How to get tor on my iPhone 7

Question: Want to get tor on my iPhone 7 where to go to download and how to properly download tor. I clicked the Mac download button and it gave two locations folder and iCloud Drive. Sent it and Tried to open in both but will not ope.
Answer: There is no official Tor app that is developed by or maintained by the Tor Project. If you trust the Tor Project, that
does not necessarily mean you should trust arbitrary Tor apps you find in the iOS store. Maybe they work.
Maybe they are safe.
That being said, recently the Tor Project has endorsed Onion Browser, which is available on the App Store here.

How to get tor on my iPhone 7


Is wrapping third-party API calls a design smell?

Question: Five methods within my API call the same third-party method. In trying to abide by DRY, does it make sense to wrap this call in a private method?
Comment: Making the same API call in 5 different methods doesn't violate DRY. Keep It Simple and don't abstract until it's needed.
Comment: What's a design smell?
Comment: @Aerovistae it's like a [code smell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_smell), but in design rather than code.
Answer: The reason why you should always wrap the api is:

The api you're using was designed for 50 different uses, while you're choosing just one of them into use. So your function prototypes will look considerably different because the scope of the projects is different.
Because you can choose smaller scope, your wrapped api necessarily is considerably simpler and you get huge abstraction benefits by wrapping it
Obviously just manually copy-pasting the prototypes is not going to work. You actually need to make it simpler.
Answer: I would recommend you leave your code as-is.
However, say, if you're calling 20 differing methods in third-party code on 1000 lines of your code, perhaps creating a thin layer between you and your third-party code may save you (or someone else) some pain the future, in the event that the third-party code changes and you have to update all your calls.
Comment: The ability to swap out third-party code easily is a great weapon when your the party is a vendor who wants to keep your business.
Comment: Oops...  s/your the/your third/
Answer: Actually, I think wrapping or isolating third-party api's in a "shim" layer is good design. There are a number of advantage in doing this.
For instance, what happens if you change operating systems assuming you are not developing in managed environment like .NET (Which basically provides the shim layer for you)? If you put a shim layer over of all the system calls like message queues, mutexs, etc, this process is much less painful. I used the operating system example, because I have done this, but it applies to any type of "swap-able" code module/library. As another example, suppose you use a graphics library and at some point decide to change your vendor. The shim layer essentially allows the main application to run in a number of different environments possibly without any other changes besides what the shim layer is actually doing. This is massively advantageous when you are developing cross platform applications. Plus, everything that needs to change is on one convenient spot.
Comment: yes, even though the calls are only present in five or so methods (presently), wrapping the logic (specifically, marshalling/unmarshalling an object to/from JSON) provides for a single point of change if I later down the track decide to use a different Object-to-JSON utility API.
Comment: @Pemdas I agree that such wrapping is sometimes useful, but the danger is the creation of *unnecessary* levels of abstraction that don't actually get used for that purpose in the long run. If that is the case, all it adds is additional code and cognitive jump-points for the maintenance programmer. Unfortunately, often you will only know in hindsight if it was worth the effort :)
Answer: Your roughly describing the Gateway pattern.  No smell at all.

...Interesting software rarely lives in isolation. Even the purest object-oriented system often has to deal with things that aren't objects, such as relational data-base tables, CICS transactions, and XML data structures.
When accessing external resources like this, you'll usually get APIs for them. However, these APIs are naturally going to be somewhat complicated because they take the nature of the resource into account. Anyone who needs to under-stand a resource needs to understand its API - whether JDBC and SQL for rela-tional databases or W3C or JDOM for XML. Not only does this make the software harder to understand, it also makes it much harder to change should you shift some data from a relational database to an XML message at some point in the future.
The answer is so common that it's hardly worth stating. Wrap all the special API code into a class whose interface looks like a regular object. Other objects access the resource through this Gateway, which translates the simple method calls into the appropriate specialized API.
Comment: How does Gateway differ from Facade?


How to see JIT-compiled code in JVM?

Question: Is there some way to see the native code produces by the JIT in a JVM?
Comment: I want to see exaclty JIT-compiled native code. Of course it is not something that I need to get job done, rather kind of experiments and investigating things.
Comment: Are you sure you want to see the JIT-compiled (native) code, or just the byte-code?  I ask because asking this question here leads to some doubts if you really want to see native code... And, sorry, I don't know such a tool either.
Comment: Minor frame challenge: a dynamic compiler as used in modern JVMs doesn't have just _one_ version of compiled code; it may start off interpreting, then compile a method or just part of it, then potentially recompile it multiple times as classes get loaded/unloaded or usage patterns shift or based on performance stats.  (I think it can even discard the compiled version and return to interpreting if that seems beneficial.)  So you might not only get different code on different machines, nor even for different runs on the same machine, but at different times in the _same_ run.
Answer: General usage
As explained by other answers, you can run with the following JVM options:
-XX:+UnlockDiagnosticVMOptions -XX:+PrintAssembly

Filter on a specific method
You can also filter on a specific method with the following syntax:
-XX:+UnlockDiagnosticVMOptions -XX:CompileCommand=print,*MyClass.myMethod

Notes:

you might need to put the second argument within quotes depending on OS etc.
if the method gets inlined, you could miss some optimisations

How to: Install the required libraries on Windows
If you are running Windows, this page has instructions on how to build and install hsdis-amd64.dll and hsdis-i386.dll which are required to make it work. We copy below and extend the content of that page* for reference:

Where to get prebuilt binaries
You can download prebuilt binaries for Windows from the fcml project

hsdis-amd64.dll
hsdis-i386.dll

How to build hsdis-amd64.dll and hsdis-i386.dll on Windows
This version of the guide was prepared on Windows 8.1 64bit using 64-bit Cygwin and producing hsdis-amd64.dll

Install Cygwin. At the Select Packages screen, add the following packages (by expanding the Devel category, then clicking once on the Skip label next to each package name):

make
mingw64-x86_64-gcc-core (only needed for hsdis-amd64.dll)
mingw64-i686-gcc-core (only needed for hsdis-i386.dll)
diffutils (in Utils category)

Run the Cygwin Terminal. This can be done using the Desktop or Start Menu icon created by the installer, and will create your Cygwin home directory (C:\cygwin\home\<username>\ or C:\cygwin64\home\<username>\ by default).
Download the latest GNU binutils source package and extract its contents to your Cygwin home directory. At the time of writing, the latest package is binutils-2.25.tar.bz2. This should result in a directory named binutils-2.25 (or whatever the latest version is) in your Cygwin home directory.
Download the OpenJDK source by going to the JDK 8 Updates repository, selecting the tag corresponding to your installed JRE version, and clicking bz2. Extract the hsdis directory (found in src\share\tools) to your Cygwin home directory.
In the Cygwin Terminal, enter cd ~/hsdis.
To build hsdis-amd64.dll, enter
make OS=Linux MINGW=x86_64-w64-mingw32 'AR=$(MINGW)-ar' BINUTILS=~/binutils-2.25
To build hsdis-i386.dll, enter
make OS=Linux MINGW=i686-w64-mingw32 'AR=$(MINGW)-ar' BINUTILS=~/binutils-2.25
In either case, replace 2.25 with the binutils version you downloaded. OS=Linux is necessary because, although Cygwin is a Linux-like environment, the hsdis makefile fails to recognize it as such.
The build will fail with messages ./chew: No such file or directory and gcc: command not found. Edit <Cygwin home directory>\hsdis\build\Linux-amd64\bfd\Makefile in a text editor like Wordpad or Notepad++ to change SUBDIRS = doc po (line 342, if using binutils 2.25) to SUBDIRS = po. Re-run the previous command.

The DLL can now be installed by copying it from hsdis\build\Linux-amd64 or hsdis\build\Linux-i586 to your JRE's bin\server or bin\client directory. You can find all such directories on your system by searching for java.dll.
Bonus tip: if you prefer Intel ASM syntax to AT&T, specify -XX:PrintAssemblyOptions=intel alongside any other PrintAssembly options you use.
*page license is Creative Commons
Comment: Pre-built binaries for other platforms - https://kenai.com/projects/base-hsdis/downloads
Comment: @AshwinJayaprakash Where am I supposed to put these files in Mac OS?
Comment: @KorayTugay put them in `/usr/lib/`
Comment: I've updated the answer by copying from the latest version of the linked-to page, but this highlights the reason we generally link to external resources rather than copy them verbatim.
Comment: @AleksandrDubinsky Thanks for the update. I copied it on purpose: if that site is brought down my answer will still be self contained...
Comment: FYI, do NOT use this other guide jpbempel.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-to-build-hsdis-amd64dll.html to try to build `hsdis` using MSYS/MinGW. It doesn't work.
Answer: Assuming you're using the Sun Hotspot JVM (i.e. the one provided on java.com by Oracle), you can add the flag

-XX:+PrintOptoAssembly

when running your code. This will print out the optimized code generated by the JIT compiler and leaves out the rest.
If you want see the entire bytecode, including the unoptimized parts, add

-XX:CompileThreshold=#

when you're running your code.
You can read more about this command and the functionality of JIT in general here.
Comment: Shouldn't that be (nowadays) -XX:+PrintAssembly, at least nowadays? Tested on my machine, and matches what is said here:
http://wikis.sun.com/display/HotSpotInternals/PrintAssembly
You need -XX:+UnlockDiagnosticVMOptions before this option and a disassembler plugin.
Comment: Yes, DEBUG binaries needed. http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/richardwarburton/entry/hotspot_print_assembly/
Comment: @KorayTugay See other answers — the updated link is https://wikis.oracle.com/display/HotSpotInternals/PrintAssembly, as given in http://stackoverflow.com/a/15146962/53974 or http://stackoverflow.com/a/4149878/53974. If following instructions doesn't work, please ask with details at some appropriate place (not sure whether it should another question for your case, referencing this one).
Comment: Is this option only present in debug builds or anything? Because my JVM ("Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_16-b01") doesn't recognize it even though source on the web indicate this feature being available in Sun Java 6 and OpenJDK.
Comment: @Blaisorblade I am getting: Improperly specified VM option 'PrintAssembly'
Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.
Answer: You need an hsdis plugin to use PrintAssembly. A convenient choice is the hsdis plugin based on FCML library.
It can be compiled for UNIX-like systems and on Windows you can use pre-built libraries available in the FCML download section on Sourceforge:
To install in Windows:

Extract the dll (it can be found in hsdis-1.1.2-win32-i386.zip and hsdis-1.1.2-win32-amd64.zip).
Copy the dll to wherever exists java.dll (use Windows search). On my system, I found it at two locations:

C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_45\bin\server
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_45\jre\bin\server

To install in Linux:

Download source code, extract it
cd <source code dir>
./configure && make && sudo make install
cd example/hsdis && make && sudo make install
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libhsdis.so <JDK PATH>/lib/amd64/hsdis-amd64.so
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libhsdis.so <JDK PATH>/jre/lib/amd64/hsdis-amd64.so
On my system, the JDK is in /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle

How to run it:
java -XX:+UnlockDiagnosticVMOptions -XX:+PrintAssembly
-XX:+LogCompilation -XX:PrintAssemblyOptions=intel,mpad=10,cpad=10,code
-jar fcml-test.jar

Additional configuration parameters:
code Print machine code before the mnemonic.
intel Use the Intel syntax.
gas Use the AT&T assembler syntax (GNU assembler compatible).
dec Prints IMM and displacement as decimal values.
mpad=XX Padding for the mnemonic part of the instruction.
cpad=XX Padding for the machine code.
seg Shows the default segment registers.
zeros Show leading zeros in case of HEX literals.
The Intel syntax is a default one in case of Windows, whereas the AT&T one is a default for the GNU/Linux.
For more details see the FCML Library Reference Manual
Comment: Just a little addition: On some linux distributions, you can just install a package, for example in Ubuntu: `apt-get install libhsdis0-fcml` (https://askubuntu.com/a/991166/489909). Building this yourself may not be necessary.
Comment: Thanks for fixing the lib. It's working great on Linux as well. I'm deleting my old comments to keep clutter down.
Comment: On Linux, after I install the libhsdis.so and make a soft link to hsdis-amd64.so, I run the java command, it prmpts can't find the hsdis-amd64.so. I reboot and then rerun java, it's ok. How to avoid reboot to make the soft link work instantly? logout?
Answer: For the HotSpot (was Sun) JVM, even in product modes:
http://wikis.oracle.com/display/HotSpotInternals/PrintAssembly
Some assembly required:  it needs a plugin.
Comment: It seems that the link in your answer is gone.Would you please update it?Thanks in advance.
Answer: I believe WinDbg would be helpful if you are running it on windows machine.
I have just run one jar.

Then I attached to the java process
through Windbg
Examined threads by ~ command; There were 11 threads, 0 thread was main worker thread
Switched to 0-thread - ~0s
Looked through unmanmaged callstack by kb there was:
0008fba8 7c90e9c0 ntdll!KiFastSystemCallRet
0008fbac 7c8025cb ntdll!ZwWaitForSingleObject+0xc
0008fc10 7c802532 kernel32!WaitForSingleObjectEx+0xa8
0008fc24 00403a13 kernel32!WaitForSingleObject+0x12
0008fc40 00402f68 java+0x3a13
0008fee4 004087b8 java+0x2f68
0008ffc0 7c816fd7 java+0x87b8
0008fff0 00000000 kernel32!BaseProcessStart+0x23

Highlighted lines is direct running JIT-ed code on JVM.

Then we can look for method address:
java+0x2f68 is 00402f68
On WinDBG: Click View -->
Disassembly. Click Edit --> Go to
Address. Put 00402f68 there
and got
00402f68 55              push    ebp
00402f69 8bec            mov     ebp,esp
00402f6b 81ec80020000    sub     esp,280h
00402f71 53              push    ebx
00402f72 56              push    esi
00402f73 57              push    edi
... and so on

For additional info here is the Example how to trace back JIT-ed code from memory dumps using process explorer and WinDbg.
Answer: Another way to see machine code and some performance data is to use AMD's CodeAnalyst or OProfile, which have a Java plugin to visualize executing Java code as machine code.
Answer: Print the assembly of your hotspots with JMH's perfasm profilers (LinuxPerfAsmProfiler or WinPerfAsmProfiler). JMH does require the hsdis library since it relies on PrintAssembly.

How to see JIT-compiled code in JVM?


Intellisense do not find actions

Question: I have added new route to routes table to omit controller names from url. Everything works fine at runtime but at design time I have noticed that Intellisense do not gives any suggestions and marks Actions(MyActionName in my demo) as not found when I use @Html.ActionLink("Label", "MyActionName") method. Is such Intellisense behaviour normal?
routes.MapRoute(
    "Custom",
    "{action}/{id}",
    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }

);

Comment: Intelisence gives suggestion for Actions while typing in ActionLink method but not in my case above.
Answer: I don't understand your question. For which method Intellisense doesn't show up? In this case you can only expect Intellisense for the ActionLink helper when you type @Html. in your view and that's the best you could hope for out of the box:

The arguments of this method are just magic strings, so don't expect them to show up in Intellisense.
If you want strong typing and Intellisense you could use either MVCContrib which provides strongly typed versions of this helper which allows you to do this:
@(Html.ActionLink<HomeController>(x => x.MyActionName(), "label"))

or T4MVC:
@Html.ActionLink("label", T4MVC.Home.MyActionName())

Answer: For me Intellisense never worked for an action so what I do is I write the controller name first and  then I get the full intellisense to the all the actions available within that controller.
 @Html.ActionLink("Link text","","Home")

In the above case I just put "", an empty string for the action and after comma I got full intellisense for my controllers. After writing/selecting my controller name when I click between the quotation marks for the action name I get full intellisense for the actions available within specified controller(in the above code,Home).
I am not sure thats the best way but its working for me.

Intellisense do not find actions


How can I determine the transfer rate ?

Question: Can I determine from an ASP.NET application the transfer rate, i.e. how many KB per second are transferd?
Answer: You can set some performance counters on ASP.NET.
See here for some examples.
Some specific ones that may help you figure out what you want are:
Request Bytes Out Total
The total size, in bytes, of responses sent to a client. This does not include standard HTTP response headers.
Requests/Sec
The number of requests executed per second. This represents the current throughput of the application. Under constant load, this number should remain within a certain range, barring other server work (such as garbage collection, cache cleanup thread, external server tools, and so on).
Requests Total
The total number of requests since the service was started.
Answer: There are a number of debugging tools you can use to check this at the browser.  It will of course vary by page, cache settings, server load, network connection speed, etc.
Check out http://www.fiddlertool.com/fiddler/
Or if you are using Firefox, the FireBug add-in http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

How can I determine the transfer rate ?


What software for test script versioning

Question: What are some good and reliable software tools for versioning and housing test automation and manual scripts?
Comment: Do you have a version control system that your dev team uses? It's often simplest to use the same tool across dev and test, especially for automated test scripts.
Comment: Give us some use-cases what do you need to version exactly? For test scripts you can use git or and source code version control system.
Comment: need  to version automation and manual scripts that are used to run test cases.  I will look into git. thanks
Comment: I use and recommend Bitbucket, especially for small distributed teams.
Answer: Here is the list of some most populer version control tools.

SVN
CVS
GIT (prefer)
Mercurial
Bazaar

I will suggest GIT because it is a fast and efficient system, many system administrators and open-source project use GIT, However, it is not as easy to learn as SVN or CVS, so beginners may need to steer clear if they're not willing to invest time to learn the tool, after under understanding you may use SourceTree tool which is easy to use for GIT user.
Answer: subversion is easier to comprehend for beginners than git, but use whatever your developers and sysadmins use


apologies vs apology

Question: How to define when a single apology or apologies are to be used in the case of a singular personal mistake? Is using my sincere apologies valid if there are multiple recipients or if you want to reiterate on a single apology. If the conversation is one to one should it be "my apology" for a single instance of a mistake.
Answer: "My apologies" is kind of a set phrase that can apply to a single offense toward a single person, or multiple offenses / multiple people.  You can use it anytime.
While there is no rule against it, you would really only use "apology", singular, if you want to talk about a specific, singular offense.  Example:

I want to offer an apology to you and your family for the way I acted at dinner last night.

It would be just as fine to say:

I want to offer my apologies to you and your family for the way I acted at dinner last night.
Comment: In this context and time-frame, an apology and my apologies are both possible, so after that point its just a matter of conventional phrases but neither are grammatically wrong. There is other context and inflections where the singular apology is just simply wrong like SamBC mentions.
Answer: An apology is when you say sorry to someone, recognise your error.
Offering your apologies is one way to apologise. However, it can also refer to apologising on several occasions.

"I would like to offer my most sincere apologies for the inconvenience my error has caused."

That is a way to apologise, and could thus be called an apology.

"Apologies, madam."

That's a much more succinct way of using apologies in an apology.

"Apology, madam."

That is incorrect. It's just not said, and sounds like you don't know what you're saying.
Answer: Whether you offer a person or people my (sincere) apologies or an apology is largely a matter of choice although this choice is influenced by the context.
Plural apologies does not imply numerous faults or errors although an apology does generally point to a single mistake, blunder or misbehaviour.
Both are expressions in which the speaker recognises that he/she has made an error or been guilty of some undesirable action and expresses regret to the injured party.
Both are more likely to be used in acknowledging social faults, errors of judgement and minor failures rather than of crimes.
Criminals who show real regret and sorrow at their actions are said to express remorse, a recognition of wrong-doing that is often taken into account in sentencing.
Grammarly.com points out that the expression my apology (as opposed to an apology or my apologies is likely to refer back to an apology that has already been made; it also illustrates which expression best fits which circumstances.
Dictionary.com also provides helpful examples of the most appropriate use of each.
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/my-apology-or-my-apologies/
https://www.dictionary.com/e/my-apology-vs-my-apologies/

apologies vs apology


Why was the PreCrime division shut down?

