Create and format exFAT partition from Linux

Question: Is it possible to create and format an exFAT partition from Linux?
Comment: Here's another good reference: https://itsfoss.com/format-exfat-linux/. It mentions `sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils` for Ubuntu 20.04 and older, and `sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfatprogs` for Ubuntu 22.04 and later.
Comment: I needed exFAT for Windows-compatible USB flash drives. After hours of struggles, I found it was just easier to format the drives on Windows.
Answer: Yes, there is a project implementing exfat and the related utilities at relan/exfat.
To format a partition, use mkexfatfs / mkfs.exfat like with most filesystems, e.g.:
mkfs.exfat /dev/sdX1

As for creating the partition in the first place, this is the same as for any other filesystem. Create a partition in your favourite partition manager. If you have an MBR partition table, set the partition type to NTFS (that is, code 7).
Note, that some distributions only package the fuse module, so you may have to build it yourself.
Comment: On Ubuntu I just had to install a couple packages first: `sudo apt-get install exfat-utils exfat-fuse`. Source: http://askubuntu.com/a/374627/18665
Comment: To be clear, the code is 7 (hex), not 7h.
Comment: This worked fine for me.  I already had the exfat and fuse installed.  _BUT..._  the post blow from Billious is _misleading_.  IF you have just formatted a drive, you must supply more information to `mkfs.exfat` -- Like where to put the partition and how big, _ya-da-ya-da_.  I'm just lazy.  I used `gParted` to set-u my USB how I wanted.  Leave the partition you want to make exFAT alone.  Or format it to FAT32 to process the whole USB.  Next ensure the target partition is unmounted.  Proceed, e.g.: `sudo mkfs.exfat -i DAT -n data  /dev/sdc3`.  I let `gParted` deal with alignments and such.
Comment: On modern `fdisk` the type you want is `11` ([Microsoft basic data](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_basic_data_partition)). Disregard the google.code.com link in the answer and instead use @bmaupin's command on Debian/Ubuntu.
Comment: be careful while doing this, it didnot warn me and completely deleted all the files I had in it. So first backup and then do it
Comment: Don't forget sudo.
Comment: For people who boot from a live cd: standard debian i386 does not contain mkfs.exfat. If you don't have an internet connection you can't use exfat or ntfs, which is a shame.
Comment: To specify a cluster size, use `-c `, and to specify a partition name/label, use `-L `. Ex: `time sudo mkfs.exfat -L "my_exFAT" -c 8K /dev/sda999`. See [my full answer here](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/746801/114401). In my testing, a cluster size of 8 KiB provides a nice balance between speed and disk usage.
Answer: The mkfs.exfat solution above works if a partition already exists on a drive, like a purchased USB pen drive.  Use this link if you're starting from a bare disk:
Formatting a Universal Drive
Comment: I tried following several guides, which all failed in Fedora 29. This one worked. :)
Comment: This should be the accepted answer! That link contains a brilliant explanation that I couldn't find anywhere else on the internet.
Answer: On the command line, the process is as follows:
Use the lsblk command to find out which drive your usb stick is. (for example /dev/sdx)
lsblk

Then start parted and tell it which drive you want to perform operations on:
sudo parted /dev/sdx

In parted interactive mode type:
mklabel msdos

Now reboot. And after the reboot do:
sudo parted /dev/sdx

And in parted interactive mode type:
mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%

When the partition is created, press q to exit parted.
Now that the flash drive contains a partition, create an exFAT filesystem on the newly created partition (replacing the ext4 filesystem that only works on Linux):
sudo mkfs.exfat /dev/sdx1

Copy-pasted from https://forum.manjaro.org/t/how-to-format-a-usb-stick-so-that-it-is-usable-on-manjaro-windows-and-macos/3972
Personally, I skipped the "reboot" step. Instead, I pulled out the USB stick (sdb went away) and after reinserting it came up as sdd. If it wasn't obvious, with sdx1 the "x" could be any letter of the alphabet (usually it's a, b, c, d...) but it depends on your particular setup.
Answer: Install exFAT utilities first.
sudo apt install exfat-utils

Then

sudo mkfs.exfat -n Volume Name /dev/USB_dev_file
Answer: See guidance below for completely wiping and restoring afresh any USB pen drive from anuy Linux command line/terminal. I often do this when pen drives become corrupted and stop working.  In this example, the pen drive is /dev/sdb, but yours may be different,

sudo fdisk -l

This lists the disks/partitions. Remember the correct /dev/sdx name for the device.  In this example it is /dev/sdb
You may need to unmount any already mounted partitions - e.g sudo umount /dev/sdb1, etc.
The following wipefs command will remove any existing file systems from the drive. If you do not have wipefs installed, install it using your package manager.
sudo wipefs --all /dev/sdb

At this point, all file systems have been removed, any data on the drive is technically still recoverable. To permanently wipe all data from the drive :-
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

This dd command should complete quickly. This writes zeros (the if =  input file) to the of (output file), which is the device. The bs (block size) flag sets how many bytes to read/write at a time, the default is 512 bytes, but above it has being set to 1 megabyte (or 1,000,000 bytes).
OR, for a more secure version which writes random data instead of zeros :-
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdb

This one can take a while.
The pen drive is completely wiped now. and all data is unrecoverable.
If you want to now create a bootable USB drive now in Linux from an OS ISO file, use the dd command again here, e.g.
dd bs=4M if=ubuntu-12.04.2-server-i386.iso of=/dev/sdb

The pen drive is now bootable, and no further action is needed if this is all you want to do.
Or, to create a blank pen drive for storage purposes, you could put the drive into a Windows machine and format there, which might be easier/quicker, but to partition the pen drive in Linux, continue below as below
sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

This goes into the fdisk program. You need to now input specific commands in the following order.

Option d - this delete partitions (this is not needed if you have used the dd command above on the device).  Repeat for each partition if present.

Option n - create a new partition, just accept all the defaults (unless you need multiple partitions of specific sizes, most people won't)

Option w (write changes)

To create a vFAT partition (readable on Windows)
sudo mkfs -t vfat /dev/sdb1

Or, to create exFAT partition, use the following command instead:-
sudo apt-get install exfat-utils exfat-fuse #if not already installed
sudo mkfs.exfat -n volume_name /dev/sdb1

When complete, Linux should auto-mount the device. If not, mount the device as below :-
mkdir /media/usbdrive
mount /dev/sdb1 /media/usbdrive

Answer: Currently, the best filesystem to share content between Windows and Linux is exFAT, specially on USB pendrives and SD cards. exFAT is, roughly speaking, a revision of FAT32 without the 4GB max file size limitation. Since kernel version 5.4, exFAT is a native filesystem for Linux and does not rely on FUSE anymore.
If not installed, you will have to install exFAT support, as follows.
Note: On systems with older kernels, use exfat-utils instead of exfatprogs.
$ sudo apt install exfatprogs # Debian/Ubuntu
$ sudo dnf install exfatprogs # Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS
$ sudo pacman -S exfatprogs # Arch Linux/Manjaro

From here, you have two options. Use a graphical tool like gparted or the command line (which is more fun). Find below steps for the latter.

Plug-in the USB pendrive/SD card.
Identify the device. It should be one of /dev/sd?. In a terminal, run the below command which will show connected devices and partition mount points. In this example, /dev/sdb is the device, with two partitions, the first of which is mounted.
$ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdb           8:16   1    15G  0 disk
├─sdb1        8:17   1   256M  0 part /media/myuser/mydevice
└─sdb2        8:18   1  14,7G  0 part
nvme0n1     259:0    0 931,5G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   512M  0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0    64G  0 part /
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3    0   256G  0 part /home
├─nvme0n1p4 259:4    0    38G  0 part [SWAP]
├─nvme0n1p5 259:5    0   448G  0 part /data
├─nvme0n1p6 259:6    0    16M  0 part
└─nvme0n1p7 259:7    0   125G  0 part

Unmount mounted partitions.
$ umount /dev/sdb1

Create a new partition table and partition of type HPFS/NTFS/exFAT.
$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdb # Pay attention! No final digit is used.

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.34).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.

Command (m for help):

Create a new (dos) partition table: press o and enter.
Create a new partition: press n, enter and accept default options.
Change the partition type to HPFS/NTFS/exFAT: press t, enter, 7, enter.
Quit saving changes: press w and enter.
You can quit without saving changes: press q and enter.

Format the partition.
$ sudo mkfs.exfat -n "my label" /dev/sdb1 # Pay attention! Final digit is used.
mkexfatfs 1.3.0
Creating... done.
Flushing... done.
File system created successfully.

Comment: Answer originally given [here](https://askubuntu.com/a/1281771/762841).
Comment: For getting the *"use `exfat-utils` instead of `exfatprogs`"* part of your answer correct ... +1. :)
Answer: How to format an exFAT filesystem on Linux with the desired cluster size to tune your selection along the tradeoff curve between speed and disk usage
Quick summary
Here's how to manually set your own cluster size. I recommend a cluster size of 8 KiB. The below information is a summary from my website here: https://gabrielstaples.com/exfat-clusters/#formatting-an-exfat-drive-on-linux-ubuntu:

First, use gparted to prepare a partition. Format it to anything initially--ex: ext4. We'll change that later from the command line.

Install dependencies. See: https://itsfoss.com/format-exfat-linux/
sudo apt update

# For Ubuntu 20.04 and earlier
sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

# For Ubuntu 22.04 and later
sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfatprogs

Ensure your partition you are about to format is NOT mounted:
sudo umount /media/your_name/your_disk

Format your partition as exFAT, setting the cluster size to 8 KiB.
For the Ubuntu 20.04 case, this assumes your sector size is 512 bytes. The -s 16 argument says to use a cluster size of 16 sectors, which would be 16 sectors x 512 bytes/sector = 8192 bytes in a cluster. Note that you can change the -n "name" or -L "label" part to whatever you want your volume name to be, up to 15 chars (see man mkexfatfs):
# For Ubuntu 20.04 and earlier
# 8 KiB clusters (takes 0.698 sec) <=== WHAT I USE AND RECOMMEND
time sudo mkexfatfs -n "my_exFAT" -s 16 /dev/sda999

# For Ubuntu 22.04 and later
# 8 KiB clusters <=== WHAT I USE AND RECOMMEND
time sudo mkfs.exfat -L "my_exFAT" -c 8K /dev/sda999

This just takes a few seconds.

