What is the difference between magical realism story and a low fantasy story?

Question: If you're creating a real world with fictional powers or magic, when are you creating a low fantasy vs. a magical realism story? Both are in the real world. Where is the line between these types of fantasy?
Comment: "Low fantasy" is used for a lot of different kinds of fantasy -- basically anything that can be contrasted with "high fantasy."  You may want to be more specific about what you are considering not magical realism, with examples if nothing else.
Comment: @Mary You're basically saying magical realism is a type of low fantasy with low fantasy blanketing everything that isn't "high fantasy?" Nested sun-genres? Does this also mean magical realism can't be high fantasy (extremely magical worlds)?
Comment: I think I found an answer. Posting it.
Comment: No, I'm basically saying that if that is what you mean by "low fantasy," you should specify it.  There are definitions of low fantasy that are set in another world, for instance.
Comment: @Mary Twilight series, and Streets of Maradaine series fit this description at Barnes and Noble. I trust their definitions. For them, "low" refers to the amount of world-building in the story. MasterClass also counts Twilight. Where have you found entire alternate worlds as low fantasy?
Comment: I've heard sword & sorcery defined as low fantasy.
Comment: @Mary like Percy Jackson, Lightning Thief. That probably qualifies because it takes place in the modern identifiable world.
Comment: Hmm, interesting, according to Wikipedia, low/high fantasy distinction is primarily based on real vs fictional world setting. This has definitely changed since the last time I checked. Now the iconic [grimdark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimdark) books by Glen Cook and George R. R. Martin can proudly call themselves "high fantasy" :)
Answer: Magical Realism is not simply a story set in a real-world setting in which some magical element exists. That can as well be urban fantasy or a bunch of other things. But whereas in fantasy; magic is magic; In magical realism, that magic is metaphorical. A form of symbolism. For example, if a character learns to fly in fantasy, it means the character can fly. In magical realism, if a character starts to fly, it could mean anything ranging from the person reaching a certain level of enlightenment to they having discovered a newfound freedom in an oppressive society. A dragon is a dragon in fantasy. In magical realism, if, let's say, there's a dragon living in a forest, it could mean there's a guerilla revolution in the land or simply, it is a manifestation of forest fires (among other things). The magic in Magical Realism is more than magic. It is reality.
And that magic drips from the culture, society, practices, politics, and environment in which the story is set. As a writer, in magical realism, you don't go looking for magical elements. You simply conceive a story and let the reality of things pour its magic into it.
Answer: The difference is the acceptance of fantastical elements
Both Magical Realism and Low Fantasy subgenres of a fantasy story occur in the real world. But the main characters' awareness of the fantastical parts of the world draw the line between the two. Another way to say this from the perspective of the characters' interactions is; fantastical elements are the world in magical realism, but they are the story in low fantasy.
In a Low Fantasy story, the magical or fantastical parts of the world are unexpected or even shocking. The beginning chapters of Harry Potter start in the world of the "muggles," who are shocked to see a cat reading the newspaper, or invitation letters flying in through the door. The reader does not yet see magic as a regular part of the world. Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom also fits a low fantasy subgenre with the action and adventure genre, as supernatural events unexpectedly manifest from the relics and artifacts he recovers. Child's Play is another example, where a living doll is shocking rather than ordinary.
When the fantastical elements are well-known in the real world, this creates a Magical Realism story. The TV series The Munsters is a good example of magical realism, with supernatural and fantastical elements being a normal part of the family's world. When Harry Potter travels to Hogwarts, the narrative shifts to high fantasy rather than magical realism because of Rawlings' vast world-building efforts and her proclivity to "explain" her magic. Compare A. M. Holmes' A Real Doll to Child's Play: Homes' living, talking Barbie doll is just a part of the story; Chucky is a doll possessed by the spirit of a serial killer through an ancient ritual.
Magical Realism is occasionally lumped in with fantasy, but it is actually a relatively newly defined subgenre of fictional realism rather than fantasy, according to the Master Class writing staff. Low fantasy is, of course, within the fantasy genre.
A good side-by-side comparison would be a couple books with telekinesis in their worlds. Leon Whiteson's Scanners features a future with telekinesis as a normal part of the world, and it becomes weaponized.  as opposed to Carrie whose telekinetic abilities were a shocking discovery. Scanners is magical realism, Carrie is low fantasy. Both fit in to the horror genre as well.
Putting these to the Master Class reference definitions:

Magical Realism happens in the real world, familiar to the reader. There are no bizarre alternate realities. No secret hidden cabals of vampires as an alternate explanation for real events. It can be in the past or the near-future, but the setting is as familiar to the reader as any book of fictional realism.
The fantastical elements are just part of the world. Eddie Munster has a pet dragon named Spot. It's just in the world, and he plays with his dragon just as any boy would play with their pet dog. Grandpa Munster is several centuries old and a vampire. Again, the story treats it as normal.
Fantastical elements have no explanation. This is where magical realism deviates from fantasy genres like urban fantasy. You will never find an answer to "how did they do that?" in magical realism, the author spends no time explaining fantastical elements. Scanners are just born with the ability, they were not created or some secret project. Thing in the Addams Family is just a disembodied hand, with no explanation.
Unique plot structure: One final defining characteristic of magical realism is the absent narrative arc. The major and minor conflicts are not normally announced with rising tension, the story keeps the reader in constant suspense.

The common thread in Low Fantasy is the real world setting, and the existence of some magical or fantastical elements. However, a low fantasy narrative will showcase the magical element as "out of place" in their world. The Twilight series has a normal suburban high school, with werewolves and vampires running an ancient war behind the scenes. The fantastical creatures are the story, in essence, more than simply a part of the world. Contrasting Carrie again to Scanners, Carrie is in a normal American high school, and telekinetic powers are not known in her realistic world. Her unnatural abilities are the story rather than the world.
Answer: They are similar, the difference is basically in awareness of magic.
In Low Fantasy, we have magic in the pedestrian world; something like the "Dead Like Me". 99% of people don't know of magic or believe in magic, it is the normal world. But magic exists and works for the elite few. "Low Fantasy" is therefore missing all the trappings of High Fantasy stories, there are no castles, princesses, knights, etc. In "Dead Like Me", Ellen Muth is killed in the first episode and after death becomes a grim reaper of souls, with a day job in an insurance office, daily meetings with her fellow reapers in a coffee shop to get her reaping assignments (on post-it notes), apartment problems, dating problems, irritating coworker problems (both regular and reapers), even problems with her family grieving for her (magically they cannot recognize her as herself, and she is prevented from convincing them she is her former self), etc. Every episode she must reap souls. She is effectively immortal, she can be injured, it hurts, but she heals instantly. Stuff like that.
Magic Realism is similarly set in the real world, but everybody experiences the magical elements as part of everyday life. Dragons exist, but are unremarkable. Sure, you can employ wood elves and pay them in chocolate, but wood elves have a worker's union, there are rules you must obey. Don't think you can get away with cutting that chocolate with that manufactured crap, it's the Swiss method or nothing!
So unlike Low Fantasy, where most people don't know there is magic going on around them, the essence of Magic Realism is that everybody knows there is magic, it is just another fact of the world. e.g, some people are born with the ability to teleport. Good for you buddy. A guy standing in line at Starbucks engaged in a low-key argument with the (visible) ghost of his dead mother is nothing to get excited about.
In both Genres magic is real and set in the modern world. In Low Fantasy, it is under the radar and only the elite know about it, in Magic Realism, it is part of everyday life and everybody knows about it.


How to gauge the Complexity of Pre trained Neural Networks?

Question: What does one mean when they are talking about the simplicity of the networks? Does it mean that the shallower the networks the simpler they are, or does it mean that lesser the number of trainable parameters, simpler the models?
Comment: Could you clarify the link between your title and your question?
Comment: I want to understand whether the depth of pre-trained neural networks makes them complex or the number of parameters. Sorry for the misleading title. I will change it.
Answer: It can mean both, depending on the context. In order to improve prediction, a Network might need either more parameters or more depth, but these features improve models in different ways. For example, it's true that a Network with too few parameters won't be able to learn much; there is a minimal amount of parameters required simply to transform and represent signals in a sufficiently sofisticated way. On the other side, depth is fundamental in order to make your model generate more complex abstractions that will make it superior to other ML algorithms.
In other words: the number of parameters overall tells you how many things your network can learn. Its depth tells you how complex and sofisticated these things can be.
Deep Neural Network complexity is a multifaceted thing, it can't be represented on a single dimension.


How much sagging is considered normal for floors in old (100+ years) houses?