Question: In the TV series Minority Report, why was PreCrime shut down. Why is using precogs illegal?
Answer: Minority Report the show is a direct continuation of Minority Report the movie. The events of the movie is what shuts down the PreCrime department:

Lara calls Burgess to reveal Anderton is with her. Anderton is captured, accused of both murders, and imprisoned in stasis alongside other previous would-be murderers, while Agatha is reconnected to the PreCrime system. While attempting to comfort Lara, Burgess accidentally reveals himself as Lively's murderer. Lara frees Anderton from the stasis facility, and Anderton exposes Burgess at a PreCrime celebratory banquet by playing the full video of Agatha's vision of Lively.
Burgess chases Anderton, and a new report is generated at PreCrime, with Anderton the victim and Burgess the murderer. Burgess corners Anderton, and explains that as he could not afford to let Lively take Agatha back without impacting PreCrime, he arranged to kill Lively following an actual attempt on her life, as to make his attack appear as a minority report within PreCrime. Anderton then points out Burgess's dilemma: If Burgess kills Anderton, he will be imprisoned for life, but PreCrime will be validated; if he spares Anderton, PreCrime will be discredited and shut down. Anderton reveals the ultimate flaw of the system: Once people are aware of their future, they are able to change it. Burgess asks for Anderton's forgiveness and shoots himself.

The movie deals with predestination and the fluidity of telling the future.
The key parts of the movie are right near the beginning:

The Federal government is on the verge of adopting the controversial program.

The D.C. program is a pilot, and like any police technology use, would be heavily scrutinized, legal challenges, etc.

Anderton seeks the advice of Dr. Iris Hineman, the creator of PreCrime technology. She reveals that sometimes, one of the Precogs, usually Agatha, has a different vision than the other two, a "minority report"; this has been kept a secret as it would damage the system's credibility.

And a program that has a 33% probability of false positive resulting in unjust convictions is a big no no in the Justice system. Hiding evidence of this is worse. The precogs only see one possible future at best, dreams or stray thoughts at worst, and they can't even agree.
The entire program is sketchy, and once it was proven to be incredibly faulty by its very nature, let alone hiding evidence, public and legal support for it vanished in a heart beat.
Thus the use of precogs by the police becomes illegal because of the blatant abuse of power they would provide, as well as the inaccuracy.
Comment: This is not a 33% probability of a false positive.
Answer: I believe precrime was determined to be unethical/illegal for reasons that I'm not sure have been fully elaborated on.  My understanding is that a combination of what it was doing to the precogs themselves (who were after all simply citizens being held illegally against their will) as well as the questions surrounding the arrest of people for something they haven't actually done yet - especially after the existence of the actual "minority report" is revealed in the movie and the fact that there isn't always consensus between the precogs - are what resulted in a governmental investigation and eventual shutdown of the program.
Bit of a run-on sentence but hopefully you get the point.  ;)


Ant vs other deployment tools

Question: I am wondering if there are any use cases for using Ant specifically over all other deployment methods and tools?
It seems Eclipse, changesets and packages have all the functionality you need.
Answer: Kris-
We use ANT in our automated build process because we can invoke it programmatically (with SH/Jenkins, etc.) to move code between orgs and run tests without having to open an IDE, create a change-set etc.
This helps our development process because we need to move code between non-namespaced and namespaced orgs and do some tweaking to it before we can successfully deploy from development/test to packaging.
Maybe checkout this github repo, it's a lot more specific and has an App built into it and I'll be adding the preconfigured AMI in a few days prior to presenting it at DF:
https://github.com/BracketLabs/AppExchange-Team-Development-on-Force.com-Platform-Demo
Comment: Cheers, I thought that might be the case.
Answer: I agree with Jordan - Ant allows you to publish a completed build
Changesets and Eclipse will always publish the latest version of the code.
A complex project usually requires the ability to use a code configuration tool (such as Git) that allows managing code versions, which can then be deployed using Ant
in Other words, you can take a snapshot of your development org when it is stable, then continue experimenting, and when deployment time comes you can deploy the stable snapshot.
Ant also gives you an automated method of deploying the same code version to multiple environments
Ant allows running validation only deployments to target environments on a regular basis (for example to test code coverage)
Answer: AutoRABIT has the best matured deployment solution for Salesforce , where you can deploy automatedly from your Jira or any ALM User Story status , directly from a Sandbox or from your version control system like SVN , TFS , GIT or Perforce.
You can check it here for more details.

Ant vs other deployment tools


Where does Plato discuss "having" and "possessing"?

Question: I'm looking for textual references in Plato's dialogues where he discusses the difference between having and possessing with respect to actuality and potentiality. I would be grateful if anybody could help me with it.
Comment: I answered, but your request is a light on context and intent. Feel free to supplement your request if I missed the mark.
Comment: @JD Thank you for your response. I did add a comment below if you could be so kind as to have a look at it
Comment: Given the context of "actuality and potentiality", that sounds like more like Allegory of the Cave territory. *The Republic*, I believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
Comment: Could you be more specific regarding "actuality and potentiality"? Those concept, in Greek philosophy, were later developed by Aristotle so they can't be found as is in Plato's dialogues. Are you looking for discussions in Plato which involve those in a pre-conceptual kind of way?
Answer: I'm no Greek scholar, but Phaedrus is one work where possession is discussed in the context of love including the virtues of pederasty rooted in love. From WP:

Remarking that he is in the grip of something divine, and may soon be overtaken by the madness of the nymphs in this place, he goes on...
The problem, he explains, is that one overcome with this desire will want to turn his boy into whatever is most pleasing to himself, rather than what is best for the boy... The boy's intellectual progress will be stifled, his physical condition will suffer, the lover will not wish the boy to mature and take a family, all because the lover is shaping him out of desire for pleasure rather than what is best. At some point, "right-minded reason" will take the place of "the madness of love", and the lover's oaths and promises to his boy will be broken.

This is possessive. There is a better way to approach relationships where one can have love, but not possess the lover. Again from WP:

Phaedrus believes that one of the greatest goods given is the relationship between lover and boy. This relationship brings guidance and love into the boy's life. Because the boy has a lover as such a valuable role model, he is on his best behavior to not get caught in something shameful. To get caught in something shameful would be like letting down his lover, therefore the boy is consistently acting his best. The absence of shame makes room for a sense of pride to come in; pride from the wealthy feeling of impressing one's own lover. Impressing one's own lover brings more learning and guidance into the boy's life.

While pederasty is generally frowned on in the modern world, the lesson about the difference between an altruistic and possessive love would obtain to any sort of relationship.
Comment: WP Wikipedia. Ah, then my answer is off the mark. I'll let is stand awhile to discourage others from making the same mistake.
Comment: Thank you for your response. This is indeed helpful, but probably, in my question I should have clarified that I need the discussion of having and possessing with respect to actuality and potentiality.
Comment: Also, I'm confused as to what WP is


Water runs from portafilter when backflush

Question: I want to backflush my espresso machine but water still comes out just like I am using a normal filter and not the blind one. What can be the problem?
Comment: You are backflushing with a regular filter, not with a blind filter? That's not backflushing, that's just pushing water through the portafilter.
Comment: @technical_difficulty please re-read my post. Also someone has already answered to me but thanks!
Comment: If that's the case, then the water wouldn't run through the portafilter, right? I think your question needs more clarity to be answered in a way that can be helpful to other users. Where is the water coming through?
Answer: This can happen if the gasket around the group head is damaged or worn out. Damage can occur if you overtighten the portafilter when locking it in place to brew, and wear occurs just by using the machine normally. Under normal use (once daily at least five days a week), a group head gasket will need to be replaced about every six months.


ParticleInstance modifier doesn't list any particle systems

Question: I'm trying to create some low poly fur. I've created a plane with an image of my fur texture on it. I want to use a ParticleInstance modifier to create the hair geometry since this will allow me to bend my hair geometry along the hair shaft (and the default particle system modifier does not). However, when I add the ParticleInstance modifier, the drop down box where you need to select the particle system is empty even though my model does have a particle system on it. How do I fix this?
Answer: Looks like I needed to add the ParticleInstance modifier to the hair model, not the monkey model.

ParticleInstance modifier doesn’t list any particle systems


Question about sign change of Hecke eigenvalues

Question: I want to write a survey on the subject 'Sign changes for coefficients of symmetric power $L$-functions'. So, I browse the Web and I got some papers. I read it and I gave special interest to the paper namely 'Sign change of Hecke eigenvalues' of Kaisa Matomaki and Maksym Radziwill. In this paper, I found this sentence "Previously it was only known that there are $≫ \sqrt{x}$ sign changes in the holomorphic case (see [16])". This is the result of the paper of THE NUMBER OF HECKE EIGENVALUES OF SAME SIGNS of Y.-K Lau and Jie Wu in which they gave the best possible lower bounds in order of magnitude for the number of positive and negative Hecke eigenvalues which is $\gg x$ for a large enough $x.$ My question is the following: How the authors of 'Sign change of Hecke eigenvalues' obtain this lower bound, I mean $≫\sqrt{x}$ although in the paper of Lau and Wu, we have  $≫ x$? May be I misunderstood what they mean by
'sign changes'. Can someone clarify this to me?  Also, in case of coefficients high symmetric power $L$-functions, any reference that help me well-understanding sign changes of these coefficients you can provide me would be greatly appreciated ?
Many thanks,
Khadija
Answer: A sign change of a sequence $(a_n)_{n=1}^\infty$ means an $n$ such that $a_na_{n+1}<0$, i.e. $a_n$ and $a_{n+1}$ are of opposite sign. You can have many positive and negative terms with very few sign changes. For example, up to $x$ you can have $a_n>0$ for $n\leq x/2$ and $a_n<0$ for $n>x/2$, which means $x/2$ positive terms and $x/2$ negative terms but only one sign change.
Note that the result of Matomaki-Radziwill is in some sense optimal as they show that the number of sign changes is of the same order of magnitude as the number of nonzero terms.
Comment: Thanks @GH from MO for your explanation. I want also to understand how they got this result, i.e $(\gg \sqrt{x})$ is there a formula or deduction that can be used to derive this result?
Comment: @KhadijaMbarki: The result $\gg\sqrt{x}$ you mention is due to Lau-Wu. I talked about the result of Matomaki-Radziwill, which is stronger, e.g. it yields $\gg x/\log x$ sign changes (see Theorem 1.2 in their preprint arXiv:1405.7671v2, and note that $\prod_{p\leq x}(1-1/p)\gg 1/\log x$ by Mertens' theorems). You have to read the paper to understand how they got this result, this is what the paper is about.