Done!

For help, see:
# For Ubuntu 20.04 and earlier
# See this online here: https://man.archlinux.org/man/mkexfatfs.8.en
man mkexfatfs

# For Ubuntu 22.04 and later
man mkfs.exfat
mkfs.exfat -h

Details: cluster size, and mkexfatfs
Setting the cluster size is really important, it turns out, when formatting exFAT, as it significantly affects the speed and disk usage (see the plots I made, below).
If you use the Gnome Disks utility on Linux to format the exFAT drive, it chooses the cluster size for you, probably according to Microsoft's default values as shown in the table just below: Support.Microsoft.com: Default cluster size for NTFS, FAT, and exFAT:

Default cluster sizes for exFAT
The following table describes the default cluster sizes for exFAT.

Volume size
Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP

7 MB–256 MB
4 KB

256 MB–32 GB
32 KB

32 GB–256 TB
128 KB

> 256 TB
Not supported

When I used Gnome Disks to format my exFAT drive the first time, I realized later that it had used a cluster size of 128 KiB on my 500 GB SSD. This corresponds to the default values recommended by Microsoft in the table above.
If you'd like to use other cluster sizes, here are some more examples. YOu can use any power of 2 (to specify the number of sectors per cluster) after -s. The maximum cluster size allowed is 32 MiB, or 65536 512-byte sectors:
# Set the name after `-n` to whatever you want too. `-s` specifies how many
# sectors to use per cluster. Assuming you have 512 byte sectors, the following
# cluster size comments are accurate.
#
#                                                       cluster size  (format time)
#                                                       ----------    -------------
time sudo mkexfatfs -n "my_exFAT" -s 1 /dev/sda999     #   0.5 KiB (512 byte)
                                                       #     clusters (10 sec)
time sudo mkexfatfs -n "my_exFAT" -s 8 /dev/sda999     #   4 KiB clusters (1.340 sec)
time sudo mkexfatfs -n "my_exFAT" -s 16 /dev/sda999    #   8 KiB clusters (0.698 sec) <=== WHAT I USE AND RECOMMEND: 8 KiB clusters
time sudo mkexfatfs -n "my_exFAT" -s 64 /dev/sda999    #  32 KiB clusters (0.230 sec)
time sudo mkexfatfs -n "my_exFAT" -s 256 /dev/sda999   # 128 KiB clusters (0.075 sec)
time sudo mkexfatfs -n "my_exFAT" -s 65536 /dev/sda999 # 32 MiB clusters (0.120 sec) [absolute max cluster size allowed!]

Here are the tradeoff curves of cluster size vs speed and disk usage, as I first presented on my website here: https://gabrielstaples.com/exfat-clusters/

Details: cluster size, and mkfs.exfat on Ubuntu 22.04 or later
man mkfs.exfat shows that the "SD Card Association" recommends the following cluster sizes for exFAT:
Card Capacity Range      Cluster Size   Boundary Unit
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
            ≤8 MiB           8 KiB          8 KiB
  >8 MiB   ≤64 MiB          16 KiB         16 KiB
 >64 MiB  ≤256 MiB          16 KiB         32 KiB
>256 MiB    ≤1 GiB          16 KiB         64 KiB
  >1 GiB    ≤2 GiB          32 KiB         64 KiB
  >2 GiB   ≤32 GiB          32 KiB          4 MiB
 >32 GiB  ≤128 GiB         128 KiB         16 MiB
>128 GiB  ≤512 GiB         256 KiB         32 MiB
>512 GiB    ≤2 TiB         512 KiB         64 MiB

Again, though, I disagree with this, in particular for SSDs, and recommend 8 KiB cluster sizes. See my extensive analysis and speed and space testing here: https://gabrielstaples.com/exfat-clusters/.
Here are the commands to specify different cluster sizes with mkfs.exfat:
#                                                       cluster size
#                                                       ----------
time sudo mkfs.exfat -L "my_exFAT" -c 512  /dev/sda999  #   0.5 KiB (512 byte) clusters
time sudo mkfs.exfat -L "my_exFAT" -c 4K   /dev/sda999  #   4 KiB clusters
time sudo mkfs.exfat -L "my_exFAT" -c 8K   /dev/sda999  #   8 KiB clusters <=== WHAT I USE AND RECOMMEND: 8 KiB clusters
time sudo mkfs.exfat -L "my_exFAT" -c 32K  /dev/sda999  #  32 KiB clusters
time sudo mkfs.exfat -L "my_exFAT" -c 128K /dev/sda999  # 128 KiB clusters
time sudo mkfs.exfat -L "my_exFAT" -c 32M  /dev/sda999  # 32 MiB clusters

See also

My answer: Is it best to reformat the hard drive to exFAT using 512kb chunk, or smaller or bigger chunks?
My answer: Server Fault: How to find the cluster size of any filesystem, whether NTFS, Apple APFS, ext4, ext3, FAT, exFAT, etc.
Comment: Interesting stuff.
Answer: In the latest Ubuntu version (22.10) the package you are looking for is named exfatprogs instead of exfat-utils.
Answer: To make exFat formatting available for ubuntu.
(Maybe works fort other distros as well? will modify this claim if its been confirmed false or true.)
After these steps exFat formatting will work in ubuntu.
Ubuntu 20.04 and lower versions:
sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

Ubuntu 22.04 and higher versions:
sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfatprogs

cited from:
https://itsfoss.com/format-exfat-linux/#command-line

Article is about how to format into exfat, for example needed when making bootable windows media.
Comment: I think your answer would be "more complete" if you addressed the OP's question re *"... create and format an exFAT partition"*. +1 anyway...
Answer: Disks (gnome-disks) and KDE Partition Manager are two GUI tools that can achieve this. (Gparted cannot do it.)
For USB sticks, there is the USB Stick Formatter, part of the mintstick tool .
Comment: Mint Stick helped a lot. as I was using Mint and did not realise its existence.


Acronym Capitalization Rules

Question: What is the capitalization rule for acronyms?  E.g., why "radar" and not "RADAR" but "NATO" and not "nato"?
Answer: I think this has a lot to do with the fact that certain acronyms were intended as (or have become) the general words for certain things, and others are actual names for things.
"NATO", for instance, is an abbreviation for the formal name of an organization; as such, it seems obvious that you have to leave it in all caps.
"Radar" and other words such as "laser", on the other hand, are invented words for newly invented phenomena. The fact that they come from acronyms is almost beside the point, since they could have been instead named by inventing Latinate or Greekish words (such as *collimolux or *syngrammophos (yuck on both counts)) as sometimes happens in science. They are simply coinages and thus bear only an etymological relationship to the original acronym, and therefore we use them as "normal" words, which includes dropping the all-caps on them.
Comment: This is incomplete, however. Some organizations write *Unesco* and others *UNESCO* (definitely a proper noun), and a bank pin is something different from a bank PIN (definitely not a proper noun).
Comment: You can argue it is about lexicalization; works from the 1950s often used *SCUBA*, but that faded by the 1970s. Similarly, almost no one remembers that *care packages* began as *CARE packages*. But there isn't universal consensus on what is lexicalized or not. It's a point of style. If your editors want you to write *Aids*, you use *Aids*; if they prefer *AIDS*, you use *AIDS*, and if they prefer *A.I.D.S.* you bite your tongue and use *A.I.D.S.* As you note they would probably not impose *aids*, as thankfully it never became the primary meaning of that word, in contrast to *email*.
Comment: I am not sure how to account for *Unesco* vs. *UNESCO* (though, personally, I would stick with *UNESCO* for some reason that is hard to detail). However, *pin* is already a word, and this may be why you see *PIN*; on the other hand, I have no personal problem with the phrase *pin number* (even though the N becomes redundant, which is probably a whole other topic).
Answer: The word anacronym is relevant here.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/anacronym

an acronym that few remember what the letters stand for, such as laser and radar

Generally, once a word becomes so frequently used that its acronymic etymology is less relevant, the capitalization is dropped.

Acronym Capitalization Rules


What does downloading an SSL Certificate allow my school to see?

Question: Recently, my school's administration announced some network changes. Should I want to use the school's WIFI, I'd have to download an SSL Certificate to my MacOS (High Sierra v.10.13.1) I'll admit that I have limited knowledge of what this all means. I'm afraid that this will enable them to access my private information and search history. Is that the case? Can they see what I am doing when I am not connected to their wifi through a SSL Certificate? Please excuse my ignorance :)
Comment: Is it a client certificate, i.e. is it user-specific (similar to a password, it enables you to access the network)?
Comment: Alternatively, it could be a certificate for EAP authentication.  Without knowing more, no way to answer OP.
Comment: @Luc's questions need to be answered before we can give more information.  But mostly likely a certificate alone will not allow the school to view internet history and/or private information.  It is most likely authentication method either for the network or for a website.
Comment: This could be a private CA certificate if - when installed and trusted - allow the schools web proxy to fake https sites. So this especially allows to snoop into all (secured) web traffic.
Comment: To help answer that, where did you install it on your system?
Comment: not your history, but certainly your current activity.
Answer: As alluded to by many of the comments on your question, the information you provided isn't enough to give a definitive answer, but here's my guess being that I am very familiar with typical campus infrastructure.
Your school likely has their own CA (certificate authority) that they use for various services on their network. Since they made the CA (and its not that widely used), your device doesn't recognize the CA and doesnt trust it. In order for your device to trust the school's CA, you need to install the certificate. Since you are required to install the CA certificate to use the wireless, my guess is your campus is using WPA2-Enterprise with RADIUS authentication using PEAP and MSCHAPv2 (pretty common). The P in PEAP stands for protected, in this case using a TLS (the new fancy term for SSL :P) to protect the communication being transferred. This does NOT give the university any direct access to your device whatsoever. This will merely allow you to connect to their network which may have monitoring ramifications (such as Deep Packet Inspection, location based on access point, Identifying your machine by the MAC address, etc) but this can occur on any netowrk regardless of the TLS certificate installation. The TLS certificate and CA install will not be adding any remote monitoring software or anything crazy like that.
Comment: You sure that installing school's CA will not allow school to decrypt TLS traffic when they MITM it?
Comment: @Luc In this case no. The certificate installed would be protecting the user credentials sent to the authentication server be be granted access to the network. Connections to any web server is still end to end encrypted, and any non-secure traffic could be MITM'd regardless. However, this doesn't mean they can't MITM you. I suppose their DNS could be malicious or what have you, but this is not because of the RADIUS certificate.
Comment: "*this doesn't mean they can't MITM you*" But... but that's exactly what I'm asking: "allow school to decrypt TLS traffic when they MITM it"
Comment: @Luc Trusting a RADIUS certificate is not going to be using the certificate to MITM you. My point was that just because the RADIUS certificate isn't doing it doesn't mean it can't be achieved by different means. There is more than one way to MITM traffic.