Question: I am currently looking at a house in New England that dates back to the 1820's that has a sagging floor in the living room. The floor dips down about one inch near one of the walls and I was told by the owner that it has been and is structurally sound and that sagging floors are "normal" in older homes. Is this in fact true and if so what would the typical amount of sagging be?
Comment: The 120+ year old house my mom lived in had a similar problem. The floor sagged and was also bouncy. The problem turned out to be a failed foundation along an outside wall that no longer supported the floor joists the cap joist across the ends. The foundation was one made of large rocks that were piled into a wall. The fix was to install posts in the dirt floor basement to raise and support the floor and then form up and pour a new reinforced concrete wall about 10 inches thick along the inside of the old rock foundation. Lots of work but it still stands today more than 15 years later.
Comment: Could be cause by a foundation issue, could also be moisture or insect damage to structural members. An inspection would be the only way to determine the underlying cause. In any case, sagging floors are not "normal".
Answer: Assuming the sag is new/progressing.
There are countless hundred+ year old homes with proper structure that have floors that don't sag, bounce or shake.
Sagging is never good.  Sagging is a sign of either poor engineering to begin with or structural damage done later.
bcworkz does raise a good point about older foundation methods and short term sags that stabilize.  I still maintain that even in such cases, a sag isn't "good", but it may not be deal breaking.
Comment: Usually fixes like this have to happen from underneath.  Theoretically it could be fixed without damage to the floor above - but the ceiling below is an entirely different matter.  Structure fixes are never simple.
Comment: If the basement is unfinished it means you won't destroy the existing finish while doing the repairs.  The downside - since the sag is by the wall, it could likely mean problems with the foundation - very costly to fix.  Sag in the middle of the floor would be easier, since that could be fixed with a support post.  Foundation fixes are a lot more involved.
Comment: No - because sagging is never good.
Comment: Thanks, that's what I've been suspecting and I'm worried that they know what is wrong with the floor and haven't fixed it on purpose because the parquet floor above would have to be ripped out to do so.
Comment: It's on the first floor with a basement below so access shouldn't be an issue, does that help when it comes to fixing it any?
Answer: Just to play devil's advocate, there are also many old homes that have suffered minor subsidence and now are completely stable. Modern homes with reinforced foundations should never suffer from differential settlement. Old homes using outdated foundation techniques could suffer from some differential settlement in their first few dozen years, then stabilize and stay that way the remainder of their lives. This sort of settlement, though not ideal, is not cause for alarm.
Other such homes are founded on unstable soils and continue to shift and settle for their entire lives. This cannot be good. As a casual visitor, it's difficult to tell what is not alarming and what is bad. It would take extremely accurate measuring equipment and a good long time period to determine whether the structure is still moving or not.
This house is actually pushing 200 years, if it's just an inch low in one spot, I'd say it's probably in good shape actually. It's still not normal, but it's not unusual either.
Comment: So it sounds like it might not be such a bad thing, but I would have to get someone to take a look at the structure and make sure it's not really a problem?
Comment: I agree - if the sagging has halted, that's not terrible.  My answer was more in the context that the sagging was new and progressing.
Comment: In the context of buying a home, no one can say for sure on the spot. But you'd want to get it inspected anyway, an expert opinion would help tremendously. If you like everything else about this house, I wouldn't let this settlement stop me from proceeding to the next step.


The use of ustedes instead of vosotros when in Spain

Question: I have close Spanish friends who use "vosotros" when addressing me and my husband. As I speak Mexican Spanish, I never learned this form of "you-all" and use "ustedes" instead. Is this impolite? Do my Spanish friends think I am trying to keep a distance between us? And is it wrong for me to address children as "ustedes"? Must I go back to school and learn the vosotros conjugations?
Comment: even thought they are not asking the same question, the answer from the other one answers this one as well, about how to use usted vs vos in spain
Comment: @walen no me parece un duplicado ya que esta pregunta es sobre *ustedes* en plural y en la otra solo se habla del singular.
Comment: I don't think it's a duplicate. // Judy, I think this answer will help you: https://spanish.stackexchange.com/a/22491/9385
Comment: @walen I don't think it's a duplicate. This question specifically refers to the perception of the other forms and need to change
Answer: As you may already know, 'vosotros' is the informal treatment for the 2nd person in plural.
It is not impolite (doing the opposite, using vosotros in a formal scenario, might be).
I don't think you must go back to school and learn vosotros, and it would be just fine to learn it as you go.
Comment: Thank you for your answer!
Answer: The issue of second person pronoun usage is something that often comes up with speakers across the Spanish speaking world.  Even in countries where the only three are tú/Vd/Vds, the customs of using each one will be different, and adding in vos, sumercé and vosotros just adds more options: the underlying "problem" is the same.
The reality is, however, that most Spanish speakers are somewhat accostumbed to this.  If I hear a Costa Rican call me usted, I don't necessarily assume much by it, just as when they hear me call them tú they tend to understand by my very different accent that I'm not used to the same formality distinctions as they are.  As a foreigner, you will be given even more latitude.  There are many other elements of speech — word choice, single pronoun usage, etc— that can help a Spanish speaker understand whether you are intending to be offensive/polite/friendly/etc.
Specifically in your example, if you regularly use tú with your friends individually, but then use ustedes for both, there will be no confusion: it's clear that you're using an ustedes-only dialect, and by virtue of using tú that you intend to be friendly/familiar with them.
You won't be expected to modify your dialect, and that's common across the Spanish-speaking world, although if you live for an extended period of time somewhere with a different system it might not be a bad idea to try to pick it up.


How to uninstall specific lubuntu?

Question: Hello I downloaded Vanilla LXDE with sudo apt-get install lxde, but along with it came all these unwanted windows managers like Lubuntu's customized LXDE among other things.
Comment: Your question is not clear. What do you mean by "all these unwanted windows managers"? AFAIK, there's just the default one window manager for LXDE and that is Openbox.
Answer:
The following NEW packages will be installed:   consolekit galculator
  gpicview gtk2-engines leafpad libck-connector0   libfm-data
  libfm-extra4 libfm-gtk-data libfm-gtk4 libfm-modules libfm4
  libmenu-cache-bin libmenu-cache3 libobrender29 libobt2
  libpam-ck-connector   libxmmsclient-glib1 libxmmsclient6 lxappearance
  lxde lxde-common lxde-core   lxde-icon-theme lxinput lxmenu-data
  lxmusic lxpanel lxrandr lxsession   lxsession-data lxsession-edit
  lxsession-logout lxshortcut lxterminal menu   menu-xdg obconf openbox
  pcmanfm xarchiver xmms2-core xmms2-plugin-alsa   xmms2-plugin-id3v2
  xmms2-plugin-mad xmms2-plugin-vorbis xscreensaver

Uninstall the ones you don't want with with:

sudo apt-get remove package1 package2 package3.

Seems pretty "pure" to me enough. When I try with lubuntu-desktop I get WAY more packages.
But if all that is annoying you is the lubuntu-look compared to standard LXDE, just change it.. :)
Comment: Please include the command you used to generate the output you've posted. Also, please mention your starting point: by that, I mean which desktop environment is already installed. IMO, that would affect the output you've posted if the command I'm requesting is something like `apt-get install lxde`.

How to uninstall specific lubuntu?


Can I eat Kosher meal according to Islam?

Question: I will fly on January to hometown. The flight is from Spain.
For the meal in the flight, they didn't show Halal Food, but my friend suggested me to take Kosher meal. Should I take it?
Answer: Yes, it is permissible for Muslims to eat Kosher meat. Allah says in the Quran (interpretation of the meaning):

Made lawful to you this day are At-Tayyibat [all kinds of Halal (lawful) foods, which Allah has made lawful (meat of slaughtered
eatable animals, etc., milk products, fats, vegetables and fruits,
etc.). The food (slaughtered cattle, eatable animals, etc.) of the
people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) is lawful to you and
yours is lawful to them.
(Lawful to you in marriage) are chaste women from the believers and
chaste women from those who were given the Scripture (Jews and
Christians) before your time, when you have given their due Mahr
(bridal money given by the husband to his wife at the time of
marriage), desiring chastity (i.e. taking them in legal wedlock) not
committing illegal sexual intercourse, nor taking them as
girl-friends. And whosoever disbelieves in the Oneness of Allah and in
all the other Articles of Faith [i.e. His (Allah's), Angels, His Holy
Books, His Messengers, the Day of Resurrection and Al-Qadar (Divine
Preordainments)], then fruitless is his work, and in the Hereafter he
will be among the losers.
-- Quran  5:5


Can why gyroscopes don't fall be explained by conservation of energy?

Question: you know how when you spin a gyroscope it supernaturally stays up even if you bend it over and its parallel to the ground? Well that was unbelievable so I did some math to see why this works. I tried to use conservation of energy but it didn't get me the result that I wanted. Heres my reasoning-
The gyro starts of with some kinetic energy $KE_1$ and gains some kinetic energy as it spins around the piviot that it spins around when you let go after spining the wheel of the gyro. That energy is $KE_2$
Now the wheel of the gyro never slows down so $KE_1$ doesn't get converted into $KE_2$. But then how did $KE_2$ get its energy? The only reason the wheel of the gyro slows down is because of friction so I don't see why it should gain that energy $KE_2$. That would violate the conservation of energyl... any help is appreciated...thanx in advance
Answer: You might notice that when a gyroscope is released it's centre of mass drops (a little) and so the gyroscope loses gravitational potential energy and gains kinetic energy.
Answer:
Can why gyroscopes don't fall be explained by conservation of energy?

No.

Now the wheel of the gyro never slows down so $\rm KE_1$ doesn't get converted into $\rm KE_2$. But then how did $\rm KE_2$ get its energy?

From the gravitational potential energy lost as the gyro falls from its initial position. (The drop is small, which corresponds to the low $\rm KE_2$.) This is the same as any other falling object. More generally, attempting to do an energy-conservation argument without considering all of the forms of energy present in the problem is basically guaranteed to fail.

As it happens, gyroscopes do fall, by a bit; the actual motion looks something like this:

Source: Figure 20-5, Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I, lecture 20.

(The role of friction here is to damp out the oscillations.) The only way to prevent this is to start off the motion of the gyroscope at the correct rate of precession, i.e., to provide $\rm KE_2$ externally.


