of product and reactant are not given, so I am stuck.
Comment: I know that Q-value is the product of mass difference between product and reactant & velocity of light squared, but since I dont have the mass(not mass number, exact mass) of product or reactant, I am stuck
Comment: OK then; could you edit your question to include that information?
Answer: The $Q$-value in physics is usually defined as $(M_{\text{final}} - M_{\text{initial}}) c^2  $
Use conservation of energy and conservation of momentum.
Now if you know what the parent atom is then you need to look up the data for the mass of the parent atom $M_P$, the mass of the daughter atom $M_D$ and the mass of a helium atom $m$.
Using the accurate value of the masses of the atoms  will take care of the alpha not having any electrons.
It is often the case that using the nucleon (mass) number is accurate enough for everything except finding the $Q$-value..
Otherwise you should find the kinetic energy of the alpha particle in terms of $M_D, m, c$ and $Q$.
Comment: Sir in case of beta decay we consider subtracting (Z+1)e^- in the daughter nuclei of A (Z+1) Y for nuclear mass calculation, even though we have just Ze- in the atom isnt ? Any reason
Answer:
The picture below has the details of what Mr. Farcher had said. Please read through the below picture.


Finding information about all serial devices connected through USB in C#

Question: My project requires detection of a specific device when it is connected to USB. The only way I can identify this device is by its description/device name, not the com port. What I have found to perform the correct function is using a WMI query and checking the name property:
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("Select * from WIN32_SerialPort");
            foreach (ManagementObject port in searcher.Get())
            {
                deviceName = (string)foundPort.GetPropertyValue("Name");
                ...

I initially tested this by connecting my phone, and the query returned the phone found on COM3 as expected. Then, I connected another device (a USB to serial converter, which more closely resembles the device I need this project for) and the query simply did not find it. It only finds the phone. This device does, however, show up on port COM4 in Device Manager. To spite me even more, the SerialPort class finds both devices, but it does not provide the information I need to identify the device:
    string[] tempPorts = SerialPort.GetPortNames();

I have read numerous threads on SO and elsewhere and cannot find a satisfactory solution. Could someone please clarify why the WIN32_SerialPort query does not find my other device? Is it not considered a win32 serial port for some reason?
And, could someone please point me in the direction of a solution to this problem?
Comment: I found a way around this issue by using a query for Win32_PnPEntity as described here http://thunderfist-podium.blogspot.com/2009/10/com-port-listing-in-c.html
Comment: A comment in this thread http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2548631/what-is-the-best-way-to-scan-for-com-ports-in-c says that the WMI query does not include USB-to-serial adapters.. would anyone care to elaborate?
Comment: have you tried seeing if it detects if you plug a serial device into the converter?
Comment: I haven't, but my goal is to use a device that is detected as a USB-to-serial converter to simply read one analog pin.
Comment: @sebo The described query is not very efficient since all devices are queried and then a string comparison is used. You only have to with a specific guid like I described in my answer.
Answer: How to list all serial ports:
There are several System-Defined Device Setup Classes available to hardware vendors. Properly written drivers for COM-Ports should use the Ports (COM & LPT ports)-class (guid: 4d36e978-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318). Probably this class is used by the device manager as well.
So you can use the following query to list every serial port you also see in the devicemanager:
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(
    "root\\CIMV2",
    "SELECT * FROM Win32_PnPEntity WHERE ClassGuid=\"{4d36e978-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\""
);
foreach (ManagementObject queryObj in searcher.Get())
{
    // do what you like with the Win32_PnpEntity
}