How can I make another proposal after the merchant reject the offer?

Question: After I press T for trade in the trading Depot, and the merchant reject the offer. How can I do to make another proposal?
Or you only can do 1 proposal?
Comment: Piedra libre! :P
Answer: Trading in Drawf-Fortress
Before you can begin trading, your fortress's representative trader must be at the trade depot. Select the trade depot with q and then request the trader. Be sure that b reads "Only broker may trade" if you want your broker to represent your fortress. If it reads "Anyone can trade", a random, probably unskilled dwarf will volunteer to conduct the trade. Pressing b will toggle this setting.
Once your trader has arrived, select the depot again with q and enter the trade menu. In the trade menu select the items to offer from the right and the desired items from the left. All caravans have a weight limit which cannot be exceeded, and the allowed additional weight is displayed in the lower right corner. If your broker (specifically, not necessarily your trader) has at least Novice or better Appraisal skill, the value of all items will be displayed.
Once the proposal is ready, press t to propose the trade, but merchants will not agree unless they make adequate profit. Be sure to use trade, not offer o, as this will make a gift of the selected items. The amount of acceptable profit is determined by the trader's skills and the merchant's mood, described below. Merchants may attempt to propose counteroffers if they do not accept the proposal, which can then be accepted, rejected, or further amended by the trader.
Once a transaction is completed you can start this process again (q the Depot, go to the trade menu, select items and trade), so yes, you can make several small trades with the same merchant.
If you make several offers insultingly low in a row you might offend this merchant and then they will leave without trading anything else (this is when the trade option is disabled).

Source: Wiki
Comment: Early on, "adequate profit" generally means your offer has to be worth 50% more than what you want from them.
Comment: AS @Fnord23 says in the comments of his answer, sometimes when the offer its very bad, the t command is grayed out. And you can't make another offer.
Answer: To be on the safe side, I always make a dozen sacrifice trades with a merchant at the beginning of trading to put him in a good mood. Trading him two crossbow bolts for his one crossbow bolt, or two blocks of stone for his one block a bunch of times puts him in a very happy mood. Afterward, I don't have to worry about him getting mad when I trade him my entire inventory for all his stuff at a 25% profit to him.
Even if the merchant likes the profit of specific trade, he will still reject that trade if it will overload his caravan. So keep an eye on the total weight of the items you trading vs. the caravan's weight limit. I believe the merchant uses a different response when he rejects a 'too much weight trade'; something like "I don't see how you can trade all of those items."
Answer: You can't. Better take it seriously next time, and increase the profit margin of the traders.
Comment: What happened was that your initial offer was insultingly low, and after four attempts it still wasn't even within the viability bracket, at which point the trader decided you weren't going to make a serious offer and packed it in.
Comment: This seems distinctly wrong; usually they counter with their desired margin, but I don't see how a reject would prevent a trade from happening.  Would you happen to have a source for this?
Comment: Well, there's [this](http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/5504/what-determines-the-minimum-profit-a-trader-demands) question, where the same thing happened to someone else. Also, I had it happen to me, today. Merchant refused my offer with something along the lines of: 'I don't see how all those goods will trade', I upped my offer a few times, then he told me to take it seriously next time. After that, the `t`-command to initiate a trade was grayed out. Maybe you could have a source to refute my statement?
Comment: Oh, the [dwarffortress wiki page on trading](http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Trading), mentions several times that a trade can be rejected. It does not offer many details though, what this would actually look like in-game, nor how a new trade could be started again..
Comment: If you offer them a really terrible offer, they get annoyed and refuse to trade with you. That's how.


Stochastic Facility Location Model

Question: I am solving a stochastic facility location model using Benders decomposition (L-shaped algorithm). In each scenario, I want to allocate demands from origin to a fixed number of closest open facilities. For example, I have about 70 candidate facilities and about 370 demand locations (census blocks). I want to make sure in each scenario demand will be allocated to the closest 30 facilities from each demand location to ensure that people do not have to travel too far. If you worked on any similar problem, Would you share how you construct your constraints?
Comment: Can you provide more details of your problem? What are the input parameters? What is the source of uncertainty? E.g. is the opening cost of the facility uncertain? Or the distance of the candidates to the facility? Or the actual set of candidates? Does each candidate have unit-demand, or can the demand be more than 1 and each facility has limited capacity?
Comment: Inputs are demand, capacity, cost between demand and facility locations, cost of opening and operating facility, and cost of unmet demand.  Only demand and capacity are uncertain. The output is the amount of demand allocated to the open facility from each demand location and the amount of unmet demand at each demand location for each scenario.
Comment: @JorisKinable I added the deterministic equivalent formulation to my post!
Answer: To impose the distance restriction, use a sparse index set of $(i,j)$ pairs rather than the full Cartesian product $I \times J$.
Also, you might consider omitting constraint $(2)$, which will naturally be satisfied unless the penalty for unmet demand is too small to encourage opening any facilities, and constraint $(5)$, which is logically implied by $(3)$ and $(4)$.  It is possible for these unnecessary constraints to tighten the formulation, but it is also likely that their inclusion would just artificially inflate the problem size, making the underlying LP solves slower.
Comment: The removal of constraints makes sense. Thanks so much for the input.  I used a cartesian product for I and J in the description but in my solver I see have (i,j) I will fix that in the description. I am still trying to figure out how to add a constraint that will allow demand to be allocated to only a set number of closest facilities.
Comment: I think you might not have understood that I mean to keep only those $(i,j)$ pairs for which $j$ is one of the 30 closest facility facilities to demand location $i$.  That way, you implicitly enforce the rule without needing an explicit constraint.
Comment: I got it now. I was trying to add a. constraint so that I can just change the constraint for other distance thresholds. But instead of adding a constraint, using a subset of the data with (i,j) pair with a set distnace makes it easier to solve. Thanks so much!

Stochastic Facility Location Model


How to quickly and effectively wipe a Win7 x64 hard drive

Question: I have a Windows 7 Enterprise x64 system and need to wipe the 1.5TB hard disk drive quickly and effectively. Quick, I guess, is a relative term; so more quickly than I've seen with some wipe utilities (which can take a day). The HDD has only about 400GB of data on it.
I'd also like to wipe some specific folders on the network and on an external hard drive. What free tool do you recommend? Your help is much appreciated. Thanks.
Comment: Possible duplicate of [Securely erasing all data from a hard drive](https://superuser.com/questions/4678/securely-erasing-all-data-from-a-hard-drive)
Answer: Most people I know use DBAN or "Darik's Boot and Nuke". Its a selfcontained bootable utility that allows for wiping Hard Drives. Unfortunately the realities of the technology means you will need to wait a while - DBAN allows you to select how you wipe the drives (how many times and what pattern), a single pass 0 wipe which is enough for 99% of everyone (recoverable only with very expensive technology) will take a little over 4 hours. Even fast hard drives have a sustainable write rate of ~ 100MB/s which means that a 1.5TB will take that long.
DBAN allows for more exotic wiping patterns, like a seven run random pattern which will take almost a day at these transfer rates. Booting into a linux live-cd and running
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

would accomplish the same thing as single-pass 0-wipe
Doing a simple format on the Hard Drive will clear the Partition table and takes several seconds, However the DATA is still intact and recoverable easily using standard tools.
If you just want to clear the hardrive so you can reinstall the system a simple format will work fine. If you want to make sure the DATA is "destroyed" a single wipe through is your best bet.
As for clearing specific folders your best bet would be to overwrite the files with random data. Simply deleting the files will free their blocks on the filesystem but not wipe the data. Simple unix utilities like dd will let you overwrite files so they are unrecoverable.
Answer: If its a individual folder on a local drive you can use sdelete on windows, or shred from linux. For the whole drive use dban, 1 pass, and fill it with zeros - modern drives don't need the full guttman erase.
Network is trickier - the file systems are abstracted, and you can't be sure if its wiped, short of filling the entire remote file system's free space and deleting it after deleting the folders in question. There's no way to be certain you've done the deed.
Answer: How quickly you can wipe a drive depends on how secure you want it to be - just writing a few megabytes of random data over the partition table with dd will cause the drive to appear unformatted to the OS. However, in this case the data is still on the drive, and can be recovered with the appropriate software.
If you want the data to be unreadable, you'll have to write over the entire drive with random data, which could take quite a long time. Even then nothing is guaranteed - someone with a lot of money and/or an electron microscope could potentially read data from the disk.
The same procedures can be followed for an external drive, but there is probably no way to securely delete data from a network volume.
Answer: I would use DBAN with the quick option.  Some may argue that a single pass of zeroes can be read, but it's doubtful.  Don't boot this one on a machine with any data you want to save.  It can be ruthless.
As for files, you use something like Eraser.
Answer: Use Secure Erase. It's built into the ATA command set. Fastest, simple (I haven't tried it), secure.
I found this from the 10 Things about Hard Drives You Didn't Know 2009 ShmooCon presentation given by Scott A. Moulton. #10 "There is a better way to wipe!" (Part 1/6)
The presentation is very good. You can hear why in his opinion several wipes is overkill.