Does LLC protect from personal lawsuit

Question: I am looking on taking my first job as a freelance developer and the project involves ecommerce. We are starting to get to the contract talks and I wanted to make sure if anything goes horrible wrong in the event of hacking or loss of money from their store being down. I am not open to be sued personal and have my personal assets at risk. If I created an LLC for my freelance work would this protect me from losing an personal assets in the case of a lawsuit?
Answer: An LLC (subject to exceptions that authorize piercing the corporate veil, the most common of which are co-mingling personal and LLC funds without proper documentation and fraudulent transfers such as distributions of profits from the LLC to the owner while the LLC is insolvent or facing litigation) protects its owners from personal liability for obligations of the LLC in tort or in contract, in their capacity as owners of the LLC.
If the LLC is a party to a contract which the owner does not guarantee, the LLC is very good protection against personal liability for the contractual debts of the LLC (of course, the property of the LLC itself, including its intellectual property, is subject to the LLC's creditors claims).
If the LLC is sued for a tort, the protection is less perfect because in addition to suing an LLC for a tort (since the LLC is vicariously liable for anything done by its employees or agents under the doctrine of respondiat superior) anyone who personally participated in tortious activity may be sued personally, rather than as an agent of the LLC, for their own personal tortious actions.
For example, suppose that the LLC sold software that contained code that embezzled funds from the customer's bank accounts and gave the money to the Salvation Army which had no involvement whatsoever in creating the software (a Robin Hood virus). This would be tortious (probably conversion or civil theft, at a minimum), and the LLC would be liable in tort for this tortious act because it was committed by someone acting on its behalf. But, the human being who actually wrote that code while working for the LLC would also be personally liable in tort for the harm caused because they personally participated in that tort. But, if that person's manager at the LLC never knew that this was done by the employee, the manager would not have personal liability.
Of course, nothing under the sun can prevent you from being sued. Anyone with a word processor, the filing fee and a process server can sue you for anything. The substantive law can make it more or less likely that you will be found by the court to have legal liability in the end. Also, some suits can be dismissed early in the process, while in the case of other suits, even if you are in the right, it can take a long court process to prove that fact.
Comment: It might be worthwhile to mention insurance
Comment: @DaleM Insurance is indeed the first line of defense in asset protection, but isn't very useful to a software developer because there are almost always exceptions for contractual liability, many kinds of other business activities and intentional acts.
Answer: Generally speaking forming an LLC and doing business as the LLC protects your personal property. Assuming you follow all proper procedures to set it up and run it ethically. With regards to contracts it never hurts to have a legal expert look it over and even with starting a business talking to a lawyer practicing in the state you are incorporating in is probably not a bad idea.

Does LLC protect from personal lawsuit


Why is Danny written & pronounced ダニー and not ダニ?

Question: In Japanese, using Katakana, why is the name Danny written and pronounced ダニー. Why not just ダニ? I'm not sure why the i is being extended when this doesn't really happen in english.
Comment: Also, I think most Dannys in Japan aren't too eager to be lumped into the same group as [these guys](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%80%E3%83%8B) anyway.
Comment: Compare コピー 'copy', コリー 'Collie', ダミー 'dummy', バギー 'buggy', バニー 'bunny', ヘビー 'heavy', ベビー 'baby', ルビー 'ruby', etc.
Comment: Pretty much the same reason I prefer to be デイヴ or デイブ than デブ...
Comment: It's not so clear-cut in English either. [[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phonological_history_of_English_high_front_vowels&oldid=622045917#Happy-tensing)] [[2](http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/happy-again.html)]
Comment: @snailboat

So basically all english words ending in y are like this? Is it a hard rule?
Answer: Words brought to Japan from English speakers and which end in 'y' are usually pronounced with extended 'i' sound.
Answer: To build on koji's answer, sometimes you'll see changes in the katakana-ization of foreign words and names to avoid collisions with native words and names.  An additional incentive for the long "y" sound is that there's a native word だに, which means "mite or louse" (that is, a small blood-sucking arthropod).  It's probably a *good* thing that the katakana pronunciation of "Danny" has shifted the way it has.  :)
Answer: I believe it's simply the way the word was borrowed. Each English or other loanword in Japanese has or eventually acquires a standard writing. Of course some have more than one accepted writing, but the point is the transliteration can seem arbitrary or like it's more different from the original language's pronunciation than it is. Indeed, in some cases it probably is somewhat arbitrary, the way Japanese speakers end up adopting English, German, Portuguese or other languages' words. But I doubt anyone knows for sure, including native Japanese speakers. xP I don't know, that is for sure.
However, I probably can answer adequately in the case of the word you specifically asked about. To answer this question about Japanese, however, I'll have to let you in on a little secret about English pronunciation.
First of all, ダニー isn't necessarily one of those words that have a random or arbitrarily assigned pronunciation in Japanese that is different from English. Believe it or not, phonetically at least, English actually does feature short and long vowels, like the "ii" in "Danii"; although unlike Japanese, vowel length is not phonemic (i.e., it's only phonetic), but that's not important.
What this means basically is that while most English speakers (apart from English linguists and similar groups) don't even realize it, or make a big deal out of it, vowel length does exist in English. For example, try this:

Say "bad" the way you normally do.
Now say "bat" your usual way.

Listen carefully to the vowel 'a' in each word. If you're like most native English speakers, you'll notice the 'a' in "bad" is held slightly longer than that in "bat". This is because in most varieties and dialects of the spoken English language, the length the vowel/diphthong in a stressed syllable is related to whether the consonant or consonant cluster that follows it is voiced or voiceless. Stated more simply, in English, for single-syllable words, a pre-consonantal short vowel in a stressed syllable is generally lengthened before a voiced consonant. Of course, that's a great over-simplification of the English vowel length system, but you get the point.
Actually, even consonants can be doubled in English, the way they are in Japanese. This is most clearly evident in the standard American English pronunciation of "thirteen", for instance, where most speakers say what sounds like "thurt" + "teen" instead of the usual British "thuh" + "teen".
Now, this is where your question comes into play. And that's because, in English, many word-final vowels are spoken long, as well. And native Japanese speakers, being conditioned to hear the difference between short and long vowels more explicitly than English speakers, are able to pick up on the fact that the word-final 'y' at the end of "Danny" is pronounced long by most English speakers. Keep in mind, of course, that English long vowels aren't quite as long as Japanese usually, except in certain dialects, like the "Southern drawl" of the United States, but even standard American English features phonetic vowel length, even though it's not taught in school because it generally doesn't affect/create any minimal pairs (i.e., words that differ only in vowel length).
So finally, we have an answer:
"Danny", or "ダニー" in Japanese, was transliterated with a long vowel because there is a long vowel in the English pronunciation, for most native speakers. I'm sorry for the long, possibly tedious answer, but it's the most concise I can explain it without using purely linguistic jargon, and that would be inexcusable hehe. =) If you want more information on English vowel length, there's plenty available on Wikipedia, as well as many other sites, I'm sure.


Replacing a bathroom electric baseboard heater

Question: Why do I have 2black, 2 white, and 2 ground wires coming in from my bathroom wall?
The directions for replacing an electric baseboard heater do not include this wiring scenario. It only addresses 1 white, 1 black, and 1 ground coming in.
Comment: How was the old one wired?
Answer: The heater wiring that you describe most surely indicates that power comes to this heater location on one set of wires and then daisy chains on to another heater or other circuit element. The heater wires would be joined into each if the black, white and ground wires in three way wire connections. (Note the ground may actually have four connections if there is a metal electrical box is present and a ground pigtail was used to ground the box.
The daisy chain (bussed) wiring of this type would typically be used where the power on the circuit is unswitched from the circuit breaker to the heater(s) and the baseboard heaters are used with their own built in thermostats. When thermostats of the type that directly switch the AC power on and off are used, mounted on a separate wall some place, then it would not be common to see bussed wiring at the individual heaters unless that thermostat controlled power to two or more heaters. Do note that there may still be remote thermostats that connect to the heater by separate wiring (or wireless) where the power switching is still done inside the heater unit itself.


Photons and information

Question: i just study in year 10 and might not have enough knowledge about these stuff. But what i studied in physics is a photon hits a surface and is reflected to our eyes and see what photon is reflected from. Now if we see what it is reflected from it must mean that the photon is carrying information of it. photons even give us colour so it must have something to do with wavelength. But when wave hits our eyes the wave must collapse and become a particle . Now how does information of colour be described by particle as a particle has no wavelength to describe colour. so  does particle have any property to describe colour..
Comment: Yes, the photon has energy that is directly proportional to frequency.
Comment: Yes individual photons oscillate at certain frequencies. The faster the frequency the higher the energy. Our eyes have evolved to receive and transform this energy into information. Each photon carries information such as direction, speed, frequency, energy, polarization, etc.
Answer: light from the sun contains a mixture of photons which have wavelengths corresponding to all colors we can see. when this light hits an object, some colors are reflected to our eyes and some other colors are are absorbed. so if red photons are reflected and all else is absorbed, the object appears red to our eyes.  in this way, the reflected light is "encoded" with the information about what wavelengths were reflected and which were absorbed.
also note that when that red photon strikes the retina nerves in the back of your eyeball, it is not converted into a particle. instead, it is absorbed and triggers a brief chemical change inside a nerve cell in the retina, which generates an electrical impulse or "nerve signal" which is conducted to the part of your brain what processes signals from your eyes- and then tells your brain, "that object is red".
This is a very simplified description of a very complicated process, but I hope you can understand it!
Answer: I think you are wrong in assuming that every photon particle is similar to other and there is no way to distinguish different photons. Each photon is characterized by its energy. If two photons have same energy then they are identical. Our eye + brain in some way "counts" the number of photon corresponding to different energies. If let's say that number of photons of a particular energy is very large compared to other energies then our brain will perceive it as the color corresponding to that energy.
The fact that colour is associated with wavelength is not wrong since energy and wavelength are related. What word has to be used depends on the situation. If one is working with particle then energy has to be used and while working in wave picture, wavelength could be used. At the end of the day neither is more fundamental than other. Both are just numbers characterizing different types of photons.

Photons and information


make a new PoS blockchain with geth (go-ethereum)

Question: many tutorials out there tell how to create personal PoA or PoW chain with go-ethereum(geth), how to create a PoS based blockchain with go-ethereum ?
Answer: Creating a new PoS blockchain with Geth (go-ethereum) is a relatively simple process. First, you will need to install Geth and create a new account. Once the account is created, you will need to initialize the blockchain with a genesis block. This will include setting the consensus algorithm to PoS and specifying the parameters for the network. After the genesis block is created, you will need to start the network by running Geth with the appropriate flags. Finally, you must create validators and miners to begin mining and validating blocks.
Comment: can u write code part in the answer please
Comment: This sounds like a GPT response


Dropbox: I can only view old files

Question: I can no longer view new files in Dropbox on my Android phone. On investigation, I find that it says Offline. How do I change the settings to see all the files online?
Comment: Try logging out then back in. Is Syncing activated?
Comment: Thanks for your suggestion, but see the solution below.
Answer: In desperation, I went to Settings then Connect a Computer and went through the routine of installing Dropbox on my desktop (in spite of it being there already). The installation took much longer than the original, but all files are appearing on the Android devices which I use.
Not very intuitive...

