Gaining the trust of an injured dog

Question: I recently began dating a girl who I plan on being with indefinitely, hopefully. Anyway, her dog had torn something in it's leg before we began dating and it has not healed. He is normally protective of her and now more so due to his leg. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can gain the trust of Sam?
Comment: Is he aggressive towards you in any way? How does the protectiveness show?
Comment: You'll definitely get better suggestions if you can tell everyone a little bit more about what he is doing -- how his he showing his protectiveness? Does he bark? growl? bite? Systematically destroy your shoes?
Comment: He is not defensively aggressive, as in an angry fear. I saw him yesterday and it almost seems like in recognizing me he knows I have a connection and am trusted by his owners but he himself does not yet trust me. When on the leash he will bark continuously until my girlfriends father quiets him. A positive is I bought him a large bone and gave it to him myself. He immediately was fine with my presence and later, while I sat at their dinner table, he was content with leaving his blind side open right beside me as he drank out of his bowl. He does not bite, so I don't think he means ill-will
Answer: I would work on training games with him. Honestly, this is going to sound a lot like the advice I'd give someone who wants a better relationship with his girlfriend's kid, too.
Get your hands on some easy to work with treats. Little jerky-type treats are best. Tear them into small pieces. If he already knows commands like touch, sit, down, just walk him through those. He doesn't need a treat everytime, just ever few moves. And then you can invent some fun things to add in -- shake, or jump through a hoop. One thing our first trainer taught us is that training games are a great way to build a relationship with an animal.
If he doesn't know "touch" or "sit" yet, there's no time like the present to start. Touch is the easiest. You want him to practice nudging your hand with his nose when you say "touch". To get there, you're going to use basic positive reinforcement. Hold a bit of treat between two fingers, show him the back of your hand (so he can see the treat) and say "touch". When he nudges your hand to get it, immediately say "Yes!" in your worst possible "why do people always use that stupid cheery tone of voice with puppies" tone. Yes!  And then turn your hand over and give him the treat. Do it over and over. Touch. Yes! Treat. Touch. Yes! Treat. Spend five minutes on this every time you go over to her house, or every day, whichever is more frequent.
Note: people do "touch" differently. If your gf already has a system, use hers!
If he's barking at you or growling, remember that eye contact can be very threatening for dogs. So when you aren't playing touch (and even when you are), don't look at him. Look away. And if he's not even ready for "touch" you can play a game that Jeff Stallings calls treat/retreat. Same stash of little bits of treat. Ignore the dog, or pretend you're ignoring him, and alternate between giving him a treat from your hand that he has to come get, and tossing it over his head so he has to walk away from you to get it.
Comment: Those all sound like good ideas. I may start with the treat/retreat. However, I have to be careful, he dislikes sudden movements.
Answer: If you immediately see the injury and take a treatment from a vet doctor.
•   Give some nutritious food to dog.
•   Socialize with him.
•   Go for a walk with him
By all these Dog c can trust you
Comment: The vet has been considered. The problem is the surgery would be several thousand dollars. Walking with him could be a problem because of the trust. However, a walk with him AND my girlfriend along with her father may help. Otherwise, the other ideas you mentioned are worth putting to use and trying.
Comment: Walks are always good. If you and your girlfriend walk together around the block with him every time you come over, before you enter his space, that would help a lot. And it certainly won't hurt.
Answer: There is a study that shows that dogs are more trusting of people who are helpful to their owners. I'm sure that you're not abusive towards your girlfriend, but stating the obvious that being nice/helpful to her will help gain the dog's trust.
Bonding activities are also helpful, like a class from your local kennel club, feeding/treating the dog, walks, visiting the park, or how about a nice relaxing doggie massage? Don't forget to smile! Dogs read expressions and smiling is huge.
This is not something that happens overnight, so it may take a few months.
Comment: Can you add a link to the study you mention in your answer?
Comment: Yes please, to the study. That is actually something I read in another forum. Someone else suggested showing some sort of affection with his owners when in his presence. Whether that be a hug or kiss with my girlfriend or a regular hand shake with her father. The smiling definitely seems that it would help and I'll be sure to do that. One thing I've always been told is not to show fear. That the dog is barking in an attempt to scare me away, but by showing I am not afraid of him and, in fact desire a relationship with the dog, would help. Is this true? @Amanda
Comment: I am not a trainer, but I'd be less worried about "showing you aren't afraid" and focus on earning his trust. You can also show you aren't afraid by puffing your chest and yelling and generally scaring the bejezus out of him but it won't help him stop barking.
Comment: @RyanAmey http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10071-014-0816-2
Comment: @RyanAmey An article about it for the non-technical readers www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150220-dogs-know-if-youre-untrustworthy

Gaining the trust of an injured dog


Where is the source code for Alternate CD installer?

Question: AFAIU debian-installer currently contains only documentation, where is the actual code for the Alternate CD installer?
Comment: is this what you were looking for? http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/CheckOut
Comment: Looks like a proper one, will you create an answer?
Answer: Debian Installer.
The alternate installer is created by Debian (upstream from Ubuntu).
Thus to look for the source, you'll need to pull this from the Debian repositories.

http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/CheckOut

According to debian:

Debian Installer developers frequently checkout the whole tree for
development.

Debian are transferring to Git - but the alternate installer is not completely migrated yet.
Two steps are required - checkout using subversion - and then checkout the sources from git

sudo apt-get install subversion, git, mr
svn co svn://svn.debian.org/svn/d-i/trunk debian-installer

Then pull the git repositories:

cd debian-installer/scripts
scripts/git-setup
mr -p checkout

Go for a coffee or two - each individual component (package) is checked-out - it will take quite some considerable amount of time over a slow link.
All the components are installed under the sub-folder packages
Comment: Any idea whether the Ubuntu devs make any changes to the upstream version?
Comment: @romandas - as far as I can gather - its the debian version they use and havent changed.  To be absolutely sure, you should drop in on the ubuntu-dev IRC or drop an email on their mailing list.


Keyboard shortcut to Insert 'Today's Date' in SharePoint 2010

Question: Does anyone know if there is a keyboard shortcut to insert 'Today's Date' in a Date field in SharePoint 2010? I've looked at the Microsoft Office SharePoint 2010 Keyboard Shortcuts and I do not see one. Just wondering if someone found a way to do this. Thanks!
Answer: I do not know if there is such a shortcut. I just tried ctrl + ; which is for Excel and Alt-Shift-D which is for Word - neither works.
"Today's Date" can be set as the default in the field definition, which might help your use case.
Answer: I think this would have to be custom. You would have to bind an event to that particular control you are using. You could try using:
https://github.com/jeresig/jquery.hotkeys
The syntax according to the repository is:
<code>// e.g. replace '$' sign with 'EUR'
$('input.foo').bind('keyup', '$', function(){
  this.value = this.value.replace('$', 'EUR');
});
</code>
You can also set a default value for the date field with Sharepoint OOB. When you specify a date field (ie. Start Date site column) click on the 'List Settings' for that list.
Under the section 'Columns' select the date field you want to set the date, and under 'Additional Column Settings' there is an option for a 'default value' called 'Today's Date'.


Boat tour on lake Titicaca?

Question: Is it possible to do a boat tour on Lake Titicaca? Where should I start? And are there roundtrips possible? Is it recommened to do a boat tour there as a tourist? aAnd can I see anything special?
Answer: We do it from Peru side. You have to go to Puno port and buy one of the excursions they sell that could be just for a lake trip or you can stay one night with a family in Taquile or Amantani islands. That option is very recommendable.
You also have the option to talk with a fisherman and negotiate a better price, but my advice is to buy a tourist excursion, because it's not expensive and nobody there speaks English so you may end up visiting a beach or going to Bolivia because of a misspelling.

"Can I see anything special?" You will see how these people live every day without electricity and some other comforts of modern life.
Answer: Besides the trips from Puno the other popular boat ride on Lake Titicaca is to go to Isla Del Sol, an island on the Bolivian side. You can either do a day trip from the Bolivian town of Copacabana close to the Peruvian border, or stay on the island in one of the numerous basic guest houses. You can easily spend a day walking around the island and go swimming. There are some Inca ruins as well but I did not find them very impressive.

Photo credit Peter Hahndorf
The boat ride itself is about an hour from what I remember, and it does help if you have a sunny day when visiting the "Island of the Sun"
Comment: The Isla del Sol is really amazing! one of the most beautiful places I've went. There are some good cheap guest houses to stay, and you have to stay at least two days to fully explore it. The trip from Copacabana is the best way.
Comment: The Isla del Sol trek that crosses the island from north to south is a tourist trap. In 3 different places you have village borders where you have to pay a local tax to cross the land. In december 2010 it was about 5 or 10 soles at each point. So, I advise to avoid the main trekking path and instead take alternate path that goes through villages on the east side. But it's longer.
Answer: Very possible.  Last year, with a friend, we bussed from La Paz, Bolivia in the early morning to Puno, Peru, on the west side of the lake.  By mid afternoon we'd checked into our hostel and booked and were on a trip to the Uro Islands on the lake.

We had a storm on the lake as we were leaving the islands, which added to the dramatic landscape and scenery.

