Amazon EC2 Instances

Question: So with an Amazon EC2 isntance, I am correct in thinking that when the instance is stopped, then everything that isn't bundled with the AMI is gone forever?
So lets assuming that I am wanting to provide some hosting services, and install a tonne of sites.
Lets take this hypothetical.. as in I want to install a tonne of Drupal sites... how do I actually do this? If I shut down the instance I lose all of my files. The databases aren't an issue. I can use RDS for that, but the actual site files?
Answer: In EC2, there's three operations:
Start, stop, terminate.
to 'Stop', you'd simply be turning the machine off, in a sense. The data is still there, the AMI image doesn't reset itself as you might've suggested.
If you 'terminate', that will destroy the instance including the data (Unless you're leveraging EBS)
One side effect of starting and stopping instances in EC2, is their EC2/public ARPA-style address changes, unless you associate an elastic IP with the instance/s.
Comment: Not sure this answer helps me understand my question. Or does it? Are you saying that my usecase require Elastic Beanstalk? if I use EBS then is my instance save data secured against loss?
Comment: Sorry I was still adding on after re-reading - if you "terminate" an instance and you are -not- using EBS for your image or data, then your data will be lost.

For example:
A micro EC2 instance runs on EBS only. So if you 'terminate' the instance, the EBS volume is still present; your data is not lost - however you won't be able to bind a new EC2 instance to that volume, you can only mount it.
Comment: Ah, EBS = Elastic Block Storage, not Elastic Beanstalk. Too many TLAs for my liking! How will I know if my micro EC2 instance (that I set up for free uses EBS). I don't want to stop the instance and see that the instance has lost my entire set up. It took me 6 hours to configure everything
Comment: If you're still learning the ropes with AWS/EC2, I'd say you probably don't need elastic beanstalk.  I'd suggest you simply test with some small/micro instances. Launch one, tinker with it by stop/start/terminate, watch what happens to EBS volumes, etc.
Comment: Edited my comment above.. also where can I view my EBS volumes?
Comment: In the EC2 console tab for your Amazon Web Services account (Where you create/modify instances, etc) - there's a section on the left hand side in gray thin text "ELASTIC BLOCK STORE" - Click on "Volumes" and it will show you what (if any) EBS volumes you have setup.
Comment: Also, you don't have to stop the instance you actually -care- about, launch a new one; dump something into a text file on a partition and stop/start the instance, go back and look at the text file to feel at ease :)

Amazon EC2 Instances


IImplicitResourceProvider.GetImplicitResourceKeys called before InitializeCulture

Question: I'm trying to implement a globalization solution based off the West Wind database resource provider.  I am implementing the IImplicitResourceProvider interface to use implicit resources.  However, the implicit resource keys are fetched by the provider in GetImplicitResourceKeys before InitializeCulture is called on the page. GetImplicitResourceKeys iterates over the set of resources that apply to the current resource set, so it needs to know what the culture is to have the correct set of resources.
I've tried setting the culture through the page directive, the web.config, manually setting the culture on the thread, and overriding InitializeCulture but it doesn't matter because the culture is never set before the implicit resources are fetched - GetImplicitResourceKeys is always hit before InitializeCulture.  This all happens before PreInit is even fired.
We are using ASP.Net 4.0; I realize the West Wind solution was written in 2.0.  Has the page workflow changed since then?  It doesn't make much sense to get the resources before the culture has been set though.
What do I need to do to make sure the culture is set before IImplicitResourceProvider.GetImplicitResourceKeys is called?
Answer: That would seem to be the correct behaviour, since GetImplicitResourceKeys only retrieves the keys, not the values.
You only need the culture when getting the actual resource values.


Strapi V4 slugify plugin not seeing the created models

Question: I just started playing around with strapi using it for my next project with nextjs and i got stuck a little bit on the slug part.
I have installed the slugify plugin in the strapi admin panel, restarted the server and in the roles(permissions) section i enabled it for both authenticated and public roles.After this i created a collection type name Blog. I added some fields to it title, content, cover, slug(short text).
After this i created some blog posts and listed them out on the page. The problem began when i tried to access the blog post using the slug:
`${process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_STRAPI_URL}/slugify/slugs/blog/${slug}?populate=*`,

The url is ok as the slug part is populated and is the value that i have given the slug field when created the blog post. The error that i get is the following:
blog model name not found, all models must be defined in the settings and are case sensitive.

The problem is that the slugify plugin is trying to match the model name to the existing ones and its not finding it so throws this error.
I started to dig a little bit deeper and began to console log in the slugify plugin inside strapi node_module:
module.exports = ({ strapi }) => ({
    async findSlug(ctx) {
        const { models } = getPluginService(strapi, 'settingsService').get();
        const { modelName, slug } = ctx.request.params;
        const { auth } = ctx.state;

        console.log(getPluginService(strapi, 'settingsService').get());

        isValidFindSlugParams({
            modelName,
            slug,
            models,
        });

As you can see it should container a models param aswell that should contain all the current models created in strapi. However the model paramateres comes back as an empty object, its like the plugin does not see the created collections.
The collections were created after the instalation of the slugify plugin.
I am developing on localhost using sqlite with strapi v4.
Any ideas why is this happening? Anyone else encountered this error?
Thanks,
Trix
Comment: Happening for me as well, still to find solution.
Answer: Firstly, you have to install Slugify plugin.
After that you have to do some config steps.
To do all of that:
As you mentioned, you found Slugify folder in node_modules so you can skip first step:

npm install strapi-plugin-slugify

in the ./config/ folder create a file named plugins.js
./config/plugins.js

Paste this code there it will let you see the endpoint path in the right side of the screen:

    module.exports = ({ env }) => ({
      // ...
      slugify: {
        enabled: true,
        config: {
          contentTypes: {
            blog: { //write what your collection type's name is this case we should use "blog"
              field: "slug",
              references: "title",
            },
          },
        },
      },
      // ...
    });

The endpoint example

fetcher(`${API}/slugify/slugs/blog/${slug}`)

Comment: I've been having same issue as poster, followed these steps as they are mentioned on the plugin guide, however still no working for me.
Comment: Still not working


Wvdial connection wont support ubuntu software centre

Question: I am using my phone to connect to the Internet the default mobile broadband option wont support my nokia phone(x2-01)  so i am using wvdial
but when using wvdial  install button in software centre is in disabled mode  (but install option in menu still works) but it is not convenient to use
same is the case with ubuntu one
Comment: Easy workaround: Install the packages you need from the command line.
Comment: command line and synaptic have no problem ,but software centre is more user friendly
Comment: Yes, and this sounds like a software centre bug. It only knowns about connections brought up by network manager. It should probably have a way of overriding that, like Firefox does.
Comment: Is there any manual way to enable that button? Can i enable it through gconf-editor or dconf editor?
Answer: You can simply stop the Network Manger and everything will run great including Ubuntu Software Center! stop it by run this commend in the terminal:
sudo stop network-manager

you can bring it back by restart your computer or simply run this:
sudo start network-manager

Answer: As mentionned in the comments, you can install wvdial in Synaptic or via command line, paste the following in the terminal: sudo apt-get install wvdial.
You could also upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 (though now in beta 2 at the time of writing, but that's Precise's last pre-release build). Installs flawlessly via the Ubuntu Software Center in Ubuntu 12.04. Another option would be to use the Lubuntu software centre or Mint software centre (for the Mint software center try getting it from the Mint repositories), there's also the Linux Deepin software center made originally for a Chinese spin on Ubuntu. Needless to say you have many options, and I always tried avoiding the Ubuntu Software Center in Ubuntu 11.10 considering how slow it was, a whole seven seconds to load on my SSD! Gconf editor is retired in the recent versions of Ubuntu. AFAIK dconf has no control over the Software Center's limitations, or even app-specific limitations (including bugs) for that matter.
Answer: I have a similar problem using Software Center and Update Manager in Ubuntu 12.04.2.  Same thing, Software Center does not recognize my wifi connection with wicd.  When I click on Install for packages, nothing happens.  Update Manager will check for and download updates, but it still says "you may not be able to check for or download updates" (or something to that effect).
So just for kicks, I tried;
sudo stop network-manager

and the weird thing is it worked!
It's weird, because I removed network-manager-gnome right after I installed wicd.  I thought that network-manager was gone, did I just remove the gui?  Do I still need network-manager at all since I have wicd?
If not how can I really remove it without breaking my networking?  The first time around, I removed it with the Software Center, and it still shows it as not installed there.
ps Thanks for the solution above, I never would have thought to try it.


How can I revive my mint plant?

Question: I am not really sure how to take care of a mint plant. I would like to get an idea of how much water I need to put in the plant. Some websites say to make sure the plant is not drying by putting water daily and others say to not put too much. Also, my plant has a white thing like a web from a spider, but I am not sure. The plant is turning brown. I don't know if I also need to transfer my plant to something a little bigger. How can I fix all these problems (I bought this plant from Walmart)?
Comment: It looks like you're growing it indoors, is that right? A plant grown indoors may not need as much water as one grown outdoors, because it's probably getting less sunlight, and isn't exposed to wind. (Wind and sunlight speed up evaporation, hence outdoor plants need more water to compensate.)
Answer: Yes, your mint has probably had a bit too much water. Also it has filled its pot and therefore exhausted all the resources there. It is time to move it to a new pot by taking a piece of a root from the existing plant and planting in new soil.
If you take your plant out of the pot and break open the root ball you will find many very thin roots and a few very thick roots that it sends out sideways. Cut off a piece of the thick root and bury it horizontally just under the surface of the new soil in the new pot. Keep it moist for a while until you see new shoots emerging into the light; these ready rooted pieces get established very quickly. Then keep it as you kept the original mother plant, but with about half the water you have been using.
Good luck.
Answer: In addition to Colin's answer, when you repot, the right type of soil will make all the difference.
For your plant, I'd replant into a 1 gallon or even a two gallon pot. It will sustain the plant for the next year or more.
For example, you can start with a mix of peat moss. potting mix, and perlite.