Are there other properties besides lower boiling point that make isobutane a better refrigerant than butane?

Question: Asked differently, if -1C is low enough for the application is there any reason not to use butane rather than isobutane as the working fluid in a refrigeration system?
Comment: Would [chemistry.se] be a better home for this question?
Comment: @Qmechanic Feels like thermodynamics, which suggests physics to me. To me chemistry is more about reactions and transformations than state changes, is this intuition wrong? Thanks!
Answer: They have different pressure curves:

But to answer the question: yes, there are other properties that make isobutane preferred over n-butane. The most widely
used refrigerants in household appliances are isobutane and R134a according to "Evaluation of N-Butane as a Potential Refrigerant
for Household Compressors" by Preben Bjerre & Per Larsen (2006). See the following quote:

The theoretical evaluation shows at LBP CECOMAF that N-butane (R600) has:
  • 2.8% higher theoretical COP compared to isobutane (R600a)
  • About 70% of the capacity of isobutane
  • 10% higher theoretical COP compared to R134a
The measurements show that the higher theoretical COP of N-butane compared to isobutane can not be found in the
  measurements. This is caused by the higher sensitivity to clearance volume, suction gas pressure drop and heating,
  compared to isobutane. However the COP level of N-butane in the present compressor design is at the same level as
  isobutane, which today is the refrigerant giving the highest COP on the market.
  Lifetime test show acceptable results. The wear tendency is comparable with isobutane.
N-butane is an option for reaching high COP levels in household appliances, but it does not offer significant
  advantages to isobutane on existing isobutane stroke volumes. However it opens the possibility to extend the range
  to lower capacity by using the existing compressor designs. The disadvantages are that the cost and size are
  unchanged.

$\huge \text{Glossary:} $
LBP: Low Back Pressure. "The minimum evaporating temperature and the condensing temperature allows for the
identification of the compressor application (LBP, MBP, or HBP). Low Back Pressure
systems such as freezers have evaporator temperatures below -20ºC (-4ºF). "
CECOMAF: European Committee of Refrigeration Equipment Manufacturers. Or, in French Comité Européen des Constructeurs de Matériel Frigorifique.
COP: Coefficient of Performance. "For a refrigeration system a COP of 4 indicates that 1 kW of electricity is needed for a evaporator to extract 4 kW of heat."
R134a: refrigerant code name for 1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane:

R600: refrigerant code name for n-butane:

R600a: refrigerant code name for isobutane:
Comment: Great answer and great link. Based on your handle, I assume you have much expertise in this field. Thank you!


1 switch controls lights and fan, the other controls nothing. How can I make one control lights and one control the fan?

Question: It seems like this was the way it worked originally, but someone had it changed.  There is another area in my apartment that is in the same situation.  I measured 114VAC from the right switch (I'm assuming the fan) and 86VAC from the left (not sure what's connected there since it does nothing). Please help!
Comment: Can you post a photo of the inside of the fan box?
Answer: 86 volts sounds like you might have an open neutral, and you're reading backfeed through a load somewhere.  Time to call an electrician - usually this sort of thing happens because a white wire on 2 conductor cable had been used for a switch leg, but somebody went into a box and went color to color putting wires back together, which opens the normal return leg for current. It could be the box pictured, or your ceiling box for the fan/light, or something you haven't looked at yet. A tone tracer [breaker off] and some detective work will find it - the last thing messed with is the first place to look.  Meanwhile, make a note of everything that does not work to help out: lights and receptacles.  Plug in a cell phone charger or whatever to outlets to see if they're good.  Open neutrals can be a rattlesnake for the unexperienced: just because something doesn't work does not mean it can't shock you.


How to hide an external drive from file sharing on local network

Question: The problem is, my office has multiple computers, and there is only one account (admin) on every machine, all with the same password. So if I bring a personal firewire drive and attach it to my machine, everyone on the network can access it. What I need is a way to STOP file sharing for this external drive without adjusting permissions, because there is only one set of permissions for this computer, and everyone on the network has access to that account.
Answer: The only way a drive would have it's sharing enabled is through the Sharing menu in system preferences.
Access the File Sharing menu inside there and remove your drive from the list.
That's the only thing I can come up with besides changing the drive permissions.
Hope it helps :)
Comment: Yeah unfortunately I think my problem is explained by this message in the Sharing preferences pane: "Other users can access shared folders on this computer, and administrators all volumes..." SO admins can see all volumes. My shared folders list is actually empty. I need some unix line or something will just not broadcast that drive to the network, even if a network user has admin access
Comment: I'm shooting blind here but what would happen if you were to right-click the drive, click on get info and scroll to the bottom and change permissions there?
Comment: Same problem. Admin user acct. still has Read & Write.
Comment: Well my last option is a desperate option that may or may not work as I haven't tried this myself. Unmount the drive using disk utility and see if there is a program out there that can read from an unmounted drive. I don't know if it's possible or not but if it's not avaliable to network sharing due to it being unmounted then it shouldn't appear but the question is can another piece of software still read/write to it if it's unmounted. Maybe it's something worth looking into if you're completely out of ideas.
Comment: OKAY here's my solution: TrueCrypt. I'm just encrypting all the stuff I don't want my coworkers to be able to see.


Conductive Fabric

Question: Does anyone know of a maker of Conductive Fabric?
Comment: Shopping questions are a no-no here.
Answer: Copying my answer from Is there a way to print / draw a circuit on to clothing?
See http://www.plusea.at/ for all kinds of wearable electronics, including conductive fabric, thread, etc.
How To Get What You Want by the same people has more details:

Traces
Conductive materials

Conductive fabrics
Answer:
Less EMF has the largest selection in the States
Eeonyx sells a range of high performance materials that you can order to spec.
Fine Silver Products sells silver-doped fabrics
How To Get What You Want gives a good overview of the known conductive fabric merchants
Fashioning Technology blog should give you some inspiration

A trip to the store with a multi-meter can be enlightening. Various commonly available tapes, fabrics, gels, packages etc. are conductive.
Answer: Becky Stern sells conductive thread... perhaps you could sew that in to your fabric?
http://sternlab.org/store/
Answer: The Scientific Wire Co. sells knitted copper wire.
Answer: Sparkfun are now selling conductive fabric

Conductive Fabric


How can I achieve this whitish circular pattern?

Question:
I am trying to achieve this whitish circular pattern at the back of pizza giving a glowing effect. I have tried Gradients but the Circular gradient isn't giving me this effect. Please, I need help. I googled it but I can't figure out the name of this glowing whitish circular pattern to get specific result i want from google.
Comment: The gradient tool set to a circular gradient can be used for this. What problem are you having with it?
Comment: @BillyKerr I am trying to do that but the Circular gradient color's the whole layer not giving me this circular pattern but a simple color layer (lighter tone).
Answer: Choose a foreground colour that's slightly lighter, and a background colour that's slightly darker. Then select the first gradient in the drop down (the Foreground to Background gradient). Then make your circular gradient by clicking and dragging from the centre outwards towards the corner, but not beyond the edge of the canvas.
Comment: I am trying this but the circular lines don't show.  I am trying to uplaod a picture but in add comment section there is no attachment option
Comment: Like when you draw it shows circular closed lines fading away from center. In my case its just a big white color fading away to dark colo.
Comment: What circular lines?  I can't see any in the example you posted.  If you want to share an image in a comment, you need to upload it to imgur and copy and paste the link.
Comment: thanks a lot for replying, man. I have figured out the problem. It was about the location and spread of lighter color in the gradient.  :)
Comment: @ArJami, are you talking about [Color Banding](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_banding)?
Answer: An old case, but still there's some room for variations
You can make a selection and fill it with brighter color in a new layer:

(sorry for my bad quality screenshots)
Then you can blur the new layer to get something that resembles a gradient:

You can reduce the layer opacity for more subtle effect:

But why? This seems complex when compared to a gradient??
Right, but you can have any selection shape, there's no need to use a circle. An example - a blurred triangle:

BTW. The pink triangle and the shadow were initially magic wand selections that contained the slice area. The emptiness around the slice was selected and the selection was inverted.


How to paint ABS to look like wood

Question: I have a piece printed in white ABS, which is a half-scale replica of an unvarnished oak sculpture. After sanding off the worst of the layer lines, I'd like to paint it to get a nice wood finish. I believe that most hobby paints should stick fine, but how should I paint it to get a nice oaky appearance? Should I do layers of different colours? Will I get better results with spray or brush paints?
Comment: I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is unrelated to 3D printing.
Comment: The artistic methods used to create artificial "wood grain" patterns on plastic objects are reasonably well-published, albeit not in 3D printing forums.  I would look around various "art" or "home crafts"  or "furniture finishing"  websites for information.
Answer: I found step-by-step instructions on Instructables specific to 3D-printed parts. In summary:

Sand and brush with acetone for a smooth finish (I guess the acetone vapour treatment would work as well.)
Prime with plastic primer
Spray-paint with a satin, nutmeg-coloured base coat
Add grain with darker, acrylic paint using a fine brush

How to paint ABS to look like wood


Get SharePoint Context from Azure Client ID, Client Secret, Site Url

Question: we want to access SharePoint context using Client ID, Client Secret, SharePoint site URL. Existing system we have Client ID, Client Secret, SharePoint site URL, Certificate, Cert Password. But we want to avoid using certification and get SharePoint Context. Is there any other option available to get context using Client ID, Client Secret, SP site URL ? Also, don't want to Register Add-In using the AppRegNew.
Answer: To make calls to SharePoint using the Client Object Model in an app secured by Azure Active Directory, you need to authenticate using a Client ID and a certificate rather than a Client ID and a Client Secret. This is a security restriction enforced by the Client Object Model, there is no way around it.