What the name of this flower? They close at night n blooms in the morning

Question:
I have these plants at my home I Wana know the name the close at night n blooms in morning... Tnx
Answer: That plant is Oxalis, also called wood sorrel or false shamrock. Oxalis is actually the genus; there are many species. Some of the larger species are sold as house plants, especially around St Patrick's Day (at least in the US, in areas where St Patrick's Day is a big deal). Some species are rather weedy; it was a problem in a greenhouse that I worked in. When ripe, the seed pods will burst open when disturbed. So we'd go to pull out one clump of oxalis, and seeds would shoot out and get into all the nearby planters.
As long as you haven't used any pesticides or fertilizers on that plant or the soil it's growing in, the leaves are quite good to eat. They have a pleasantly sour taste. The flavor is similar to the unrelated plant common sorrel (Rumex acetosa).


Spring Boot test transaction is opened, but not in MySQL DB

Question: I am working on the unit test of Spring Boot. As far as I know, it will auto open a transaction at the beginning & rollback at the end. However, I do not see the transaction is opened under the DB.
Here is some of the log from the Spring application:
[DEBUG] [AbstractPlatformTransactionManager.java]getTransaction(370) : Creating new transaction with name [...]: PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,ISOLATION_DEFAULT

[INFO ] [TransactionContext.java]startTransaction(107) : Began transaction (1) for test context [DefaultTestContext@25bc65ab testClass...]

[DEBUG] [AbstractPlatformTransactionManager.java]processRollback(833) : Initiating transaction rollback

[INFO ] [TransactionContext.java]endTransaction(139) : Rolled back transaction for test: [DefaultTestContext@25bc65ab testClass...]

While the test is running, I have run the following query on the DB:
SELECT * FROM information_schema.innodb_trx;

But no transaction has listed.
The test is just simple
@MyMapperTest
public class MapperTest {

  @Autowired
  private DbMapper mapper;

  @Test
  void test() {
    mapper.insert(getDummyData());
  }
}

And the annotation for @MyMapperTest is:
@Target(ElementType.TYPE)
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@MybatisTest(excludeAutoConfiguration = DataSourceAutoConfiguration.class)
@ComponentScan(basePackages = { ... })
@AutoConfigureTestDatabase(replace = AutoConfigureTestDatabase.Replace.NONE)
@ActiveProfiles("test")

The test is very simple, so it may not be because of the AOP proxy problem.
More information:

Spring Boot 2.7.18
Mybatis 2.1.3
Junit 5
Hikari 4.0.3
Embedded Tomcat 9.0.83
Use multiple datasource with LazyConnectionDataSourceProxy
All the table in DB is InnoDB

Many thanks!
I expected that the database must listed a transaction & the inserted data must be rolled back.
Also, I have tried:

Change config dialect
Make the class/method public
Turn off auto-commit
Try to add @Transactional to the test
Disable JTA
Comment: And the problem is? You see that a tx is created? It is rolled back (that is what the logging tells you) and what is the result you have?
Comment: Even that the log has shown transaction created & rolled back. But it is not created, as you can see, when I am running in the debug mode, the SQL DB does not show any transaction. And the inserted data is not rolled back.
Comment: You shouldn't be using auto-commit in the first place (and normally that will be disabled by Spring tx manager). Why are you using JTA do you have multiple transactional resources? One thing that could be an issue here is the use of the `LazyConnectionDataSourceProxy` i'm not sure how you are determining which ds to use but that might be problematic.
Comment: As far as I know, the auto-commit does not affect here. Because in the transaction, it will be disabled ([ref](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55942939/mysql-autocommit-flag-is-on-but-transaction-still-can-rollback)).

For the `LazyConnectionDataSourceProxy` I am used it to route to Master/Slave database based on the transaction read-only properties. Particularly, if the transaction is read-only, it will use Slave node, otherwise use the Master node.
Comment: Shouldn't that, ideally, be handled by your database driver in a proper master/slave configuration? As stated the auto-commit shouldn't affect anything but it could depending on what is happening. Also is mybatis setup correctly for spring, if it is using a different connection it isn't using a tx. You have posted too little of your configuration only a partial test and some code, please include more.
Answer: I have fixed the problem by grade-down/grade-up the version of MySQL connector. Many thanks for you help guys~
AS-IS:

MySQL Connector 8.0.28

TO-BE:

MySQL Connector 8.0.33

More detail: Looking at the change of 8.0.28, there is a change of autocommit override ("Some Java frameworks prevent changes of the autocommit value on the MySQL Server"). However, this change has been fixed again in 8.0.29


Retrieve the seed phrase using a private key?

Question: i have my private key and i'm trying to get the seed phrase from it so i can import it into metamask. how would i do that using python - either eth_account/web3/etc? Or is there another way? Or how am i supposed to import it to metamask/other wallet apps when they require a seed phrase and not a private key lol
Answer: You can't.
Private key and seed phrase aren't interchangeable. The seed phrase is just a human-readable representation of your private key.
But, you can import a new wallet using only private key. Metamask has the option to "import wallet with private key" or something similar.
Comment: ```Metamask has the option to "import wallet with private key" or something similar.```

You can only import with a secret recovery phrase initially
Comment: Not entirely sure. I have the option to import any wallet with private key.
Comment: @user116130 You can just generate a new mnemonic within Metamask to initialize it. Once that's done, you have the option to import individual private keys. Simply ignore the mnemonic-based accounts


Were the orcs of Minas Morgul created by the Witch King?

Question: In the Return of the King, there are the orcs that come from Minas Morgul. Were they produced in Mordor and transferred there, or were they actually created in Minas Morgul by the Witch King?
Comment: Orcs were first "made" thousands of years before LOTR, twisted from Elves by Morgoth.  As I understand it, they haven't been "made" ever since, they breed just like any animal or sentient race.  But as for whether those Orcs were *born* in Minas Morgul, I'll leave that to folks more knowledgeable than I.
Comment: @randal'thor  Saruman created a new breed of Orc, but in the sense of being a dog breeder, not physically building them like Frankenstein.  My point was that OP's question seems to assume that Orcs are manufactured, but I'm pretty sure that after their initial creation, they reproduce like any other race.
Comment: @Nerrolken I'm pretty sure Saruman created orcs. I'm also pretty sure the Witch King didn't, that he's nowhere near as powerful as Sauron or Saruman and doesn't have the power to create life, but I don't have canon to hand to back this up...
Comment: @Nerrolken Further, if we're speaking of the movie in particular (not clear from the question), there's no canon statement about where any orcs other than Saruman's came from.
Comment: Geesh, what is it with downvoting and "duplicate question" stuff. This question stand quite on it's own, talking specifically about Minas Morgul orcs and whether they were created (whatever that term implies) by the Witch King. It's not asking where do orc babies come from.
Answer: The origin of the orcs is in doubt, what is not in doubt is that no, the witch king did not create orcs.
The Silmarillion tells us that orcs where corrupt elves, tortured in the pits of Angband by Morgoth, who did not have the power to create new life, only to corrupt.

But of those unhappy ones who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise.

Ref: The Silmarillion: OF THE COMING OF THE ELVES AND THE CAPTIVITY OF MELKOR
Answer: Orcs (after they were "created" by Morgoth) bred like humans or other mammals do - from a male and female conceiving a baby. What Sauron and Saruman could do, is to breed them selectively (with some use of magic, perhaps) to "create" more powerful and more resilient orcs.
In Saruman's case, he interbred orcs with humans, creating orc-men or goblin-men. One descendant of such evil project appeared at the Inn of the Prancing Pony, that squint-eyed stranger that was spying on the Hobbits.
Sauron reportedly created a stronger and more resilient breed, some of which were stationed in Minas Morgul. The Witch King didn't have anything to do with the breeding, he was simply their chief general.


Display resolution of Ubuntu guest in VirtualBox is too high

Question: I feeling I have an opposite effect than most other people that install Ubuntu as a guest OS because I saw many were having trouble with the window being to small after the installation/restart. After trying install the virtual guest additions, I feel things have been much worse. The options for auto resize guest display and virtual screen is all greyed out. I also tried reinstalling virtualbox manager and creating the VM twice again. I just don't know what happen today that cause this issue as things were find in the past with no issues and I have never ever tried to install guest additions before too.
Answer: Are you running this on a laptop with a high-DPI display?
The display of the guest machine is pixelated, meaning that VirtualBox has scaled up the size of the guest machine so that it doesn't appear too small on the (high-DPI) screen. Unfortunately, it looks like this scale factor is too high and is causing it to exceed the size of the physical monitor. Go to View > Scale Factor and reduce the scale factor so that it fits on the display.
As for adjusting the resolution of the virtual display itself, you may want to try restoring (un-maximizing) the window and manually resizing it. Then again, I have little experience running Ubuntu on VirtualBox (I'm most familiar with openSUSE, which comes with the Guest Additions), so someone else may be able to help you better.
Comment: On my host Windows machine the display scale/layout size of text,apps option is 150% and resolution is 1920 x 1080 which both are recommended by Windows. I just expieremented with the scale/layout option by setting it to 125%, and my guest OS is to small but not pixelated. I changed back to 150% and tried to open other apps like Google Chrome and Adobe Acrobat and it was fine at 150%. It just the virtualbox manager program/guest OS has a problem with setting that option to 150%.
Answer: I got a okay solution to my problem.
I made a clean install Virtualbox and got the newest Ubuntu iso.
I lowered the scale factor to 125%. Now my guest OS was normal as expected and not small like I had in my other comment up above. I am able to resize my guest OS manually resizing it myself.
I feel that the issue was the scaling factor on my host OS somehow made an effect on the Virtualbox manager app and in turn my guest OS too.
Comment: Remember that you can accept your own answer 48 hours after you posted your question. Just click on the check box below the voting controls to accept your answer.


Does the Moon's magnetic field affect Earth's magnetic field?

Question: I wanted to ask a question; it's simple but I cannot find any possible and perfect solution.
Earth has poles, North and South. By which we can get directions using a compass or a needle compass, but that's not the concern.
My Question:
Would the Moon cause a change in the magnetic field of Earth when they are interpassing or colliding with each other, as the Moon does come between the magnetic path of the Earth.
So would the Moon's magnetic field affect the Earth's magnetic field, just as its gravitational pull affects Earth's gravitational pull for oceans?
Answer:
So would the Moon's magnetic field affect the Earth's magnetic field, just as its gravitational pull affects Earth's gravitational pull for oceans?