For a description of the tour and my trip, I did a write-up on a blog page.
I should point out that once on the islands, I've never felt like I was in such a tourist trap as much as that moment.  They're very cool, and worth seeing, but you really felt like you were (And you literally were!) trapped on an island with pushy sellers.
Comment: Yeah, so did my friend who is convinced the entire thing has no history, but was created (story and all) as a tourist trap ;) I'm not quite that cynical - while it was a tourist trap, it was still really interesting and the show that the lightning storm put on on the lake was amazing.  Plus I've always wanted to visit the lake, so the whole day was a huge highlight for me :)  Didn't bother me, I can usually find the positive in any situation when travelling.  Usually.
Comment: Oh, a pity the bad experience. It's an amazing place. We don't had such "tourist trap" so enjoyed our stay (we sleeped in the island, I don't know if this makes the trip different).
Comment: Now that you mention the storm, I remember that the night at Taquile I saw the most wonderful sky in my life. A pity my camera cannot capture that sky
Answer: I did a 2 days boat tour with a home stay on Lago Titicaca this February.

The boat leaves Puno at around 9am and we arrive at Taquille Island about 2.5 hours later.
Taquille Island looks like a very peaceful paradise where the community leads a very simple life. The altitude will start weighing on you as you climb towards the middle of the island if you haven't been acclimatised yet. We had lunch on the island and it was delicious. They plant quinoa locally there and we had quinoa soup as a starter followed by fresh fish from the lake. Around 2 pm or so, we started to climb down to the other side of the island where our boat was waiting for us.
Another hour of boat ride and we reach the peninsula where we have our homestay. I got to live and experience living as the local people in this region as well as embracing their culture.  There was a dance at night and you will have dinner with your homestay family. I recommend you bring a Spanish dictionary or at least learn some Spanish words. Given my limited to non existent Spanish, I was forced to communicate with the homestay family by flaying my arms around and pointing at things around me.
On Day 2, we say goodbye to the family and leaves at 8am to Uros, the floating islands.  That took around 3 hours by boat.  The floating islands made of reeds looks out of this world, it's quite a sight to behold.  After landing on one of the man made island, a local will give you the history and how it was built.  After that, it's another hour by boat to Puno, we also had lunch on the boat.  We were back in town by 12:30 to 13:00.

Visting and living on the island is probably the best and most rewarding experience if you are visiting Puno and Lake Titicaca.
Comment: Note also that spanish is not the native language of the locals, so even if you speak spanish the exchange will be limited. But interesting anyway. I have mixed feelings about the evening and night I spent on Armantani because locals are now clearly relying on tourism and the exchange becomes too much formatted: they give you what they expects the tourist expects, based on what they have seen of the previous tourists.
Answer: I am visiting Lake Titicaca next week and will be taking a tour offered by All Ways Travel. I chose them based on the recommendations from my friends who have taken Lake Titicaca tours with them. Lonely planet and other travel guide books also recommended them.  Again, I am yet to go there so take my advice with a pinch of salt!

Boat tour on lake Titicaca?


How to deny execute permissions on a share/folder in Windows?

Question: I am archiving files into self-extracting .exe files. I want the user to have to copy the .exe to their machine in order to execute (extract) the files. So I want to deny only execute permission. They should still be able to write new files, and traverse folders. Possible?
Comment: Duplicate of http://serverfault.com/questions/114705/set-windows-permissions-to-allow-modify-but-not-execute and http://serverfault.com/questions/90135/noexec-option-on-ntfs-under-windows
Answer: This is not a duplicate post as Mark labeled it as. The valid, and different, question is setting execute to deny but still allowing traverse folder permission. In Server 08, the permission is labeled as "Traverse folder/Execute file". This is found in the properties > security > advanced >permissions section.

To allow "traverse folder": edit the permissions for the user/group you want and check "allow" for "traverse folder/execute file" and whatever else you want. Click ok to set the permissions. *Note: make sure you have the "Apply to:" drop down set to "this folder, subfolders, and files" (or "this folder and subfolder").
This is where things change... To deny executing a file: (still in the advanced permissions tab), add the same user/group you just edited the permissions for, but this time in the "apply to:" drop down select "files only" option and check "deny" in the "traverse folder/execute file" box. Click ok.

You should now be able to traverse folder and not execute file.
The deny will not overide the allow traversal since it is applied to the files in the folder and not the folder/subfolder themselves. You will now have two permission entries under your permissions. One for the allowing traversal and everything else. the second, just for denying execution of files.
Answer: To allow users to traverse folders & subfolders, but not execute files, go to the Advanced permissions dialogue for the top level folder in question and set the Traverse folder / execute file permission and Apply to: This folder and subfolders. Doing it this way means you do not need an explicit deny execute because you have only granted the allow permissions on folders & subfolders, not files.
Answer: If I recall correctly, you'll find what you are looking for under the security settings of the folder.  Just right click the specific folder, select properties, then the security tab.  You can set just read and write capabilities without giving execute rights.
Comment: Also, if I go into Advanced Permissions, it says "Traverse folder / execute file". So I can disable execution, but then the user can not navigate under subfolders??
Comment: I see that. There is Read & execute. When I click "Deny" it automatically sets Deny for List folder contents and Read. If I uncheck either of those 2, then it unchecks "Read & execute" as well.
Comment: Under the Security tab, you should have the option for Read & Execute as well as just a Read option.  Just give Read permission and also the Write permission.  Go to Advanced and set the following: List folder/Read data, Read attributes, Read extend attributes, Create files/write data, Create folders/append data, Read permissions. Apply it to 'This folder, subfolders, and files.
Comment: I tried that and I still can't seem to get it to work.
Answer: besides Mike's advice, you have firstly choose the kind of user to whom apply rights. So, if you want apply these restrictions to a normal user, you have to find group "Users" or which you prefer or you have to create a group and add all the users you want and apply rights to this new group.
Answer: Seems that execute file permission is applied only to exe files. Is there any way how to restrict it for any file type (xlsx/txt/...)?


What is the legal basis or standing of Transport for London (TfL) charging a driver's award for returning items lost in taxis?

Question: Is it lawful to charge someone more than postage and storage fees for example, in order to reunite them with their lawful property? Is it even legal to charge them storage fees? If so then what is the legal basis for this?
Comment: If I find an item that I think might be lost, I can legally just ignore it and you don't get it back. Now as a private person, I'm equally likely to benefit from a lost item being returned to me at no cost and me having to return a lost item with no benefit, so the cost averages out and I can't complain. Taxi drivers find 100 times more items than they lose. Would you rather have a system where you pay a small amount and get your items back, vs. a system where your lost items get thrown away at no cost to you?
Comment: Or a taxi driver took you from a pub to your home, and later finds your last wallet with credit and debit cards, driving license, cash etc. If he drives back to your home to return the wallet, wouldn't you think he should be paid for that journey, same as if you were a passenger?
Comment: Yes of course the provision of these incentives is all very sensible, I was just wondering how it is computed legally with the more fundamental Frameworks of lost property, extortion, etc.
Answer: Yes - they can charge a reasonable amount to cover collection, cataloguing, safekeeping and restoration of property. Crucially they aren't specific to just the costs related to an individual item, but rather the estimated income is weighed against the estimated costs of all lost property handling in that year.
The legal basis for this comes from the London Transport Act 1982, subsequently amended various times (e.g. by The Transport for London (Consequential Provisions) Order 2003) but the original gives the gist in Part V, Section 19 :

The Executive shall have power to fix the charges to be paid to them from time to time for the safe keeping and redelivery of lost property and the charges shall be of such amounts or at such rates as the Executive shall think fit:
Provided that -
(a) the total of the charges fixed under this subsection and estimated to be received in any year shall not exceed by an unreasonable proportion the cost to the Executive in that year of making provision for the safe keeping and redelivery of lost property ;

Since you specifically mentioned the driver award this is further explained in TfL's Lost Property Fees documentation:

Cab-driver award
Items found in licensed cabs are subject to an additional award, which is given in full to the driver. This award takes into account the value of the item and the time taken and loss of fare in delivering the item to a police station or the Lost Property Office.

Which is fairly sensible, cab drivers are only earning when their carrying fares. By taking steps to mean that they aren't out-of-pocket for turning in the lost items TfL is aiming to increase the number that get handed in rather than simply discarded, or in the case of valuable items simply kept. Which is in keeping with the goals of "safe keeping and redelivery" described in the Act.
The legal basis for this award is in the London Cab Order 1934, Part VIII:

(2) If any property found in a cab and deposited at a police station by the cab-driver be claimed within three months from the last day of the month in which the property is received at the Metropolitan Police Lost Property Office, and the claimant proves to the satisfaction of the Commissioner of Police that he is entitled thereto, the property shall be delivered to him on payment to the Commissioner of Police of
(a) a fee in respect of the cost of collecting, keeping in safe custody, and restoring lost property ;
b) an award to the cab-driver by whom the property was deposited; and
(c) such additional sum (if any) as may be payable as hereinafter provided.
Comment: @Lag good call, I've added in some additional info referencing that.
Comment: The cab driver awards are provided for in Part VIII.—Regulations as to Property Accidentally Left in Cabs, London Cab Order 1934 (which the TfL Lost Property Fees pdf cites in its first sentence along with the London Transport Act 1982).
Comment: Bus drivers and train drivers are paid their salary for the time they spend handling lost items. Taxi drivers are not. So it is reasonable to pay them for their efforts. (And all three groups will find lost items far, far more often than most people).
Comment: if I remember correctly, London bus crews (drivers or conductors in the old days) had the right to purchase items that they had personally found and handed in, if they were not claimed within some time period (a few months). The purchase price was fixed, something like ten shillings (£0.50). I read about this in a news story about a conductor who found and handed in a suitcase full of banknotes (over £3,000 I think) and was allowed to buy it at the fixed rate after it had not been claimed in the time allowed.
Comment: @MichaelHarvey oh wow, that is incredible.
Comment: @MichaelHarvey Similar for cab drivers - the London Cab Order goes so far as to set out the pricing.
Answer: The Town Police Clauses Act 1847 (since supplemented by Local Government Acts), which is still the basis of taxi law, states

68 Commissioners may make Bye Laws for regulating hackney carriages.
. . .
For securing the safe custody and re-delivery of any property accidentally left in hackney carriages, and fixing the charges to be made in respect thereof.