This restriction is not enforced by Microsoft Graph. You can make calls to SharePoint using Microsoft Graph in an app secured by Azure Active Directory using a Client ID and Client Secret to authenticate. I believe the same is true of the SharePoint REST API, but I'm not 100% sure off top of my head.

You should avoid the use of AppRegNew since it registers the app with Azure Access Control Services (ACS) and not Azure Active Directory. AppRegNew should only be used when building Provider-hosted Add-ins.
Comment: From https://levelup.gitconnected.com/authenticate-against-azure-ad-using-certificate-in-a-client-credentials-flow-c02eedec4ed9: A [client] secret is like a plain text password. In a token request, the client transmits the [client] secret without any disguise. Anyone with knowledge of the client id and the [client] secret can impersonate the client. On the other hand, when using a certificate, the client does not transmit the certificate. Rather, the client uses the certificate's private key to sign the request. Azure AD validates the signature using the public key of the certificate.
Comment: Thanks for quick response Rob. Also I would like to know, is there any specific reason to use certificate when we have client ID client secret ?


pursuing PhD without relevant bachelor degree

Question: I have a bachelor degree in Business Administration and 4 years experience in this field, however I discovered that this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life, I'm interested in Geography and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). I went for a MSc in GIS but with my previous background I barely get a pass grade. Now I want to pursue a PhD in Geography, would it be possible to get an admission in USA universities? if yes I appreciate if you could give some names of these universities that accepting students with irrelevant experience and a low grade in Masters degree. Please note that my Bachelor Degree grade is second class with honor from a UK university also the MSc from UK university with the grade "Pass".
Comment: I have no specific example for USA uni.. but Check this one, it has some usefull information .. it will answer the first part of the question.. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28900/phd-in-gis-after-bachelor-degree-in-computer-science?rq=1
Comment: Thank you so much, however Computer Science is somehow related to GIS, I think anyone with a BSc won't have a problem to get admission for a PhD in Geography but people like me with BA, I'm not sure.
Answer: From the research I found all I can say
This a list of United States universities with GIS PhD programs
You have a MSc in GIS even with pass, just go ahead and submit your undergraduate transcript. The admissions committee will be expecting to see one (BSc Or MSc) and your application might be screened out before consideration simply because this transcript is missing.
The fact that you've had GIS master may help to overcome the bad impression left by your BSc (even in my way of thinking there is no bad impression).
Having a good letters of recommendation and one or more publications (of high quality) will help a lot more.
You certainly need to address this matter in your application, mostly by highlighting your recent MSc in GIS and explaining what has changed in your life so that you are going to be the good student.


Mac OS X menu bar music player

Question: Anyone know of a menu bar app that will allow you to pick a song out of your iTunes library and play it, without having to have iTunes running. Alarm Clock allows you to do that (but you need to create an alarm) but it's a great way of just playing the odd song or two. I know there's CloudPlay but I'd of thought there was a free menu bar app out there. There's apps like Ecoute but I just want something that is minimal for playing something when you want it.
Answer: I've found this app called Vox. I was looking for something similar to yourself and it seems to be the best option that I can find.
Here is an image of some of the UI (from their website, linked above):

(source: coppertino.com)
When the app is running, you also get menu bar icons like these:
The lefthand button shows a dropdown with the 6 next songs and has a shortcut to open the full app again:

A couple of points to note:

I've found that if you have playlists organised into playlist folders in iTunes, that unfortunately it won't recognise them all.
You have to reload your music from iTunes every time you open the app.

I know this is a late answer, but hope it helps! :)
Answer: beardedspice
is a menu bar player which is mapped on the media keys of your keyboard or any keys you like.
it controls

iTunes
Spotify
Vox
VLC
and many webbased players like youtube, vimeo, etc.

You can get it from
https://beardedspice.github.io
or if you have brew installed, you can type
brew cask install beardedspice
in the Terminal App.

Mac OS X menu bar music player


When to put all containers in a pod and when to deploy them individually?

Question: One of the reasons for asking this question is that it seems to be impossible to access a container using kubectl exec when these are deployed in a pod.
Comment: You never run directly a container in k8s, your run pod made of one or more containers. when using kubectl exec you can exec on the first container of the pod or a specific one by specifying it on the command line. I can't really tell if this answer the question or not btw
Answer: Let's start from the beginning.
First, I'll answer the original question, the one in the title.
When to put all containers in a pod and when to deploy them individually?
This depends on what your app does. For instance (this is an actual example from the company I work for), for a web application, you may have a pod which runs three containers:

app: the actual app with its code
nginx: serves all the requests
heka: a log service which proxies the logs to wherever you want them

The reason for grouping this three containers within a single pod is simple: a pod assures you the containers run in the same Kubernetes node, this is to have the least possible latency with requests being interchanged along the three containers.
That being said, this is only an example, you could have different and multiple reasons for grouping containers in a pod, but I think this is the most common.
With that being clarified, I follow to the question that you present in the body of your post.
How do you access a single container within a pod?
This is simply using kubectl, I use the command like this:
kubectl exec -it <pod-name> -c=<container-name> -- /bin/bash
Suppose we want to access the nginx container inside our my-app pod; we would type this:
kubectl exec -it my-app -c=nginx -- /bin/bash
If you don't specify the container with the -c flag, it defaults to the first container that is in the Kubernetes yaml (I think). So when you say it was impossible to access a container, you actually did access a container (the default one), because a pod cannot be accessed, it is merely a collection of containers and its configurations.
Hope I've been helpful.
Answer: You can still exec containers when multiple are running in a pod, you specify the container to execute in using the "-c" parameter.


From the SEO perspective, is it ok to change h1 content based on the sites query parameters?

Question: I have a page with many cards and with filtering. The filtering is added to the query and I want the h1 to reflect what is filtered.
While this is not problem to implement, should I, is this ok from the SEO perspective?
Answer: If you want SEO to index the page with the different filters applied then I would publish the filters in the params such as
example.com?filter=value
or
example.com/page/filter_value  and use rewrite (in .htaccess or similar) to map to the url above.
Then you can refer to the filtered page (if required) from other pages and you can put them in sitemap.txt.
Answer: Dynamically changing the page, or headline tag, from a user interaction, is more or less a feature of the internet these days.
As @Rohit posted, you would need to expose these pages to Google for them to show.
Search engines are not going to put information into a query text field and click search. So the pages that come up would neither be seen nor cause a problem. Such content is referred to as invisible web, deep web, hidden web ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web
The deep web,1 invisible web,[2] or hidden web[3] are parts of the
World Wide Web whose contents are not indexed by standard web
search-engine programs. This is in contrast to the "surface web",
which is accessible to anyone using the Internet.[4]
Computer-scientist Michael K. Bergman is credited with inventing the
term in 2001 as a search-indexing term.[5]

To make these page appear in the search engine, (if there is a value to doing that in your use case?) one would need to create a www.example.com/?search=term or www.example.com/?filter=term and create links to those pages that the search engine can follow.
These linked pages can then become seen and appear in search engines. And the change to the h1 tag would not cause a problem. When using search engine console you can preview the image, which google captures / sees, to verify that the example.com/?filter=term page has been correctly updated with the desired h1 text for google to index these pages.
It sounds like you have a use case for "sitelinks search box" - https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/sitelinks-searchbox IE the search snipplet that pinterest.com has.

Add something like:

To allow people to search your site via the Google Search Results page.


Germanium Power Diodes

Question: Why don't they make germanium power diodes for their lower voltage drop? I have used a diode connected junk-box germanium power transistor for a oneoff   low voltage in house  current  measuring job because it out performed a Phillips   BYV1040 1Amp 40V     silicon schottky. Could they make a germanium schottky diode? Would its voltage drop be about half of a Si schottky?                         Could     such a proposed device  be useful in energy harvesting despite probably having a low PIV and high reverse     leakage current ?
Answer: A couple reasons
Silicon is much more plentiful then germanium, so much less expensive.
Silicon is much easier to process.
Silicon has a much higher peak inverse voltage rating (breakdown).
Silicon is much more tolerant of high temperatures then Germanium... Especially important in a power diode.  A germanium diode is easily destroyed by moderately high temperatures, typically less then half of what silicon can handle.
Silicon junctions have a much lower leakage than germanium.
As compared to schottky diodes, germanium diodes have a much softer knee as they begin to conduct.  The shottky diode switches pretty much instantly from blocking to conduction, but the germanium one will follow a curve.
Silicon schottky's also have lower leakage and greater current capacities (as above) then germanium, and share the same plentiful element base and ease of manufacturing.
Comment: to add one more negative. Germanium diodes will self dope and degrade from cosmic rays present across the surface of the earth . The germanium transmutes to gallium (n-type dopant) from occasional high energy gamma particles impinging on isotopic impurities in the crystal as well as Arsenic (p-type) from alpha particles caused by particle showers.
Comment: Yeah, germanium diodes and transistors are used in guitar effects. This doesn't mean they are more "hi-fi", rather they create more pleasing guitar distortion when overdriven.
Comment: The softer knee mentioned by R Drast is probably why some Audiopliles and some musicians prefer the sound of germanium to silicone.Guitarists that make and use fuzz boxes tend to prefer the germanium diode for better sounding distortion .
Comment: CRASIC said something interesting.does this mean that germanium semiconductors or any other low band gap stuff has a shelf life which is dependant on background radiation?

Germanium Power Diodes


How to monitor WCF Service up time using Performance Counters?