See this detailed description of the Win32_PnPEntity-class. You should have everything you need for identifying your device.
For determining the port number I examine the name property and extract it. Until now this works fine, but I don't know if the port number is garanteed to be included in the name. I haven't found any serial port device until now, that doesn't have the port number included in the name.
The above query finds every serial port device, no matter if it is a bluetooth SPP, a FTDI-chip, a port on the mainboard, an extension card or a virtual serial port generated by some modem driver (i.e. Globetrotter GTM66xxW).
To determine the type of connection (bluetooth, usb, etc.) you can examine the deviceid (have a look at the first part of the deviceid). There you can also extract the bt-mac address (be careful with that: the deviceid looks different at least on Windows 7 and Windows XP).
Regarding why some devices are not listed with Win32_SerialPort:
I suspect it depends on the driver implementation, since I have some usb-devices that get their ports listed and some that don't.
Comment: To get **all** devices listed use this query instead: `"SELECT * FROM Win32_PnPEntity WHERE Name LIKE '%(COM[0-9]%'"`
Comment: @Pithikos I already mentioned that in my answer, although I didn't provide any code for that. Since I hadn't found any official statement, that the poort number will always be included in the name, I decided against filtering with `LIKE`.
Comment: That's true. I guess the best solution would be a combination of the two.
Comment: @Pithikos Probably the `LIKE`-condition will be slower than filtering the `ClassGuid` and the `LIKE`-condition is not neccessary.
Comment: If you had 4 identical scanners attached how could you tell which was which (since Windows often reassigns these virtual COM ports for no reason) if they were used at 4 operations?
Comment: @topshot You could try to distinguish the devices by `DeviceId`, `HardwareId` or `PnPDeviceId`. Just have a look at `Win32_PnpEntity` linked in my answer.
Comment: On the issue of speed, I did 3 separate stopwatch tests on 100,000 iterations. The "Name LIKE '%(COM[0-9]%'" method was actually marginally quicker on all 3 tests than the 'WHERE ClassGuid" method.
Comment: @GuruJosh That's interesting. However I mentioned the guid-approach, since it will list all COM-devices like the device manager does. Devices not listet as COM-Ports in the device manager should also not be returned by this query.
Comment: This approach worked much better for me than the WIN32_SerialPort approach, which was VERY slow and listed devices which don't come up on Device Manager. This approach is faster and better.
Comment: If you need the com port name like `COM4` for opening the port in your program you can extract the com port name via this link http://thunderfist-podium.blogspot.com/2009/10/com-port-listing-in-c.html. comPortName=item["Name"].ToString().Substring(start, end - start);
Answer: I think i see what you are trying to do, look at this code made using WMICodeCreator ( link to WMICodeCreator http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8572 )
from this article http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/32330/A-Useful-WMI-Tool-How-To-Find-USB-to-Serial-Adapto
//Below is code pasted from WMICodeCreator
try
{
    ManagementObjectSearcher searcher =
        new ManagementObjectSearcher("root\\WMI",
        "SELECT * FROM MSSerial_PortName");

    foreach (ManagementObject queryObj in searcher.Get())
    {
        Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------------");
        Console.WriteLine("MSSerial_PortName instance");
        Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------------");
        Console.WriteLine("InstanceName: {0}", queryObj["InstanceName"]);

        Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------------");
        Console.WriteLine("MSSerial_PortName instance");
        Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------------");
        Console.WriteLine("PortName: {0}", queryObj["PortName"]);

        //If the serial port's instance name contains USB
        //it must be a USB to serial device
        if (queryObj["InstanceName"].ToString().Contains("USB"))
        {
            Console.WriteLine(queryObj["PortName"] + "
            is a USB to SERIAL adapter/converter");
        }
    }
}
catch (ManagementException e)
{
    MessageBox.Show("An error occurred while querying for WMI data: " + e.Message);
}

Comment: I had come across this post earlier but the call to Get() with this query failed with some odd errors. I think I got something like "Management not supported" and then after tweaking it I got "Permission Denied". As I said in the comment above, I already found my solution and I did it by using a query to Win32_PnPEntity, and then narrowing down my search by looking for entities whose name property contained "USB Serial Port (COM".
Answer: Alex's answer really helped me out.  But I had to adjust my query based on my machine...
I had to query "root\CIMV2", but I had to select all rows from a different table: "SELECT * FROM Win32_SerialPort".
For anyone struggling to figure out how to use WMI or the Management Object Searcher, the WMI Code Creator by Microsoft really just saved me.  Using the app, you can query WMI for different information in order to figure out what to put into your Management Object Searcher query.
Link might expire in the future but here it is in 2020:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8572
Answer: Seeing that you want to search by "Name", I think you will need to iterate through all connected devices and query them to get the product name.
Here is code to iterate through WinUSB devices:
https://github.com/MelbourneDeveloper/Device.Net/blob/master/src/Device.Net/Windows/WindowsDeviceFactoryBase.cs
  public async Task<IEnumerable<DeviceDefinition>> GetConnectedDeviceDefinitions(uint? vendorId, uint? productId)
    {
        return await Task.Run<IEnumerable<DeviceDefinition>>(() =>
        {
            var deviceDefinitions = new Collection<DeviceDefinition>();
            var spDeviceInterfaceData = new SpDeviceInterfaceData();
            var spDeviceInfoData = new SpDeviceInfoData();
            var spDeviceInterfaceDetailData = new SpDeviceInterfaceDetailData();
            spDeviceInterfaceData.CbSize = (uint)Marshal.SizeOf(spDeviceInterfaceData);
            spDeviceInfoData.CbSize = (uint)Marshal.SizeOf(spDeviceInfoData);