The peat moss will have a lot of nutrients and is highly water absorbent, essential for mint.
The potting mixes usually contain some amount of fertilization and prepare the plant for future transplanting into the ground or a bigger pot.
The perlite will allow the soil to be well absorbent, which will mediate the over-watering issue.

You should also mulch the top with some well-decomposed pine bark or "Gro-mulch" soil. That way you won't need to water as frequently.
Lastly, once your plant is showing new growth and looks sturdy, you can add some sort of high nitrogen fertilizer like blood meal. Mint is a heavy feeder I believe.

How can I revive my mint plant?


Reduce light and sound from adjacent rooms sharing air return vents

Question: My two bedrooms upstairs share a wall space for an air return. The wall has an upper and lower return vent. You are able to see directly into the adjacent room from the vents. Is there anything that can be done to block the view and dampen some of the sound between the two rooms?
Comment: Are these vents just to each room or vents from each room that lead to duct work?  If for duct work might be able to raise/lower one room's vent opening, so not inline with each room.
Comment: There is no actual duct work in the wall. They used the wall cavity between the studs as the return.
Comment: Assuming when you say upper and lower, that means one room has a return high in the wall and the other low.  If the returns are diagonally grated, just rotate them so that you can't see the opposite grate.
Answer: You could tent a piece of duct board at a 45 degree angle to the duct in the space between forming an A shape. If the return is served by two intake grills on both sides, the sound would partially bounce into the duct while  partially being absorbed by the duct board, and light certainly will not bend around it. It would not be perfect, but it should cut the sound down considerably, and the light down totally. If there is not enough room to do the full A, a single in between would at least reflect sound back and have the same net effect on the light.
<code>  |        |
  |   /\   |
->|  /  \  |<-
->| /    \ |<-
->|/      \|<-

  |    |
  |    |
->| || |<-
->| || |<-
->| || |<-

</code>
Since the OP stated one of the airflows goes down, you could likely solve it in either direction with a more ellipsoid, as it would be best for airflow. Tape the board at both ends, and insert something in the middle. Turns out drawing an ellipsoid in ASCII is hard :-)
Comment: That's a good idea with forming the A shape. Although I think that would only work for the top vent. If I did the A shape on the bottom vent then that would restrict/block air flow since the air is drawn down towards my basement where my hvac system is correct?
Comment: Flip it over, and put a bottom on it to form a full triangle (So it does not collect stuff) would work exactly the same. or put it in thill toward airflow, but with room around, the angles would not be perfect. but it would still function. Just make sure to leave enough room around it for airflow. ;)
Comment: Actually since the air will be flowing over I will amend the original post...


How do I auto shutdown in kiosk mode instead of sleeping?

Question: I installed Ubuntu in Kiosk mode in a library and I want it to re-start between users. Users always forget to shut down computer. Is it possible to have the computer shut down or reboot automatically,  instead of sleeping or hibernating? Thanks.
Answer: You can use sleepd command to and -s option to modify the action upon inactivity.
Install it using:
sudo apt-get install sleepd
sleepd [-s command] -u300

Visit sleepd manpage for more info.
Comment: Nice! Thanks! PC sleep's well!!! Can I use that program for shut down PC?
Comment: I found this: http://translate.google.de/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwiki.ubuntuusers.de%2FSkripte%2FAuto_OFF - I try to do it, but it's not work - may be I make mistake somewhere. They has good idea to make autoshutdown. Can you look they script, and try it, if it possible? Thanks
Answer: Standby/Suspend is a Hardware level state. If you need to implement auto shutdown during standby, you will need to do it in hardware/BIOS level.
Comment: sorry for my english and thanks for comment - I mean users go out but PC works and works. I need a script or program that can shut down PC after 5 or 10 minuts nouse.


Choice Function on the Powerset of the Reals

Question: I'm not sure if this question is appropriate for mathoverflow, but I can't help but think that other people have wondered about it as well. When anyone first learns about the axiom of choice, the standard example used to convince the listener as to its necessity is the problem of finding a choice function on $\mathscr{P}(\mathbb{R})\backslash\{\emptyset\}$, the powerset of the reals, without the emptyset. I have always wondered: Is the axiom of choice really necessary to construct the function? In other words, is it possible to prove that without the axiom of choice, no such choice function exists. Or, if it is possible to directly construct a choice function on $\mathscr{P}(\mathbb{R})\backslash\{\emptyset\}$, are there any good examples?
Comment: You should say "the powerset $\mathcal{P}(\mathcal{R})$ *without the empty set*", otherwise there is no choice function because you can't choose anything from the empty set.
Comment: ... which is $\mathscr{P}(\mathbb{R})\backslash\{\emptyset\}$ not $\mathscr{P}(\mathbb{R})\backslash\emptyset$.
Answer: Quiaochu Yuan and Gerald Edgar have given correct answers based on Solovay's theorem that ZF cannot prove the existence of a Lebesgue non-measurable set.   I'd like to add that one doesn't need anything as high-powered as Solovay's model.  Cohen's original model for ZF and the negation of AC will do the job.  It contains a non-well-orderable set of reals and therefore (by Zermelo's proof) has no choice function on the set of nonempty subsets of the reals.
Comment: Cohen's original model is not particularly nice for analysis (DC fails, for example). We can get relatively decent models where the reals are not well-orderable, without using Solovay's result. For example, Shelah has shown that ZF is equiconsistent with ZF+DC+all sets of reals have the property of Baire.
Answer: A choice function on $\mathcal{P}(\mathbb{R}) \backslash \{ \emptyset \}$ lets you construct a well-ordering of $\mathbb{R}$, and a well-ordering of $\mathbb{R}$ lets you construct a non-measurable subset of $\mathbb{R}$ (such as the Vitali set).  But Solovay constructed a model of ZF in which all subsets of $\mathbb{R}$ are measurable.  So it is consistent with ZF that no such choice function exists.
Edit:  Apparently this came up on math.SE as well.  I now see that you were asking a slightly different question from what I thought you were asking.  In the linked thread F.G. Dorais states that "there is a definable well-ordering on $\mathbb{R}$" and AC are independent of each other and of ZF.
Comment: Just to be nitpicky: $\mathcal{P}(\mathbb{R}) \backslash \{\emptyset\}$.
Comment: You might want to try and use \{ for the braces in math mode :)
Comment: Qiaochu: If there is a choice function as indicated, then there is a well-ordering of ${\mathbb R}$. Conversely, a well-ordering gives you a choice function. So this is essentially the same question.
Comment: @Andres: yes, I know.  What I meant is that I read "without AC" as "in ZF."
Comment: @Qiaochu: Gotcha. You may be interested in the comment I made to Andreas Blass' answer. The point is that the Lebesgue measurability of all sets of reals requires (consistency-wise) an inaccessible cardinal.
Answer: Using such a choice function, we get the most common construction of a set that is not Lebesgue measurable.  (Pick one point from each equivalence class of $\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Q}$) Of course existence of non-measurable set cannot be done without AC.  So even choice from countable subsets of $\mathbb{R}$ cannot be established in ZF.
Answer: It seems as if you're interested in the question: "Does there exist a model of ZF in which there is a choice function on the reals but in which the axiom of choice is false?" I don't know how to prove it precisely but there does.
The axiom of global choice is an axiom of Gödel-Bernays (NBG) set theory (sets & classes) which states that there exist choice functions on proper classes as well as sets. NBG canonically uses the axiom of limitation of size instead, which implies global choice.
Now a Grothendieck universe is a set in the context of ZF whose rank is an inaccessible cardinal (the existence thereof is independent of ZF). I believe ZF plus the assertion that such a cardinal exists is formally equivalent to NBG minus global choice. Thus, we would by using a Grothendieck universe have a model of ZF onto which we could add the stipulation that there exist choice functions for all sets of rank less than that of the given inaccessible cardinal; choice for the sets of larger rank would not be guaranteed; although I don't know how to prove this, either.
Comment: @Daniel : It is easy by the technique of forcing to produce examples where we have a choice function on the reals, but not on the power-set of the reals, or in general, where we have a choice function on some very large objects, but not beyond. Also, there is a little mistake in what you say: NBG minus global choice is equiconsistent with ZF, which is strictly weaker than the existence of inaccessible cardinals.
Comment: I took a look back at "Set Theory for Category Theory" by Michael Shulman and realized I had misremembered what I'd read.

"One should think of the classes in NBG and MK as corresponding to the large sets of rank (or cardinality) $≤\kappa.$ In fact, one can make this precise. If $\kappa$ is inaccessible, we obtain a model of MK (and hence NBG) by taking $V_\kappa$ for the sets and $V_{\kappa+1} = \mathcal{P}V_\kappa$ for the classes. (Note that this means we can prove Con(MK) in ZFC+I, so ZFC+I is strictly stronger than mk.)"

In particular, I had forgot what was in the parentheses.


Animation baking error

Question: To showcase the problem the easiest way, this is what the issue looks like: https://youtu.be/esihE0ob7U8
As you can see, the track chain makes a momentary 'jump' when the baked animation is played back inside unity to the extent that the gears may clip through the track (the issue is present both with .fbx and the original blender file if imported in Unity, as well as blender itself, if we just export and re-import an .fbx file)
Rig functions as follows:

We have a cyclic bezier curve with the correct track chain shape (named TrackChainCurve), parented to a root bone inside the armature;
There are two more straight curves named TrackChainCurve.L and TrackChainCurve.R with similar length to the TrackChainCurve and they are similarly parented to bones named Track.R and Track.L inside the same armature;
TrackChainCurve.L and TrackChainCurve.R have Curve modifiers attached to them, so that they take form of the original TrackChainCurve;
Track.R and Track.L copy location (with offset) of an 'alternate' root bone that always stays at the origin, so that whenever we move or rotate the main armature bones, the chain rotates and moves around as if the model is really moving using those chains;
On each side, there's a chain of bones with SplineIK constraint to repeat the movement from TrackChainCurve.L and TrackChainCurve.R. They have all scaling disabled, so that the skinned mesh does not stretch, it just wraps around the corresponding curves.