The reason for it is an incentive to return the lost property, rather than discarding it.
When I left my phone in a taxi (not in London), and the cabbie returned it to my house, he asked for a fee of £10. When I asked why, he said

You are the one who was so careless as to drop your phone, and I am the one who is losing business as a result of it.

So I thanked him and paid.


How did Geass come into existence?

Question: I watched Code Geass, and now I want to know: How did Geass come into existence? Who or what created Geass?
Comment: Interesting question. This isn't explained in the main show itself, but it's possible that some of the side materials / spinoffs could have an explanation.
Answer: Answering your question to the letter,

a Geass is created when a code user makes a contract with a human.

The type of Geass and its specific powers are dependent on the Code user, the new Geass user's personality and other specifics that are not discussed in the canon material.

But I feel like your question is not about how Geass powers comes into being, and more in the lines of how the superpowers of the characters (Geass and Code) come into being.
The backstory of the Code users is not revealed in depth. The further back we are shown is the life of C.C. while still mortal when she receives the Geass from the catholic nun.
(screenshot of C.C. and the nun)
While the epoch is not revealed, it is supposed to be in the High Middle Ages, circa XIV century (before the Age of Discovery) if I had to guess (and yes, this paragraph is pure guessing).
The reason I am assuming that C.C. backstory happens before the Age of Discovery is that she was already immortal for quite some time and was with George Washington and Benjamin Franklin during the American revolution (1700'), as shown in a special feature in the DVD release. Remember that in the world of Code Geass, Ben was granted nobility, betrayed Washington, and America was never independent form Britannia.
Since the nun was already immortal and already willing to give up immortality and die, the same state of mind C.C. is when she meets Lelouch, we can assume the nun is at least half a millennia old (around the same "oldness" as C.C. when the series launch).
So the codes should be around for at least a millennia. There is no info as to who the people with code sigils in their foreheads are, or how old the Geass order is. But one can assume that for as long as codes were around, Geass users are too.
(screenshot of the code people)
You could dig the origin of the term Geass (geis) on the internet (Wikipedia), but word of god never discussed this far back in the fictional world.
The timeline of the fictional world is here: world of Code Geass, but it does not go into the powers, only historical facts. Whether Geass was used or not in these events (like geassing Ben Franklin into betraying George Washington), it is not discussed.
Comment: The markup for the screenshots will be replaced by actual images later today when I get home. right now I cannot access imgur. If you feel like adding the images for me, go ahead, but do not delete the markings.
Comment: Lets not forget in the reoccurring images there was a church with the Geass symbol being stoned (suggesting it may have been far more public at a time) and shots of a Jovian planetoid (there is doubt it may actually be Jupiter)
Answer: That was not explained in the anime, but it was kind of explained in the OVA.
When people crave for power to change the reality, one day they are starting to have that power. It is granted by collective consciousness (in OVA), or how we call it in the real world: Prima Materia or Chaos. It originated around that time when first abstract intelligence evolved (so long LONG time ago, before written history).
I think that my answer is quite accurate, even if it is not based solely on the Code Geass. Note, that Geass comes from Geis, which comes from Arianrhod, which is not in anime anymore, but in Celtic religion. Still, Chaos or Prima Materia was first described in writings (hieroglyph "kh") by ancient Egyptians long, long time ago.
Answer: My guess is that Geass was an isolated high order of beings that existed before human civilization became a norm. I came to this conclusion from seeing Charles activate the Ragnarök Connection from all of the world's ruins. Using humanity's beginnings to bring about its ultimate destruction and rebirth.

How did Geass come into existence?


LTE UE REPORTED CQI - Defined by RS-SINR or by Transport Block Mapping?

Question: First than anything, let me assure you I am fully aware that no one REALLY knows HOW UE manufacturers specifically implement the CQI reports sent on the UL, but there should certainly be a better engineering answer to my question.
This is particularly important on today's reality where wireless operators are doing great efforts to improve the RF environment (important for high capacity venues such as Stadiums and Arenas) to provide the best customer experience (generally measure by the throughput granted to users) and throughput is directly dependent upon on LTE UE CQI reports back to the eNodeB.
Some background context.
PART 1:
Everywhere where we look we see articles like the one below. Basically, everyone states mobiles measure RS-SINR to define the CQI value to be reported back to the eNodeB. This is where the "magic" statements comes in.
http://testfirstforkevin.blogspot.com/2013/11/lte-cqi.html?m=1
PART 2:
The RS-SINR is defined by the specification(3GPP TS 36.213 V14.4.0 /2017-09) as:

Reference signal-signal to noise and interference ratio (RS-SINR), is
  defined as the linear average over the power contribution (in [W]) of
  the resource elements carrying cell-specific reference signals divided
  by the linear average of the noise and interference power contribution
  (in [W]) over the resource elements carrying cell-specific reference
  signals within the same frequency bandwidth.  For RS-SINR
  determination, the cell-specific reference signals R0 according TS
  36.211 [3] shall be used.  The reference point for the RS-SINR shall be the antenna connector of the UE. If receiver diversity is in use by
  the UE, the reported value shall not be lower than the corresponding
  RS-SINR of any of the individual diversity branches.  If higher-layer
  signalling indicates certain subframes for performing RS-SINR
  measurements, then RS-SINR is measured in the indicated subframes.

And the specification (3GPP TS 36.214 V15.0.0 /2017-09) also defines the CQI as per the paragraphs below. Pay special attention to the BOLDED sentence.

7.2.3 Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) definition
The CQI indices and their interpretations are given in Table 7.2.3-1 for reporting CQI based on QPSK, 16QAM and 64QAM. The CQI indices and their
  interpretations are given in Table 7.2.3-2 for reporting CQI based on
  QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM and 256QAM. The CQI indices and their
  interpretations are given in Table 7.2.3-3 for reporting CQI based on
  QPSK and 16QAM. For a non-BL/CE UE, based on an unrestricted
  observation interval in time unless specified otherwise in this
  Subclause, and an unrestricted observation interval in frequency, the
  UE shall derive for each CQI value reported in uplink subframe n the
  highest CQI index between 1 and 15 in Table 7.2.3-1 or Table 7.2.3-2
  which satisfies the following condition, or CQI index 0 if CQI index 1
  does not satisfy the condition:

A single PDSCH transport block with a combination of modulation scheme and transport block size corresponding to the CQI index, and
  occupying a group of downlink physical resource blocks termed the CSI
  reference resource, could be received with a transport block error
  probability not exceeding 0.1.

The CQI definition above seems to imply that there are not RS-SINR measurements but, rather, the UE defines the CQI by looking at the transport blocks and selecting the highest CQI by a sort of reverse mapping from TBS (those that perform with a BLER < 10%) to MCS to CQI Mapping (because by knowing the TBS and MCS, it'd be relatively straightforward to make assumptions to CQI mapping).
QUESTION:
What is the actual approach given by the specification? CQI based on RS-SINR or CQI based on reverse mapping from TBS to CQI?
I hope one of you can help me on my quest!!
Thanks a lot!
Lamberto
PD: I am a newbie in the community so I could not add the tags: lte,cqi,ue to the question but these would be key tags to identify this question. If others can add it, it'd be of great help to other members.
Answer: I support your assumption that CQI is NOT actually based on RS-SINR. In fact I saw strong evidence of this in practice. We applied negative CRS gain in our LTE (RS -3dB lower than PDSCH), that immediately led to poorer RSRQ and increase in L1 radio link failure declarations (because L1 RLF is based exactly on RS-SINR). But unlike L1 RLF, CQI has actually increased (improved)! And that's an evidence that CQI is obviously estimated NOT based on RS-SINR, for otherwise it would have degraded as well as L1 RLF.


(OrElse and Or) and (AndAlso and And) - When to use?