Yes, but only slightly. Firstly, magnetic fields can superimpose, so the field at any point is the sum of the field due to the Earth and the field due to the moon.
However, the moon is rather far away (and has a weak magnetic pole strength), so the magnetic field due to the moon on Earth's surface is nearly negligible (magnetic field also decreases as an inverse-square law)
In addition, the magnetic field of the Moon may bolster or erode the Earth's field as magnets moving relative to each other tend to either lose magnetization or become stronger. But this process has a negligible effect when we take the Moon and Earth.
Comment: Dipole fields do not decrease as an inverse square law. The decrease will be steeper than $r^{-2}$.
Comment: Specifically, it goes as ***r^-3***
Comment: @Scottie the moon does have a molten core, though it is not rotating anymore IIRC. However, it rotated in the past magnetizing the crust.
Comment: How does the moon even have a magnetic field?  I thought you had to have a churning liquid core for that?
Comment: @Manishearth Your comment - " the moon does have a molten core, though it is not rotating anymore IIRC. However, it rotated in the past, magnetizing the crust" - does that mean the moon does not have a magnetic field at present, but it had a magnetic field in the past?


How to call javascript function only once during window resize event?

Question: On jQuery resize event page it is said that:

"Code in a resize handler should never
  rely on the number of times the
  handler is called. Depending on
  implementation, resize  events can be
  sent continuously as the resizing is
  in progress (the typical behavior in
  Internet Explorer and WebKit-based
  browsers such as Safari and Chrome),
  or only once at the end of the resize
  operation (the typical behavior in
  Firefox)."

Right now I observe increasing memory leak in my app, as I'm continuously resizing browser window, which in it's turn continuously triggers specific code. I thought resize event is called only once in the end of the resize operation, but now after reading this I think my code is simply overkilling itself.
Is there any established practice to trigger a callback cross-browser only once, when resize operation has already ended?
Answer: As you are using jQuery anyway, have a look at Ben Alman's doTimeout plugin. You can use it to debounce your event handler.
There is even an example that matches exactly your case:
$(window).resize(function(){
  $.doTimeout( 'resize', 250, function(){
    // do something computationally expensive
  });
});

The key here is that, the function passed to doTimeout is only executed if the resize handler is not called (i.e. the resize event is not fired) again during the next 250 ms. If so, the timer is aborted and a new one is started.
Comment: Thanks :) Although your first link seems to be broken.
Comment: @jayarjo: Oops sorry :) Fixed.
Answer: So this answer I think is best served by doing the following instead of the $.doTimeout method (which seems to not want to run inside of another JQuery statement:
// create a global timer var:
var _timeVar;

// create your jQuery window resize method. The clearTimeout() method prevents the
$(window).resize(function(){
    clearTimeout( _timerVar );
    _timerVar = setTimeout('resizeUI()', 250);
});

// my resize function
function resizeUI() {
    // resize stuff here
}

Answer: I think it would help if you showed us your resize event handler.
Without seeing your code all I can suggest is to have some kind of thottle to limit how many times the handler can be triggered per second:
var lastTime = 0;
$(window).resize(function(){
    // This condition will only be met (at most) once every second
    if (lastTime + 1000 < +new Date) {
        // do your stuff...
        lastTime = +new Date;
    }
});

Comment: Not sure how a callback code maybe relevant here. But thanks for a solution :)
Answer: You could use a flag. Set the flag at the start of the function  - unset if after the resize in complete. Then do not allow the function to be called again unless the flag has been reset.
Answer: Thanks for the tip but I don't think it would work on a browser like IE or Webkit that fire events continuously while resizing.
Here is why :
Let say that the window has not been resized for several seconds and then you resize it :
At the first event fired the lastTime var will be smaller than new Date so the code for resizing will e executed.
As the other events are fired at high rate while resizing they will all fall short of one second and will not fire.End result is that the resize will not happen for the final window size which is the one we are trying to capture.
Please let me now if I misunderstood your code, because I am looking for a solution for this and I'd like to avoid having too many timers involved as in other solutions proposed.
Thanks.
Answer: I got multiple calls when Firefox is starting (working in XUL Addon). If you want to call your code just ONCE in a time (errors caused when code called over again while your code is already running) you can use just a trigger (flag [boolean value]).
MyClass = {
  is_resizing: false,
  // another variables here...

  resized: function() {
    if (! MyClass.is_resizing) {
      // your code goes here...
    }
  },

  // another methods here...
};

window.addEvenetListener('resize', function(e) { MyClass.resized(); e.stopPropagation(); }, false);


Security report

Question: I am looking for a tool able to perform a cumulative report of SharePoint rights, AD groups and IRM rights, at document level in a given library.
Answer: There are couple of tools available, but you have to try them and see if they fulfill there requirement.
DeliverPoint SharePoint Permissions Management
ControlPoint  from Metalogix
Build the Perfect SharePoint Security Report
You can try this free codeplex tool: SharePoint Permission Analyzer
Answer: As a tool for cumulative reporting of SharePoint permissions, I can recommend SPDocKit. It drills down and view all permissions, explore permissions history, and create site and user specific reports, and it can also be used to manage permissions given directly to Active Directory users, Active Directory groups, SharePoint groups, users from custom identity providers, and create various reports to keep up with all these permissions.
Disclaimer: I'm affiliated with Acceleratio Ltd., the company behind SPDocKit.

Security report


Abstracting Repository

Question: Suppose that I have an object used by my code, say Person:
public class Person {
    public string Name {get;set;}
    public Address Address {get; set;}
}

public class Address {
    public string AddressLine1 {get;set;}
    public string AddressLine2 {get;set;}
    public string City {get;set;}
    public string State {get;set;}
    public string ZipCode {get;set;}
}

Simple so far. Suppose that I persist this object in SQL Server in the following way:
public class PersonEntity {
    public string Name {get;set;}
    public string AddressLine1 {get;set;}
    public string AddressLine2 {get;set;}
    public string City {get;set;}
    public string State {get;set;}
    public string ZipCode {get;set;}
}

Obviously, it is good to abstract how an object is persisted in the DB from the logic. This way, I can replace the way my tables look, or my technology without changing the logic of my solution.
The problem arise if I want to use abstract repository:
public interface IRepository<TEntity>{
    IEnumerable<TEntity> Get(Func<TEntity, bool> pre);
    ...
}

public class PersonRepository<PersonEntity>{
    ...
}

Now, if my business logic code wants to access the repository, they have to know  about PersonEntity in order to use the generic Get function. Ideally, the business logic needs to send a request like Get(person => person.Address.State == "NY"); instead.
Is there away, elegant and simple, to achieve that level of abstraction?
Answer:
Is there away, elegant and simple, to achieve that level of abstraction?

Not really.
You could make a repository for your business objects, but then you're probably going to need to wire up the Queryable there to just call into the Entity version anyways. Sure something like Automapper might be able to do that but, why bother? I mean, at some point something needs to specify what to look for. EF will already (kinda, sorta) abstract away your data store so that you're free to change that. But are you really going to change your data entity significantly away from your business object?
What does this abstraction (read: complexity) gain you?
Answer: I would say the PersonEntity object is just fluff.
One should be able to get a Person or an Address and have your repository layer do the mapping of logical domain objects to/from database tables.  All of that mapping/processing happens in the repository layer.
For example, if switching from SQL to Oracle, I would expect some changes in the mapping layer of the repository but the domain objects (Person/Address) carry forward as is as do the repository interface(s).
So, the application will be the same with changes localized to the repository mapping layer.  Business logic and presentation will be untouched.  That's all the abstraction that should be needed.

Abstracting Repository


System of paying money for the apartment

Question: I want to live in the U.S. for half a year and was trying to figure out how much the apartment price will be. I was looking at a shared room website and I found the word "from $875"or so. What does "from" mean? Will the price change while I are living there?
I know next to nothing about how the home price works so I hope you could give me a hand.
Comment: Just so that you are aware, Some areas have a minimum lease of 1 year. Leases can't be terminated earlier.
Answer:
What does this mean by "from"? Will the price change while you are
  living there?

It means the cheapest apartment(s) they have are $875, but they have more expensive apartments as well. They likely have apartments with different numbers of rooms and other features that they charge a premium for.
Some leases have clauses that allow for rent to increase over time, but that's not very common, typically if a price can change it's limited to increases due to utility rates or taxes.
Comment: Any explanation for the downvote?
Answer: Also, bear in mind, you need to pay a deposit which is around the same price as a monthly payment. They will also need to do a credit history check on you and since you are a foreigner you won't have any. There are some renters who care less but mostly serious renters will require it. Some can require an employment confirmation or even a bank account details. It is very complicated and difficult for a foreigner.
As in comments mentioned, a contract is minimum 1 year. The deposit is returned when you leave and the place is left in good condition. I would not expect the full amount returned as many renters require a professional cleaning or some even repainting the walls. You can do it yourself and give them a receipt but you end up paying for it.
What I would suggest is some type of a sharing house where people share rooms in one house. But that option has negatives. Another option is hostels where you even share a room. It all depends on where you want to live. It is very different if you are in a big city like New York or somewhere in suburbs. The prices also vary. It's good to have friends in the USA that can help you especially if you aren't planning on staying too long.
Comment: Some apartments require upfront a fixed security deposit PLUS the equivalent of first and last months' rent, e.g. if a month's rent is $875, they might charge you a $250 security deposit plus $1750, or $2000 upfront.


Can I say 'they have no favour of that thing'?

Question: If group of people born to be really tall, and someone begins compliment them. How can I say that thier height is not something they worked for it and did thier best about it?
Can I say: they have no credit? Or, they have no favour?
Thanks.
Answer: You could say 'they can take no credit for their height' but not 'no favour for it'.


Does Azure Active Directory App Model v2 support graph api?

Question: i am not able to consent the graphi api permission in active directory v2 (app model v2). I tried below:
Incremental and dynamic consent example
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/active-directory-v2-compare/
Error i got:
The provided value for the input parameter 'scope' is not valid. The scope https://graph.windows.net/directory.read is not valid.
consent url
Answer: The Microsoft Graph (https://graph.microsoft.com) partially supports the App Model v2 - specifically the outlook scopes (e.g. mail.read) and directory scopes (e.g. directory.read.all). Other scopes such as File and Sites don't.
The Azure AD Graph (https://graph.windows.net) does not support the App Model v2 at all.
Directory.Read isn't being accepted because it isn't a valid scope, you're either after User.Read or Directory.Read.All
See http://graph.microsoft.io/en-us/docs/authorization/permission_scopes for more info.