Question: I'd like to know what is the up-time of WCF service using Performance Counters.
Is there a specific counter for that? Or is there a way to get this information from other counters?
Answer: As far as I know there is no WCF performance counter that will give you the uptime.
However,

if you host it in IIS, you can use the 'Service Uptime' in 'Web Service', or
if you host it differently (e.g. Windows Service, Console Application), you can use the 'Elapsed Time' in 'Process' (unless you don't start/stop the WCF host when the process starts/stops).
Comment: Thanks, Josef. But the service is hosted in Windows Service.
Comment: I see. I added the non-IIS-hosted case to my answer.


Sun (NPR900R) Server Cabinet Input Power Range

Question: The ISP I work for purchased a Sun NPR900R Server Cabinet.  For usual operation, a UPS will provide the power supply.  Is it possible to operate this at 120 V input range?
Answer: Google isn't helping me find out anything about a Sun NPR900R Server Cabinet.  What is it?  Can you provide a link to the documentation for it?


Why can i store far more files in a Document Center than in a regular team site?

Question: In a regular site the recommendations of Microsoft tells me not to store more than 200 GB in one SiteCollection in one Content Database.
But if I create a "Docment Center"-site I'm allowed to create an 'unlimited' site collection.
The only requirements listed, in order to be able use large (>200GB site collections), are the hardware specs and the skill level of the DBA. And the requirement for the 'Document Center' or 'Record Center' template.

SharePoint Server 2010 sites must be based on Document Center or Records Center site templates.

What makes the "Document Center" site template so special that unlimited sizing is allowed?
Is there a technical difference? Compared with a blank or teamsite?
Ref:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787(v=office.14).aspx#ContentDB
Answer: The line you quote is in a section specifically describing document archive scenarios, where the site must be one of those two templates along with other restrictions, not a general case for Document Center or Records Center sites being unlimited.
Comment: So, what is so special about those templates that only those two templates can be used in the unlimited archive scenario?


How often is a Powered Rail required to keep going uphill?

Question: When going up a slope, how often must you insert a powered rail to keep your cart going? What is the minimum to keep going at all, and what is a good recommendation for maintaining a reasonable speed?
Comment: You might want to specify what kind of minecart you want to know about and whether it's occupied by a player or NPC since I think they all have different values for inertia and stuff.
Answer: I also decided to do some testing on this subject. I placed a powered rail every third track, and these 3 track sequences repeated 8 times.

The minecart (with me in it) initially looked like it was easily going to make it, but closer to the end, the cart only barely caught the edge of the powered track to boost it. Depending on how hard I pushed the cart at the beginning, the cart would only sometimes make it past the final powered track to the lip on flat land.

From the looks of my testing, you could get by with 2 tracks between powered rails for very short inclines, but for carts with no entities inside them and longer inclines, you'll need to put a powered rail every other track piece.
Comment: A cheaper means to power the rails is a switch - puts out constant power while flipped, and cheaper to make (save redstone for wires/rails/etc).  Also lets you turn off boosters without breaking torches.
Comment: Based on this answer, I did the following, and it works at a reasonably fast speed: ooPooPooPooPPooPooPooPooPP..., where P is powered rail, o is normal rail, going up a long hill with constant slope of 1.
Comment: it looks like this answer may be changing in 1.6, as per http://notch.tumblr.com/post/5775170768/the-changelist-for-1-6
Comment: Yeah, I saw that. I'll definitely revisit my answer when the update comes out (hopefully Wednesday!).
Answer: I experimented a bit. I placed a solid block to act as a brake, then two regular rails, then a powered rail with a redstone torch beside it, and then a slope. After pushing the cart approximately one block and getting into it, it managed to go up three blocks, but just barely. I tried with a sheep inside the cart and it almost reached three blocks, but it started falling down just before reaching the third meter. This may have something to do with how much I pushed the cart.
An empty cart, however, only managed to climb two blocks.
Pictures of my setup:
With me inside, the minecart managed to climb this:

While empty, it could only get this high:
Comment: Nice info, Thanks! Now to see if I can use a boost Up then a glide back down to get it to go farther than just a boost would go :)


How to forecast time bound contract based revenue?

Question: I'm looking at ideas to see how I can forecast contract-based revenue. For example, I can have customers who have purchased a monthly mobile plan, an annual plan, or a 3-year plan. How can I use that information to predict revenue? I have to lock a customer, say on month 5 with a 1-year contract such that the customer doesn't contribute to revenue until the next renewal. (There is a possibility of churn or a change of plan.)
Comment: The aim is to predict customers' revenues, right? (you've written "my revenue")
Answer: One approach you could take is to use time series forecasting techniques to predict the revenue from each individual contract. You can use the historical data on when customers signed up for their contracts and how long the contract is for to train a model that can forecast the revenue for each contract.
Another approach is to use a survival analysis model to predict the likelihood that a customer will renew their contract or churn. This can help you identify the contracts that are most at risk of not contributing to revenue in the future.
Once you have predicted the revenue for each contract and the likelihood of renewal or churn, you can use these predictions to forecast your overall revenue. This will allow you to take into account the fact that some contracts will not contribute to revenue until they are renewed.
In order to make more accurate predictions, it may be helpful to incorporate additional factors into your model, such as the customer's usage of the service or any promotions that are offered. It may also be helpful to use multiple forecasting models and combine their predictions using an ensemble approach to improve the accuracy of your forecasts.


How to download older version of an app from AppStore if you have older version of iOS?

Question: I just got an iPhone 5 which has iOS 10. But some apps need iOS 11 or higher. I knew that these apps can be used on iOS 10 before, because of my friend. I found several solution if I downloaded the app before with my Apple account, I could download it to old iOS from purchased section on AppStore. But I couldn't find any solution if I didn't download the app before. How can I download an older version of an app in this situation?
Answer: Okay I done it with using this method:

I found a friend who has a newer iPhone which has a newer iOS version.
Go to AppStore on her phone and click avatar picture to go to profile.
Scroll all the way down and you will see the "logout" button. Click that.
Now, go to up of this page and you will see an input area that you can enter Apple ID and password. Login with using your Apple ID information.
After that, search the app you want to download and install the app. If your friend's iPhone already has the app you want to download, you have to delete it before, so you can download it with using your Apple ID.
Then you can logout from your friend's AppStore and you can search for the app on your older iPhone.

When you try to download, now it will ask that "this is not compatible app for that iOS version, do you want me to download the last compatible version of this app for this iOS version?". Confirm and voilà!
But I don't know why Apple push us to login from our friend's iPhone just for one time.


Windows workflow

Question: Just want to learn 'Windows workflow' designer in .net right from the basics, can anyone suggest a good link please
thanks
sandeep
Comment: See **duplicate** question already asked: > [Windows workflow..](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/89353/windows-workflow)
Answer: OdeToCode has several in depth articles on WWF written by Scott Allen, and in particular a good discussion of the instances where you should use a state machine to simply complex workflow logic.
Answer:  Here's  a link to some good beginner-level WF tutorials:
Answer: Have you read the MSDN section yet?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms735967.aspx
EDIT: heh—someone posted the link while I was writing.
Answer: Except from the obvious MSDN link, you may find useful the following:

Screeencast: Your first sequential workflow and
Screencast: Your first state machine workflow by Matt Millner
Answer: Hands-on Labs for Windows® Workflow Foundation in C# and VB.NET
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2e575633-e357-4ee7-aaff-34138f00e830&displaylang=en
Very good guide for your first steps.

Windows workflow


RDLC rendering performance (ASP.Net)

Question: I have RDLC report that uses list with ~200K records as object data source. Records are grouped by one field and report is splitted into pages. When I trying to test it - it takes about 4 minutes to render report. Profiler shows that data source generation takes 1 minute and 3 minutes are taken by CreateSnapshot method from report viewer OnPreRender event. It looks like reporting services renders report body for whole report to determine total page count and then shows only first page. Is there way to fix such behavior somehow? If it wouldn't show exact total page count for user - I am OK with it.
Comment: Are you showing 200K rows grouped or you also aggregate this information? How many pages are generated?
Answer: I have found that having expressions in RDLC reports hurts performance, this is especially said for expressions to group on or sort on.
Eliminating all expressions might bring down the processing time to seconds instead of minutes.

RDLC rendering performance (ASP.Net)


No plural forms for "You've earned this badge N times"

Question: The text of tooltip message showed for the green tick next to badge icon requires plural forms in Transifex:
Comment: @JasonBassford I suggest that you don't have Transifex account, and you don't know how the translations work on SE sites. I will explain you briefly. For languages other than English there should be three plural forms for string: one (1, 21, 31 ...), two (2-4, 22-24, 32-34 ...), many (any other). Mentioned string has only one (unspecified) form, hence it can't be translated correctly e.g. to Russian. If you are intersting in some details you can read [the post on ruso.meta](https://ru.meta.stackoverflow.com/q/1032/176217) about translations.
Comment: My point is that the screenshots you use should complement the question you're asking, so it's clear to everybody viewing the images what you're trying to explain.
Comment: @JasonBassford it cannot be clear to everybody here since English language sites are not affected. I can post an image from ruSO, but you need to know Russian to understand it. Moreover for developers who have access to Transifex the provided link is enough to comprehend the issue. Current image just for clarifying the place where tooltip is shown.
Comment: But the screenshot does show it in plural form. Had you meant to show a *working* example rather than a *broken* example?
Comment: @JasonBassford if you want even more complicated, look at [Mozilla Localization guidelines.](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Localization/Localization_and_Plurals)
Answer: This will be fixed in the next build (rev > 2018.7.2.30925).
Comment: Since the current build is 30924 I think you meant `>=` instead of `>`. Am I right?
Comment: no, each commit now gets a separate number, and those are propagated from our dev tier - usually multiple commits go out per prod build together. Another commit was already in the pipe when I pushed the fix...


Are electric fields present in electrically neutral bodies?