Dropbox: I can only view old files


Why doesn't infrared radiation pass through objects?

Question: It cannot be due to Raman scattering because $1$ in $10^7$ photons are Raman scattered. It cannot be Rayleigh scattering because Rayleigh scattering of infrared radiation is very low due to the inverse dependence of scattered intensity to $\lambda^4$. It cannot be due to molecular absorption of the photons since a single type of molecule cannot absorb every frequency of infrared radiation because the vibrational transitions can happen from one vibrational mode to the next vibrational mode. Also, the vibrational modes are unique. What could the answer be?
Comment: do you consider your object to be at room temperature? If so, every transition will get significant line broadening due to the Doppler effect.
Comment: yes,the objects are at room temperature
Answer: In the case of conducting objects, it is because free charge
redistributes to diminish the electric field, up to the so-called
plasma frequency of the material (metal reflects light and infrared,
but not X-rays).   In the case of nonconducting objects, it is
because each atom can become slightly polarized (the electron cloud
can change shape), and this makes every surface (every
discontinuity in material) a potential scatterer.
Scattering, as of visible light by (transparent) water droplets in
a cloud, can block the direct light path very effectively.
Solid materials (and even compressed gasses) do not have sharp
spectral lines, but fattened ones, due to "pressure broadening".    It is important to note that heterogeneous materials have many
surfaces that are not pure substances, which blurs the spectral absorption lines even more.   Absorption can be very likely over
broad spectral ranges.
The only light-blocking mechanism that is NOT likely in the case of IR illumination,
at standard temperature and pressure, is photoelectric effect.
Comment: Is there any theory behind this process,because it is so confusing for me.is there a way to change this?.
Comment: The quantum theory of light interacting with matter is well-studied, but usually only applies to ideal (pure) materials in detail.   Glassy materials that can be formed without grain boundaries, and with high purity, which have no intrinsic spectral features in the IR, include quartz (SiO2), which is the dominant material in IR applications like fiber optics.   CaF is another durable IR-transparent material.
Answer: Infrared passes through (undoped) silicon. Many glasses also transmit infrared. The reason materials do not pass infrared may be absorption by internal degrees of freedom, such as vibrations, or reflection/absorption by electronic excitations.
A good place to get information on infrared properties of materials is refractiveindex.info.
Answer: Whether electromagentic radiation pass through the object depends on how it interacts with this object: it can be reflected, absorbed, it may not interact with an object or it may bypass it completely, if the wavelength is larger than the object size (as it is often the case with radiowaves).
Assuming the wave length is comparable to the object size, whether the radiation is absorbed or reflected depends on the electronic properties of the material and whether it is ordered or not, as well as on the radiation frequency. For example:

semiconductors absorb at frequencies larger than the bandgap and weakly reflect (via Rayleigh scattering) any light frequencies lower than the bandgap. Metals, on the other hand, reflect most of the incident visible light. Both materials allow X-rays pass uninhibited, due to very high frequency of this radiation (although some of it is absorbed, causing ionisation).
disordered materials, composed of the pieces of metallic or semiconducting crystals, reflect the rest in all possible directions, which makes them completely non-transparent - "white-ish"
small molecules absorb or effectively scatter only certain frequencies, which is why liquids are often transparent. On the other hand, mixtures of complex organic molecules absorb quite a lot.

Infrared and microwave radiation is efficiently absorbed by many materials, which is why they are not transparent in this range. As an anecdotal evidence, it is for a good reason that this radiation is used in microwave and infrared ovens. Night-vision devices similarly detect infrared radiation, interpreted as heat.
Answer: I would express it differently, because it is not only infrared that does not pass through solid objects, but all frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum from ultraviolet down, with the exception of objects made up of organized lattices.
X-rays and gamma rays see mostly spaces between atoms and molecules, because the wavelength is short and they see mostly space and can go through, the higher the frequency the more penetrating. At the photon level making up light, Xrays and gamma rays have small probability of interacting due to the enormous space between atoms .
So the question should be "why are some materials transparent to electromagnetic radiation" . The answer to that is that the interactions photon+lattice allow for the incoming photons to scatter elastically with the whole lattice and exit while retaining phases  and energy (color in the optical range). This transparency  depends on the way the atoms and molecules build up the lattice.
This holds also for specific lattices which are transparent to the infrared photons and the light they build up, as with silicon.  In the article opaqueness is attributed to the breaking of bonds in the lattice.
Have you not been heated by glass doors of modern fireplaces?
Comment: Is there any theory behind this process,because it is so confusing for me.is there a way to change this?.
Comment: The theory generally is quantum mechanics and particularly solid state physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_physics . unfortunately it is not a simple one sentence or paragraph or article that can explain . a course in solid state? https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-231-physics-of-solids-i-fall-2006/syllabus/
Comment: glass fibers are excellent, essentially lossless, light conductors without being organized into lattices
Comment: @hyportnex all solids can be modeled by lattices at the quantum mechanical level, imo. glass fibers should work as waveguides in classical electrodynamics,
Answer: The penetrating capacity of light waves is higher when their wavelength is smaller.  This is the basic principle which we need, and this follows from Planck's equation. So, visible light rays have more penetrating capacity than infra red rays, ultra violet rays have more penetrating capacity than visible light rays, X-rays have more penetrating capacity than ultra violet rays, and gamma rays have more penetrating capacity than X-rays.
Answer: Higher energy X-rays and gamma-rays have such short wavelengths that they can pass through the space between the atoms of solid matter without much interference. This means that X-rays and gamma-rays will not reflect much of the information about matter they happen to pass through. This is why it makes more sense to use an infrared telescope rather than an x-ray telescope for viewing information on stellar material out in space. This may seem counter intuitive since infrared images show information inside clouds of gas, but remember that space is very big with astronomical distances between objects that usually surpass the distance between infrared wavelengths.
Comment: As it's currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer).


Alcatel pop c1 soft bricked

Question: Hello guys I have a problem with my Alcatel pop c1 which is soft bricked stuck on a boot logo I can only boot in stock recovery I don't have twrp or any custom recovery and no access to a PC for the moment
Can I flash any rom with "apply update from SD card " i think I lost my system folder and I got no backup
I'm in a real mess please inform me if there's anything I can do
I have downloaded the stock rom but it says installation aborted
Answer: Have you tried the Mobile Upgrade software listed on their support page?
http://www.alcatel-mobile.com/global-en/support/product?id=330&model=POP%20C1
Comment: I said I don't have access to a PC
Comment: My bad, I missed that. Try using a friend's PC as doing it on the phone itself can be needlessly difficult. P.S. I know this after having flashed multiple devices many times.
Comment: It recognises it but only as adb sideload what can I do ??!

Alcatel pop c1 soft bricked


Windows 10 Upgrade - Check Failed but Good to Go

Question: I've been trying to upgrade my Windows 8.1 machine to Windows 10, but the check says my computer is not compatible. But when I click on the technical report, it says I'm good to go. I'm so confused. I've gotten Windows update to download Windows 10 several times but I think it errors out when it gets this confusing report:

When I click on "View Report"

Does anyone know how to completely reset this and run the test again? I've already tried:

C:\Windows\system32>schtasks.exe /Run /TN "\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser"

and it doesn't update
Answer: Looks like you can install it manually using the Media Tool and still get the free upgrade:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/media-creation-tool-install


Is the system of linear equations always solvable if the matrix is of full rank

Question: I know that for an $n×n$ matrix $A$, the system $Ax=b$ has a unique solution for all $b$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$.
My question is : what will happen when $A$ is an $m\times n$ matrix?Does the system is solvable for every $b$ if rank of $A$ is $n$?
Comment: Try the system $x=1, x=2$. On the other hand, if $m\leq n$ then yes, it must have solutions.
Comment: I hope you got that the system $x=1=2$ doesn't have solutions. For the second sentence, if $m\leq n$ then you can take $m$ variables corresponding to linearly dependent columns, give values to the remaining variables any way you want. Pass those terms to the other side, and the system is square. Therefore, as you know, it has a solution.
Comment: Didn't get ur answer.please explain
Answer: No. If $A=[0, 1]^T$, then $Ax=[1, 0]^T$ has no solutions.
Comment: @Paul $x\in \mathbb{R}$.
Comment: Excepting the trivial solution $x=[0,0]^T$
Answer: If the $m{\,\times\,}n\;$matrix $A\;$has rank $n$, the dimension of the column space is $n$, hence the dimension of $\text{im}(A)$ is $n$, so $\text{im}(A)$ is a proper subspace of $\mathbb{R}^m$, if $m >n$.

It follows that if $m > n$, there will always exist vectors $b \in \mathbb{R}^m$ such that the equation $Ax=b\;$is not solvable.
Answer: According to Rouché-Capelli Theorem, the linear system has solutions if and only if $A$ and the augmented matrix $A|b$ (obtained by adding $b$ to $A$ as a new column) have the same rank, say $r$. In that case the solutions are $\infty^{n-r}$, meaning that $r$ unknowns can be explicited in terms of the remaing $n-r$, which can be set to any value.
So, for example, if you take $A$ to be $m\times (m-1)$ and suppose (as you state in your question) that $A$ has rank $m-1$, than there are solutions iff the augmented matrix is singular (otherwise it would have rank $m$).


Standard deviation to describe variation in positively skewed data?

Question: I'm wondering how useful the standard deviation is when applied to positively skewed data? The standard deviation implies that 68% of data will lie within one standard deviation of the mean, but surely this will not work for positively skewed data? This page suggests that for positively skewed data, the standard deviation is not useful and quartiles should be used instead.
Comment: 68% of the normal mean...
Answer:
I'm wondering how useful the standard deviation is when applied to positively skewed data?