            var guidString = ClassGuid.ToString();
            var copyOfClassGuid = new Guid(guidString);

            var i = APICalls.SetupDiGetClassDevs(ref copyOfClassGuid, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero, APICalls.DigcfDeviceinterface | APICalls.DigcfPresent);

            if (IntPtr.Size == 8)
            {
                spDeviceInterfaceDetailData.CbSize = 8;
            }
            else
            {
                spDeviceInterfaceDetailData.CbSize = 4 + Marshal.SystemDefaultCharSize;
            }

            var x = -1;

            while (true)
            {
                x++;

                var isSuccess = APICalls.SetupDiEnumDeviceInterfaces(i, IntPtr.Zero, ref copyOfClassGuid, (uint)x, ref spDeviceInterfaceData);
                if (!isSuccess)
                {
                    var errorCode = Marshal.GetLastWin32Error();
                    if (errorCode == APICalls.ERROR_NO_MORE_ITEMS)
                    {
                        break;
                    }

                    throw new Exception($"Could not enumerate devices. Error code: {errorCode}");
                }

                isSuccess = APICalls.SetupDiGetDeviceInterfaceDetail(i, ref spDeviceInterfaceData, ref spDeviceInterfaceDetailData, 256, out _, ref spDeviceInfoData);
                WindowsDeviceBase.HandleError(isSuccess, "Could not get device interface detail");

                //Note this is a bit nasty but we can filter Vid and Pid this way I think...
                var vendorHex = vendorId?.ToString("X").ToLower().PadLeft(4, '0');
                var productIdHex = productId?.ToString("X").ToLower().PadLeft(4, '0');
                if (vendorId.HasValue && !spDeviceInterfaceDetailData.DevicePath.ToLower().Contains(vendorHex)) continue;
                if (productId.HasValue && !spDeviceInterfaceDetailData.DevicePath.ToLower().Contains(productIdHex)) continue;

                var deviceDefinition = GetDeviceDefinition(spDeviceInterfaceDetailData.DevicePath);

                deviceDefinitions.Add(deviceDefinition);
            }

            APICalls.SetupDiDestroyDeviceInfoList(i);

            return deviceDefinitions;
        });
    }

For each of these devices you can query the device like this:
https://github.com/MelbourneDeveloper/Device.Net/blob/master/src/Usb.Net/Windows/WindowsUsbDevice.cs
        var isSuccess = WinUsbApiCalls.WinUsb_Initialize(_DeviceHandle, out var defaultInterfaceHandle);
        HandleError(isSuccess, "Couldn't initialize device");

        var bufferLength = (uint)Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(USB_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR));
        isSuccess = WinUsbApiCalls.WinUsb_GetDescriptor(defaultInterfaceHandle, WinUsbApiCalls.DEFAULT_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE, 0, EnglishLanguageID, out _UsbDeviceDescriptor, bufferLength, out var lengthTransferred);
        HandleError(isSuccess, "Couldn't get device descriptor");

        if (_UsbDeviceDescriptor.iProduct > 0)
        {
            //Get the product name
            var buffer = new byte[256];
            isSuccess = WinUsbApiCalls.WinUsb_GetDescriptor(defaultInterfaceHandle, WinUsbApiCalls.USB_STRING_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE, _UsbDeviceDescriptor.iProduct, 1033, buffer, (uint)buffer.Length, out var transfered);
            HandleError(isSuccess, "Couldn't get product name");

            Product = new string(Encoding.Unicode.GetChars(buffer, 2, (int)transfered));
            Product = Product.Substring(0, Product.Length - 1);
        }

public static partial class WinUsbApiCalls
{
    public const uint DEVICE_SPEED = 1;
    public const byte USB_ENDPOINT_DIRECTION_MASK = 0X80;
    public const int WritePipeId = 0x80;

    ///
    /// Not sure where this constant is defined...
    ///
    public const int DEFAULT_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE = 0x01;
    public const int USB_STRING_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE = 0x03;