Question: In most scenarios I have seen, an electric field occurs when a body has an unbalanced net charge. Are electric fields present in electrically neutral bodies?
Comment: Electrical fields are present even in a human body.
Answer: Matter consists of electrons, protons and neutrons. In most cases the total charge of matter is zero and one would consider the body as neutral. However the charges are distributed in the body and each of them creates a non zero electric field (which keeps the matter stable). All individual fields add to a total field which is zero for a electric neutral body if you measure it far away from the body. If one probes the electric field inside the body or close to its surface one finds non zero electric fields even for neutral bodies.
Answer: The functioning of our heart is regulated by an electrical pulse called sinus. If the sinus stops working an intervention is (desirably) done by introducing a battery - so-called pacemaker, that produces this electrical pulse. So, even our body, in general neutral, produces electric fields.


Can i share ebook which i bought to multiple person without enabling them to download

Question: Can i show share ebook which i bought to multiple person without enabling them to download ?. So i won't be making multiple copies of the ebook but will be showing it to multiple users. Is there any copyright violation in doing so?
Comment: Unless you are inviting people over to look at it on your computer, it is still distributing it and a violation of the copyright, regardless of "downloading" it. You seem to misunderstand how the internet works, content must be downloaded in order for it to be viewed, you aren't looking at a window on a server, the content (even here) is transmitted electronically (downloaded) on your computer and then displayed.
Comment: What is i make it available on a website such that at one time only one person is able to read it. And no one will able to download it. Like netflix does it for videos
Answer: This will depend on the license under which you use the ebook. Some ebooks have a license which explicitly permits such sharing. In the absence of such permission, it will depend on how you plan to provide access to the ebook to those you plan to "share" with. Most ways of sharing would involve making a copy at some point in the process, which you may not do without permission. However, if you remove it from your computer(s) during the time that it is shared, so that it is never accessible on more than one computer or device at any one time, that might well be permissible, although I don;t know of a court case in point.
Comment: @sujeet14108 viewing it on a web page means the viewer has already downloaded it - that's how the web works.  You are still sending it to multiple people, just one at a time.  It doesn't change the fundamentals of copyright law.
Comment: What is i  make it available on a website such that at one time only one person is able to read it. And no one will able to download it.


Will Flex Viewer work after Arc upgrade?

Question: My organization is in the process of upgrading our ArcGIS server to 10.4.1 along with Arc Desktop, Catalog, etc.  We use ArcGIS viewer for Flex for all internal applications.  I read the list of deprecated features for Arc 10.3 and 10.4 and saw that the Flex Viewer was one of them.  I understand that Flex hasn't received support or an update since 2014/15.  My question is, if we upgrade our software to 10.4.1, will the Flex viewer simply not work anymore?  These applications are crucial to daily tasks and I do not want them to stop working once we upgrade to 10.4.1.  I am in the process of putting our GIS applications in the Javascript API but with all of the different applications we use, it will take a long time.
Answer: What version of ArcGIS Server are you currently on? I have done something similar upgrading from Server 10.1 to 10.3.1 and I didn't have a problem. You should generally be OK but it would be a good idea to do the upgrade on a test environment first. This is what I did.
The flex viewer consumes the ArcGIS Server REST API. This is what will get upgraded when you do upgrade ArcGIS Server. Your flex viewer apps won't change and once the new Server REST API doesn't have any breaking changes to it the flex apps can continue to consume the api without problem. Here is the change log for the various versions of the REST API. Generally new features are added but old ones are not removed to preserve compatibility.
But I can't stress enough to do this in a test environment first.
Comment: We're on 10.1 for everything and will upgrade to 10.4.1 for everything


Include figures from publications in thesis (Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0)

Question: I would be interest what is common/best practice to include figures from published papers/literature in my thesis (Which will be published open-access). The figures of interest are copyrighted by <code>(Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0)</code>.
Answer: It would depend a bit on the specific form of "open access" which doesn't have a clear meaning, but is a set of principles and practices. The license on such shared work can be no more restrictive than the original. That is probably the case, but it would be worth checking the specifics. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access


Compress data sent to Webservice

Question: I am sending a XMLDocument to my webservice (.asmx) and when i check the file size of that xmldocumetn by xmldocument.outerxml.tostring().length it is coming around 433434 ( i dont know what does it represents...is it in bytes)
So i want to compress this data from client and send it to webservice without saving the file as XML in my local harddrive..
Can anybody throw some light on this...
Thanks in Advance
Answer: xmldocument.OuterXml.ToString().Length will return the length of the xml string, like "something".Length will return 9. So no, it is not in bytes.
The actual size in byte will depend on your encoding, for exemple you can use:
System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.Unicode.GetByteCount(s);
System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetByteCount(s);
...

Depending on the encoding you are using.
EDIT1:
Is the amount of data significant ? Assuming you're sending it over the wire, you have many options to compress data before sending it.
You can use you own custom encoding to reduce the data sent as much as possible, like say indexing constant node names to "a", "b"... and sending the map after. You can also try to send it in chunk.
If file size is an issue because of timeout, I recommend looking into the webservice.timeout property On MSDN
Answer: You probably want to investigate System.IO.Compression.GZipStream.  Your web service will need to know to decompress it using the same class.
Answer: Do some benchmarking before and after the compression. You may find that the zipping/unzipping at each end of the pipe adds more time than what you saved by chopping some bytes from the payload. You need to find the sweet spot where zipping saves you more time than it costs (1/2 a MB, especially over a LAN, is not a lot of traffic, unless you are really pumping those xml documents through).
Answer: I'd some bad experience with .NET compression libraries in past, so I recommend SharpZipLib. You'll need to change your web method implementation to accept a byte[];
You can also to access that service as WCF service, using a TCP binding, so it'll consume less bandwidth. You should consider this option before messing with your web method signature.

Compress data sent to Webservice


Question about sound-changes that are common cross-linguistically

Question: This recent question has a specific and a more general concern. Would asking the general question ("What diachronic sound changes are common cross-linguistically, and are there databases documenting their occurrence?) as a separate question be considered a duplicate? I ask because I'd been meaning to post this question - but maybe this is now best covered by the existing question...?
Comment: I will accept your answer if everything pans out--- this is exactly what I was after, in greatest generality. The n->l was one example. When an ignorant person (in this case, me) asks a question, this ignorant person generally doesn't know how much is known--- so you ask about a little, and if somebody answers the whole shebang, you are happy.
Comment: Unfortunately, the database is not up yet. I don't know the answer to the meta-question.
Answer: The duplicate works like this: wording doesn't count, or at least, it's not what you should actually consider. The duplicate reason states that:

This question covers exactly the same ground as earlier questions on this topic; its answers may be merged with another identical question.

There is no mention for the wording, instead, it's said that what is being duplicated is the "ground", i.e. the same question on the same topic.
If your question is not asking for the same information in the previous question and if your question cannot be answered or it's not answered by the answers (or future answers) in the previous question, then you're good to go.
If you want to be sure your question won't be voted to close by other users, you can use this question to ask for help from other users about how to word it! :)
Comment: The difficulty I see is that the existing question is about two related things. The question is mostly about a specific sound change, and so is the focus of the answers. I guess I'll wait a bit more to see if the aspect of common sound changes in general is covered in more detail in the answers, if not a separate question seems good to me.


Patent grant despite prior art describing the same invention

Question: Is it possible and are there cases where patents have been granted even though there is prior art that describes the same invention? Do these patent grants have to be reverted when someone finds prior art describing the same invention after the patent opposition period?
Answer: There are different procedures in various jurisdictions. In no place I have heard it is automatic or easy. Until the 2012 AIA law in the US patents could only be invalidated in a court process that involved an alleged infringement.
Now there is a way for any party to challenge the validity of an issued patent based on prior art through an administrative, court-like process. It is still relatively expensive.
Comment: Do you know about any specific cases where this happened?
Comment: Yes, there have been thousands of patents subject to Inter Partes Review (IPR) since it was started. https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ptab_aia_fy2021__roundup.pdf is a summary report for that year. It shows about 28 thousand claims (you challenge specific claims, and the more claims the higher the cost to challenge) that were questioned about 3 thousand were found completely invalid. Many others were disclaimed by the patent owner or some settlement was reached with the challenger.
Answer: In Europe, usually each lawsuit for patent infringement against a third party is responded to with an invalidity counterclaim. It is fairly common to see patents being revoked in Court.
In the case of European patents, once the patent has issued, third parties are allowed to file an opposition with the European Patent Office in an attempt to limit the scope of the patent or revoke it entirely. Unlike in the US, the cost of opposition before the EPO is relatively low. The filing of oppositions is not so uncommon. See for example the EPO's calendar of oral proceedings, each day there are 10 to 20 oppositions in average.


Install persistent Ubuntu Lucid Lynx on 16 GB pen Drive

Question: I am using Windows XP and I want to install Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx on my 16 GB pen drive. I have a live Ubuntu disc. I want my install to be persistent so that whatever changes I make are preserved. I do not want to alter my MBR but I want to able to boot fro my pen drive through BIOS.
Comment: You need to be a little more patient.
Comment: No replies....  :( :(
Answer: It works. I use a Jaunty install on a 16GB drive.
I dont expect Lucid to be any problem -- will be shifting to it shortly myself.
Ubuntu Wiki: LiveUsbPendrivePersistent

Update: I completed one 8GB flash drive install of Lucid yesterday.
Some points to remember,

With Lucid, you can use the System, Administration menu
to install after booting with the LiveCD
Remember to select the Advanced button after setting up your flash drive partition as root -- you must select the flash drive device (probably /dev/sdb) to write the MBR.
That way you wont kill the normal boot sequence of your machine.

You can then plug the USB on any USB Bootable machine to boot into your Ubuntu system
I usually tap the BIOS Boot Menu key at machine startup to manually select booting through the USB with such a bootable Ubuntu flash

You can also have an extra data partition on the 16GB drive
(Ubuntu footprint will usually not exceed 10GB even after you install several additional things).