Question: What is the difference between (OrElse and Or) and (AndAlso and And)?
Is there any difference in their performances, let say the correctness benefit?? Is there any situation that I shoudn't use OrElse and AndAlso?
Comment: possible duplicate of [Should I always use the AndAlso and OrElse operators?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/55013/should-i-always-use-the-andalso-and-orelse-operators)
Comment: Just started using VB.NET (first time in many years for VB).  I came online only to ask this specific question. My thanks to @aer and the many folks who clarified with their great answers.
Answer: Or/And will always evaluate both1 the expressions and then return a result. They are not short-circuiting.
OrElse/AndAlso are short-circuiting. The right expression is only evaluated if the outcome cannot be determined from the evaluation of the left expression alone. (That means: OrElse will only evaluate the right expression if the left expression is false, and AndAlso will only evaluate the right expression if the left expression is true.)
Assuming that no side effects occur in the expressions and the expressions are not dependent (and any execution overhead is ignored), then they are the same.
However, in many cases it is that the expressions are dependent. For instance, we want to do something when a List is not-Nothing and has more than one element:
If list IsNot Nothing AndAlso list.Length > 0 Then .. 'list has stuff

This can also be used to avoid an "expensive" computation (or side-effects, ick!):
If Not Validate(x) OrElse Not ExpensiveValidate(x) Then .. 'not valid

Personally, I find that AndAlso and OrElse are the correct operators to use in all but the 1% - or less, hopefully! - of the cases where a side-effect is desired.
Happy coding.

1 An Exception thrown in the first expression will prevent the second expression from being evaluated, but this should hardly be surprising ..
Answer: Besides the short-circuiting mentioned in the other answers, Or/And are usable as bitwise operators where OrElse/AndAlso are not.  Bitwise operations include combining values of Flags enums, such as the FileAttributes enumeration where you might indicate a file is both read only and hidden by FileAttributes.ReadOnly Or FileAttributes.Hidden
Answer: The difference is that OrElse and AndAlso will short-circuit based on the first condition, meaning that if the first condition doesn't pass, the second (or more) conditions will not be evaluated. This is particularly useful when one of the conditions might be more intensive than the other.
Example where Or is fine (both conditions evaluated):
If Name = "Fred" Or Name = "Sam" Then

It really doesn't matter which way around they are evaluated
The following AndAlso is useful because the second condition might fail
If Not SomeObject Is Nothing AndAlso CheckObjectExistsInDatabase(SomeObject) Then

This allows for the first condition to check whether the object has been set and only if it has been set will go and check the database (or some other task). If this had been a plain And keyword, both would be evaluated.
Answer: @Gideon - glad someone pointed that out. Here is a simple test that shows the dramatic impact of AndAlso:
    Dim tm As New Stopwatch
    Const tries As Integer = 123456
    Dim z As Integer = 0
    Dim s() As String = New String() {"0", "one"}

    Debug.WriteLine("AndAlso")
    For x As Integer = 0 To s.Length - 1
        z = 0
        tm.Restart() 'restart the stopwatch
        For y As Integer = 0 To tries
            If s(x) = x.ToString AndAlso s(x) = y.ToString Then '<<<<<<<<<<
                z += 1
            End If
        Next
        tm.Stop()
        Debug.WriteLine(x.ToString.PadRight(3, " "c) & z.ToString.PadRight(10, " "c) & tm.Elapsed.ToString)
    Next

    Debug.WriteLine("And")
    For x As Integer = 0 To s.Length - 1
        z = 0
        tm.Restart() 'restart the stopwatch
        For y As Integer = 0 To tries
            If s(x) = x.ToString And s(x) = y.ToString Then '<<<<<<<<<<
                z += 1
            End If
        Next
        tm.Stop()
        Debug.WriteLine(x.ToString.PadRight(3, " "c) & z.ToString.PadRight(10, " "c) & tm.Elapsed.ToString)
    Next


Why does showing that a NP problem is not NP-complete implies P$\neq$NP?

Question: I found in this answer that if a problem is shown to be NP but not NP-complete then P$\neq$NP. What is the argument to prove this statement?
Comment: The answer says that a problem in NP is **proved to not be** NP-complete. Such a problem can only exist if P $\neq$ NP.
Comment: @pål-gd Yes, and I'm asking why is that so.
Answer: This statement is false.
It is already known that the empty problem and the universal problem are in $\mathsf{NP}$ and are not $\mathsf{NP}$-complete (not even $\mathsf{P}$-complete).
However, what is true is that if $A\in \mathsf{NP}$ is not one of the two problems above, then $A$ is $\mathsf{P}$-hard. To prove this result, consider $a\in A$ and $b \notin A$ (those exist because $A$ is neither the empty nor the universal language). Then for any $B\in\mathsf{P}$, you can create the following function:
$$f : x\mapsto \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} a& \text{if }x\in B\\b&\text{otherwise}\end{array}\right.  $$
Since $B\in \mathsf{P}$, $f$ is computable in polynomial time. Given the definition of $f$, $a$ and $b$, it is clear that:
$$x\in B \Leftrightarrow f(x)\in A$$
That means that there is a polynomial time many-one reduction from $B$ to $A$.
Now if such a language $A$ is not $\mathsf{NP}$-complete, then $\mathsf{P}\neq \mathsf{NP}$ (because $A$ is $\mathsf{P}$-hard and not $\mathsf{NP}$-hard).
Comment: If P=NP then NP-complete and P-complete are the same. All P problems are P-complete (under polynomial-time reductions). Therefore if a problem in NP(=P) is not NP-complete we have a contradiction and P$\neq$NP. (All these with the exception of the empty and universal language)
Comment: Yes, that's it.
Answer: If a problem X is NP-complete that means by definition that I can take any problem Y in NP, and for every instance of Y I can construct an instance of X so that solving X allows me to solve Y in polynomial time.
Now assume P = NP. Then Y is in P, so I can solve it in polynomial time anyway - without having to construct an instance of X at all, or by constructing one and ignoring it completely when I solve the instance of Y. That means any problem in P is in NP and is NP-complete. NP complete just doesn't mean much; if P = NP then P = NP-complete.
Now we reverse the logic: If P = NP then every problem in NP is NP-complete, so if there is a problem in NP that is not NP-complete then P ≠ NP.
(And there is a problem: There are two problems (the empty problem and the complete problem) where all instances have the same answer, either all instances have the answer NO or all instances have the answer YES, so you cannot find two instances with different answers and things break down).


Removal of house numbers on stucco!

Question: I have house numbers on my stucco there are no screws. They seem to be glued on in someway. How can I remove them? I want to put new floating more modern numbers on. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Comment: can you add a picture?
Answer: Probably construction adhesive. The main problem is that this doesn't come off cleanly. On stucco, this is likely to turn into gouging out the letters, glue, and the stucco underneath, then repairing the stucco. Figure out if this is acceptable now.
You can use a hairdryer to heat up the area to soften the glue. There might be screws underneath, used for creating a good surface to adhere to.
Answer: Second option is to leave the old numbers there, box over them and put your fancy new numbers on the front.
You could use the same colour for the numbers as the stucco, and a contrasting colour for your box.  Or face the front of the box with frosted glass/perspex and backlight it with LEDs.

You could try adding more stucco over the existing numbers, but that's probably going to leave an unsightly lump so framing would be neater.

The really lazy solution is to paint the old numbers the same colour as the stucco, and then ignore them.
Good luck !

Removal of house numbers on stucco!


Move resource into the the root folder with Google Docs List API

Question: I'm looking for a way to move a Resource into the root folder of a user's Docs account using the Google Docs List API (Python SDK).
The client.move_resource method requires a gdata.docs.data.Resource as the target collection, but I can't figure out how to get the Resource entry for the root folder, or if that's even possible. The API docs say

When getting entries back from API feeds, you will never find a resource entry with a resource ID of folder:root because the root collection does not have its own entry.

If I try to use move_resource(entry=entry, collection=None, keep_in_collections=False) I end up with the Resource not in anything, including the root folder, such that if I query the contents of the root folder, I don't get that Resource in the response.
Any ideas?
Answer: I had same problem, my solution for Obj-C framework was to find some GTLDriveFile with root parent ref and set it to file which i want move to root.


Nuclear wastegate thermal dissipation systems?

Question: How do shoreline nuclear facilities lower the temperature of wastewater generated by their cooling systems before it enters the ocean?
Comment: Possibly helpful:   https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/power-plant-cooling-IB.pdf  and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_tower
Comment: Increase the volume of water through the cooling system and the water temperature rise will be reduced. That's the advantage, I presume, of a seaside site - unlimited water.
Comment: Water is not dumped in the ocean during normal operation.  The clean cool steam/condensate from the turbines is cooled in the large funnel shaped cooling towers and returned to be reheated in a closed system . The steam coming from the towers is from fresh water sprayed onto the tubes containing the turbine steam/water.  Although , I did hear that Russia did have a few reactors that did use "once through" river water for the turbines, but this was stopped years ago.
Answer: One way is to use massive pond systems for evaporate cooling.
Turkey Point nuclear plant. Closed loop system explained here - https://youtu.be/qt9dtYC7RDE
Answer: In heat exchanger design, typically a maximum rise is specified by the end user - be it the environmental control groups, or the plant designer itself.  The heat exchanger is then designed to remove the required amount of heat, which is known, by having the output have a certain temperature fall of the first stream, and a maximum temperature rise.  The actual temperatures are then simulated in various selected heat exchangers, until a desired heat exchanger that matches the constraints is determined.  Usually this comes with a desired flowrate on both the hot line and the cool line.  The cool line flowrate would usually be a minimum to remain open, and conservatively additional flow would be designed into the system (larger pumps, larger pipes, etc).