Anyway, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to Blender and I might be missing something...
Would appreciate any help
Answer: Ended up implementing equivalent inside Unity... I have more control that way anyway

Animation baking error


How to do a "silent movie", share audio from browser with multiple headphones?

Question: I would like to show an outdoor movie for a group of 10 people in my apartment's courtyard, but I can't allow open-air sound. Therefore, I wanted to set-up a "silent movie" (similar to a "silent disco") where each movie-goer can hear the movie's score in their headphones.
To pull this off, I followed the suggestions from here.
I set up an audio streaming server using pulseaudio, and I could stream my computer's audio over the LAN to multiple connected devices.
However, with a few different attempts to configure this set-up, I had noticeable problems. Either the audio in the connected devices was very poor quality, or it had noticeable latency issues. Therefore, I turned to a different set-up using darkice, but this too suffered from the same issues.
Getting audio from my browser to multiple headphones is turning out to be more difficult than I thought. Has anyone done something similar to what I'm trying to do with the two methods I mentioned above? Did it work for you?
If not, does anyone have a suggestion how I might do a "silent movie"?
Specifically, I want to realize the following configuration:

connect my computer to my projector via hdmi
project my computer's screen on my wall
stream a movie to my computer's browser
share the audio from my browser with between 8-10 smartphones connected to headphones in my LAN.

Obviously, I require that the browser audio be in sync with its picture, and the audio quality in the headphones be as high as possible.
Comment: You're never going to realistically find a way to simultaneously stream audio to a random assortment device that you don't own and can't install software to.  My suggestion is to obtain and use a FM transmitter to "stream" an audio track so people can listen in with a radio.  Then all you have to do is project the video.
Answer: I would suggest a purely hardware-based solution :)
Plug the audio output from your computer into a FM transmitter (they can be bought from audio outlets for a cheap price).
Tell the people to use the FM radio in their phones and tune to the frequency on which your FM transmitter operates.
The simpler the better :)


Connect capital to city-states quest, do sea routes count?

Question: When city-states ask for connecting your capital with theirs, do sea routes count? My capital is far away but I do have some coastal cities in between, but I do not know if completing a road from my coastal city (connected by sea to my capital) to the city-state would count.
Comment: Building a Harbor in one of your coastal cities is easy enough.  What makes you think the City-State is rushing to build one too?
Answer: In my experience, it counts so long as the city you connected it to has the city connection symbol.  If that city is blockaded before the road is finished, you'll need to break the blockade before the quest is withdrawn!


"Catalogue" versus "catalog"

Question: What is the difference between catalogue and catalog? I cannot really decide which one to use for a product catalogue for a shop.
Comment: Similar to "analog" or "analogue".
Comment: I think I have not seen enough of "analogue" to recall that it even exists! (eventhough we officially use Bristish English in my country)
Answer: They have the same meaning. Catalogue is used in British English whereas catalog is mostly used in American English. I've also seen cases where catalogue was used by some American friends, though.
Comment: I expect to find the pricier items in a (US) *Catalogue*.
Comment: In the US the British spellings, along with some older archaic spellings like "shoppe" are often used in store names to make the **shop** look a bit classier.
Comment: @T.E.D. No, *catalogue* is not in the same category as *shoppe*.  Nobody actually uses *shoppe*, not even the English.
Answer: Although both spellings originally referred to the same idea, it's my personal experience--in the U.S., at least--that these two forms have diverged over time to encompass separate domains based on the locus of ideas evoked by the word in question.
Example 1: "Dialogue" refers to an undefined, dynamic exchange between two active parties (e.g., dialogue between two characters) whereas "dialog" will typically refer to a one-sided exchange--as with a computer prompt with a deterministic output (e.g., dialog box).
Example 2: "Analog" (adj) almost exclusively refers to "non-digital" technology (e.g., analog amplifier), while "analogue" (n) is used almost exclusively to describe things in figurative/metaphorical domains.
Example 3: "Catalog" and "catalogue" are a good example of this. Catalog often seems relegated to static, physical objects (e.g., the Sears catalog) while catalogue may refer to a more abstract (non-physical) concept of grouped elements (e.g., the Beatles' catalogue of music).
In all three cases, both spellings are used heavily in American English, to different effect; I cannot speak to British (or other regional) English.
Comment: I down voted as the answer is wrong. All the pairs have the exactly the same meaning. It is a question of British and American spelling. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform#19th_century - "...in August 1876,[...] the American Philological Society adopted a list of eleven reformed spellings for immediate use. These were are→ar, give→giv, [...] guard→gard, **catalogue→catalog**, (in)definite→(in)definit, wished→wisht." -- Not all caught on, but several did including the -logue -> -log suffix.
Comment: I have been accused of taking a "prescriptive" approach to language for denying "linguistic evolution" (by refusing to accept improvised terminology), but I also would not enforce 145-year-old morphology on what is clearly a persistent (and conceptual) difference in vernacular--AKA evolution.

I respect your opinion, but it seems short-sighted and lacking in depth; the same phenomenon I describe here can be found in multiple Anglophonically-influenced languages & would differ equally based on their respective conceptual frameworks/etymologies. Thank you for the feedback and info, sincerely.
Comment: I agree with this answer. In my experience, a "catalog" refers to a physical magazine of products or similar, whereas a "catalogue" refers to a list of an author's works. Sure, they might have the same definition, but the way they are used differs.

"Catalogue" versus "catalog"


Model selection criterion produces non-normal residuals

Question: I was wondering if I can use Akaike or Schwarz criterion even when the residuals that I get from the model when I run the regression are not normal.  Is there any normality assumption with these criteria or can I use them all the time regardless?
Comment: I don't know an exact answer to your question, but in general AIC and BIC can be used in many types of models, also those that are not linear and used to model non-normal dependent variables. So I think the normality assumption is not central.
Comment: That's what I thought at first.  But I was reading this paper http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0701/0701113v2.pdf and if you read on section 2.2, the first paragraph mentions "gaussian assumptions"
Answer: We use the Akaike or Schwarz information criteria to compare a set of "Candidate Models". The candidates means that you have already fitted your regression models and did the model adequacy checking including the normality assumption of your residuals. You are just not sure about the balance between the number of parameters used to fit the model and the closeness of the fit. Even though you may not see a direct normality assumption in the definitions of AIC or BIC criteria, but (as far as I can say) you need to check the normality assumption before comparing your models. Of course, you can still apply these criteria, even for non-normal errors. But how meaningful would be you final model, will be under a big question mark. You can also have a look at this question.
Comment: Would you agree with my answer? I argue that normality is irrelevant unless the likelihood function implies it. Your statement *model adequacy checking including the normality assumption of your residuals* considers only a special case and is not correct in general -- because likelihood function may assume a non-normal distribution, e.g. a $t$ distribution is common in case of GARCH models.
Answer: AIC and BIC both have consist of two elements: the likelihood and the penalty for the number of parameters. The likelihood need not be normal likelihood, it can be whatever you find reasonable.
However, if you assume the likelihood to be normal (and use it in AIC or BIC), you need normal residuals, too. In other words, the distribution of residuals has to match the distributional assumption used to calculate the likelihood for AIC or BIC.


Samsung Smart TV App Picture in Picture

Question: Have developed an app and deployed to the TV. Now I want to have the Single-Wide behavior (partially covering the screen over an underlying input, channel), but am unable to do so. Here's what I've done:
a) Put
body, html {background-color:transparent;} in the CSS file
b) config.xml - tag changes:
<fullwidget>n</fullwidget>
<dcont>y</dcont>
<movie>y</movie> (since my app could contain some html 5 video feed)

When I deployed, the background just showed black. However, there is a HDMI input from my laptop to the TV which shows fine. The ESPN app works fine with that input, just my app doesn't. Pretty sure I'm missing something regarding how to initialize the background program, screen.
PS:Using 2012 Emulator and 7500 Series 60" device for testing
Answer: Make sure you have in config.xml
<srcctl>n</srcctl>

Samsung Smart TV App Picture in Picture


Passive ftp on Server 2008

Question: I have a new Windows 2008 server with IIS7. When I connect to the ftp in active mode, it works fine. In passive mode, it connects, but then times out trying to get the directory listing. I tried disabling both firewalls, but it didn't help. I've tried this with difference client machines and different ftp client software, with no change. Any ideas?
Answer: In the command prompt of the server, enter these two commands to open the
firewall:
First command:
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="FTP (non-SSL)" action=allow protocol=TCP dir=in localport=21

Second command:
netsh advfirewall set global StatefulFtp enable

In Amazon EC2, you also have to set up a security group to open the passive
ports, such as 1025 to 7000.
Answer: I had the same issue using filezilla ftp server. Active connections worked but passive didn't... I solved it by adding FileZilla server.exe ( in the program files folder ) to the "exceptions list" of windows firewall. Then everything worked. Just goes to show you ... RTFM.
Answer: You can actually try following the article Out Of Band FTP 7 shows "Operation timed out".
Answer: I'd disable the IIS FTP Server and switch to single-port  SFTP instead using "NULL FTP Server" .  It's more secure and only requires a single port to be opened unlike the old style FTP protocol.