How important are graduate courses to a successful PhD and beyond?

Question: I am enrolled at a small graduate program in the US. I came here because the PhD advisor I will be working with has a great reputation and because I wanted to work with her. However, the courses I am taking here are simply not up to the mark from what I expected good graduate courses to be. I am worried that if I start my PhD without having good courses I will be under-prepared to handle challenging problems later, and my exposure to interesting physics would be limited the ones I encounter during my research. People who are past their PhD programs, how important do you think coursework is? Do you think it is worthwhile transferring to another PhD program now?
Comment: Your coursework and what you add to it can be as rigorous as you make it. Don't feel constrained to a syllabus, but make a point of mastering it nonetheless.
Comment: What field are you in within physics? Probably the answer ranges from they have zero importance to they have modest importance.
Comment: Are you looking toward a career in academia or industry?
Answer:
I am worried that if I start my PhD without having good courses I will be under-prepared to handle challenging problems later, and [various bad things]

There are a few things to note here that might put you at ease.  Firstly, while it is true that the quality of the material and instruction in a course certainly matters, even more important is the drive and work ethic of the student.  Depending on your willingness to engage deeply with the material, and search out other material, you can pretty much make your course as rigorous as you want it to be.  If you find that there is a gap in the material in some respect (e.g., some mathematical assertion that is not proved and that you don't know), look up other material to supplement what is in the scope of the course.  Since you are a PhD student now, one of the things you should be getting good at (or at least practicing with a view to getting good at it later) is looking up other sources of material to supplement gaps in knowledge.
Beyond taking courses as a student, a very effective way of learning a topic is to teach it.  Since you are a PhD student, you should have some opportunities to tutor some of the early undergraduate courses in your field, and maybe even some of the later undergraduate courses.  If you become an academic, you will probably end up teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.  Teaching a course requires you to fill out a deep and systematic knowledge of the subject that goes well beyond what was required of you as a student (even as a high-performing student), so it is a very effective way to solidify your knowledge.  Obviously right now you will not be teaching your graduate courses --- you are the student here.  But you can look for opportunities to teach into some early undergraduate courses, which will get you on the path to solidifying your knowledge of foundational material at a deeper level.
Finally, don't make the error of thinking that your learning ends when your coursework ends.  Even after you have finished all your courses and you are doing pure research, you will find yourself exposed to thorny problems that necessitate learning new material, or going back and relearning material you have previously studied and forgotten.   Often a formal course undertaken in graduate school is just the first iteration of learning a topic --- you do the course and learn a bunch of things, and then if you don't apply them for a long time (e.g., years or decades) you forget a whole bunch of it, and then when you need that material you relearn it, and so on.  The main advantage of doing the formal coursework in your training is that when you find you need to relearn it later on, it is a lot faster.
Answer: The main purposes of coursework in a doctoral program in the US is twofold.
First, they give you some breadth of field and assure the faculty that you have broad knowledge. For this purpose it may not matter so much that they are less rigorous than you would like. People in the US, anyway, feel that PhDs need a broad view of their field to serve as a basis.
But the second, more important purpose, for the candidate, is that they prepare you to get through the (usually) necessary qualifying exams, sometimes called prelims. The faculty has probably tailored the coursework at that level.
Some programs actually only have two requirements: Pass qualifiers and write an acceptable thesis. In that case, the coursework may be irrelevant for some students if their training is otherwise sufficient.
But after you finish a degree, few people will be concerned in anyway with your coursework. An exception might be in a teaching institution, where the department head might want to know that you will do a good job teaching certain necessary subjects.
Answer: I would talk to your supervisor about this. She is probably as ambitious as you are if she is as good as you say, and it benefits both of you for you to be well prepared for the work.
It is an unfortunate fact of life that sometimes you have to waste time jumping through hoops to get where you want to go, but if you are in courses any way, there should be some way you, the instructor, and your advisor can come up with to make sure you get the knowledge and training you need out of the experience. If not, you can also self-teach, arrange to spend a semester at another school and take their courses, arrange to teach the course yourself (then you will really learn the material!) or take a summer school course on the material.
Finally, it is possible that your expectations for postgraduate training are too high---quite often postgraduates are expected to work out a lot more things for themselves than undergraduates. Your supervisor is way more likely to be able to assess if this is your problem than I am or anyone else not at your university is, so I would talk to her first and foremost.


sending email using static HTML template in Spring MVC application

Question: I have a requirement in my Spring MVC 3 based application to send transaction details to client and business and to send periodic newsletters to clients. I know how to send email using Spring by i am confused about the ways i can create an email HTML body. I have found a solution like - www.thymeleaf.org but not sure if it will be efficient or not.
I can use a service like mail chimp for sending newsletter but i have to have an in-house solution for sending email after each translation. Can someone please guide me how can i create dynamic email using static HTML templates which can be quickly populated with values and send as an email.
Answer: You could just use String.format(), or MessageFormat.format() or, if you need more power (like loops, if tests, etc.), use FreeMarker or Velocity.


How to run graphical app in background mode?

Question: How to run example gedit without window (background mode)?
Comment: And what will gedit without a window?
Comment: Why do you want to run Gedit without it opening a window? Gedit is literally a graphical text editor, and that's it. It doesn't do anything else.
Comment: Gedit is a graphical application - as far as I know it can only run inside a window.
Comment: If you're looking for a CLI app, try Nano
Comment: Do you mean as a `daemon`? The man page for gedit makes no reference to that possibility.
Comment: Ok.  Judging by the fact my answer was accepted, I'm assuming that "without window" was a red herring, and the OP means "from the command line".  My guess is that this is an error in translation.
Answer: If you're running an app from the command-line, it runs in "foreground" mode and occupies the current shell until it ends.
$gedit myfile

To put a currently-running "foreground" app into the background, (i.e. The window still runs, but the shell returns) you first have to pause the process by pressing the key combination CTRL+z.
This will tell you it has paused the process and return you to a command prompt:
^Z
[1]+  Stopped                 gedit
$

At this point, gedit will be frozen because it is paused.  You can see the paused process by calling jobs.
$ jobs
[1]+  Stopped                 gedit

And you can then put the process into the background by calling bg %1 (or just bg since it assumes the most recent process)
$ bg
[1]+ gedit &
$

As you see, gedit is now unfrozen, and the '&' indicates that it's running in the background.
You can shortcut all this messing about by simply adding the '&' to the end of the command you are calling, and it will return the new Process ID, e.g.
$ gedit myfile &
[1] 12882
$

For more information on process management, you might want to read one of the many excellent guides on the internet, such as this one: http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_lts0100.php
Comment: It's also important to note that, in the case of gedit and others, if you background gedit and then call it again, it will use the currently-running backgrounded process instead of creating a new one.


How to extend a F4 immigrant Visa before going to USA within 6 months

Question: I got my F4 visa on november 2020 and it will expire on may 15th 2020. We had booked our flight on march 30th 2020 but due to covid 19 pandemic  we were unable to go to USA. Currently India is not having any International flights..  i would like to extend my visa status.. what is the procedure and how can i do that??
@user102008
Answer: US Immigrant visas cannot be extended. However:

Because your inability to travel to the US is for reasons outside of your control, you can have the visa replaced (paying once again any required fees) before the end of the fiscal year. You should contact the consulate that issued the visa for information about this option.
If you've done the above and the new visa also expires during the next fiscal year and you still weren't able to travel, you'll have to go through the whole immigrant visa process again, assuming that the original basis for eligibility still exists. This will probably take a few months. Your sponsor will not need to file a new I-130, and you will retain your original priority date.

See 9 FAM 504.10-5(A)


What if I in theory had the private key to a public contract on the blockchain?

Question: If I in theory had the private key to a public contract on the blockchain. Would I be able to do anything with that key?
Answer: You won't be able to do more than what is coded in the smart contract, actually from a user point of view unless you are defining the smart contract as an owner of itself in theory you will be just a normal user.
However what you can do is, sign transactions and send them as if you were the smart contract? To be honest, though I think there is no way of getting a smart contract private key because the interaction between smart contracts is internal transactions that are not recorded in the ledger.
So, in theory, you can conduct transactions as if you were the smart contract.
In practice, smart contracts call each other through internal transactions so you can't do anything.
Comment: Your first sentence is not exact. If you have a private key that correspond to a contract address you can impersonate the contract. If you make a call to another contract they cannot differentiate you from the real contract, for them is the contract making the call. For example if the contract is a multisig wallet you can make transfer of ether or tokens bypassing the required confirmations. But you are right about it being almost impossible in practice, like winning the lottery every week your whole life.


Mre and mRe tags

Question: Writing [mre] in comments creates "minimal reproducible example" (text and link). Very useful. But I and others often feel compelled to additionally point out why it isn't one. Can we get [Mre] turned into  "minimal reproducible example" (and likewise for r and perhaps also e)?
Comment: I'm not sure users are going to notice that one of the words is bolded, or what that's supposed to mean.
Comment: I'm not claiming that emphasis is *never* useful. I'm just saying that in this case, a user who has failed to provide an MRE probably needs to read the entire contents of the link. It's not clear to me that emphasizing up front exactly how the user has failed to provide an MRE is going to be particularly useful. Additionally, for a feature-request, you need to account for the dev time involved to implement it, and at least currently, the dev team has much more pressing concerns IMO. This shouldn't be an issue for you to do when writing a comment; there are a number of userscripts that'll help.
Comment: Be more useful for me if you could use a shortcut as the url in a link with your own text, e.g. `Take a look at [How to create a Minimal, Reproducible Example](mre).` Then you could also mess with the formatting if that is what you want.
Comment: @cigien In one of your most recent comments you used *italic*, which is *less* noticeable. Why did you bother doing that if you think people don't notice?
Comment: @cigien In cases where I'd use this, e.g., when they have a reproducible example but it's just not minimal, then I disagree that they need to read the entire page. And I think it could help make them actually read the part I want them to read. I can only speak for myself, but if someone points me to some page saying "read this", I'm much less motivated to actually do it and try to figure out what part is relevant than when they point it out. Especially when I start reading and notice it all appears to be irrelevant. I might just stop reading then, annoyed that they wasted my time.
Answer: You could use the current form of [mre] shortcut and additionally repeat the word you want to focus on. E.g. you could write

Please note, that minimal reproducible example implies minimal, but your code doesn't look so.