Line breaks or page formatting in TuxGuitar

Question: I'm trying to write bass tabs in TuxGuitar, but want to format the print layout. I can't figure out how to set the number of measures per line or how to add a line break in the tabs. Does anyone know if this is possible?
Answer: Print formatting appears to be unsupported. Wayne Gabree's tutorial makes no mention of it, a question similar to yours received no answers, and a related bug report also suggests there is no such support.
From the bug report:

Luis - 2018-07-28: Style.stringSpacing works very well for the screen but not for printing the tab. Could you help me in discovering which setting I should alter to have the same effect on printing?

Julian Casadesus - 2018-07-28: Sorry, this setting isn't available for printing. the only choice is modifying printer notes font size at the settings window

Short of exporting to another format that supports print settings, you may be out of luck.
Comment: Thanks for grouping these sources together here. I think it would be a nice feature as it is the only thing missing for me right now.
My workaround now is to set the print preview to just those measures needed per row and combine them in an image editing program. That works for small pieces, but isn't doable for a whole song.


If i lower voltage drawn from a battery will it last longer?

Question: I have a water pump that operates between 5-12v at 3amps. At 5v the water flows slower and at 12v it flows fast. If I have it connected to a 12v battery and use a step down converter to convert the voltage to 6-8v, will it draw less amps from the battery and be able to run longer?
Answer:
If I have it connected to a 12v battery and use a step down converter to convert the voltage to 6-8v, will it draw less amps from the battery and be able to run longer?

If you reduce the voltage to the pump the current drawn by the pump will reduce too. Since power, \$ P = voltage \times current \$ the power drawn will be reduced and the battery will last longer.
You need to estimate the number of watt-hours (Wh) your battery can produce and using that and the pump power (watts or W) you can calculate the run hours.
Steps:

Get the ampere-hours (Ah) rating of the battery.
Multiply by 12 (volts) to get the Wh rating of the battery.
Measure the current drawn (I) by the pump at a particular voltage setting (V).
Calculate the power used at that setting using P = VI. Answer will be watts.
Divide battery Wh by pump W will give you the run hours.
Multiply this by your voltage regulator efficiency.

Worked example:

Battery is 12 V, 10 Ah.
Pump draws 2.5 A at 6 V.
Voltage regulator is 85% efficient.

Battery capacity = \$ 12V \times 10Ah = 120~VAh = 120~Wh\$.
Pump power = \$ 6V \times 2.5 A = 15~VA = 15~W \$.
Run time = \$ \frac {Battery~capacity}{Pump~power} efficiency \$
\$= \frac {120Wh}{15W} 0.85 = 6.8~h\$.
Comment: How could efficiency be measured from a regulator?
Answer: Yes it will, as long as the step-down convert you use is really a switch mode converter (SMPS), and not a linear power supply.
It should be quite difficult to buy the latter as a standalone DC-DC converter. The chances are very good that if you buy a DC-DC converter from eBay, it will be the SMPS that you need.
Comment: ...not that we're endorsing buying electronic equipment from Ebay...


Going from Hongik Univ to Incheon intairport by train: possible with T-money card?

Question: T-money is an all-around transportation card used for public buses, subways, taxis, and convenience stores that accept T-money as a form of transaction (most do). The function of a T-money card is like a debit card, where money is deposited into the card and used to get around the city of Seoul and the Gyeonggi-do district.  Can I use my T-money card for the all stop train to the airport?
Answer: Yes, according to the Korean Tourism Organisation

Transportation card purchase locations: Transportation Center on B1F of Incheon Int'l Airport Terminal 1 & Terminal 2 (Single-journey transit card), convenience stores inside Incheon International Airport (Tmoney card), Tourist Information Center near Gates 5 & 10 on 1F of Incheon International Airport Terminal 1 (MPASS)

That's advice for arriving passengers. They also list it here:

Transportation card information: Tmoney / Exclusive Tourist Cards
Answer: In 2017, I was visiting South Korea, flew into Incheon airport, got a T-Money card there and used it all the way from there on the all-stops train into the city centre where my hotel was without issue.
This should not have changed.


Sign of the vector (especially $g$) while calculating

Question: I'm a high school student and I'm studying Newton's second Law. While my teacher is calculating a net force of an object he always treat all vectors as positive numbers. I think what he meant is the magnitude of the vector which is always positive, but the problem is that he didn't use the magnitude symbol, for example like $||Fg||$. He said the acceleration due to gravity , g, is positive, but shouldn't it be negative since it is pointing down. This also cause a problem: every time when I calculate the net force I can't add all forces together, instead I need to choose to use minus sign when the vector is pointing down. So in general which way is correct?
Comment: You pick the coordinate system, so when you are adding or subtracting vectors the main thing is to preserve how they act, are they  in opposite direction, the same direction, or at some angle to each other that you have to split them into components. As far as g is concerned, TBH, I would follow the convention and setup of the guy who will be marking the exam papers : ) . G is positive in the sense that things go faster when they drop, maybe that's the best way of thinking about it.
Comment: Vectors aren't positive or negative. Components of vectors can be positive or negative, but the signs depend on what coordinate system you're using.
Answer: The teacher's point is that all vector magnitudes are positive, and you only add signs because of directions.
So yes, you are right. There will be minus signs as well.
But you can't say that for example $g$ should be negative. It is a positive value on itself, and it only becomes negative, if the direction is opposite to the axis. If you in some specific case choose your coordinate system to point downwards, then the $g$ is positive.
If you had been taught that $g$ is always negative, you might have been confused in that case.
Answer: $g$ is somewhat like a fundamental constant.  It's a number that we all agree on.  All of these are magnitudes, and we put signs in front of them when we need to specify a sense or direction.  For example, the charge on a proton is $+e$ and that of an electron is $-e$.  There is some confusion because we don't normally write the positive sign explicitly, so in our conventional notation we don't have a way to distinguish a magnitude from a positive signed quantity.
Comment: It always helps to draw a picture showing the directions of forces, then correlate the signs used in equations (e.g., Newton's 2nd Law equations for free-body diagrams) with those pictured force vectors.  Pictures are invaluable in kinematic and dynamic studies.
Answer: if you take downward direction is positive then g is positive;if you take upward as positive then g is negative.g is a vector that always point down,but it's +-sign is just depends on the direction you take positive.I think your teacher always takes down as + so g is +in this case,but you may decide your own way.However,g always have a magnitude of 9.81,number won't change in any cases, just +-sign.
Comment: If you mean to treat $g$ as a vector, then use vector notation, e.g., $\vec{g}$ so that $\vec{g}= -g\hat{j}$ or $g\hat{j}$ depending on the coordinate system.
Comment: No, the number $g$ should always be positive. The sign used when applying Newton's 2nd Law or some of the kinematic equations will be positive or negative depending on the choice of coordinates. For example, for objects in free fall, if *up* is chosen to be the positive direction, $a_{\mathrm{vert}}=-g$. The negative sign should be explicit and $g$ itself is positive.


What is the gapless excitation for traditional Bose-Einstein condensates?

Question: I want to know the properties and the behavior of the gapless excitation for the traditional BECs. Could you give me some idea or references about this?
Answer: Since the non-interacting condensate is a pathological situation (it is not a superfluid), I will assume that by "traditional" you mean a (perhaps extremely) weakly interacting condensate. I will denote the repulsive interaction strength (the T-matrix) by $g>0$. For simplicity, I will describe the situation at very low temperatures.
The elementary excitations are Bogoliubov quasiparticles. They are the Nambu-Goldstone modes, which appear due to spontaneous breaking of the global U(1) symmetry. This should be compared with the situation above critical temperature where the single-particle excitations have a gapped (Hartree-Fock) spectrum. The Bogoliubov quasiparticles have a linear dispersion at low momenta, namely, $E = c \hbar k$. The prefactor
$$c=\sqrt{\frac{dp}{dn}\frac{1}{m}}=\sqrt{\frac{gn}{m}}$$
is the sound velocity, where $n$ is particle-density, $p$ is the pressure, and $m$ is the mass of the atom. Bogoliubov particles are coherent combinations of adding and removing particles (atoms and holes).
What I have described above are low-temperature quasiparticle-like excitations. One can also take a hydrodynamic point of view. In that case, there are two types of collective modes - first and second sound - which are both gapless and have a linear dispersion. They correspond to combinations of density and temperature waves in the system. In many aspects they are similar to the sound waves that we are all familiar with.
More details are given in a book by Pethick and Smith, Bose–Einstein Condensation in Dilute Gases. Another reference, where it is explicitly shown that the phase fluctuations cause gapless excitations is arXiv:1306.1104 (see Eq. 14 there for the gapless dispersion).


Does weak interaction always come in decays?