Passive ftp on Server 2008


Counting labeled triangle-free graphs on $n$ vertices

Question: Given $n$, the number of vertices, what is the number of labeled triangle-free graphs on $n$ vertices?
Comment: It's very unlikely that there's a reasonable formula.
Answer: There shouldn't be any sensible exact formula, as Ira Gessel says.
But there are very good asymptotics and a structural description.
An old result of Erdős, Kleitman and Rothschild is that almost all triangle-free graphs are bipartite. Proemel, Schickinger and Steger refined this to show that almost all triangle-free graphs which are not bipartite can be made bipartite by removing one edge; and almost all of the rest can be made bipartite by removing two edges; and so on.
It's easy to count bipartite graphs (there are roughly $2^{n+n^2/4}$; you can easily enough find accurate asymptotics which depend on the parity of $n$) and similarly the Proemel-Schickinger-Steger classes are not too hard to enumerate asymptotically (I don't know of these being explicitly in the literature).
There are also similar results if you fix the number of edges (which get less precise for sparse graphs).
Answer: user36212 has already essentially answered the question; the state of the art has not yet been pointed out though (by that I mean I miss a mention of  the latest relevant publications, and a mention of the hypergraph container method, which the OP might find useful being told about) : due to work of Balogh and coworkers also for the class of maximal triangle-free graphs the asymptotics are known (and these differ from the asymptotics for all triangle-free graphs). In

[BP2014] József Balogh, Šárka Petříková, Number of maximal triangle-free graphs, Bull. London Math. Soc. 46(5) (2014), 1003-1006

it was shown that the lower bound of $2^{\frac18 n^2 + o(n^2)}$ for labelled maximal triangle-free graphs does give the correct asymptotics (to within this precision).
Incidentally, while [BP2014] avers without reference that the lower bound was "known much earlier", the first public reference seems to be this answer of Douglas Zare, which gives the a slighly more complicated construction than [BP2014], but in return gives a little more detail regarding the proof that the construction actually produces enough maximal triangle-free graphs. An exposition giving full detail does not exist as far as I know, though writing one would be easy: for the construction in [BP2014], that is, if one takes a pefect matching $M$ consisting of $n/4$ edges, and adds a new independent set $S$ of $n/2$ vertices, and then decides independently for each $(u,vw)\in S\times M$ whether to join $u$ to $v$ or to $w$ (and does exactly one of those), then evidently in the labelled sense precisely $2^{\frac{n}{2}\cdot\frac{n}{4}}=2^{n^2/8}$ are constructed, and what remains to be proved is that $2^{n^2/8 - r}$ with $r\in o(n^2)$ of those are maximal triangle-free; this is an exercise.
The proof of the upper bound in [BP2014] uses a result of Saxton and Thomason sometimes referred to a the method of hypergraph containers.
One should note that, in view of the results from the 1970s already mentioned by user36212, [JP2014] implies

$\text{# maximal triangle-free graphs}\qquad\sim_{n\to\infty}\qquad\sqrt{\text{# triangle free graphs}}$.

Even more recently, in

[BLPS2015] József Balogh, Hong Liu, Šárka Petříková, Maryam Sharifzadeh,
The Typical Structure of Maximal Triangle-Free Graphs,
Forum of Mathematics, Sigma (2015), Vol. 3, e20, 19 pages

two structural statements were proved, 'structural' in the sense that they shed some light on how most of the members of the set $\mathbb{K}$ of finite maximal triangle-free graphs 'look' like:
(0) Almost every member of $\mathbb{K}$ can be constructed according to what arguably is the most straighforward construction of a maximal triangle-free graph: to start with a perfect matching $M$, to add an independent set $S$, and then to add edges between $V(M)$ and $S$ until the graph is maximal-triangle free. (Evidently, not every member of $\mathbb{K}$ can be so constructed: e.g., the Petersen graph cannot.)
(1) By [BLPS2015, Lemma 2.4],

$\forall n\in\omega$ $\forall$ maximal triangle-free $n$-vertex graph $G$
($\#\text{maximal independent sets in $G$}$)
$\leq$
$2^{\frac12 n - \frac{1}{25}\text{number of vertex-disjoint three-vertex paths in $G$}}$

It seems not to be known whether there is any triangle-free graph for which the bound in the above lemma is attained.
Comment: @DouglasZare: their reference is https://mathoverflow.net/q/159494, without mentioning your answer therein. I searched the literature much, and I asked around, and by now I think it is most likely that that answer of yours is the first published reference for the lower bound. I will edit accordingly. I think that they should have mentioned you, but the behavior is well within what is acceptable (and perhaps they thought it more polite to not do so). My 'decades-old' was an example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_precision, and it happened by writing in a hurry; I will change that, too.
Comment: What is their reference for the "decades old" lower bound?


How to obtain the transaction hash of each transaction

Question: Getblock through RPC method. I can only see the block hash. But I want a hash for each transaction. What should I do?
Comment: I have solved it. Thank you for providing methods
Comment: If you have solved the issue, you should post the solution as an answer to this question so that others who have the same issue can also find the solution.
Answer: The transaction hash is a blake2b-256 of the SCALE-encoded extrinsic data.
This should be consistent, no matter which middleware API is used, the process is the same to get to that point. For instance, in the polkadot-js API, each extrinsic will have a <code>.hash</code> exposed that does exactly this, i.e. it runs a blake2b-256 over the encoded data as received.
Comment: The above is not the JS API - so you need to, as explained, get the blake2b-256 of the SCALE-encoded extrinsic data. So call the blake2b in your toolset with the encoded extrinsic, that gives you the hash.
Comment: But, you see, in the picture I asked, there is no hash
Comment: Thank you, but what I want is the Java version.


Developing with ArcGIS for Javascript?

Question: I have just started developing with ArcGIS for Javascript and as I'm learning Dojo I'm seeing a reason to modularize development for a  more plug-n-play concept. I can't seem to find any good articles on Best Practices for Web Map development and am wondering if there are anything resembling industry standards for setting up new web-map applications in this environment.
Comment: Best practices vary for creating web maps based on numerous factors.  I'm not sure if this is really an answerable question because development practices differ from developer to developer, from system to system, etc.  All I can suggest is look at other web maps and see how others display their data, and how users interact with the data.  That should give you some good (and bad) ways for accomplishing your goal.
Answer: I agree with @evv_gis in that, at least from my experience so far, there is little in the way of best practices for this relatively niche area of development.  However, I do have some recommendations from my own experience.

The ESRI API examples are an excellent source for learning techniques but don't base your development of any complex application on them.  They are simple code examples to demonstrate a particular technique and don't represent a robust application which needs more defensive programming including error / exception handling and so on.

I encapsulate functionality into Dojo modules that can be re-used between applications.  For example, MapUtils is a class I put basic functionality such as loading a layer (not just "map.addLayer', you need to validate the url, test success and handle if it didn't load).  Then, SearchUtils for search related functionality, RouteUtiuls for routing (Network Analyst) related functions and so on.

Don't hardcode things such as spatial reference, layer urls and so on.  You will end up with hard coded values dotted around even in modules you wrote to be re-usable.  I retrieve most data / settings from DB via web service calls.  If this isn't an option though, have a single place that defines the settings / content for your application, that isn't intended to be re-usable, and define things such as the spatial reference, initial extent and so on there.  Then your re-usable code can be written to reference this.

On the subject of separating code into dojo modules, ESRI have written a primer in their Concepts section.  Check this out and the other pages in the Concepts section to.
https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/jstutorials/intro_javascript_classes.html
I admit this is more an anecdotal answer based on my own experience rather than known best practices but hopefully it will help.  If you find anything yourself on this subject, please post it for others (including myself!).
Answer: Eric Pimpler over at Geospatial Training Services compiled a copious list of articles on Dojo for Web Mapping for the AGS Javascript API 1.
However, since it was stacked up in 2009, it might have some bad links and no-longer-relevant content.
Also, remember that Dojo is a framework for much more than Web Mapping. Many of the common-sense (and some of the not-so-common-sense) Javascript development 'best-practices' apply whether the application is a web-mapping app or any other type of application.
Lastly, while you specifically mention Dojo, there are (of course) numerous other frameworks which work perfectly well with the Javascript API for ArcGIS. -- If you are familiar or invested in another Javascript framework, then learn from the Dojo examples and port them into your framework of preference.
Comment: Isn't ArcGIS for Javascript wrapped up in Dojo? Is there a step-by-step for removing Dojo and using plain Javascript so you could implement other libraries?
Comment: Firstly, "Yes the JS API is wrapped  up in Dojo." Which for me means that is the API is deployed (via AMDs or Dijits.) Notice in my original answer I said 'port it'  not 'completely decouple it from Dojo.'   So is there a step-by-step for removing Dojo? -- No.  But, cross-framework library management solutions such as JetBrain's WebStorm allow management of Dojo modules, and provide access via their library functions. -- Bottom line is we all only need the Dojo delivery AMDs (today) and we can build your apps in JS frameworks of our choosing.    Hopefully that clarifies the dependency on Dojo!
Comment: FYI, here's a robust dialog on framework choices for use with ESRI's Javascript API for ArcGIS: http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/18737/which-framework-is-best-to-implement-an-application-robustly-using-arcgis-serve
Comment: One last comment from me on this: Rene Rubalcava (aka Odoe aka SmartGeoTech) has some cool examples of using AngularJS working with Dojo (using his powers for good, not evil) and the ESRI JS API found here:  http://odoe.net/blog/?p=447     Do these examples expand the range of AGIS JS API framework possibilities somewhat?

Developing with ArcGIS for Javascript?


KOFAX Bitmap Files : How can I open them?