I find that way more informative than silently bold a word in the link text.

Also, supporting things like [mRe] would imply that [mre] shortcut will always contain a "reproducible" word in its expansion. However, not many years ago it was [mcve] shortcut instead, and it was expanded to "minimal complete verifiable example". I still use [mcve], but now its expansion has been changed to be the same as of [mre] ("minimal reproducible example"). Would they support e.g. [mcVe] shortcut before, its specifics (bolded word "verifiable") would be completely lost during the shortcut transformation.
That is, I find better to think about [mre] (and [mcve]) as

some text corresponding to 'that example', and that text links to some useful resource.

and do not rely on specific wording in its expansion.

Mre and mRe tags


question erroneously closed as duplicate

Question: Please reopen the front page question about "any doubt" vs. "any doubts." It is closed as duplicate with a link to a question that is not the same.
Comment: I think I agree with you on this, but as Matt closed the question I'd like to speak with him about it before singlehandedly reversing his action. (Of course, if the question gets 5 reopen votes in the meantime, that would take care of it too :). But I hesitate to use mod-powers to reverse mod-powers without discussing it first!)
Answer: On first reading, it appeared that the question was a duplicate of a question asking about how to pluralize doubt, but on second reading I think it's more about how to pluralize a word after any in a more general sense.
That's make the question still a duplicate; it just makes it a duplicate of this question instead.
Comment: @FumbleFingers You can see which question it was closed against if you check the [revision history](http://ell.stackexchange.com/posts/14428/revisions) (which is admittedly hard to do, since there's no link to it, or there wasn't until now).
Comment: The question has been reopened now, so I can't tell which earlier question it was closed against. I think the later question seems to be asking about whether one can validly use singular or plural after *any* (rather than any possible distinction between having *doubt* or *doubts*). So even though I don't agree that it's *more about how to pluralize a word after **any***, I do agree it's a duplicate of [Singular or plural after "any"?](http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/1155/)


How did pirates really talk?

Question: In this question we learned that the common portrayal of pirate English is not historically accurate. Given that they were professional sailors, they probably had a wide store of nautical jargon; but what would be an example of speech that would typify a pirate, such as Blackbeard? Would the captains and officers have notably different speech from the rest of the crew?
Comment: +1 for asking this on International Talk Like a Pirate day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day
Comment: @T.E.D., Ahoy, I stowed this query in me ships hold, for this fortuitous day!
Comment: @T.E.D. +1 all the pirate questions today!  Maybe also think of one of your own?
Comment: Blackbeard spoke like ahoy me matey
Answer: I found the following on the Wikipedia page for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, all attributed to Blackbeard, as fate would have it:
From Lt. Robert Maynard's report of Blackbeard at the Battle of Ocracoke:

He styl'd us 'young puppies' and shouted 'May the Devil take my soul
  if I ever gives quarter or asks it of ye!'

...and...

Damn ye, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, I'm a better man than all of ye milksops put together.

And finally:

The only written records recovered from Blackbeard's ship, the Adventure, after his death ran as follows:
Such a day, rum all out- Our company somewhat sober- A damned confusion amongst us !- Rogues a-plotting - Great talk of separation- so I looked sharp for a prize- Such a day found one with a great deal of liquor on board, so kept the company hot, damned hot, then things went well again.

Other than the use of ye and the colorful use of metaphor, nothing really stands out.
An article on Slate claims the following about actual Pirate speech:

So, was there a typical pirate accent at all? Among British outlaws,
  yes: The onboard speech was most likely underclass British sailor with
  extra curse words, augmented with a polyglot slang of French, Italian,
  Spanish, and Dutch picked up around the trade routes.

Pirate captains and officers seem to mostly to have been former pirates who just happened to have good (pirate) leadership skills, so most likely they would have not talked noticeably differently than the rest of the crew. Blackbeard, for instance, started off a as a crewmember on another pirate ship. His mentor in turn appears to have been a commoner as well, as was Calico Jack (creator of the skull and crossbones flag).
Answer: I've just added this answer to the question you linked to (as I think it's more appropriate there) - but to summarise, there are some good reasons why English pirates were likely to come from the south west of England, so it's feasible that the Westcountry accent used in popular portrayals was indeed prevalent.
We do know, though that many (or at least, some) privateers went on to become pirates, and many privateers were members of the aristocracy, although they probably sourced their crew  in such a way as to minimise costs and maximise profits; so I think it's highly likely that there would be an audible distinction between the accents and dialects of senior officers and their crew.
The real answer is, of course, we just don't know for sure.

How did pirates really talk?


Change permission of contents of My External Hard Disk?

Question: Suddenly all of my contents residing on external hard disk has changed to read-only mode. Even though I am using Linux, I don't know how a virus have done this. I tried using "chmod", but still I am not able to change permission. So Now I can only read and copy files in/out it. But I cant delete anything.Please suggest me some way.
Comment: What filesystem are you using on external hard disk? Also, attaching the output of `mount` command when hard disk is in use can help.
Answer: Try usind super user to change permissions
sudo chmod -R 755 /media/ExternalDrive

This will recursively (therefor the "-R") set 755 permissions fo the specified path. If you want full permisisons set to 777
Answer: Hard to know your situation with so few details. Are you root? If not, do you have root access? When you tried CHMOD, did you get an error?
Try CHMOD -R 755 /path/to/external/drive
if that doesn't work, try sudo CHMOD -R 755 /path/to/external/drive
Answer: You need to run chmod from an account that does have permission to make these changes; your account might have permission using the sudo command, but if you don't know if it does, it probably doesn't.
Answer: It would helpful to know exactly what, if any, error message you see when you try to chmod.
Since this is an external mount, it is possible that it has been mounted read-only.  In that case, chmod would return something like "Operation not permitted".  Fixing that requires examining your mount tables.  If this is a removable drive, it could be something a simple as the write-protect tab being set.
In any case, I advise against doing a chmod -R on the entire drive until you know what is going on, as doing so could mess up permissions on existing files.
Answer: Try the following command
sudo chown $USER /media/ExternalDriveName

This will enable you to read and write to the disk. This worked for me after Ubuntu 12.04
mysteriously changed the onwership of my hard drive from myself to "root". Which meant that I had a similar problem as you.


Connecting two IPs like an URL

Question: I haven't found answer anywhere, so here comes the question.
My ISP connected me to a router with thousands of other clients, so my public IP is the same as many others. And I want to make a small private server which can be accessible across whole web.
So my home router shows me IP 10.x.x.x and actually my public IP is 89.x.x.x. Is there any way to reach the IP 10.x.x.x from the Internet?
Yeah I thought the same about IPv6 but it's still not accessible for me ;[
Comment: What choice does the ISP have? In many parts of the world it is no longer possible to obtain enough IPv4 addresses. This is why the IPv6 migration is so important.
Comment: Wait, your public IP address is shared across many people? Your ISP is doing ISP-level NAT? If so, you'll need to ask your ISP if they'll do port forwarding, but most likely you're out of luck. This is why ISPs doing NAT is bad.
Comment: While the ISP doesn't necessarily have any choice, I'm optimistic that  czesuaf has some choice around what ISP they use :)
Answer: You appear to be in a country where IP addresses are in very short supply. This is the only reason that an ISP would deploy large-scale NAT at its customers. Hopefully your ISP is also smart and is planning to deploy IPv6 as quickly as possible.
You won't be able to accept incoming connections and run a home server at all in a scenario in which the ISP uses large-scale NAT. And many other applications may not work 100% reliably, such as instant messaging, Skype, etc.
If you want to be able to run services on your connection, you will probably have to pay for business-class service with a static IP (IPv4) address. Be prepared to pay a high premium for this.
If you just want to run a small server for some little project, your best and cheapest option is probably to just lease a virtual server from a company in the US or EU. You can often find these for just a few dollars/euros a month at places like lowendbox.com. This will almost certainly be cheaper than trying to run it at home on a business ADSL/cable connection, though you'll have to shop carefully as low-end providers vary greatly in the quality of service they provide.
Comment: Yeah, I know, BUT interesting thing that some of my friends pay normally for the Internet and have their own IPv4.
Comment: They either have a different ISP, or they are an old customer and haven't had their IP taken away yet. It'll happen sooner or later...

Connecting two IPs like an URL


How did a prisoner pay back debt?

Question: How did a prisoner pay back debt in a 1st century prison? In Matthew 18:21-35 there is a prison that debtors go to payback their debts. Is this done by working there? Were some people there already slaves? Verse 30 of Matthew 18 speaks of the "man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt." How would he pay it back while in prison? What system did they have in place to pay it back?
Answer: The clear questions posed might be worded this way: how, in Roman-era Palestine, would an imprisoned slave pay back a financial debt? The impetus comes from Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant/slave of Matthew 18:21-35.
It really requires an answer in two parts: first, to explain why the concern of OP's main question would not be in the thoughts of those who first heard this parable; and second, to suggest some response to OP's question itself.
1. Why "paying back debt" in Matt 18:34 is somewhat irrelevant
Part of the point of this parable is that the unforgiving servant, who had his own debt of "10,000 talents" (μυρίων ταλάντων, Matt 18:24) remitted ("forgiven") will not "forgive" the paltry debt that he himself is owed.
According to the ESV Study Bible, 10,000 talents in "today's money" equates to about US$6 billion:

In approximate modern equivalents, if a laborer earns $15 per hour, at 2,000 hours per year he would earn $30,000 per year, and a talent would equal $600,000 (USD). Hence, "ten thousand talents" hyperbolically represents an incalculable debt—in today's terms, about $6 billion.