Question: Well, essentially I'm confused about how weak nuclear force works. Decay is usually mentioned in studying weak nuclear force, so does weak force always work in decays? If so, is all decay is based on the weak nuclear force?
Answer: Some decays are caused by the electromagnetic force. For example, the neutral pion, $\pi^0$, made of a superposition of $u\bar{u}$ and $d\bar{d}$ decays by annihilation of the quark-antiquark into 2 photons. Other decays happen through the strong interaction. For example the neutral Delta baryon, $\Delta^0$, made of $udd$, i.e. the same make-up as the neutron, but the constituent are in a higher energy state than the neutron. The decay $\Delta^0 \to \pi^- + p$ happens through the strong interaction. I'll add the Feynman diagram later.
A note in passing: since the strong interaction is much stronger than the electromagnetic interaction which is much stronger than the weak interaction, the particle decaying through the strong interaction tend to have a shorter lifetime than those decaying through the electromagnetic interaction which tend to have a shorter lifetime than those decaying through the weak interaction.
As your first question, I guess your point is whether the weak interaction could make bound states for example. The answer is "no". The weak interaction only appears in decays indeed.
Answer: If by decay you mean the process whereby a particle at rest breaks apart into two or more constituents each of which carries energy and momentum, then yes, the weak interaction involves more than just decay events.  There are also weak scattering events such as neutrino elastic scattering (see here).  There is also electron capture whereby a proton bound to a nucleus captures an atomic electron (s-state) leaving a neutron and an outgoing neutrino. Admittedly this latter process also involves the strong interaction so it is not entirely a weak provess. Finally, there is inelastic neutrino scattering (also known as inverse beta-decay, see here)
Comment: Yes, very good point.


Is there a way to save and share topology rules in QGIS?

Question: I would like to create a set of topology rules and use them over and over again. I would also like to be able to share them with my team. Is there a way to do this in QGIS? I'm using QGIS 3.0 but I can switch to earlier versions of necessary.
Answer: I assume it is the topology checker you are using. The topology rules are saved in  the project. If you and your team have a template project, which you use, whenever you're starting a new project, then you will have the topology rules in your project from the beginning.
I don't know of any way to save the rules and import them to an existing project.
Comment: This is perfect answer. Thank you. I will give it a try and may come back and edit question if I encounter errors or confirmed it worked
Answer: QGIS files are text files, so it should be possible to copy topology checker rules from one QGIS file and paste them into another. Save a backup copy of the QGIS project file before attempting this.
Open the original QGIS file in a text editing program (such as Notepad) and find the lines of code between the tags Topol and /Topol.
Here's what it looks like in Notepad++

Copy this entire section of code (including the tags) and paste it into the same location of the new QGIS file. Then update each layer_id as described below.
Each layer is referenced by its layer_id, which is unique and different in each project. So you'll need to replace each layer_id with the layer_id from the current project. You can find the new layer_id's in two ways:

With the new project open in your text program, search for the layer name

Or, open the project in QGIS and go to Layer Properties | Variables

As you can see, this is a rather involved process. In most cases it won't be any better than starting from a template project as suggested by Sigrid, or simply re-do the topology checker settings. But it may help at times when you have many different topology checker rules set up.
Comment: This just transfers the settings from the Topology Checker plugin from one project to another. There won't be any output until you run the Topology Checker, and then the output will be the same as it always is.
Comment: Thank you csk! What will the output of doing it like this look like? Will it be a table of errors?


Should all GPG keys begin with 0x?

Question: I've created a GPG key on a newly installed Debian virtual machine. I've noticed that most keys I've seen begin with 0x, however the one I created doesn't. I selected 'RSA (set your own capabilities)' with a 4096 bit key size. Should I create again this key?
Comment: could it be that you used different tools to view the keys each time? `0x` is often a prefix to indicate that what follows is a hex string (base 16), eg. `0xABBA` is actually only 2 bytes: 171 (ab) and 186 (ba) - [here's a good article on the topic](https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/hexadecimal/all) *JIMBLOM '??*
Answer:
most keys I've seen begin with 0x

I assume you are referring to the Key ID, and the 0x is not part of the actual key ID, but merely a display option indicating that the string of digits are hexadecimal (which all Key ID's are, including yours, regardless of whether they are prepended with "0x").

Should I create again this key?

No. The key is fine.
If you want GnuPG to display your keys with the "0x" you can add the option keyid-format 0xlong to your gpg.conf file.
If the gpg.conf file is not already present in your home directory's .gnupg/ directory, you can create it with bash:
echo 'keyid-format 0xlong' > $HOME/.gnupg/gpg.conf

Comment: Great! Thank you. I wanted to be certain, since I hope to use the key for a long time.

Should all GPG keys begin with 0x?


For how long can mid-oceanic islands be volcanically active?

Question: The island of St Helena in the South Atlantic was volcanically active for 5 million years, or maybe longer. Is this period of time unusual - which other mid-oceanic islands were active for as long as this?
Comment: Could you clarify what you mean by mid-oceanic please? Is it restricted to island built on mid-oceanic ridges, such as St Helena and Ascension, or do hotspot oceanic islands, such as Hawaii and La Reunion, count as well?
Comment: Mid-oceanic islands are those located significantly far from mainland/continental coasts, e.g. over 500 miles. They may or, may not be close to mid-oceanic ridges. St Helena & Ascension are both mid-oceanic but while Ascension is relatively close to the Atlantic mid-oceanic ridge St Helena is hundreds of miles away. My question specifically relates to the length of time these mid-oceanic islands were volcanically active, NOT to theories of how such islands formed, e.g. hot spots.
Comment: Well both are linked, as the formation process of such islands will have an impact on the possible duration of volcanic activity. For example, hotspot islands will be active only until the plate has moved away from the mantle plume enough to create a new island. Which can still be quite a long amount of time. For example, Mauritius has been active for about 10 million years, and now volcanism has shifted to La Reunion, which has already been active for 3 million years.
Answer: There is a series of volcanic islands in the  Atlantic.
Besides St. Helena there are for example Bermuda, Madeira, The Canary Islands, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha, The Azores, and Iceland, which is the largest island on the ridge and is active at least for the past 16-18 Ma.
On St. Helena Abdel-Monem & Gast, (1967) and Baker et al. ( 1967) report  K-Ar ages of 7-14 Ma for the NE and SW volcanoes.
Data from Chaffey et al. (1989) report  the smaller interval  of 7-9 Ma.
An interval of activity of several Ma appears not unusual.
If hotspot volcanism is the origin, the activity interval is related to the size of island and the relative speed of plate motion across the hotspot.
A typical speed is 5 mm/a, corresponding to 5km/Ma.
For an island with 20 km diameter this corresponds to about 4 Ma.
Again, 5 Ma seems to be a reasonable time interval.
Comment: I suspect there are 2 errors in the above:

1. The African plate is thought to move at 21.5mm/a, not 5mm/a.

2. The surface diameter of St Helena (actually 16x8km) seems irrelevant -  merely being the section above sea level.

The base of St Helena has a diameter of 130Km.

If the African plate travels 21.5mm/a, I calculate it would take 6.04Ma to travel 130Km across a theoretical hot spot. That very roughly fits the estimated 7ma period of volcanism.

Is this a coincidence or does the base diameter of an extinct volcano indeed have a relationship with its period of activity?


How to find slimes in 1.9.2 with no seeds

Question: I have looked all over the web but none of the things people say work. How do you find slimes in Minecraft PC 1.9.2?
Answer: According to the Minecraft Wiki:

##Spawning

Slimes spawn in the Overworld in specific chunks below layer 40 regardless of light levels. They can also spawn in swamp biomes between layers 50-70 in light levels of 7 or less.

Slimes will not spawn within 24 blocks (spherical) of any player, and will despawn over time if no player is within 32 blocks and instantly if no player is within 128 blocks.

Slimes require two vertical transparent blocks[Verify] (e.g., air, signs, torches) to spawn in, with an opaque block underneath. The space they spawn in must also be clear of solid obstructions and liquids.[Verify] Big slimes require a 3×2½×3 space to spawn, small slimes require a 3×2×3 space, and tiny slimes require a 1×2×1 space (or 1×1×1 if the upper block is not opaque).[1]

Slime size is affected by regional difficulty: chances range from 33% for each size at low difficulty to 16% tiny, 33% small, and 50% big with higher difficulty.

###Swamps

In swamps, slimes may spawn at night between the heights of 50 and 70 provided the light level is 7 or less. They spawn most often on a full moon, and never on a new moon.

More precisely, the game checks if the light level is equal to or less than a random integer (from 0 to 7), then if the fraction of the moon which is bright is greater than a random number (from 0 to 1). If these conditions are met and the altitude is acceptable, there is a 50% chance of spawning a slime.

###"Slime chunks"

Slimes spawn throughout the world (except mushroom islands) below layer 40 regardless of light level, but only in certain chunks, 1 in 10 of all chunks. These "slime chunks" are determined pseudo-randomly by combining their chunk coordinates with the seed of the world:

Random rnd = new Random(seed + (long) (xPosition * xPosition * 0x4c1906) + (long) (xPosition * 0x5ac0db) +  (long) (zPosition * zPosition) * 0x4307a7L + (long) (zPosition * 0x5f24f) ^ 0x3ad8025f); return rnd.nextInt(10) == 0;

That is, using the chunk coordinates to help generate a seed, a random number between 0 and 9 will be generated, and if that number is 0, the chunk will be able to spawn slimes. To convert world coordinates to chunk coordinates, divide by 16 and round down.

So your best bet will be to dig down in a swamp biome, and then create a few big rooms for slimes to spawn in.
Answer: If you have a hard time finding slimes go to a swamp biome. Its the biome slimes spawn. I think they can spawn other places too but im not sure. Hope this helps!
Answer: Go to a swamp biome, find the lowest open area you can, and build a roof.  Leave at least 2 blocks high space and cover as much area as you can, then dig a cave for yourself and wait.   Natural light lvl in the swamp is usually about 9, finding 7 is tough.  So make a roof to block as much sun as you can and wait.  Worked for me in about 10 minutes.