Question: My C# application receives image files from KOFAX VRS TWAIN driver in TWSX_FILE mode, but neither my own .NET based application nor Windows default image viewer can open these files. However, Adobe Photoshop can open them without any problem.
I tried FreeImage library and although it detects their dimensions correctly it renders black images.
It seems that KOFAX has some kind of its own bitmap format which its header is different from normal bmp files:
http://www.fileformat.info/mirror/egff/ch03_03.htm
I have uploaded one of these files here:
http://www.box.net/shared/aby42aagz4
I wanted to know how can I open these images in my applications, anybody knows any lightweight open source/free library or C++/C# code snippet, supporting this image format?
Comment: Are you sure they are actually bitmap files?  Kofax VRS typically accepts 8-bit greyscale images from a scanner and then outputs bitonal TIFF images.
Comment: @Brian: Sorry I haven't seen your comment until now. I have uploaded one of these files as I mentioned in my question, it seems to be a BMP file, it begins with "BM" if you open it with a text editor, and Photosop opens it as an 8-bit RGB color image not an Indexed Color image and it actually has more than 2 colors.
Answer: You've basically answered your own question:  The file is neither a Windows bitmap file nor is it in the documented Kofax Raster Format.
As you pointed out, the first two bytes are 'BM', which would indicate the file is purporting to be a Windows bitmap.  However, if that were truly the case the next four bytes would contain the file size.  In your sample file, the next four bytes contain a value much bigger than the actual file size so it can't be correctly interpreted as a Windows bitmap file.
As the fileformat.info site you linked to states, if the file was truly in Kofax Raster Format, it would start with the bytes '68464B2Eh'.  Thus, your file isn't in Kofax Raster Format either.  In fact, I tried opening it with Kofax's VCDemo software and got the following error:  "Error 20204 - Internal invalid state"
Thus, Kofax's own software thinks the file is corrupt.
The fact that Photoshop can open it and display something doesn't necessarily mean it's a valid image file format.  Image processing software packages will often simply try to guess at interpreting the raw bytes of the file.  Sometimes they get lucky, sometimes not.
Trying to find something that can read the files assumes that the file is in a standard format, which it isn't.  Thus, I wouldn't search for something that could read the file but instead search for why the VRS/TWAIN configuration you are using is producing a non-standard format.


I'm Complete Beginner, where to start?

Question: I'm a complete beginner and would like to ask for advice in finding the best source of learning materials and path to follow. I heard about chess.com as a one stop shop in terms of lessons as well as an online playing platform etc. I'm not young, hence looking for best recommendations. I don't mind paying small monthly membership for convenience of having everything in one place as reference material. I'm starting completely from scratch.
Comment: Related (not duplicate): [Where can one find a complete chess curriculum?](https://chess.stackexchange.com/q/39875/26335)
Answer: Honestly, chess.com is great. There are free alternatives, though. Such as https://lichess.org/learn#/.
There are also so many free instructional YouTube videos, from Grandmasters and IMs. You might start by searching "St. Louis Chess Club" on YouTube and browsing the videos there.
Lastly, the website https://chessable.com is quite good, but courses can be quite expensive. It's still a really good resource to keep in mind, though.
Comment: lichess is not a real alternative to a paying chess.com membership. Not only don't you have the lectures created by masters on lichess, you also don't have their video library, and many other features.

Furthermore, learning openings from Chessable before having learnt the opening principles etc doesn't make much sense.

The St Louis Chess Club lectures are more for intermediate and advanced players than total beginners that just learnt the game.
Answer: if want books you can get the step method https://www.stappenmethode.nl/
6 levels great educational value.
Answer: First of all, congratulations for taking up this great hobby.
I think, it will be very helpful to have a structured introduction to chess, rather than collecting different materials from many different sources.
If you choose chess.com as a one stop shop, I can recommend the short "Everything you need to know" series by IM Daniel Rensch.
It is also very important that you understand the opening principles and learn about chess tactics and checkmating patterns.
Regarding endgames, the first thing you should learn is how to checkmate with a queen or a rook.
You can start by only learning on chess.com, but you may find it very helpful to additionally buy a good book that gives you a structured introduction to chess.
You can also consider ChessFactor, a site where you can learn a full chess course with exercises, choosing your own path depending on your level completely for free.
General
Make it a habit to check your opponent's options! Ask yourself, what your opponent's threat is, especially don't sacrifice/lose material without a good reason. A pawn is worth 1 point of material, a minor piece (bishop/knight) is worth approx. 3, a rook 5 and the queen 9 points of material. Make sure that you don't lose material when trading pieces.
Before making a move, check that your opponent cannot react in a way that will hurt you (e.g. win material by taking a hanging piece).
Don't play fast time controls (including Blitz). You'll pick up very bad habits (e.g. not checking your opponents options) that will prevent you from making progress. Start with long games (rapid) where you have enough time to think about your moves and only play Blitz when you've accumulated some experience.
Analyze each game after you played it and try to figure out what your worst mistake was and how you can prevent it the next time.
Opening
Learn the opening principles! I can not overemphasize their importance. They allow you to find good moves easily. You can get to at least 1200 with these principles without studying any concrete opening lines.
Always ask yourself "what is my most efficient move", i.e. fulfilling most of the principles at the same time. For example, Nf3 is generally a better move than Nh3, even though both develop a piece, because the knight on f3 controls the center.
Learn what chess players mean by space, time and material.
You cannot go wrong by this very simple rule for your first opening move: Move your e (King's) pawn 2 squares forward at your first move. If you are Black and you cannot do that because the pawn could be taken, move the Queen's pawn two squares forward instead. This literally works against every first move that White can throw at you! You can learn a bit more opening theory, but total beginners typically invest their time more effectively by improving other parts of their game.
Middlegame

Learn about candidate moves (checks, captures, threats).
learn the most important tactics (motifs, such as pin, double attack, skewer, etc.) and practise them by solving chess puzzles
learn the most important checkmate patterns

Endgame

learn how to mate with a queen or a rook
learn how to promote a pawn against a bare king
Answer: The best place to start is by joining a local chess club. There you will find other chess players who will be very happy to help you to learn and improve your chess. Just by going along to the chess club you will receive continuous support for what you are doing from other like-minded people.
Probably the best single thing you can do is to play over-the-board chess with other human beings. This provides far more feedback and help than playing online.
Answer: Try the free website https://korpalskichess.com/?page_id=61138 which starts from the rules of the game and advances to quite complicated combinations.
Answer: These are some resources I think anybody who wants to get into chess should use.
Good "beginner" chess books to read:

Mammoth Book of Chess
How to Win at Chess
Chess for Zebras

Online resources:

Chessable
Chess.com lessons
LearningChess.net

Puzzles:

Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess
Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games
Chess.com puzzles (should probably get membership if you want to solve a lot)
ChessPuzzle.net

Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUTYH3v3HiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCSbzArwB10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IegDENuxU4

I hope these recommendations help you get better at chess and get more involved in the chess community.
Answer: Tactics. Review old games. Learn openings.

I'm Complete Beginner, where to start?


Can a single wallet stir all different crypto currencies

Question: Is there one wallet that can hold all the different cryptocurrencies, or does the wallet need a separate implementation for each different cryptocurrency?
Answer: Wallets need to know how to generate new addresses and check for incoming transactions, and should verify that transactions (and also if possible blocks) are valid, so they will need to know some important information about each coin. Some coins which are simple forks of each other don't require much extra info, just the difference in magic bytes, port numbers, chain parameters, etc. While others which have much larger changes like those with different mining algorithms, different transaction structures, different signature algorithms etc would require more in depth implementation as well. So in general no, a wallet can't trivially accept all currencies, each requires implementation.


MongoDB 1.6.5: how to rename field in collection

Question: $rename function is available only in development version 1.7.2.
How to rename field in 1.6.5?
Answer: The simplest way to perform such an operation is to loop through the data set re-mapping the name of the field. The easiest way to do this is to write a function that performs the re-write and then use the .find().forEach() syntax in the shell.
Here's a sample from the shell:
db.foo.save({ a : 1, b : 2, c : 3});
db.foo.save({ a : 4, b : 5, c : 6});
db.foo.save({ a : 7, b : 8 });
db.foo.find();

remap = function (x) {
  if (x.c){
    db.foo.update({_id:x._id}, {$set:{d:x.c}, $unset:{c:1}});
  }
}

db.foo.find().forEach(remap);
db.foo.find();

In the case above I'm doing an $unset and a $set in the same action. MongoDB does not support transactions across collections, but the above is a single document. So you're guaranteed that the set and unset will be atomic (i.e. they both succeed or they both fail).
The only limitation here is that you'll need to manage outside writers to keep the data consistent. My normal preference for this is simply to turn off writes while this updates. If this option is not available, then you'll have to figure out what level of consistency you want for the data. (I can provide some ideas here, but it's really going to be specific to your data and system)
Answer: db.collection_name.update({}, {$rename: {"oldname": "newname"}}, false, true);

This will rename the column for each row in the collection.
Also, I discovered that if your column (the one you're renaming) appears within the index catalog (db.collection_name.getIndexes()), then you're going to have to drop and recreate the index (using the new column name) also.
Comment: There's a syntax error here - the last `}` is misplaced. You want to run `db.collection_name.update ( {}, { $rename : { "oldname" : "newname" }}, false, true  );`.
Comment: I got to this question via search, and while the answer did not answer the OP's question, it and @girasquid's comment answered mine, so thanks!


Is it possible to gain some of the benefits of Salesforce1 within a custom app?

Question: My company wants to build a custom, native iOS app for iPad. "Custom" because this will enable us to add bells and whistles that are not readily available within Salesforce1. However, the ability to determine which fields appear on the app via server-side config is a pro for Salesforce1. This would enable us to avoid having to re-distribute the client upon layout changes. Is it possible to get the best of both worlds within a custom app? What approaches should I be considering?
Answer: I would seriously consider using "Field Sets" to control the fields server-side.  I'd personally set up one per object for display, one per object for query/search, and anything else you are looking to build into your app (you can also specify additional Field Sets per profile, if desired, with a Custom Setting denoting which Field Set applies to their profile)


A priest I requested kindly to bless salt and oil did not use the prescribed prayer but used his own, is the blessing valid?

Question: A priest I requested kindly to bless salt and oil did not use the prescribed prayer but used his own.  Is the blessing valid?  The prayer for exorcising the salt and blessing the oil was available.  However, the vision of the elderly priest was poor and he could not read the prayer to bless/exorcise the salt and bless the oil.  The priest then said that his own prayer is still valid and efficacious to bless the salt and oil.  Is his blessing on the salt and oil as valid or efficacious as the prescribed prayers for these items?
Comment: Was [this](https://www.romancatholicman.com/exorcism-blessing-for-salt-and-water/) the prayer that you expected him to use and he just blessed your salt like he was blessing any other sacramental (rosaries, medals, etc..)?
Answer: If a priest blesses salt and oil, but does not use the prescribed prayer, but used his own wording, is the blessing valid?
The short answer is yes.
But there is a caveat to my response.
Rome allows objects to be blessed by deacons, priests and bishops. The traditional method would be to use the prayers contained in the Rituale Romanum, making a sign of the cross over the object to be blessed and sprinkling it with holy water.
A priest saying a few word in blessing, while employing the sign of the cross is sufficient to make the blessing valid.