It can be quite useful but it depends on what you're doing.
For example, I use the lognormal and gamma distributions regularly and sometimes use the standard deviation with those distributions -- it can be informative in some contexts.

The standard deviation implies that 68% of data will lie within one standard deviation of the mean,

No, that's true for normal populations. It's not something that holds more generally - even with symmetric distributions you can have almost nothing, or anything up to 100% within one standard deviation of the mean.

but surely this will not work for positively skewed data?

Again, it depends on the distribution - you might get more or less than 68% with positively skewed or negatively skewed distributions.

This page suggests that for positively skewed data, the standard deviation is not useful and quartiles should be used instead.

It depends on what you're trying to do. Distributions needn't be skew for the standard deviation not to be suitable, and the standard deviation may be quite okay when distributions are skew.
Comment: Further examples: Binomial distributions can be highly skewed and Poisson distributions will always be skewed (bar the limit of a normal) but mean and SD or variance remain the measures to use with both, theoretically and practically. The median and IQR for such distributions can be of  descriptive use occasionally but otherwise they can be awkward at best.
Answer: Expanding a little on @glen_b 's good answer: Usually the mean (as a measure of central tendency) goes with the SD (as a measure of spread).
When a distribution is highly skew, we often do not want the mean, but sometimes we do. Take income. This is usually reported as median family income, precisely because it is highly skew. But there are times when the mean income is what you need - e.g. if you are measuring the total amount of money going into a family, clan or other group. If (say) in a family the mother makes \$60,000, the father makes \$50,000 and the 3 kids each make \$0, it may be good to know the mean income rather than the median. With 5 people you don't really need measures of spread, but if you were doing this for a lot of families, it might be useful.
Comment: the Latex dollars have struck again! (Nice answer by the way.)
Comment: I think quoting "mean with sd", "median with IQR" and noting that for skewed data we often but don't always use the median is a good summary for a learner. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to say why we pair our central tendency and spread summaries in this way - based on moments vs based on quantiles.
Comment: Thanks @Silverfish for both the note about the dollars and the compliment. (I fixed the former).
Answer: Not really useful. One calculates the standard deviation of the mean to have an idea of how precise measurements are. But you are after a different question.
Better statistics for this problem are the interquartile range (with is associated representation the box plot), and the skewness. They explicitly address this question. Concretely, the skewness is the 3rd moment of the distribution. If it were perfectly symmetric, this moment is zero. Otherwise it is either positive of negative, depending on whether you have more data on the right side of the mean value or the left, resp. The bigger (resp. the lower) the value of the skewness score, the higher variation of the data in the positive  (resp. negative) direction.
Comment: Could you explain yourself a little more fully?  "Better" statistics in what sense and for what purpose?
Comment: If a moment-based skewness measure is satisfactory -- which is built on ideas like that of mean and SD -- then it is hard to see that mean and SD are unsatisfactory. It would be nice to be able to give simple neat advice, but there are many skewed situations where mean and SD are natural and many others where using them is a bad idea.


An explanation of "phase" of a filter

Question: I always read the word "phase" (like linear phase, phase shift...) in DSP but I'm still not sure what it supposes to mean, in intuition and also in practice.
Answer: The phase of a sinusoid $s(t)=A_0\cos(2\pi f_0 t + \phi_0)$ is $\phi_0$ radians.
If this sinusoid goes through an LTI system with frequency response $H(f)$, then the ouptut is $y(t) = |H(f_0)| A_0 \cos(2\pi f_0 t + \phi_0 + \angle H(f))$. So, the phase of the output is different than the phase of the input -- the system introduced a phase shift in the signal.
Note that you can interpret the phase shift as a time delay. If $T_0=1/f_0$, then a phase shift of $2\pi$ corresponds to a delay of $T_0$. This allows you to calculate that the delay $\Delta$ for a phase shift $\theta$ is $$\Delta = \frac{T_0 \theta}{2\pi}.$$ Note that the delay is a function of the sinusoid's frequency. An LTI system that produces the same time delay for all its inputs is said to have linear phase.
Note that LTI systems without linear phase will in general distort their input, even if they have constant gain; this is the reason we want to design linear phase systems. In the case of filters, usually we only require linear phase in the filter's passband.
(Note that this explanation is for continuous time, but the ideas are also valid for discrete time).

An explanation of "phase" of a filter


Ch 13 Bankruptcy: What happens if you owe too much to repay in 5 years

Question: As I understand it, Ch 13 bankruptcy protects a person by letting them repay their debts over a period of some 5 years.  What if a person has more debt than they can repay in 5 years? (In the state of Georgia, in the USA.) (Assume the person has filed for Ch 7 less than 8 yers ago, so the only bankruptcy available to them is ch 13.)
Answer: According to the US Courts website, not all debts need to be paid in full in Chapter 13 proceedings:

The plan need not pay unsecured claims in full as long it provides
  that the debtor will pay all projected "disposable income" over an
  "applicable commitment period," and as long as unsecured creditors
  receive at least as much under the plan as they would receive if the
  debtor's assets were liquidated under chapter 7. 11 U.S.C. § 1325.

If they can't pay even this reduced amount, then they probably don't belong in Chapter 13.

If the court declines to confirm the plan, the debtor may file a
  modified plan. 11 U.S.C. § 1323. The debtor may also convert the case
  to a liquidation case under chapter 7.
Comment: In the situation in question, the person filed for ch 7 less than 8 years ago. So it's ch 13 or nothing.
Comment: @user3270: Yes, that is correct - without bankrupty unpaid debts would stay forever. However, society has decided that it is not fair or reasonable to force someone to pay debts forever - thus the system of bankruptcy.
Comment: It sounds like the creditors would do better if the bankruptcy was not allowed.  It sounds like the creditors could then attach salary forever. Is that correct?
Comment: @user3270 There is generally a statute of limitations on the enforcement of state law judgments, but it is typically long (e.g. 20 years). One of the reasons for bankruptcy is to encourage someone to work rather than refrain from work since too much of the proceeds goes to creditors.
Comment: Worth noting that a Chapter 13 plan can include liquidation of some but not all assets and frequently does. Often the goal is to save a residence and a car, while applying all non-use assets that are not exempt from creditor's claims to creditor's claims.


In the B737, does an IAN NPA require that the G/P is 3° or can the G/P angle vary?

Question: For an IAN Approach to be recognized and work in a Boeing 737, does the Approach G/P need to be exactly 3° or can it vary?
Comment: I assume you meant 3° (the typical G/P angle), not 3%?
Answer: The G/P can deviate from the typical 3 degrees, but not much.
For any non-precision approach (NPA) flown with VNAV or Integrated Approach Navigation (IAN), the navigation database needs to contain a stored glide path (GP) angle or a suitable waypoint (runway or MAP):

VNAV should be used only for approaches that have one of the following features:

a published GP angle on the LEGS page for the final approach segment
an RWxx waypoint coincident with the approach end of the runway
a missed approach waypoint before the approach end of the runway, (e.g.,
MXxx).

[...]
The FMC
obtains the GP angle displayed on the LEGS page from the navigation database. [...] A GP angle
is coded in the navigation database for nearly all straight-in approach procedures.
[...]
This GP angle is normally defined by the regulatory authority responsible for the
approach procedure and provides a continuous descent at a constant flight path
angle for a final approach path that complies with minimum altitudes at
intermediate step-down fixes. The typical GP angle is approximately 3.00°, but
can vary from 2.75° to 3.77°.

(Boeing 737 NG FCTM 5.45 - Approach and Missed Approach, emphasis mine)
As you can see, the GP angle can vary between 2.75 and 3.77 degrees. For IAN, this G/P information is passed on to the AFDS by the FMC. The list of IAN restrictions does not limit the GP angle:

IAN Requirements and Restrictions

airplanes must be equipped with FMC U10.5 or later and IAN FMA
displays
dual or single engine approaches are authorized
waypoints in the navigation database from the FAF onward may not be
modified
raw data monitoring is required during localizer based approaches.
During FMC based non-ILS approaches, raw data monitoring is
recommended when available in accordance with the techniques
described in the Non-ILS approach section in this chapter
QFE operation is not authorized
cold temperature altitude corrections are not permitted
RNP appropriate for the approach must be used
the autopilot is required until suitable visual reference is established when
performing an approach requiring an RNP of 0.15 or lower.

(Boeing 737 NG FCTM 5.60 - Approach and Missed Approach)
The FCTM does however says the following about when an approach can be flown with IAN:

For FMC based approaches, a proper series of legs/waypoints describing the
approach route including an appropriate vertical path or glide path (GP) angle
must appear on the LEGS page. A GP angle displayed on the LEGS page means
the vertical path complies with final approach step-down altitudes (minimum
altitude constraints). A glide path angle suitable for an IAN approach is one that
approximates 3° and crosses the runway threshold at approximately 50 feet.

(Boeing 737 NG FCTM 5.61 - Approach and Missed Approach, emphasis mine)
It does not say if the full range from 2.75 to 3.77 degrees is considered approximately 3.00°, but it certainly does not have to be exactly 3.


Can I make a P-trap with 45° elbows?