Why is Log File Auto Grow sometimes performed by my application user and sometimes by sa?

Question: Many database tasks (including Data File Auto Grow, Log File Auto Shrink, and Data File Auto Shrink) are completed only by the sa user, but Log File Auto Grow seems to be associated with both sa and my application user via .Net SqlClient Data Provider. Is there a reason for this?
Answer: Whichever transaction requires additional log space will grow the log file within that transaction, so it can complete.
So if userA is performing a bulk load of data and uses up all available space in the log file, you will see a growth event for the log being called by userA.
Comment: In that case, I suppose my question is, what would the sa user be doing that would cause the log file to expand? All my applications use my user login. Would this just be due to background tasks? :)
Comment: It is a background process that is called.


Is it possible to build .app file without the source code? If we just have the app installed on the iOS device and can extract .ipa

Question: If we have an iOS app, it is a test build (enterprise build) deployed on Test Flight.
I can extract the .ipa after installing the app on the device and connecting it to iTunes.
And then I zip the .ipa file and unzip it, it shows .app file within the extracted folder of that app.
Can I use this .app file to run iOS appium scripts on simulator?
I tried doing it but it gave error -
error: Failed to start an Appium session, err was: Error: Instruments crashed on startup
info: [debug] Error: Instruments crashed on startup
at Instruments.onInstrumentsExit (/Applications/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/node_modules/appium/node_modules/appium-instruments/lib/instruments.js:387:31)
at null. (/Applications/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/node_modules/appium/node_modules/appium-instruments/lib/instruments.js:308:12)
at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:98:17)
at Process.ChildProcess.handle.onexit (childprocess.js:820:12)
info: [debug] Responding to client with error: {"status":33,"value":{"message":"A new session could not be created. (Original error: Instruments crashed on startup)","origValue":"Instruments crashed on startup"},"sessionId":null}
info: <-- POST /wd/hub/session 500 115895.509 ms - 182
Can someone please suggest some steps to launch this enterprise iOS test app on iOS simulator using appium ?
Comment: Device app are built for ARM processors. Simulator apps are built for Intel processors. Two completely different and incompatible processors.
Answer: No.  The device app is compiled for arm.  The simulator runs intel code.


Is it possible to point my DNS record to the same IP address as another domain?

Question: I recently bought a domain from Europe Registry for 1€.
And I'm hosting a Server at home that needs to be reachable from the internet, which if done so previously through a domain provided by the router producer which is a long hashed link but it always points to the dynamic ip.
Is it possible to point the Eu. Reg. domain to the same address as the dynamic domain outside of that zone?
Answer: Yes, you can point an "infinite" amount of names to one IP address.
Which is exactly how mass virtual hosting is working (there are far more websites hostnames than there are IPv4 addresses available to webhosting companies).
Comment: I think they're asking how they would do that. Especially how it would work so that it points to the same IP address even when the other domain changes its IP address due to dynamic DNS.
Answer: I assume the following:

The router has a domain name associated with it.
The router-provided domain name is publicly accessible.
The router can port forward requests.

In that case, you can add a CNAME record to a sub domain (www, for example) of your new domain name. The value should be the router domain name.
Note: CNAME cannot be created for the root domain. Hence, you should be accessing your local server via a subdomain of your new domain.
Comment: A number of larger hosts now support [CNAME Flattening](https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-cname-flattening-rfc-compliant-cnames-at-a-domains-root/) which allows you to add a CNAME record for the root domain.
Comment: Ah, thanks a lot. I couldn't for the live of me find an answer but this was surprisingly easy.
Comment: Interesting information. It seems that the response for a flattened CNAME will be an A record (processed internally). So If I am right, the OP can use the feature provided he uses a DNS host that supports CNAME flattening. Am I right?
Comment: So, what I did was add www as CNAME to the other domain and when opening the root domain it automatically redirects to www.example.xyz. It also has an A record for the root domain that I reverted to the address it originally pointed at. I didn't find an option for CNAME flattening though


Custom WPF Binding

Question: I have a custom MarkupExtension that simulates binding. It works well in normal assignments but not when used in Style Setters, for example:
<Setter Property="Content" Value="{local:MyExtension}" />

results in a XamlParseException:
A 'Binding' cannot be set on the 'Value' property of type 'Setter'.
A 'Binding' can only be set on a DependencyProperty of a DependencyObject.

This is implementation of the extension:
public class MyExtension : MarkupExtension
{
    public MyExtension()
    {
        Value = 123;
    }

    public object Value
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public override object ProvideValue(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
    {
        var binding = new Binding("Value")
        {
            Source = this,
        };
        return binding.ProvideValue(serviceProvider);
    }
}

What's the problem?!
Answer: Kind of guessing, but it's likely because the XAML compiler has special built-in support for the Binding class, allowing its usage in this scenario (and others). The Binding class is also a MarkupExtension, but unfortunately it seals its implementation of ProvideValue().
That said, you might just get away with this:
public class MyBinding : Binding
{
    private object value;

    public object Value
    {
        get { return this.value; }
        set
        {
            this.value = value;
            this.Source = value;
        }
    }
}

Since ProvideValue will return the Binding instance anyway.
Answer: From the documentation, it looks like the object must be freezable (so they can be shared between various interested parties)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.setter.value.aspx

"Data binding and dynamic resources within the object is supported if the specified value is a Freezable object. See Binding Markup Extension and DynamicResource Markup Extension."
Comment: `Binding` isn't `Freezable`. Hence, special support.
Answer: why don't you
return Value

inside the ProvideValue??
else
You can bind to only DependencyProperty. make a dependency property for Value in your MyExtension Class!
public static readonly DependencyProperty ValueProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("Value", typeof(Object), typeof(MyContentControl), new UIPropertyMetadata());

Custom WPF Binding


Does Euclid's Elements acknowledge a concept of 0, either directly or indirectly?

Question: From what I understand Euclid avoided infinity, and so I'm wondering how Euclid might have dealt with the concept of 0 in the Elements.
Comment: There's a difference between what is implicitly in the Elements and what is explicitly there. Implicitly, it contains the whole first-order theory of the reals.
Comment: There is very strong evidence that the Elements does not contain the first-order theory of the reals, or even first order logic (on any reasonable interpretation of "implicitly"). There are modern formalizations of Euclid that use much weaker means, like Euclidean fields, and his reasoning is much more closely reconstructed in (non-equivalent) diagrammatic alternatives to first order logic. He did not deal with $0$ or negatives because he had no need for them either.
Answer: He did not. There is no reference to $0$ in the Elements. As a matter of fact, for Euclid even $1$ was not a number. For him, the numbers are $2,3,4,\ldots$
Answer: The arithmetic books of Elements are books VII - IX.
Euclid begins book VII with his definition of number:

A number is a multitude composed of units.

(This is taken from the Pythagorean notion of number.)
Since "zero" is not a multitude of units it does not satisfy Euclid's definition of number.  Euclid did not consider "one" to be a number for the same reason.  However, Euclid appears to have been somewhat ambivalent on this point and did treat the unit as a number on those occasions when it helped in stating a general proposition or proving them.  For example, Euclid's famous proof (IX.20) that there are infinitely many prime numbers.


How do airliner pilots practice recovering from a bounced landing?

Question: Other questions say bouncing an airliner is bad, why bounces happen, and how to recover from a bounce.  How do pilots practice bounce recovery?
Comment: I am guessing that the answer is "in a simulator."  If that's the answer, how is the simulator configured to cause the bounce?  And who does the configuring?
Answer: Airline pilots practice everything in a simulator, both in initial training as well as every year or so for recurrent training.
A friend of mine is a new sim instructor (and retired captain) at an airline, and he learned to teach this exact lesson yesterday. To ensure the plane bounces, they configure extreme wind shear at a certain altitude above the runway, so the plane essentially stalls and slams into the pavement.
He tried it first at 30ft, and the pilot easily handled the small bounce—too easily, he thought. He then tried 50ft, and the impact was so severe that the sim went "off motion" to protect itself from damage, and the (simulated) plane did not survive. So, the correct setting seems to be somewhere between those two values.
Comment: @AnonymousPhysicist True anecdote: we were investigating cracks developing in military jets used for training navy pilots operating from  aircraft carriers. We had no real idea what g forces were involved, so we instrumented a plane and got a flight instructor to perform a series of deliberate "heavy landings."  The guy chickened out at about 10g, so we set the measurement system to record up to 30g. Eight of the first ten landings flown by the trainees were "off the scale" !!!!
Comment: I am curious what "extreme" means.
Comment: The wind speed used probably depends on the make of the plane and the speed at that moment, to get 'perfect' stall-like conditions and force a bounce.
Comment: I don't think that a "bounced landing" (and recovery) is specifically included in air carrier training or testing curricula as a required maneuver. Not saying that no one has ever done this in a sim, but I have never seen this type of training.
Answer: There is the "bounced landing" button available for the instructor in the IOS of the flight simulator
Comment: Interesting,  what simulator are you referring to?
Comment: I am referring to Level D flight simulators
Comment: Can you provide some evidence? What's the IOS?


Creating Progressive Web Applications -- How does the ServiceWorker function?