Sometimes the clergy member blessing something will say a few words of their own before giving the words of blessing, and sometimes the cleric will simply say a silent prayer over the object and make the Sign of the Cross over it. Any of these methods is a valid blessing done with the intent of the Church. - Q & A: Blessing Objects and Things

Not using the traditional formula will weaken the efficaciousness of some prescribed blessings, especially if a minor exorcism is involved.
Some priest chose to do such simple blessings since there is no holy water on their person.
Some of the formulae contained in the Rituale Romanum are in fact minor exorcisms. In these cases the ritual must be followed word for word, with the sprinkling of holy water at the appropriate moment.
For this reason alone, I carry a Pocket Holy Water Sprinkler with me when attending church. I also bring with me a hard copy of the prayers I desire the priest to employ.
Some priests will no doubt be uncomfortable with this, but more traditional priests will not have any problem.
There is a Benedictine Abbey near my residence and the abbot carries an Aspergillum as seen below to bless objects (usually medals), but employs his own words of blessing. If a particular object have a blessing listed in the Rituale Romanum, I make a hard copy to take with me when getting it blessed. Most priests do not carry the Book of Blessings with them, but some do.

Pocket Holy Water Sprinkler Made of Stainless Steel with Holding Case
As Peter showed in his comment, some blessings are in fact minor exorcisms and just not simple blessings. In theses cases the prayers prescribed by Rome must be followed.

Minor Exorcisms
According to Catholic belief demons or fallen angels retain their natural power, as intelligent beings, of acting on the material universe, and using material objects and directing material forces for their own wicked ends; and this power, which is in itself limited, and is subject, of course, to the control of Divine providence, is believed to have been allowed a wider scope for its activity in the consequence of the sin of mankind. Hence places and things as well as persons are naturally liable to diabolical infestation, within limits permitted by God, and exorcism in regard to them is nothing more that a prayer to God, in the name of His Church, to restrain this diabolical power supernaturally, and a profession of faith in His willingness to do so on behalf of His servants on earth.
The chief things formally exorcised in blessing are water, salt, oil, and these in turn are used in personal exorcisms, and in blessing or consecrating places (e.g. churches) and objects (e.g. altars, sacred vessels, church bells) connected with public worship, or intended for private devotion. Holy water, the sacramental with which the ordinary faithful are most familiar, is a mixture of exorcised water and exorcised salt; and in the prayer of blessing, God is besought to endow these material elements with a supernatural power of protecting those who use them with faith against all the attacks of the devil. This kind of indirect exorcism by means of exorcised objects is an extension of the original idea; but it introduces no new principle, and it has been used in the Church from the earliest ages. - Exorcism (Catholic Encyclopaedia)

I get olive oil blessed each year if possible during Eastertide according to traditional old rite, in Latin, by priests who say the Mass of the Ordinary Form and generally have no problems. Know your priests first. Some will be uncomfortable with it and many do not even read Latin, in which case one can always find a vernacular translation somewhere online.
Answer: Regarding the rite for BLESSED EXORCISED SALT, WATER and OIL.
If you are expecting the blessing for EXORCISED SALT, OIL, and WATER, the blessing MUST be the prescribed EXORCISM BLESSING rite.  Otherwise you have only blessed salt, oil and water.
Only a priest can use and say this blessing.  As a deacon, I asked this question to our auxiliary bishop - if I could perform this rite.  He was not sure and said that he would get back to me.  Then I asked one of our priests, who is an exorcist, and he said: absolutely NO!  The rite for exorcism of salt, water and oil is not a standard blessing and is ONLY reserved for priests and bishops.  Later when I spoke with the bishop he agreed that only a priest or a bishop could perform this rite.
Comment: Welcome to Christianity.SE! While anecdotal, this answer could be better if you could [edit] in supporting documentation. Also, when you get a chance, please take the [tour] to understand how the site works and [how it is different than others](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1809/50259).
Comment: Hi Deacon, thanks for checking out the site, we could always use a few more experts, please stick around - but like agarza's mentioned, citations in Canon Law etc. are preferable, although I can see how this one might be just something you have to ask someone who is ordained to confirm.
Comment: Yes, welcome to C.SE and I hope you stick around.  Thank you for answering. Agree with @PeterTurner on how the answer can be better for the purpose of this site.
Answer: About the rite:
It is NOT found in the "Book of Blessings."  This fact should be a red flag for anyone (other than a priest) wanting to perform the rite for blessed Exorcised Salt, Water, and Oil.   It is from the Roman Ritual.
These prayers can be used without a special permission by any priest. But they are not to be said by deacons, religious, or the laity!
The Priest vests in surplice and purple stole and must follow the rite, word for word.  In other words he cannot use his own prayers for any reason.   I'm not sure if an alb can be worn instead of a surplice.  I'll have to ask my friend (an exorcist priest) about this.
The two first prayers are used for blessing salt. To bless water, if salt has already been blessed (prior to the water), the two prayers do not need to be repeated.
Blessing of oil: in the end an aspersion (sprinkling) with holy water is required.
I'll post more later on about using these sacramentals as I get time.
Blessing and Peace
Deacon Del


Using 169.254.0.0/16 addresses on transit links?

Question: I'm thinking of using 169.254.0.0/16 (link-local) addresses on OSPF transit links for increased security together with prefix-supression. This way the links are not reachable from any other non directly connected subnet. Do you see any problems with this?
Answer: This network is designed for local links. You will need to take steps to make sure that OSPF doesn't include these addresses in what it advertises to other routers.
Also, "The 169.254/16 address prefix MUST NOT be subnetted". This means that only one interface in this range per router since the router will complain that this network is already in use when you try to add it to another interface.
See RFC 3927, Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses
Answer: Technical side was already discussed, let's observe the question from a conceptual perspective: what you propose seems to be "security by obscurity" and thus can not be recommended. Generally in the IT, but especially in the security area, the so-called 'best practices' play super important role; personally I, for example, haven't heard of using APIPA addresses as a (well-known and widely accepted) security measure. So explore the best practices for your particular task (they definitely exist) and adhere to them. As you haven't given the details of your task, it's difficult to provide concrete recommendations; for example, it's possible to employ IPsec to encrypt OSPF communications.
Comment: The purpose was not to secure OSPF, but to avoid any remote IP communication to the transit links i.e port scanning of the routers. That said it still does not make it completely secure. Just one extra step. With IPv6 you use link-local addressing on transit-link which make it impossible to reach them remotely, my idea was to do something simliar with IPv4. I'm using RFC 1918 addresses on the transit links today with prefix-supression so they are still not routed/accessible.


The Witch's Prophecy in S05E01

Question: Last night I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones season 5 (awesome). In the very beginning we see a young Cersei ask a witch about her future. The Witch says that she will have three children. The thing is though, Cersei has four children. In the very second episode she tells a story of how she birthed Robert's true born son long before Joffrey was born. So was the witch wrong? Or is it metaphorical because Cersei didn't really see the child as her son?
Comment: Wasn't that child stillborn?  This might be a stretch, but Wildlings don't name their children until they're a year old; if the witch was a wildling, then she might not have considered the child to be a person if it died in infancy.
Comment: @Liesmith in the show, Cersei tells Catelyn that her firstborn survived childbirth, but died of a fever when it was young, but we have no idea how old it was when that happened...
Comment: @Liesmith Cersei says to the witch that they are on lands of her father, so it's extremely unlikely that the witch was a wildling.
Answer: This appears to be a case of storylines from the novels getting mixed up when they translated to the screen. In the novel, Cersei never gives birth to that first child -- she has it terminated as soon as she knows she's pregnant.
In the show, she tells Catelyn that she did give birth to that child, but it died young. That means that yes, Cersei did give birth to four children during her lifetime, contradicting the prophecy of the witch. Unless the show decides to explain it further, we can only guess why the discrepancy exists in-universe. Some options:

The witch meant that she would have three living children; or three children that survived infancy. Based on the similarities between Westeros and 14th century England, it's likely that there are high rates of infant mortality. People may simply be conditioned to forget about children that do not make it at least to school age.
The witch was speaking metaphorically -- she would only have three children that she considered her children; as much as she claims to have been heartbroken when she lost Robert's son, she doesn't really act like it. She obviously considered her three children by Jaime to be her "real" children, and has no desire to have a trueborn child with Robert.
Comment: There's also the possibility that Cersei was lying about the black haired baby in order to get sympathy from Catelyn. That birth was not reported by anyone else in the series.
Comment: Yes it is. Remember when she mentions it to Robert Baratheon.

The Witch's Prophecy in S05E01


Which anonymous areas are created/accessed by libc?