If you make a partition that you might want to use as data space on a Windows machine,
it will be accessible only if its the first partition.
So, use gparted to make a vfat or fat32 primary (of say 6GB),
then, mark the rest as logical and create your root partition (and a swap if you wish)
Install Ubuntu in this logical root partition.
You can mount the 6GB space from Ubuntu and still use the key as a 6GB drive on Windows (when you have not booted through it)

Imagine the Possibilities!

It would be wise to keep backing up any data you have on the flash drive
to a more permanent storage regularly
This will protect you from loss or damage of the tiny Ubuntu OS you can carry around with you
Answer: Of course, BACKUP, BACKUP and BACKUP first and foremost !!!!
I installed Ubuntu Lucid Lynx on a 16GB memory stick with no major issue. However, there is ONE thing that you need to be extremely careful about. At the very last window before confirming and going ahead, you need to click on the advanced button, to change the location of the master boot record for the startup. By default, it will install itself on /dev/sda, or /dev/hda, depending on your hard disk. This is your main booting hard disk, and it will screw up your hard disk. Make sure it is instead installed on the USB stick device, which should be something /dev/sdb, or /dev/sdc.
I would also recommend that you have NO other USB storage device on your computer at that time, and if you can temporarily disconnect your hard disk, it is even safer.
I screwed up two hard disks with this, once with JoliCloud, and once with Ubuntu 10.04.
I would also recommend that you have no swap partition. Such partition is accessed a lot and your memory stick has a finite number of writes it can sustain before becoming defective. If this is only to experiment with Ubuntu before doing the big move, don't worry. If you want to have it permanently on the stick for portable use, remove the swap partition, expanding the main partition instead.
But otherwise, it works like a charm.
Answer: If your BIOS supports disabling and enabling SATA and IDE ports, you don't have to worry about accidently overwriting your current MBR. Just disable them first.


What founders obliged to do if their ICO hadnt raised the required sum

Question: If ICO hadnt raised the required sum is it considered failed and what founders of the company obliged to do with sold tokens and their investors?
Answer: It depends by the terms of the ICO your are investing in.
Some ICO will refund users if they do not reach a minimum amount of funds before the end date scheduled for the ICO itself.
Some others ICO can however hold the funds also if they do not have reached the maximum cap and if they haven't set a minimum cap to consider ICO successful.
Every ICO has its own terms & details, and different specifications about timelines, roadmaps, coins/tokens distribution etc.
You should do your due diligence and read carefully the ICO terms each time you are willing to send funds to any projects.
Hope this helps.
Comment: So this means that every company decides themselves what do if they hadnt reached ICO cap?
Comment: Yes, exactly. ICOs are ran by private companies, selling their own "product", so they own the rights to decide (prior to start ofc) all the ICO's details.


Ubuntu touch channel for Nexus7 2013

Question: What's the recommended channel for Ubuntu touch on Nexus7 2013. Ubuntu touch is working with channel devel, but this results also has a UI for phone. It seems to be a image of phone and not a tablet. So I am not sure whether devel is the correct image for the the Nexus7.
In addition, I am also annoyed by the GPS which will is enabled all the time.
Regards, Marcel
Answer: For now, it thinks the Nexus 7 (2013) is a phone (with SIM card), regardless of which model.
That will change soon, with tablet-specific features to be added. Please be patient.

Ubuntu touch channel for Nexus7 2013


What is the security model of iCloud Drive on iOS?

Question:
If I open a file using the file picker in an app, can the app now see all files in that folder?
Is there any other way in which an app might see all the files in my iCloud Drive?
Comment: What if the answers to these two questions are different / not related? Are you looking for an off-site resource that answers the security model or perhaps want to choose one of these to ask first and push the second question to a second question (linked here if needed)?
Answer: UIDocumentPickerViewController provides apps with open or import access to one or more user-specified files. Folders are not provided to apps for their own access to, and multiple selections must be user-initiated. When an app saves a file, it can retain access to that file but is not granted general access to the containing folder. Apps have access to their own app folders in iCloud Drive, but not the ability for any folder or all files.


Has anyone had trouble deploying Azure VM using Ubuntu 18.04 after March 8th?

Question: I have a template based deployment that deploys our dev, staging, and production environments.  This template has been working just fine since mid February.  When I attempted to deploy the dev site the last friday (3/9/18) the script hung with the msg:
New-AzureRmResourceGroupDeployment : 5:51:35 PM - Resource Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines 'devSigmaMarketplaceUbuntuVM' failed with message '{
  "status": "Failed",
  "error": {
    "code": "ResourceDeploymentFailure",
    "message": "The resource operation completed with terminal provisioning state 'Failed'.",
    "details": [
      {
        "code": "OSProvisioningInternalError",
        "message": "OS Provisioning failed for VM 'devSigmaMarketplaceUbuntuVM' due to an internal error."
      }
    ]
  }
}

My template simply specifies that the VM should be created using 'latest' of '18.04-DAILY-LTS'
Here is a chart of what I have found that works:
OK - UbuntuServer      Canonical    18.04-DAILY-LTS    Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-DAILY-LTS:18.04.201802180    18.04.201802180
OK - UbuntuServer      Canonical    18.04-DAILY-LTS    Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-DAILY-LTS:18.04.201802190    18.04.201802190
OK - UbuntuServer      Canonical    18.04-DAILY-LTS    Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-DAILY-LTS:18.04.201802210    18.04.201802210
OK - UbuntuServer      Canonical    18.04-DAILY-LTS    Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-DAILY-LTS:18.04.201802220    18.04.201802220
OK - UbuntuServer      Canonical    18.04-DAILY-LTS    Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-DAILY-LTS:18.04.201802230    18.04.201802230
OK - UbuntuServer      Canonical    18.04-DAILY-LTS    Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-DAILY-LTS:18.04.201802240    18.04.201802240
FAILED - UbuntuServer  Canonical    18.04-DAILY-LTS    Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-DAILY-LTS:18.04.201803070    18.04.201803070
FAILED - UbuntuServer  Canonical    18.04-DAILY-LTS    Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-DAILY-LTS:18.04.201803071    18.04.201803071
FAILED - UbuntuServer  Canonical    18.04-DAILY-LTS    Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-DAILY-LTS:18.04.201803090    18.04.201803090
FAILED - UbuntuServer  Canonical    18.04-DAILY-LTS    Canonical:UbuntuServer:18.04-DAILY-LTS:18.04.201803100    18.04.201803100

I currently have a ticket open with azure, but I am reaching out to others to se if this problem is more widespread or if its limited to my deployment.
I apologize if this is the wrong forum.  I ususally use stackexchange and i've learned to not ask non-programming questions there.
UPDATE:
Microsoft contacted me about the ticket regarding Ubuntu 18.04 Daily images on azure going past March 8th being 'bad'.  I was told that it is a problem with ubuntu itself, not azure.  The images sent from canonical to microsoft have problems, and I should be able to redeploy when ubuntu hits the next milestone. I have my doubts about this, but i'm willing to go along for the time being.
Added ubuntu question here: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/665553
Answer: I talked to the developers on freenode, and the bug was replicated.  This ticket is the end result.
Unable to deploy azure template with Ubuntu18.04 Daily image past March 8th
https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-images/+bug/1755565
Overall bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-init/+bug/1755965


Will RAID 0 array still work if I replace bad MOBO with identical model?

Question: My motherboard, which is an Abit AA8XE recently failed. I had most of my data backed up but would like to recover the rest.  The problem is my drives where set up in RAID 0.  If I replace the bad motherboard with another AA8XE will my RAID 0 array still work? Are there any other issues I might encounter?
Answer: If you create a hardware configuration identical to your original, your drives should work, provided they are not also damaged.
If your mobo failed during a disk write, you might have some missing or corrupted data.


Dual boot with Ubuntu and Windows 7

Question: I looked at the questions regarding dual-booting with Win 7 and Ubuntu 12.10 and couldn't locate an answer.  Can I simply install Ubuntu to a free partition and it will automatically ask me each time I reboot which OS I would like to use?
Answer: Update for Ubuntu 18.04 and above
New installations of recent versions of Ubuntu does not use a separate swap partition any more. They use a swap file by default.
Original Answer
Ubuntu by default uses two partitions, one of type ext4 and the other of type Swap. Windows uses NTFS partitions not useful for Ubuntu installation.
If you have a free partition in Windows, delete it using Windows Disk Management Tool. Keep the free space unallocated.
When you install Ubuntu, choose the Install side by side Windows option. Ubuntu will find the unallocated space and create the partitions it needs.
See Ubuntu installation on Windows7 with D partition for more details.
The default installation of Ubuntu includes a boot-loader called GRUB. Every time you boot GRUB will load before Windows or Ubuntu and give you the choice to boot either Ubuntu or Windows. If you do not choose anything, it will boot Ubuntu after waiting for a while. Both the time it waits and the default boot can be changed later.
Hope this helps
Comment: OP - In other words, yes. If you install it on a different partition than your Windows install, it will ask you each time you reboot which OS you want to use. :)

Dual boot with Ubuntu and Windows 7


Why my imessage and facetime button turn off by itself?

Question: I already on the imessage and facetime in setting. But, why suddenly it turn off by itself? So, what should I do? Is there something wrong with my iphone?
Answer: When the registration cannot complete the software indicates that failure to you. Basically when you tap "on" the device undergoes a handshake and registration over the network to set up the cryptographic keys that Apple will then use to uniquely encrypt the data going to that device (and that device only) using your AppleID/iCloud credentials to build up the keys.
Apple has a troubleshooting article:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201422

It's always best to go through those articles slowly, and in order (especially when it says restart - you really need to restart).
I've seen the date be wrong on the iOS device, so if you like guessing on hunches, you could sign out of iCloud and then toggle the "set date/time" setting in General and be sure the clock is correct on the iPhone. Then you could try enabling iMessages.
Lots of things can mess this up including:

two factor authentication / unique passwords (in that your iCloud password isn't the same password your iMessage/FaceTime password)
OS running out of space or iPhone needing to be restored
problems at Apple's end for all iMessage users http://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/
carrier not sending SMS validation message to your iPhone
problems with your AppleID