Question: Can I make a P-trap for 2 inch PVC out of a 90° and 2 45° elbows? The 2 45° elbows would be arranged in an S pattern.
Comment: The major issue with that idea is that you cannot easily disassemble it to fetch out something that may have accidentally been dropped down the drain. Commercial P-Traps are made with a coupler joint that can be opened by removing a plastic ring nut.
Comment: The issue (as far as the code is concerned) is not accessibility, but the depth of the trap seal. You can make your our p-traps from fittings so long as they maintain the required trap seal. See @Tester101's answer.
Comment: from the fact that home depot sells a p trap that one is not able to disassemble http://www.homedepot.com/p/2-in-PVC-DWV-Hub-x-Hub-P-Trap-C4885HD2/100342868 i think that would not be the problem
Answer: No. That will likely not pass inspection.  Most codes require a trap seal of 2-4", which you will not get with a 45.
Trap seal is measured from the top of the trap bend, to the trap weir.
Answer: I'd be very careful with that line of thinking. The combination of a short and long leg in a drain creates a siphon. In the case of your photo, if the section heading off left makes a short turn downwards gravity may empty the trap during heavy use leaving you with a wonderful open connection to the sewer.
While cleanout isn't the major issue, it is a consideration too. At least in a trap without a cleanout you know where children's toys and wedding rings are. That setup looks like it would happily pass hairballs, grease, and anything else further down the pipe. Not only will blockages be tougher to clear when they're far away, they'll also stop multiple drains from working. There's nothing quite like a sink that causes the toilet and washing machine to overflow.

Can I make a P-trap with 45° elbows?


Magento in subfolder. Error in category page

Question: I have a magento installation "live" in my server ( www.mydomain.com ) and moved another installation of magento ( test website ) in a subfolder ( www.mydomain.com/test ). When i try to open the subfolder, i see only the homepage, and if i try to open category page , i see "page not found" but with graphic of live website. How i can fix this problem? I tryed to move the index.php and .htaccess of live website to website in test folder , and magento show me the homepage, but other page not work. I use magento 220.127.116.11
Answer: In your /subfolder install, make sure you have the correct settings in your htaccess file:
<code>############################################
## you can put here your magento root folder
## path relative to web root

    RewriteBase /subfolder/
</code>
I also hope you aren't running these 2 stores from the same db tables, because your 'base_url' settings in core_config_data will be wrong for one of them at least.
Comment: Thanks i solve now, but the admin path not work. About DB I use 2 different DB :)
Comment: Maybe you should set up a subdomain for your testing install to avoid conflics: http://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/55719/best-option-to-have-a-holding-page-while-developing/55722#55722


How to bind data from an external form to a spring webflow?

Question: Im using Spring webflow 2 with a webflow.mvc.servlet.FlowController.
I want to bind form data submittet (POST) to a flow
directly to the model of this flows view.
When navigating flows and submitting form data internally
the data is correctly bound to the model, but when
submitting data from an external website data is not bound automatically.
To check this I used a spring:form tag inside the view to bind the submittet values via their name/path.
Example:
  - the views model is named "model"
  - the class used for the model object is has an attribute called "value1"
  -> the bind path for the form:input element is "model.value1"
  -> the submitted form input field is named "model.value1" as well

update
I am able to access the request Parameters manually now using:
<action-state>
  <evaluate expression="myBinder.execute(flowRequestContext)"/>
</action-state>

where myBinder is a custom Java class implementing org.springframework.webflow.execution.Action
and flowRequestContext is an EL variable supplied by the framework.
Through requestContext.getExternalContext().getRequestParameterMap();
the Parameters of the request are exposed.
Now to bind those parameters to my model-bean, is there a convenient way
to do so automatically, like with a "bindAndValidate" method wich is mentioned
here and there.
I do not know in wich class such a method is available.
I would expect there to be some class to superclass my model bean, but I cannot find it anywhere.
update
Instead of implementing the Action interface I have now subclassed FormAction wich
has the bindAndValidate() method. However, this method needs the request as Parameter, and I do not know yet how to best retrieve a reference to the request in EL.
Furthermore I have yet to check if this will actually bind the request parameters to my model and solve my problem.
update
I have found an example showing the call to the bind method made without giving parameters - so I assume those (requestContext) are somehow found by the framework.
Using this approach the model name and class is set as a property on the FormAction bean.
The flow seems to run correctly, but the request parameters still remain unbound...
Maybe I have to go back to a manual approach reading each parameter from request and setting it on the model object...
Any Ideas are welcome...
Answer: You can access the request parameters within the XML flow definition using EL. For example, if you want to access a parameter in request called "param1", use requestParameters.param1
Hope this helps.


How do we edit a novel that's written by several people?

Question: Two other friends and I have been writing a fan fiction and we basically write a chapter each one after another every week.  Now that we're nearing the end of the project, we've noticed that the writing style keeps changing and that's it's quite horrible, so what should we do? Should we elect someone to rewrite every chapter so that the writing style stays consistent or we should just roll with it and keep things unchanged for the most part?
Comment: You still have to think about author's voice. If there are 3 voices, then there must be a reason why.
Comment: Yes. George R.R. Martin created multiple voices for multiple characters.
Comment: Is having 3 different styles really that bad?
Comment: If you have 3 main characters, then no.
Comment: Hmm, interesting, so you're saying it's completely fine to have a style for each character? Was it done before by a major author?
Comment: Cool, by the way, we're editing it, it's just that we're thinking it's good enough as it is and we should only correct grammatical mistakes and change minor details.
Answer: The first step is to work out some style guidelines among yourselves.  Agree on what style you want the finished product to follow.  Because this is a project among friends rather than, say, a corporate publication, you'll probably end up including aspects of each writer's style while moving the whole thing toward a compromise center.
Once you agree on what the style rules are, don't each go revise your own contributions.  Even with good intent, you're naturally going to favor your own style because you're so used to it.  You'll miss things.  Instead, revise each others' parts.  You might need to do this more than once.  When you think you've mostly converged, look for a beta reader from outside your group and see what that person notices.
My documentation team has used peer editing to good effect.  We already have a thorough style guide and everybody intends to follow it, but there's drift.  We get better results when a second person makes a pass through the work.
Answer: I would recommend two rounds of edits, for each author. If the friends are A, B, C (Ariel, Bethany, Cindy) then:
1) First Round: A->B->C->A. Ariel makes edit notes for Bethany, Bethany makes edit notes for Cindy, and Cindy makes edit notes for Ariel. Then each person gets their edit notes, and the author of the chapter makes changes if they want, or gets more clarification from their editor, but the author has the final say.
2) Second Round: Backwards. A->C->B->A. Ariel makes edit notes for Cindy's revised chapters, Cindy makes edit notes for Bethany's revised chapters, Bethany makes edit notes for Ariel's revised chapters.
Again, each author makes changes if they want, or gets more clarification from their editor, but the author has the final say.
3) You are done. Everybody had input on every chapter, but each author retains some level of individual voice in the chapters she wrote, and she decided whether to make changes her way, or rewrite, or whatever. So nobody should feel their voice was shut down or some bully boss (I'm lookin' at you, Cindy!) took over the project and made it her own.
If you are worried about very different voices, introduce three narrators, Debra, Elsi and Fiona for Ariel, Bethany and Cindy, and open the chapter with sub-heading of the narrator's name, "Fiona", or "as told by Elsi", or work the name into the first sentence. Or wrap the story as told by the three women that lived through it. Anything like that.


A device like this, submerged in water, would it rotate?

Question: The paddles are pulled counter-clockwise, using a muscle-like mechanism that attaches between the distal part of the paddle, and the inner part of the paddle next to it, similar to the arrow in the image below, and the hypothesis is that it would cause the device to rotate in a clockwise direction. What are some thoughts on the hypothesis?
Comment: Seems like it might rotate, but not nearly as fast as if you diverted the energy that you're putting into the muscles directly into making it rotate via some other mechanism... What's the function of this? Mixing? Art?
Comment: Plus the motion would be very jerky, each extension creating a bit of counter-rotation, slower/shorter than the one at contraction; it would definitely not gain any considerable rotary speed as the strength of the counter-rotation would increase with rotary speed, putting a natural limit regardless of how fast and hard you wiggle the paddles.
Comment: water will not allow it to rotate a full 360 degrees, because of how a wave and thrust of water is nearer to the beach you will have different forms of inertia and they will always be different at other times in the day. you need to design a device to move with the wave and force and then return to home position.
Answer: The way the cylinders are set up ( all parallel to vertical axis) it seems it will more jerk back and forth rather than rotating.
However if you install the cylinders in a slanting axis so that they roughly follows a spiral around the center, then it would become similar to a pump and would turn and gently pump the water down along the central axis.
Or if you hold it laying flat in a stream of water it would turn into a turbine and generate power.


General Boltzmann Machine Implementation

Question: From an implementation standpoint, how does a general Boltzmann Machine (GBM) differ from a Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM)? From a conceptual point of view, I understand that the difference between the two is that there are no links between the various nodes within each layer (i.e. nodes within a visible layer are only connected to nodes in a hidden layer) in an RBM. With the exception of the discussion here, I can't really seem to find any actual implementations of a GBM, just an explanation of why GBMs don't work in practice followed with an example of an RBM. I'm hoping that someone can either point out some resources that clearly layout the differences between a GBM and RBM, or can at least provide some pseudo-code for how they differ.
Answer: Hinton explained in his Video, that a General Boltzmann Machine has no "inference" rule as such, that means there is no such thing as an update algorithm that could decrease the energy by updating the weights.
Without even any mathematical hint how to reduce that energy you can not find an implementation of that, so GBM is merely a concept than an algorithm.
Comment: Of course there is a hint. You try to reach 'thermal' equilibrium by changing weights under the influence of an external distribution. This is explained in length [on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_machine).


Build a view frustum from angles

Question: I have 4 angles, left, right, top & bottom. These angles are in degrees. They define the angle between the forward vector and the corresponding side. I am trying to use these to calculate the required values for Perseective Off Centre function found here http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Camera-projectionMatrix.html
I tried doing
 (near plane-far plane) * Tan(angle)
But that didn't give the correct results.
Answer: You have to know exactly what you're looking for.  I believe TOP in the referenced link here refers to what I call o in the diagram below.

You just need to complete this for every angle.  Keep in mind the far plane is measured from eye TO the far plane, and so is the Near plane.  Both near and far should always be positive because they measure a distance from the eye. So you don't do far plane - near plane and you definitely don't do near plane - far plane (that will always be a large negative value).
Comment: That is a very similar diagram to what I had on paper :). I see what I did wrong. Don't know why I tried 'near - far'.  I'll try it out and let you know if it works. Thank you.