Question: Is there a way to find out which anonymous Virtual Memory Areas are created/accessed by libc?
I have a program that mprotects VMAs on its address space.
But when it mprotects an area that will be accessed by libc, a SIGSEGV occurs. Unfortunately, the signal handler that I've installed only handles faults that occurred on my code, and not libc's.
In detail, the fault I am getting is because printf uses varargs. It tries to access the location of reg_save_area which is within the va_list structure. That location belongs to an anonymous VMA which I have earlier mprotected.
So, is there a to know which are these areas before I mprotect them? Or at least a way to know where stdarg.h chooses to place reg_save_area?
The most clean way would be to handle SIGSEGV's that occur within the libc.
But I doubt that there is such a way.
Note: The data/bss segment of libc can be easily identified because it is not anonymous. If I mprotect that VMA too, it will also cause an unhandled SIGSEGV, which is why I choose not to.
Answer: The simplest answer to your question is: all of them except the ones that you explicitly mapped yourself.
Do not do mprotect memory ranges that you didn't mmap yourself. Libraries and possibly even the kernel will do things behind your back all the time. They will do their own allocations and mappings. You are not allowed to change them because they are not yours to manage.
Btw. I really do mean mmap above. The protection of memory you get from malloc or any other allocating function is not yours to touch either. If you want full control over your memory mappings, do not use libc and don't do dynamic linking.
Comment: thanks you. Nice idea. However, currently I am trying something else that it might work. I 'll give an update a bit later!
Comment: @Paschalis What you're doing is firing a shotgun into the engine of your car then asking the internet where to aim so that it doesn't catch fire. The correct answer isn't to tell you where to aim, but to tell you to stop shooting your engine with a shotgun.
Comment: Yes, this is exactly how it looks like, unless you know the reason that I am doing it! ;)
Answer:
The most clean way would be to handle SIGSEGV's that occur within the
  libc. But I doubt that there is such a way.

Actually, the SIGSEGV's that are caused withing the C library's code can be handled. And I do handle them.
The SIGSEGV's cannot be handled are the ones that occur either within the handler function itself, or within the function that is doing the mprotection of VMAs.

So, is there a to know which are these areas before I mprotect them?
  Or at least a way to know where stdarg.h chooses to place
  reg_save_area?

There's no way to know which areas are created by libc, other than the recommendation by @Art, but the solution to my problem was by skipping the protection of pages that were being used by the handler itself, or the function that was setting up the whole protection mechanism.
PS. I don't consider this as an answer to my question, as it simply does not answer the question I asked. It solved my original problem though, and that's why I am sharing it.


Load a really big geojson to a feature layer in leaflet

Question: I have this geojson file(about 60mB) that contains the administrative area boundaries. I want to make a chloropleth and give color based on each geometry properties value and add it to the featureLayer.
Problem is when I try to load the geojson file, it will take a considerable amount of time. I tried tileLayer but using this I can't find a way to change the filling color of the polygons. How can I solve this to make the geojson load faster?
Answer: You could simplify the file. For this you could use QGIS. One option would be simplifying the lines, but that would probably break topology. Another option, depending on your file, is limiting the number of decimal places. That would reduce file size, but not complexity.
Another option would be using TopoJSON. TopoJSON is perfect for administrative areas because it removes redundant lines (each border will only remain once, while it exists twice in GeoJSON).
Comment: But it won't be scalable enough just by simplifying the geojson. I was thinking about using https://github.com/glenrobertson/leaflet-tilelayer-geojson. But it require me to setup my own server to serve the geojson.
Comment: Is the slowness from downloading or from the browser struggling to render 60MB of GeoJSON?
Do you absolutely need GeoJSON or could raster tiles with Tilemill be enough (you still get mouseover info).
Comment: The size of the geojson is more than 60 mb. So it will take time to download it at once. Also, this geojson is very likely to increase in the future to cover the whole world. I need the geojson instead of the rastered tiles because I want to make a dynamic chloropleth based on the data the server returned.
Answer: If the file size is too big, and you mentioned that it's going to increase more in the future, you need to use raster tiles.
Actually, you should use CartoDB, upload your dataset there, you can make the dynamic chloropleth maps based on your data the server returned to you (as you mentioned this requirement in a comment).
CartoDb gives a function setCartoCSS(), using this function you can style individual polygons whatever the way you want.
Answer: I have the same problem right now. So there are my steps:
1)create tiles in tileMill
2)create .png tiles in qgis using plagin MBTiles extract
3)create canvas mask on custom layer
4)right now I try to write piece of code that will extract hex color of images, and than convert hex color to dynamyc legend(cause there are about 150 types of color)


Where are the downloads from the Browser stored and how to I get to downloads from the browser?

Question: Using a Galaxy Nexus I download an apk and it showed up in the notifications bar when it was done downloading. I went to install but I didn't set option to allow external apps so I did that and I went back to the browser to install the apk and couldn't find it. It wasn't in the notifications anymore and there didn't seem to be a "downloads" option anywhere in the browser. I ended up having to download it again just so it would be in the notifications so I could then get to the apk to install it. And I downloaded it AGAIN to show a friend the issue. Now I'd like to delete all three and know where to go next time.
Answer: There should be a "Downloads" app in your app drawer. Open it to view your downloads. Previous versions of Android (up to Gingerbread, AFAIK, possibly Honeycomb) had a "Downloads" option in the Browser itself under Menu->More->Downloads, but it's possible this no longer exists on ICS.
Alternatively, if you have a file manager they should be in /sdcard/download, I believe (on ICS this actually appears to have changed to /sdcard/Download with a capital 'D'). It can vary by device a bit, but generally it should be /<whatever_your_"sdcard"_path_is>/download.
Comment: On my stock Galaxy Nexus, my downloaded files are in /sdcard/Download
Comment: @Malachi: Hm, weird that they decided to change the casing like that, but good to know!


How is angular momentum conserved

Question: from a classical perspective, what is it about angular momentum fundamentally that means it has to be conserved? Surely if I have a rod about a fixed axis and a moving particle hits the end it will cause the rod to spin and therefore create angular momentum? (The particle isn't spinning around a point after the collision!!)
Comment: Just as a note about your second point.  An object moving in a straight line can have non-zero angular momentum about a fixed point as long as the path of motion does not intersect that point.  This is how the rod would start rotation, and therefore angular momentum would be conserved.
Comment: You need to learn to draw vector momentum diagrams. Typical textbook explanations include a rolling wheel, for example.
Comment: Angular momentum *needs not* be conserved, in general. It does only when the Lagrangian is rotational invariant, i. e. when the system has isotropic symmetry in space.
Answer:
Surely if I have a rod about a fixed axis and a moving particle hits the end it will cause the rod to spin and therefore create angular momentum?

First off, there is no reason to expect that any of the conservation laws apply to the rod. A moving particle collides with the rod, and the rod has constraints that act on it to keep one end fixed. The collision and those constraint forces are external forces, some of which result in external torques. The conservation laws don't apply to the rod. They apply to the rod+particle+Earth system.
In general,

A system conserves energy if there is no transfer of energy between the system and the surrounding environment.
A system conserves linear momentum if no external forces act on the system and if all forces internal to the system obey the weak form of Newton's third law.
A system conserves angular momentum if no external torques act on the system and if all forces internal to the system obey the weak form of Newton's third law.

Secondly, you are ignoring that even point masses can have non-zero angular momentum. Angular momentum is always measured with respect to a point, not an axis. The angular momentum of a point mass is easily computed: It is $\vec L = m \vec r \times \vec v$, where $m$ is the mass of the point mass, $\vec r$ is the displacement vector from the central point to the point mass, and $\vec v$ is the velocity of the point mass. When viewed from the right perspective, the rod+particle system does conserve angular momentum. This "right perspective" is one in which the constraint forces on the rod exert zero torque.
Answer: Angular momentum is conserved in any system which has no external torques exerted upon it (much as linear momentum is conserved in any system which has not external forces exerted upon it).
The example of a moving particle hitting something and changing that somethings angular momentum is not relevant, since the something doesn't constitute a closed system in that case.
Your example fails to hold for the same reason that "hitting a golf ball means that linear momentum isn't conserved" does.
Comment: but what about if we include the particle in the system, then the particle would continue moving in a straight line?
Comment: what if it continued to move in a straight line or bounced off the rod? It would not be spinning around a point but the rod would. Then the angular momentum of the system before and after the collision will be different..
Comment: @EhabSyed If the particle stuck to the rod, then the rod/particle system would both rotate and translate, which conserves both linear and angular momentum.
Answer: The contexts I have seen conserved quantities in is for holonomic systems whose legendre transformed variables of the lagrangian have some kind of nice property when it comes to the time derivative. Sometimes they look like some kind of lagrangian multiplier, but in the context of variational calculus. Usually Noether's theorem is quoted but I have never seen enough details of it to know what that means.
Comment: ok i get the implications of noether's theorems. but in this specific example, before the collision, the angular momentum of the particle and rod is 0, afterwards the rod is spinning. How is it then still conserved?
Comment: @EhabSyed - The angular momentum of the rod+particle is not zero before the collision. Point masses have non-zero angular momentum if the radial vector and its derivative are not parallel or anti-parallel.
Answer: Angular momentum is conserved if the system behaves the same way regardless of it's orientation is space i.e its lagrangian is rotationally symmetric.
So if a system isn't sensitive to any rotation, then the angular momentum will be conserved.

How is angular momentum conserved


Medicare penalty

Question: I am 77 years old now and have never enrolled in Medicare because I have been fully insured through my husband's employment all these years.  When he finally retires and I go on Medicare will I be penalized for not having enrolled when I was 65?
Comment: Does your husband's employer have more than 20 employees?
Answer: In many cases your employer coverage will grant you a qualified waiver from Medicare and remove your penalty exposure.  To start you should call the employer plan administrator, they generally know these things and there are a couple of technicalities that are important that you won't have a way of independently verifying.  But, here's the highlights:

In most cases, you don't need to do anything until you (or your spouse) retire or you lose the employer coverage.

Here is the bit about Special Enrollment Periods and penalties:

Special circumstances (Special Enrollment Periods)
Once your Initial Enrollment Period ends, you may have the chance to sign up for Medicare during a Special Enrollment Period (SEP). If you're covered under a group health plan based on current employment, you have a SEP to sign up for Part A and/or Part B anytime as long as:

You or your spouse (or family member if you're disabled) is working.
You're covered by a group health plan through the employer or union based on that work.

You also have an 8-month SEP to sign up for Part A and/or Part B that starts at one of these times (whichever happens first):

The month after the employment ends
The month after group health plan insurance based on current employment ends
Usually, you don't pay a late enrollment penalty if you sign up during a SEP.