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_ControlTransfer(IntPtr InterfaceHandle, WINUSB_SETUP_PACKET SetupPacket, byte[] Buffer, uint BufferLength, ref uint LengthTransferred, IntPtr Overlapped);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_GetAssociatedInterface(SafeFileHandle InterfaceHandle, byte AssociatedInterfaceIndex, out SafeFileHandle AssociatedInterfaceHandle);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_GetDescriptor(SafeFileHandle InterfaceHandle, byte DescriptorType, byte Index, ushort LanguageID, out USB_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR deviceDesc, uint BufferLength, out uint LengthTransfered);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_GetDescriptor(SafeFileHandle InterfaceHandle, byte DescriptorType, byte Index, UInt16 LanguageID, byte[] Buffer, UInt32 BufferLength, out UInt32 LengthTransfered);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_Free(SafeFileHandle InterfaceHandle);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_Initialize(SafeFileHandle DeviceHandle, out SafeFileHandle InterfaceHandle);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_QueryDeviceInformation(IntPtr InterfaceHandle, uint InformationType, ref uint BufferLength, ref byte Buffer);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_QueryInterfaceSettings(SafeFileHandle InterfaceHandle, byte AlternateInterfaceNumber, out USB_INTERFACE_DESCRIPTOR UsbAltInterfaceDescriptor);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_QueryPipe(SafeFileHandle InterfaceHandle, byte AlternateInterfaceNumber, byte PipeIndex, out WINUSB_PIPE_INFORMATION PipeInformation);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_ReadPipe(SafeFileHandle InterfaceHandle, byte PipeID, byte[] Buffer, uint BufferLength, out uint LengthTransferred, IntPtr Overlapped);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_SetPipePolicy(IntPtr InterfaceHandle, byte PipeID, uint PolicyType, uint ValueLength, ref uint Value);

    [DllImport("winusb.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool WinUsb_WritePipe(SafeFileHandle InterfaceHandle, byte PipeID, byte[] Buffer, uint BufferLength, out uint LengthTransferred, IntPtr Overlapped);
}


How do I get out of the test of Allah so that I don't have to face judgement in the hereafter?

Question: I want to get out of this test of duniya. I don't want to face anything in hereafter. There must be a way not to give the test and get rid of Allah. What is it?
Answer: You can't, because verily Allah SWT tested every soul, as is it in the Qur'an chapter 29 verse 2 to 3
(29:2) Do people think that they will be let go merely by saying: "We believe," and that they will not be tested,1 (29:3) for We indeed tested those who went before them?2 Allah will most certainly ascertain3 those who spoke the truth and those who lied.
Answer: We agreed to the Test
Allah asked humans if they want to give this test. We agreed to that
Surat Al-Ahzab [verse 72]

Indeed, we offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the
mountains, and they declined to bear it and feared it; but man
[undertook to] bear it. Indeed, he was unjust and ignorant

So now we are in the test. There is no going back. And everything is this earth is test for us.
Hardship
If I presume that you are asking this because of hardships then you should know that every person has to face hardships in their life. Everyone of us will go through difficulty according to our capacity and Allah will not punish us for what is beyond our capabilities.

Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear

Qur'an 2:286
Lastly

The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, "Follow
the right course, seek nearness to Allah, and give glad tidings.
Verily, none of you will enter Paradise by his deeds alone." They
said, "Not even you, O Messenger of Allah?" The Prophet said, "Not
even me, unless Allah grants me his mercy. Know that the most
beloved deed to Allah is that which is done regularly, even if it is
small."

Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6099, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2818
We just need to keep trying in our best of capabilities


Why is my question gone?

Question: It wasn't a stellar question, but it was the only one I have ever posted here. If I remember right, the question itself didn't get any upvotes, but the answer I posted a few days later, did. It concerned Jeff Dunham. Since a comment made me chuckle, I have looked at it several times. At least several weeks after posting the question and the eventual answer, I saw no close votes or possible dupes.
Answer: The question was closed by the community on May 28th for not sufficing the site's quality standards for ID questions. Then it was deleted on June 9th for being closed more than 9 days without improvement.
Comment: @randal'thor No, roomba doesn't grip if there is an upvoted answer. But this doesn't stop moderators from performing manual cleanup. (She did however, not lose any reputation from the deletion, since her answer had +3 and was older than 60 days.)
Comment: But the 9-day [roomba deletion](http://movies.stackexchange.com/help/roomba) doesn't delete questions that have positively scored answers. Is Jolene mistaken about the answer getting upvotes?

Why is my question gone?