Build a view frustum from angles


Create SQL Table from Random Array for WebService

Question: I have this little project that I'm working and I got to a part where I want to do something specific but can't seem to figure out a solution that works. Basically I've created a Web Service in Visual Studio that is used for a mobile app and we wanted to add a new piece of functionality that allows the retrieval of clients from multiple users. To do this I need to be able to pass an array of values to a WHERE IN clause, which I've been finding out is pretty much not possible but the other solutions I've read (that have no real example of the process) is to create a table of the Array values and then to a WHERE IN (SELECT * from TEMPTABLE) type of scenario.
So this is where I'm stuck, how do I go about passing an array of values to my SQL statement that will then create a temp table of those values (can range from 1 to 30 values) so then I can run other queries against those values. Most of the examples I've seen have the temp table hard coded with values, but I need to be able to pass an random amount of values for that table, so if it's easier to pass them as one single string with commas is fine or if they need to be passed in a specific format I can do that as well on the iOS side before calling the Web Service, I just can't seem to figure out how to do this dynamic type of table to move on to the next portion.
EDIT (Adding some information based on Comment)
So some background information on the system and purpose to help get a better understanding of what I'm doing. The Database is a SQL Server (2008) with already existing tables and data since what I'm working on is a Mobile Application port of an existing Web Application. Two tables that I can use for example are an Agent table (for employees) and a Customer Table (for their client) and so in some cases we have Teams that can view each other's clients. So normally if I wanted to pull a list of clients from a group of agents I would use the WHERE IN statement, but for the Web Service it would need to take that group as a Variable since the Rep may want to see only a few team members or all team members (this would be an option set in the iOS App).
I don't really have code that works, and most of what I have tried I know doesn't really work so I'll put some pseudo code to explain what I want to do. At first I thought I could just do this:
SELECT C.first_name + ' ' + C.last_name as [Client Name]
FROM dbo.agent as A INNER JOIN
dbo.contact as C ON C.agent_id = A.id
WHERE (A.id IN (@RepList))

In this example, @RepList would be a string passed from the iOS App to the Web Service that contained all the ID's that were selected within the Application. As I've looked into this, I can't have a variable in a WHERE IN statement but I've read that if I create a Temp Table with the variables then I could reference it like this:
CREATE TABLE #TempTable (TempID VARCHAR(MAX))
INSERT INTO #TempTable (TempID)
VALUES (@RepList)

SELECT C.first_name + ' ' + C.last_name AS [Client Name]
FROM dbo.agent AS A INNER JOIN
                    dbo.contact AS C ON A.id = C.agent_id
WHERE (A.id IN (SELECT #TempTable.* FROM #TempTable))

So again, @RepList would be the list of ID's that are passed from the iOS Application over to the Web Service that will run this query. This is where I'm stuck, since I can't seem to figure out how I can pass a list of values as a Variable into the TempTable. This may end up just being an issue in Visual Studio (since I've had issues with the SQL Query Designer and it not accepting certain things that end up working in the WebService) but I want to be sure this is the right format of doing so before moving forward. In the end, the WebService needs to be able to return a list of Clients based on however many Agents the person wants to see (this can range from just 1 agent to 20 agents).
Comment: What are you actually trying to accomplish with this specific query?  What platform are you on?  What is in your database and how is it structured?  What is some sample code of what you have tried so far?
Comment: Added some additional information to hopefully clarify what I'm trying to do.
Comment: Show us the WebService code that you already have.
Answer: Since you are on SQL Server 2008 and VS2010, probably the best solution is to use a Table-Valued parameter.  This link (here) describes how to use them from a .Net client.
The basic idea is, your webservice code will call a procedure, function or parametized query on SQL Server, where one of the parameters is a table of values.  Then the SQL code will use that table-valued parameter as its source matching table instead of a temporary table.


Why is a soloist using an E major triad over a G major 7 chord?

Question: I've just transcribed the trumpet solo in the following recording:
http://www.sierramusicmp3.com/mp3/newmp3s/Heat%20of%20the%20Day,%20The%20(UNT).mp3
At around 5:20 the soloist plays an E major triad over the Gmaj7 chord in the changes. What is the rationale/theory behind this? I believe the song is in B minor. The preceding chord is F#min7 and so is the chord after.
Comment: After listening to that excerpt, I have to agree with John Belzaguy and his answer: I honestly cannot hear a Gmaj7 on the bottom at 5:20 to a few seconds later - the closest I hear is a G with no B or F#.
Comment: Are you by any chance reading an already written Bb trumpet part for this tune? The Bb trumpet is a transposing instrument, so things are written a whole-tone higher than they sound. If you want your sound in A minor, you'd write it in B minor. It is flamenco in A minor. Play the chords Am - G - F - E and you're in the ballpark. Add some F notes and an occasional G to go with the G# note over the E major chord, and you're even more closely there. No Gmaj7 anywhere. Or I'd like to hear you perform that transcription, I assume it would sound nothing like the mp3.
Answer: The trumpet solo at that point generally revolves around an E Phrygian and A minor tonality, the bass plays a sustained A with E and G passing notes. There's no Gmaj7, the M7 note is F# and there are a lot of F's, not F#'s in both the solo and harmony. At 5:20 the trumpet plays an ascending line of E F G G# B… which can be interpreted as an E Phrygian with an added M3 or A minor with an added G# leading tone. The notes of a E major triad are within that line as you can see so I would say the explanation is that it is the leading tone of A minor or it is the Spanish flamenco flavor of playing both m3 and M3 over an E tonality and including F for a Phrygian flavor.
Answer: Wild guess.
You're transcribing the sounding trumpet notes from the mp3, but taking the backing chords that you call "the changes" from someone's already written music sheet for Bb instruments such as trumpet. That's wrong. You should be transcribing the backing chords from the mp3 as well, and not taking them pre-written, let alone for a transposing instrument. That music sheet is not even in the same key, and it might be - or it probably is - different than what's on the mp3 or simply plain wrong. Most of what you find freely on the internet is Wrong (tm). And even if it's "right", it could be describing a simpler stereotypical version of the tune. Or a different arrangement. Very likely it is not a description of this particular passage of this particular recording of the tune. Trust your ears, not your eyes, and most important of all, definitely do not trust random stuff you find on the internet.
The Bb trumpet is a transposing instrument that sounds one whole-tone lower than written. A tune that's written in Bm for a Bb transposing instrument, sounds in Am "concert pitch", which is where you have your pianos and keyboards etc.
For the key of A minor, the chords you mention, Gmaj7 and F#m7 do not make any sense and do not really resemble what is actually heard on the mp3. But on a music sheet written for Bb transposing instruments, Gmaj7 and F#m7 would make sense, and they would mean a sounding Fmaj7 and Em7 in concert pitch.
Answer: You can justify the E major triad's usage over the Gmaj7 as a way to create tension in the melodic line. While the E and B work well in the Gmaj7 Chord and in the Key of B minor. The G# is an outlier as it doesn't appear naturally in a B minor scale (unless its harmonic minor) and was probably used to create dissonance and therefore tension in the melodic line.
Playing an E major triad also helps with making the dissonance of the G# more subtle as you are playing the E, which is consonant/familiar within the chord. Then the G#, which is Dissonant. And then going to B which is consonant/familiar again. Basically, sandwiching two consonant tones between a dissonant tone rather than playing complete dissonant tones which may have sounded too out for the soloist.
Comment: There is no Gmaj7


Lighting & Wall Outlets

Question: If your branch circuit coming from the panel is 12-2 w/grd and protected with a 20A breaker at the panel, what is the standard number of outlets used in most residential parallel circuits with GFCI protection upstream? More or less, I'm asking what is the preference of most inspectors, with the total load on each 20A circuit being the most important?  Thanks in advance!
Comment: To keep this easy. you only want  80% of the load on the breaker.So  a 20 amp breaker  ,You want 16 amps of load..So each outlet has 180 va  or  one and a half amps .   A 20 amp circuit  can have 12 outlets  15 amp  9 this is for basic outlets.If you were doing a shop with table saw  and chop saw and they  could be used at the same time,You may want 2 separate circuits
Answer: Perfectly fine. GFCI is needed in bathrooms kitchens laundry rooms and certain other areas, but not everywhere. However many areas now require AFCI which is best installed in or near the breaker panel.
Answer: You can put as many outlets on the circuit as you please, unless you have a local amendment telling you otherwise.  Ask when you pull the permit; they can tell you.

As far as GFCI, every GFCI device can confer GFCI protection to the rest of the downline circuit. That only works if it's wired properly, if the last guy left you a wiring problem, it would refuse to reset.   Also, the downline receptacles require a "GFCI Protected" sticker or you'll get written up for them not being GFCI.
Your call whether to use a GFCI+breaker ($40), GFCI/AFCI dual mode breaker ($8-10 additional cost compared to an AFCI-only breaker), or GFCI+receptacle ($17). ----

6 outlets as long as you don't exceed 20A*

Hold on. Suppose I run a circuit from a 20A breaker with 12/2, to 2 receptacles.  I run another circuit off 20A breaker with 12/2, but daisy-chain to 33 receptacles. How many amps are on each circuit?  0 amps because nothing is plugged in.  The amps come when I plug stuff in.  Suppose I plug in a 12A heater and a 1A TV.  How many now? 13 amps.  It's like that.
Yeah, the number of receptacles on a circuit really doesn't matter, it's all about what you plug into it, and those amps simply add.
The problem occurs if you have too few circuits in a room for the load it serves.