The "based on current employment" part is important.  COBRA eligibility is not, to my knowledge, acceptable.  I do believe "retiree" specific plans are qualified waivers, the technicality being that a "retiree" is still "currently" eligible for the plan.  But, generally, if you or your spouse is working and covered by an group employer you won't have penalty exposure.
There's no cost to Part A and for that reason generally no reason to not enroll when you become eligible if for no other reason than to avoid questions later.  When you come off the group plan you should be issued what is commonly called a "HIPAA Certificate" or some other documentation that formally discloses the loss of coverage.
Answer: Yes, if you don't enroll when you're first eligible for Medicare, you can be subject to a late-enrollment penalty.  You can read the details at the Medicare.gov web site:
Medicare A:
https://www.medicare.gov/your-medicare-costs/part-a-costs/part-a-late-enrollment-penalty
Medicare B:
https://www.medicare.gov/your-medicare-costs/part-b-costs/part-b-late-enrollment-penalty
Medicare D:
https://www.medicare.gov/drug-coverage-part-d/costs-for-medicare-drug-coverage/part-d-late-enrollment-penalty
Comment: The wording in your answer seems to me to imply that the OP is most likely subject to penalty, when in fact I believe that the OP is most likely not subject to penalty.  And, unfortunately, the pages that you are linking to (at least for A & B) do not provide details, either.
Comment: This does not begin to tell the whole story.  In many cases, perhaps including the OP, there is no penalty.
Comment: Hence the reason for the wording of "You can be" rather than "You will be" subject to a late-enrollment penalty. The starting place to  determine which one it will be is  the Medicare.gov web site links provided. The OP needs to read the what ifs that pertain to her at the source.   If that does not clear it up then contacting Medicare is the next step.
Comment: Concluding that I implied that the OP is most likely subject to penalty is where you went awry.  The links clearly state that " Your monthly premium **MAY** go up 10% ".   **MAY** means it's a possibility.
Comment: Yes, but the OP already knows that she *may* have a penalty, that's why she asked.  You haven't provided any new information.

Medicare penalty


Drumstick qualities for rock music, teens, and beginner/intermediate drummers

Question: What drumsticks/drumstick qualities:

suit rock music better?
suit teens (specifically 13 year olds)?
are better for beginner and intermediate drummers?
Comment: For a 13-year-old beginner practicing rock drumming in my house (or neighborhood for that matter), I would recommend *chopsticks*.
Answer: People generally use heavier-than-average drumsticks for rock music.  No lighter than 5A, often 5B or 2B drumsticks are used.  This covers quite a range, and which particular stick you use is largely down to personal preference.  So much so, that your question might be closed as opinion-based. Some people will even use lightweight 7A sticks for rock, although that is not typical.
Selecting drumsticks for age is still a matter of preference.  It seems sensible to me to use a lighter drumstick for a smaller person, as long as the weight of the drumstick is still in the normal range.  However, my experience in high school band is that everyone just used regular (big, heavy) marching drumsticks by the time they turned 13 and it wasn't an issue.  The sticks used on a drumset are much lighter and smaller than marching sticks, and thus should be even less of an issue.  (Also, I think that if a young person just picked the stick that felt the best, they'd probably end up with a lighter stick anyway.  No need to consider age specifically.)
I see no reason for a beginner drummer to use a different drumstick than a professional drummer.
Comment: @ElementsinSpace - I see them change standard for tymp sticks, or brushes, but not usually 2s for 7s.
Comment: I think it's worth mentioning that most drummers/percussionists like to own a large variety of drumsticks and use them for different effects. They will often change sticks for different pieces (sometimes even in the middle of a piece).
Comment: One thing that can influence the thickness is also cost: my former band's drummer was a hard hitter and used thicker sticks because he broke the regular ones too often..
Answer: Whilst sticks come in, generally, 3 numbers, 2,5 and 7, they are available in other number codes, too. But because those three suit most drummers and their styles overall, they have become the mainstay.
Those numbers refer to the heaviness, and to a great extent, then, the thickness (diameter). 2 being the heaviest, down to 7 being the lightest (thus thinnest).That said, B sticks are slightly bigger diameter than their A counterpart.
So, it goes without saying that loud, hard hitting players, usually of rock ilk, will prefer the heavier 2 sticks, while the jazzers are happier using 5s and occasionally 7s.
There's a small difference in drumstick lengths from different manufacturers, generally from 15" to around 17.5", but that will have only a small influence on things - it will depend where one holds the stick - and from experience, rock drummers may well use them the 'wrong' way round anyway!
Small hands/wrists/arms, then as in young beginners, would find 7A less tiring to use, and that may well continue into mature playing, as they must be more manoeuvrable, but of course, it will depend what sort of drumming that person develops in to, and indeed, what kit they may be using.
I think the genre doesn't come into it as much as the individual preference - the kit itself may have more influence, but at its peak, putting the three factors together is more important.
Incidentally, apart from the most common wooden sticks (often hickory), there's aluminium ones available, which I guess will last a lot longer (the nylon tips are interchangeable), and I can't find much, if any, difference between them and the traditionals.
Answer: One thing no-one has mentioned yet is grip & agility.
I use 7As no matter what style I'm playing. I do this because I can whip a 7 much faster and with less effort than a 2 or even a 5, meaning I can actually play louder with 7s than I can with larger sticks. There's also less inertia if you're working around the kit, so you can be in the next position with less effort.
The downside of this is that they're harder to keep a tight hold of; you have to grip harder to prevent them slipping. Depending on how energetic your performance, sweat can make then tough to hang onto at times.
I combat this with either sports resin [rosin] which comes in a bag you can pat between your hands, or 'bowling wax', designed to rub onto lawn bowls [not ten-pin bowls], to prevent slipping.
Comment: Have you tried emery paper to rub off the varnish where you hold them, or a bit of tape at the same point?
Comment: I don't use varnished sticks, they're not inherently slippy. Tape comes off unpredictably, making nasty blistery lumps mid-performance. It's just a choice I made 20-odd years ago that works well for me. I don't break or wear out sticks either, I have my hats set so they don't cut in, so it's been the same pair for those 20 years. ikr , but I can be a bit OCD about things ;))


page size in search result component not working as expected

Question: i just create new computed field for sorting search result alphabetical ascending, but when i put page size for result as example 8 it displays only 3 in page load,  while if i used any other field in sorting it's working fine , i don't know why!
Comment: Check the Solr query for the search log and compare it with the working one. Also, try to rebuild the index and validate records in Solr Abmin UI.
Answer: The most common reason for an error like that is the fact that your index is not in sync with your database.
In your index there are items which are not in database anymore - Solr returns a set of documents but when SXA tries to map them to Sitecore items, they are not in database, so the results displayed on your website show less items then requested.
Solution? If that's a reason of your issues, simply rebuild the index to make sure it's in sync with what is in your database.


iPhone Application for Email Address Shortcut

Question: Does anybody know of an iPhone application or shortcut that allows you to save your email address access it via a shortcut?  This would be super useful when filling in forms in Safari or in when your email address is required in an application.
Answer: An excellent application for shortcuts is Smile Software's TextExpander touch. Because of limitations in iOS, it doesn't work to expand shortcuts in every app (including, sadly, all of Apple's apps). From the manufacturer's site:

Given the current feature set of the
  iPhone OS, TextExpander touch cannot
  work in the background (as it does in
  Mac OS X), expanding text snippets
  while you work in other apps, except
  for apps with TextExpander-integration
  built-in. You must first compose your
  text in the TextExpander touch Compose
  screen, and then transfer it to
  another app.
Answer: If you are willing to jailbreak, Action Menu does what you are looking for. I have put my e-mail address in the favorites tab of that program and I can now reach it anywhere.
Comment: I'd advice for Action Menu as well. And I doubt there's any software able to do the request without jailbreaking.


Questions on WhiteBox testing, ON-Units, Condition-Coverage

Question: I am reading a book where I am getting stuck at few white box testing concepts. The article in the below link is taken exactly from the book.
http://testdesigners.com/testingstyles/ControlFlowTesting.html
1.
'ON-Units' terminology is introduced first in the 'Decision Coverage' article without describing what it is. The article continues to use this term later which is hard without knowing what is the meaning of ON-Unit.
Questions - Is 'ON-Unit' a path that a decision takes or traverses ?
How do one 'invoke' On units ?
2.
In the example under 'Condition Coverage'
DO K=0 TO 50 WHILE (J+K < QUEST)
The article goes to explain - "If one is using decision testing, the criterion can be satisfied by letting the loop run from K = 0 to 51, without ever exploring the circumstance where the WHILE clause becomes false"
Questions -
By the definition of decision coverage, the test cases should explore both the true and false branch of decisions at least once. In other words, K = 0 to 50 is not material because the While (J+K < Quest) is True branch and (J+K < QUEST) is false branch. Why does the article mention under decision coverage - Not exploring the While clause being false?
Also in the first part of the line in decision coverage, decision criterion is satisfied by letting the loop run from K = 0 to K = 51 that is just the true branch, decision criteria is not met alone by having a test case for True branch, why does the article say that this along is sufficient to meet the decision criteria?
Answer:
First one figured out. ON-Unit is nothing but the "Entry point". To trigger them write at least one test case for the condition to traverse the decision.
Second question is still open.


Conditional sentences in the past

Question: In conditional sentences to denote a condition in the present if+past tense and a modal(in the past form)+ the first form of verb is used.As - If I had money I would open a library. To denote a situation in the past if + past perfect tense and a modal(in the past form)+ have+ the third form of verb is used. As If he had gone there he would have met him.But what will be the sentence if the if clause is in the past and the modal clause is in the present. As here is a situation - in a cricket match the toss has happened and it is in the past and the batting is yet to start, that is in the present. What will in the meantime the captain say - If we had won the toss ,we would have also batted first. Or If we had won the toss we would also bat first. As batting has not happened yet. Which of these sentences is right here or are both the sentences right in this situation?
Answer: In your specific case of a conditional involving a past event and future situation:

If we had won the toss, we would be batting first.

Conditional sentences in the past