Question: I am looking into creating progressive web applications, and I was stumped on how the service worker functions. It is my understanding that the service worker is responsible for caching resources to be used in the event that the user loses connection--but I am unsure how it does this, and can't find any resources to quite answer the question.
Answer: I have learned that the Service Worker functions by creating a local cache in the index file of my project. I then created a service worker file that stores a variable cache_name and cache_urls to store the title of the cache and the urls that I want the service worker to cache. I then bind an event listener to a function which will wait until the cache is opened and then add the urls from the cache_urls to the actual cache.
I know I am still missing some steps, but this has at least intialized a service worker in my file.
Comment: As it's currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer).
Answer: The question is pretty broad and thus hard to answer. You were looking for a good resource, so here is one.
In general I think your understanding of service workers is more or less correct, but you're probably not registering the correct callbacks and maybe using the wrong APIs.
A service worker can be responsible for caching (among other things), but it in general just gives you the ability to intercept http calls in a callback: self.addEventListener('fetch', (event) => {}); (this line needs to go into the service worker file and self refers to the service worker's instance). You can then do whatever you want in that callback. One very common action is to use the Cache API to use an explicitly handled cache for data:
self.addEventListener('fetch', (event) => {
  event.respondWith(
    //this returns the response from any cache and populates the cache with name 'v1' with the request's response from the server on a cache miss
    caches.match(event.request).then((resp) => {
      return resp || fetch(event.request).then((response) => {
        let responseClone = response.clone();
        caches.open('v1').then((cache) => {
          cache.put(event.request, responseClone);
        });

        return response;
      }).catch(() => {
        return caches.match('./sw-test/gallery/myLittleVader.jpg');
      })
    })
  );
});

For all of this, the service worker needs to be registered first, though:
if ('serviceWorker' in navigator) {
  navigator.serviceWorker.register('./path-to-service-worker.js')
  .then((reg) => {
    console.log('Registration succeeded.);
  }).catch((error) => {
    console.log('Registration failed with ' + error);
  });
}


What type of light do White's tree frogs need?

Question: We have had a White's tree frog for a few months now.  We currently have a ZooMed ReptiSun 5.0 mini compact fluorescent bulb on top of the terrarium that we keep on during the day, and no light at night.  However, I've received conflicting information on whether the White's tree frog needs UV light and what the requirements are.  I'm wondering if my frog needs UV light or if the UV light might be damaging his eyes.  He spends most of the day stuck to the side of the glass sleeping with his eyes pointed at the light.
Answer: Because these frogs are nocturnal, there are no special lighting requirements. Exposure to UVB is not necessary, although some exposure won't hurt.

White's Tree Frogs need a cycle of 12 hours of light followed by 12 hours of darkness. Low amounts of UVB light, like from a ReptiSun 2.0 bulb, may be beneficial. Use a full spectrum fluorescent light and an incandescent bulb during the day. Infrared or black bulbs can be used at night, if necessary to maintain proper temperatures. We recommend using a timer to maintain proper light cycles. Source : How to Create the Ideal White's Tree Frog Habitat
Comment: Also: the UVA/UVB will help the frog assimilate certain vitamins. I don't have Whites' but Thelodermas' and give them a supplement of calcium and carotene via their food since I have read that the UVA/UVB lights help them to assimilate those.


Were Krishna and Vyasa able to see (not imagine) future?

Question: According to some scenes in Star Plus Mahabharata and BR Chopra's Mahabharata (a TV series), it looks like both of them (Krishna and Vyasa) could see future. Did it actually happen in Vyasa Mahbharat?
Comment: Do you really need to know about Krishna whether he was able to see future...? If yes then how you could even think that there is anything (exist or non-exist) which is beyond the visual range of krishna? Krishna covers every exist and non-exist entity in his visual range. He is palankarta, nothing is beyond his vision. Actually this is not even a question. No one can put question mark on capability of Lord Krishna :)
Comment: Can you edit and explain what you mean by this: "Was it true?" - Do you mean: `1`) "Did it actually happen?" or "Is it really possible?" or `2`) "Is this story found in the original Vyasa Mahabharata?"
Comment: No he could not see the future. When he talked to Arjuna he was in connection with the Brahman then he was able to see it otherwise he could not.
Comment: @Rishabh yes I really want to know :)
Comment: I forgot to tell you, type `1` questions are opinion-based hence will be closed. Because, you'd need a time machine to go back in time and verify if such a thing really happened. So you can only ask questions of type `2` (_Is the story, as narrated in the TV serial, really present in scriptures?_).
Comment: Are you actually watching both versions of Mahabharata ? Or simply putting both in the question? Why even watch Star Plus version if you know it contains fictional stories ?
Comment: @ram yes I've watched both. The thing is I feel there's a lot of fiction in Star Plus (BR also had, but not that much), but I'm not sure about it.
Answer: Your  enquiry is about  Shree krishna and Vyasa seeing  future  events mentioned in Mahabharata and the answer is Yes. Both of them were aware of the events going to happen during the Mahabharata time and this is mentioned in Mahabharata Itself .
Maharshi Vyasa was having divine vision and was capable of seeing future is mentioned in Mahabharata - Vana Parva-Aranya Parva - Chapter 7.

तान प्रस्थितान परिज्ञाय कृष्णद्वैपायन: प्रभु : | आजगाम
  विशुद्भात्मा द्रष्टवा दिव्येन चक्क्षुषा || 23 ||
P. 19 And knowing by his spiritual vision that they had gone out, the
  master Krishna-Dwaipayana of pure soul came upon them, and commanded
  them to desist.

Here we know that Vyasa was having divine vision and can able to see past and future.

In Mahabharata Sabha Parva-Dyuta Parva-Chapter-46 , we find Maharshi Vyasa telling what is going to come in the future to Yudhisthira. Vyasa thus told Yudhisthira that he officially will  be the sole  cause of the destruction of all Kshatriyas  in Kurukshetra war  for the sins of Duryodhana.

Vaisampayana continued,--"Hearing these words of the king, the exalted
  son of Parasara, the island-born Vyasa of dark hue, spoke these
  words,--'For thirteen years, O king, those portents will bear mighty
  consequences ending in destruction, O king of kings, of all the
  Kshatriyas. In course of time, O bull of the Bharata race, making thee
  the sole cause, the assembled Kshatriyas of the world will be
  destroyed, O Bharata, for the sins of Duryodhana
P. 92 and through the might of Bhima and Arjuna. In thy dream, O king
  of kings thou wilt behold towards the end of this might the blue
  throated Bhava, the slayer of Tripura, ever absorbed in meditation,
  having the bull for his mark, drinking off the human skull, and fierce
  and terrible, that lord of all creatures, that god of gods, the
  husband of Uma, otherwise called Hara and Sarva, and Vrisha, armed
  with the trident and the bow called Pinaka, and attired in tiger skin.
  And thou wilt behold Siva, tall and white as the Kailasa cliff and
  seated on his bull, gazing unceasingly towards the direction (south)
  presided over by the king of the Pitris. Even this will be the dream
  thou wilt dream today.

So from the above passage it's very clear that Vyasa was aware of future events at the time even at  Yudhisthira's Rajasuya Yajna.
Comment: Yout first quote mentions that Krishna saw the past not  the future.
Comment: @Wikash_ -  No , I haven't added Krishna's part in answer yet , that quote is about Vyasa. And divine vision is just like "Trikaldarshi"  that means a sage can see past future as well as present. Vyasa was having divine vision that means he was also capable to see the future and are well aware of that.
Comment: @Wikash_ We can also know from this shloka of Bhagvtam - https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/1/4/16/
Answer: Yes. Krishna was able to see the future.
https://en.krishnakosh.org/krishna/Mahabharata_Udyoga_Parva_Chapter_89

And that scion of Dasarha's race, that chief of the Vrishnis, unto whom the past and the future were as the present, knowing that Vidura was loved by the Pandavas and friendly towards them, and learned, and firm in morality, and honest, and harbouring no wrath (against the Pandavas), and wise, began to tell him everything in detail about the doings of the sons of Pandu.'"

https://sacred-texts.com/hin/m02/m02032.htm

that invincible one as described by those that have knowledge, that foremost of all lasting existences in the universe, that origin of all things, as also that in which all things come to be dissolved, that lord of the past, the future, and the present Kesava--the slayer of Kesi

Vyasa also knew the future.
https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m18/m18005.htm

It was explained (to us) by Vyasa of mighty energy, celestial vision and great prowess, that ancient ascetic, O Kauravya, who is the son of Parasara and who always observes high vows, who is of immeasurable understanding, who is omniscient, and who, therefore knows the end attached to all acts.

I have now told everything that Vaishampayana narrated, at the command of Vyasa, unto the king at his snake sacrifice. Called a history, it is sacred, sanctifying and excellent. It has been composed by the ascetic Krishna, O Brahmana, of truthful speech. He is omniscient, conversant with all ordinances, possessed of a knowledge of all duties, endued with piety, capable of perceiving what is beyond the ken of the senses, pure, having a soul cleansed by penances, possessed of the six high attributes, and devoted to Sankhya Yoga. He has composed this, beholding everything with a celestial eye that has been cleansed (strengthened) by varied lore. He has done this, desiring to spread the fame, throughout the world, of the high-souled Pandavas, as also of other Kshatriyas possessed of abundant wealth of energy.

This clearly explains that Vyasa had celestial vision by which, he could see the past, the present, and also the future. He knew the end attained to all acts.