4 circuits 4 bedrooms.  Instead of 1 circuit per bedroom, I have all 4 circuits each visit each bedroom; 2 receptacles in each bedroom + 1 in the hall, for 9. My home-office bedroom has a heater, coffeemaker, gaming PC and laser printer, each plugged into a different circuit.  We good? We good.
2 circuits serving 1 receptacle each in the kitchen. 1 is better than 9, right? Powering a toaster, coffeemaker and electric grill.  We good?  Nope. We ain't good. All three are 12A appliances, SNAP goes the breaker!  This kitchen could use 3-4 countertop circuits, that is typical of kitchens.
Comment: Practise in the UK (and in Germany as far as I can tell), is to avoid multiple circuits visiting the same rooms.  The risk is that someone in future might think they have powered the outlet off at the breaker, when actually it's a different circuit.  Obviously if your room has 30A load, you'll need two 20A circuits to feed it, but if you *can* feed it from a single circuit, you do.
Comment: Lots of circuits going everywhere also results in higher volt drop and more cable cost.
Comment: Those are only inconvenient to the installer for an hour.  Ample power is convenient to the users for a lifetime.

Lighting & Wall Outlets


Deploy packages with MavensMate

Question: It looks like the metadata MavensMate suggests deploying is based off of the current package.xml. The way I worked in the past was using a second package.xml, stored in some different directory, containing only the components that have changed since the last deploy. This is to keep deploys small and minimize the risk of side effects. Is there any way I can tell MavensMate to look at this file to build the metadata list or am I left with either deploying the whole package.xml or manually checking/unchecking components?
Comment: I have this question too.  Did you ever find an answer?
Comment: Sorry mscholtz, I have not
Comment: Kind of unrelated to your question...did you have a way to automatically update/generate your second package.xml whenever a component has changed or did you manually update that package.xml?
Comment: That was all manual
Answer: You can get this to work by editing the deploy/.config file in your MavensMate project. If you look at the contents of this file (which is created after you make a successful deployment) it is a JSON object that you can edit manually. The object contains one property: "deployments" which in turn contains 2 arrays: "named" and "timestamped". Here's a picture of what this JSON object looks like when you put it into Chrome DevTools:
You can edit that object (one-time or in an automated way) to point to a package.xml file in a different directory and then re-insert it into deploy/.config. This package.xml file will then appear in your list of options under metadata in the MM deployment window.
Comment: Thanks, @adb3721!  I'm going to try this.
So it sounds like we need to create entries under the "named" node, right?  Easy enough.  One question I have is what do we put in for the "id" property?  Does this have to be a particular value?  Or can we put anything we want for id?
Comment: Sorry, I'm not sure. Those Id values are auto-generated by MavensMate when you perform a deployment. What you might try is performing a deployment using the correct set of metadata and let it auto-generate an id for you. You can then modify the name as needed and hopefully it will also allow you to change the location of the package.xml file.

Deploy packages with MavensMate


Localization of Password Input

Question: What is current practice when it comes to localization of passwords? I know many systems, even where Latin/romanised text is not used, do not recognize/accept two-bit/unicode passwords. My instinct is to make unicode characters available for passwords, but am not sure if there is sufficient server support for such a requirement.
Comment: Any server should allow Unicode input. If it doesn't, it's broken. And passwords are stored as salted hashes, which usually means some subset of ASCII (often hex strings). So it shouldn't really be a problem. Disallowing strong passwords is **bad**.
Answer:
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems.

Quote from Wikipedia page on Unicode.
That says it all, doesn't it?
Answer: You should let people use whatever is natural to them for input, and that means accepting Unicode.  If someone is Russian, forcing them to use ASCII characters is a poor UX.
If they enter their password in a particular character set, it's their responsibility to make sure that they are typing in that character set when they enter it again later.  I can't see a lot of people complaining about this, as for people that deal with multiple character sets, it's normal to deal with this.  However I can see a lot of people being frustrated that you are forcing them to use a character set that they either don't have on their keyboards, or simply don't know.
The final reason is that it is better security if people are allowed to use Unicode characters in their password.
Comment: Then the problem becomes one of evaluating the password's complexity, as many security standards originating in anglophone countries are written assuming what is now called the Basic Latin block. It may require that, for instance a password contain one Basic Latin uppercase letter, one Basic Latin lowercase letter, one Basic Latin digit, and one Basic Latin punctuation mark.
Comment: @DamianYerrick That isn't really a UX issue, it's a security policy issue.  I have yet to see a situation where trying to enforce a given level of password complexity ends up with better security.  Usually it results in someone reusing a password they already know, or writing the password down.

Localization of Password Input


Why are beginners told to relax their tense shoulders muscles in yoga?

Question: In most yoga poses, we are reminded to relax our shoulder muscles.
I don't understand: why do we have tension then? It seems to be a natural inclination to make them active in these poses, so why is it wrong to keep them tense? And why is it a natural reflex to have them tense?
Comment: The shoulder is the most complex joint of the body and it is crossed by dozens of muscles. So the instruction "relax the shoulder" isn't very meaningful in general, and can be misleading when the shoulders are forced to work in closed-chain exercises. You should ask your teacher specifically for each exercise what exactly they mean. I am voting to close as it is unclear what exactly is being asked here.
Answer: Fundamentally, this is a matter of that yoga is fundamentally a combination of exercise and relaxation. Moving into, and through, the poses exercises your body because it has to work to maintain the positions, countering the forces of gravity on your body. Thus, your muscles, including your shoulders in any pose where you're supporting your weight on your arms, will tense during the poses and their transitions. However, part of the point of yoga is relaxation, and far too many of us carry tension in our shoulders, so they specifically encourage people to release tension there. This also has the potential benefit of getting people to use their entire body to support themselves in the poses rather than putting the stress on a few overused joints.
In addition, although this may just be my personal experience, if you're supporting yourself in a position with your arms, you're often in a situation where a good bit of your bodyweight is pushing your upper body and head toward the floor. If your shoulder cramps up, the resultant spill could cause additional injury between your head potentially striking the floor and the contortions you automatically go into on your already-stressed shoulder to prevent the fall can screw that part of your body up too. Yoga is not an injury-free exercise, even when you're under proper guidance and respecting your body's limits.


Splitting pages with 4 slides

Question: I have a page (actually more pages) on which there are 4 slides. How could I split the 4 slides in order to have a slide on each page?
Comment: This may be the same thing Dave asked, but how is the page constructed?  Are the four sections separate pages that have been aggregated in the PDF or in a document and saved as a PDF, or is this basically an image of a page with four sections?
Comment: In the PDF, can you select the text? Maybe you could export to Word (or similar), then re-create the PDF
Comment: Hi, the pages have been aggregated.
Answer: Using Sejda PDF you can split PDF pages down the middle.
You can choose whether to split horizontally or vertically and adjust the exact position of the split line.
By doing this twice, you should be able to get a resulting PDF that has a single slide per page.
To ensure the correct slide ordering in the resulting PDF you should first split vertically and then horizontally, in case the slides are ordered left-right and top-down. (The opposite approach should be taken if the slides are ordered top-down and then left-right in the original PDF).
If you however still need to reorder the slides after the two split operations, you can use Sejda's reorder PDF pages
Comment: Hi @Edi, your solution is very good!! Thank you!!!
Answer: You don't state what you want to do, other than to split them. As such, we have no idea if you need to end with PDF "slides" or not. We also don't know if the originals are PDF or images saved as a PDF.
Since you've simply asked how to split them, then one of the easiest ways is to zoom in to your PDF until the size is as you want, and then use a take a screen shot. In Windows 10, the snipping tool is perfect for this.
To create the PDF, there are many free online tools which can convert from image to PDF
Alternatively, open the PDF in Photoshop or similar and cut it up and export it as you wish.
Comment: Hi @Dave, I need a Pdf file in which each page cointains a slide. I have more than one pages, thus I need a software which operate the splitting.
Comment: Then save each image as a PDF? This is very easy in Photoshop, and I'm sure some other graphic programs
Comment: Hi @Dave, the source file is Pdf (sorry for my english).
Comment: That doesn't matter if you follow my suggestion. Otherwise, you'll need to recreate the slides I'm afraid

Splitting pages with 4 slides


How do I disable WebEx Assistant on startup for Mac?

Question: How do I disable WebEx Assistant on startup for Mac?   I dont want to remove the application completely, but I dont want it to launch automatically at startup.
Comment: is it in your settings to start up at boot?
Comment: I didnt know where to look... @Tetsujin pointed me to the right area.
Comment: happy ending :)
Answer: Try System Prefs > User & Groups > Your name > Login Items.
Select it in the list & click the - button underneath
If it's not listed there, then check either /Library/LaunchDaemons/ or /Library/StartupItems/ to see whether it has an entry in there.
It's safe to remove items from there - though they will continue running until the next reboot.
If you want to be able to restore functionality in future, zip the file in situ then trash the original.
Comment: Thx you so much.  This was exactly what i needed to know.  It worked great.
Answer: I tried removing this from the user's Login Items, but it re-appeared each time I started the app.  I could not find it in any of system or user launch or startup .plist files.
Then I noticed that the "Preferences" menu, where this sort of thing would normally be configured was grayed out.  So I went looking for Webex plist file itself.
Turns out if you look at ~/Library/Preferences/com.cisco.webexmeetingsapp.plist you'll find a key called PTLaunchAtLogin.
I used a text editor and changed it to "false". If the file is not readily editable directly and Xcode it's installed on your Mac, simply double click the .plist file and toggle the key to "false".
Problem solved.
<key>PTLaunchAtLogin</key>
<false/>

Comment: So I removed it in System Preferences and it loaded at start anyway, then I opened the .plist as described in this answer and  was already there...and it continues to load at startup.
Answer: There are multiple locations where an application can place configuration to achieve autostart or "automatically restart" if stopped. Some don't autostart but setup a scheduled daily start.
I'm using a (commercial) tool to detect those and disable such behaviour: Lingon X. It's basically a GUI for launchd. I especially like the feature that it alerts me if something is added or modified.
Answer: DaveANP has this pegged.  I had already tried the accepted answer of removing from login items, but it kept reappearing there.  Yet another reason to use another platform for meetings.
~/Library/Preferences/com.cisco.webexmeetingsapp.plist was not readily editable directly, but opening in Xcode made it trivial to set this boolean to FALSE.