Craig Keener has pointed out that, in any case, "the real worth of the debt in this story may be greater still: 10,000 being the largest single number Greek could express and the talent being the largest unit of currency, Jesus is making the parable particularly graphic." It is so great an amount that "the poor man owes the king more money than existed in circulation in the whole country at the time!"1
It would be a little bit like saying the debt was for "a billion bars of gold bullion!" Anyone hearing the sum would know immediately that the sum was unimaginably huge.

As is often noted in treatments of the parable,2 the "unforgiving-ness" of the servant means that he has condemned himself to live out his days in the company of his tormenters ("torturers", really - τοῖς βασανισταῖς, v. 34), and the one hearing the parable is left to ponder

the crucial importance of being merciful in order to receive mercy.

As (probably) every study of this parable concludes, this is a debt that is impossible to pay back, whether in prison or otherwise -- which leads to our perception of this servant's own ungracious stupidity for failing to show to his fellow-servant the tiniest fraction of the mercy that had been shown to him (Matt 21:27, "The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.").
2. Was debt repayment from prison possible anyway?
This leaves unanswered OP's question: "What system did they have in place to pay it back?" I have just three brief notes here; others might be able to elaborate further:

Regarding the suggestion initially made in the parable that "his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made" (v. 25) -- it should be obvious by now -- wouldn't begin even to touch the mountain of debt accumulated. Keener (see note 1) records that the largest known sum paid for a slave was 1 talent, "the average being one twentieth to one fifth of that".
One possible way to pay was to find a patron who would pay the sum back for you. This might be analogous to our "bail" system, where the person charged and imprisoned person can raise the bail amount from whoever will help (Keener, p. 460 and n. 43).
Finally, noting the detail about "torturers" (see above) might figure in here, as in the Roman context, torture to extract goods was a known practice.3 In that way, it may simple be a feature of "consistent story-telling" ... and reinforces the point about this slave's inexplicable and even reprehensible character in light of his behaviour after being released from the debt he owed.

Notes

Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 458-9.
One example standing for many: D.J. Reimer, "The Apocrypha and Biblical Theology: The Case of Interpersonal Forgiveness", in After the Exile, ed. by J. Barton & D.J. Reimer (Mercer University Press, 1996), pp. 259-282; Matt 18:23-34 is discussed on pp. 269-70 [quote from p. 270].
See on this point Jennifer Glancy, "Slaves and Slavery in the Matthean Parables", Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 119/1 (2000), pp. 67-90 (see pp. 85-87 for this parable in particular).
Comment: I am afraid that this answer is still a bit vague.  Under point 3 'Finally, noting the detail about "torturers" (see above) might figure in here, as in the Roman context, torture to extract goods was a known practice' are you saying they would be literally subjected to physical torture until 10,000 talents worth of agony was experienced?  How would they quantify the conversion from pain to penance?
Comment: @FoxDeploy I'm not sure what you find "vague". There are two issues in play here: (1) how did Roman prisoners pay back debt? (2) How, by extension, does this factor into Jesus' parable? For (1), it should be clear. I take it your puzzlement is with (2). It should be clear from the explanation in the first part of the answer, that such literal calculations are not appropriate here: **the sum is impossibly large**. The realization provokes a judgment: the surpassing value of forgiveness. There is no "quantification" involved. Hope that helps.
Answer:
Others paid the debt for them.
Their payment for labor while in prison was applied to the cost to keep them in prison and then to the debt.
Comment: Welcome to the S.E. Q&A forum. Thank you for contributing.
Answer: How did a prisoner pay back debt?
How did a prisoner pay back debt in a 1st century prison? In Matthew 18:21-35
The parable of Jesus in Matthew 18:21-35(NASB) is a lesson in forgiveness.
In verse 24 we read that the slave owed his master 10,000 talents, indeed an awful large amount of money, for just one talent would have been the equivalent of about 20 years wages for a common laborer, in Jesus days.
In verse 27  we read that the master forgave the slave and wrote the debt off:

27 And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and
  forgave him the [d]debt.

But in verse 28 we read :
28 But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred [e]denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, 'Pay back what you owe.'
One hundred denarii is a comparatively small amount to 10,000 talents. (10,000 talents =60,000,000 denarii) When the other slaves saw this happen, they told the Master, the Master became very angry at the unforgiving slave and said to him.

32 Then summoning him, his lord *said to him, 'You wicked slave, I
  forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you
  not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I
  had mercy on you?'  34 And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over
  to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him.

Conclusion.
The slave should have learned a lesson from his forgiving Master, so the Master had the unforgiving slave thrown in jail until he paid the 60,000,000 denarii of money he owed. In jail naturally, he could never earn and repay that large amount of money back, so he would stay there until he died.
Jesus then finishes his parable with the following:

35 My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you
  does not forgive his brother from [a]your heart."

The Master in the parable is God, if God forgives us for our large sum of sins, how much so we should forgive others for the comparatively small sins they do against us. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount: "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." (Matthew 6:12 NASB)

How did a prisoner pay back debt?


Subdivision + Solidify + Bridge Edge Loop

Question: I try to create a chair following the youtube tutorial. Could you guys tell me why the object seems like broken, not a smooth rectangle after I use solidify. Also, the same happen again when I use the modifier in order Solidify > Subdivision and then Bridge Edge Loop to connect two faces. Below images show the problems and the file link is also added Blender file. Appreciated if you can help me out of this trouble.
Answer: Your face orientation is causing this problem. To see face orientation you can check Face Orientation under Viewport Overlays tab. Blue is outside. Red is inside.

To solve this select your object and toggle to edit mode. Press a to select all. Then press Shift+n to Recalculate Outside. This fill flip normals that are inside-out. You can also select Mesh tab and from Normals select Recalculate Outside.


What is the proper concrete ingredient ratio for a patio?

Question: I am pouring a 10X20X6 patio pad.  It has been 15 years since I mixed a mass amount of concrete and the cement that I got is a little vague on the instructions. What is the ratio for cement:sand:aggregate? Is it 1:2:1 or 1:2:2? I know the water is a relative thing and I know what consistency I need, but the mix ratios have me confused. A bit rusty.  Thanks!
Comment: Do you mean 10 feet x 20 feet x 6 inches (10' x 20' x 6")?  Or do you mean 10 feet x 20 feet x 6 feet (10' x 20' x 6')?
Answer: Concrete obtains its strength due to the cement-water ratio. This means water is not a "relative" thing, but critical, in fact.
The fine and coarse aggregate (sand and stone) are basically just fillers. The space in between the aggregate needs to be filled with cement paste (cement and water). The more paste, the more cement you need.
A concrete mix design is based on the principles mentioned above. Depending on the source of your aggregate, your cement paste requirements may vary.
The "rule of thumb" ratios are based on experience, but don't guarantee a particular strength concrete.
A nice source of standard mixes for various requirements can be found at the South African Concrete Institute website
Answer: According to Wiki-How, general purpose concrete is created using a 1:2:3 ratio of cement to sand to gravel by volume.


Delayed button press

Question: I am working on a headphone circuit that plugs into an iPhone , between the mic wire and the GND wire there is the mic , and a push button , with iPhones when you press the button once it will pause/play music , twice will skip too the next song , and three times will go too the previous song , this is all done with one button , however I want too implement 3 buttons for previous song / play-pause / next song , is there any way to implement a button trigger delay so that when I press the forward and reverse button , it will send a signal to the phone that it has been pressed 2/3 times , is there any way of putting in a delay , thanks
UPDATE: I have found a step up module from 0.8v too 3.3v , does anyone know how much current I can draw from a 3.5mm socket and whether this will be enough too power a small micro controller such as the Arduino pro mini ? Thanks
Comment: If I understand right, you want to have two extra button that automatically produces two and three button presses respectively?

I would use a tiny microcontroller for something like this. It would be simplest and smallest. Check out the 8-pin PICAXE. It's made to be cheap and easy to use and program. You can even use flow-charts and not code if you feel like it.
Comment: The problem with this approach (and any other I can think of) is you will need to get power to the circuit somehow. Unless you literally build your own mechanical switch that makes and breaks two or three contact points on the way down as you push it.
Comment: I have thought about using an Arduino pro mini too monitor button inputs and output the different presses , however there is only about 0.8V on the mic line so I will be struggling too power the micro controller
Comment: There are ATtiny and PIC10 microcontrollers available in 6 pin SOT23 packages that you could use for  this to minimize size, but none will operate below 1.8V, so since you need a supply, you couldn't use a single button cell, you'd need two, or a single CR2032 or similar battery.
Comment: Thanks for the help , thinking about it I could use a micro controller with a small battery within the casing , however the micro controller would have too be very low current because I would need the battery life too last long , any thoughts on which microcomtroller I could use too do this , I would need 1 analogue input for the three different buttons and 1 output for the output pulses , I am thinking about a 3V supply with a very low current draw
Comment: Jimminy.  Can you break that stream of words into sentences and paragraphs?  The whole thing appears to be one long run-on "sentence."  I'm not going to try to parse it if it isn't important enough for you to write it properly.
Answer: The voltage on the mic line is the bias voltage for the electret mic element.  I think it comes through a 2.2K or 2.7K resistor.  There is not enough current available there to power anything.  You're only option is an external power source.  One lithium coin cell should last a long time.
Separate from that, your two circuit options are a small batch of CMOS chips or one of the ultra-low-power microcontrollers (PIC, AVR, etc.).  If the uC doesn't not have an open-drain option for a GPIO pin, you'll need one external FET like a 2N7000.

Delayed button press


Toyota Sienna over heating problem

Question: my Toyota sienna is registering that its hot but using a laser thermostat shows that its not running hot , water pump has been changed along with a thermostat and new Asian coolant , also when the heater is turned on it blows cold so i am wondering if it could be a clogged heater core
Comment: What did you point the laser thermostat at?
Comment: The engine does not rely on the heater core for cooling - as it can be turned off. A classic "trick" to reduce overheating was to put the heater on hot to help the radiator. So, check the radiator and perhaps "flush" the system. Not sure what "asian" coolant is... Is it a recommended Toyota coolant? Do check other posts on here as they all cover points you should consider.
Comment: I think OP meant "Aisin" coolant.
Answer: If you are sure the engine is not warming up, yet it shows as hot I'd suggest replacing the coolant temperature sensor.

Toyota Sienna over heating problem