How do I post a question about the etymology of an idiomatic expression?

Question: I posted a question about the idiomatic expression "spit bath" and it was removed for "off topic."  Where and how can I pose this question on StackExchange?
Comment: If you are asking about an English expression, than it is probably better to ask in [English language and usage](https://english.stackexchange.com/) or in [English language learners](https://ell.stackexchange.com/), since it is a matter of specific language, not Linguistics (science about languages.)
Comment: see also some previous discussions on etymology questions across many previous years: https://linguistics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1962/etymology-questions-and-close-votes
https://linguistics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1838/the-need-for-changing-our-guidelines-for-etymology-questions
https://linguistics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1847/good-examples-of-etymology-questions
https://linguistics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/143/which-etymology-questions-should-be-within-or-topic-scope
Answer: One of the options available to users when voting to close a question is:

Contextless Etymology Question
Languages are always changing; words
change their meanings and are borrowed between languages
unpredictably. So questions asking for the origin of words or phrases
are off-topic unless they demonstrate that there is a reasonable
assumption of systematicity, by situating themselves within a
historical context of language change or contact.

Your question seems to meet that criterion for being off-topic.
For English words and phrases (like yours), these are generally considered on-topic on the English Language & Usage site, and for many other major languages there are also other suitable StackExchange sites. For etymologies in less often discussed languages there is unfortunately not always a suitable site on StackExchange.
Answer: The real problem is that "idiomatic expressions" don't have etymologies.  Words have etymologies, because there is a small number of them, and their histories can often be traced historically.
But phrases and clauses are innumerable. Literally. And if they're not compositional (i.e, if their meaning isn't obviously clear from their parts), then they're much more likely to be metaphors, and that's what you should be looking for.
Spit bath is a good example. It's not a bath, and it needn't involve real spit, but it's an intended cleaning action, and liquid is involved. Both spit and bath are metaphoric terms, and so is their combination.
So its meaning can be explained by metaphor analysis (read Lakoff and Johnson); its history is lost, however. You can look in the OED to find the first printed use of spit bath, but that certainly is much later than its first actual use in speech. It won't have been written down (especially in a dictionary) until everybody understood what was meant, and that this phrase was not literal, but was meaningful. That could be centuries, especially for anything naughty like spit.
Comment: Phrases can still have etymologies, whether that's simply tracing their first uses, or whether they're calques from other languages etc.
Comment: "spit bath" seems like a compound to me, albeit one spelt separately. Univerbation seems to also suggest that the line between compounds and phrases is not fixed, so I don't think this is a good argument


What is an extended abstract?

Question: Some conferences ask for an extended abstract. What are the differences among "abstracts," "extended abstracts," and "full papers?"
Answer: An abstract is a preliminary submission that summarizes the contribution of a paper. There are usually strict limits on the length of an abstract, either in terms of words or of total characters (rarely do they exceed 1000 words or 5000 characters; they are often substantially shorter than this.
An extended abstract and a full paper are nearly the same; the primary difference is that an extended abstract tends to be somewhat shorter than a full paper; I've seen extended abstracts from 2 pages up to 6 pages, while conference papers run from 4 up to about 12 or 15, depending on the space allotted.
One other important difference—outside of computer science, extended abstracts almost never go through a formal peer-review process before being published, while a conference paper will typically have at least one reviewer. (I think this is the case for almost all such papers, but there may be exceptions.)
Comment: Computer science is different.
Comment: @JeffE: CS seems to be an exception in many ways. This is probably tied in some way to the fact that conference papers carry much more weight than journal publications in CS, but the reverse is true in almost every other scientific area I'm aware of. But I've edited the answer to take advantage of this.
Comment: According to Jukka they go similar peer review but you say extended abstract almost never go through formal peer review.
Comment: @aeismail conference papers carry more weight than journals? So I shall consider submitting to conferences than journals.
Answer: In computer science conferences, the terms "full paper" and "extended abstract" are often used interchangeably.
For example, STOC calls it an "extended abstract" while SODA calls it a "full paper". In this case there is no difference that you can infer from the choice of the terminology: they are of the same length (approx. 10 pages + appendix) and they go through a similar peer review process.
Comment: I think the reason for the "extended abstract" terminology is historical.  In the early days of CS conferences, it was thought that calling the conference papers "papers" might conflict with later journal publication, while calling them "extended abstracts" preserved the idea that they were merely summaries of longer journal papers to come.  (This was especially true in more mathematical areas, since math has far fewer conferences that publish papers.)  By now, the idea that conference papers can later be expanded to journal papers is well established and you can call them whatever you want.
Comment: Actually, there is a very important difference between STOC and SODA: STOC papers are limited to 10 pages, while SODA allows up to 20 pages.  A typical STOC paper has to omit details to fit in the page limit; a typical SODA paper does not.
Comment: Evidence to the contrary is e.g. William Pugh's guidelines for authors of extended abstracts http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~fischer/pldi96/pugh.html -- it appears to have been developed for the SIGPLAN 1991 conference, a computer science for programming language research.  Apparently, the conference committee wanted to be able to cover a lot of submissions, hence went for extended abstracts instead of full papers.
Comment: @JeffE: True, not a perfect example. Incidentally, ESA lets the authors pick whichever term they prefer: *"Authors are invited to submit an extended abstract or full paper of at most 12 pages and an optional appendix"*.
Answer: Reading the other answers, it is definitely not the case that all disciplines understand the same when speaking about extended abstracts (while they can agree on abstracts and full papers).
In Economics, an extended abstract is something between an abstract and an introduction - being more close to the introduction. That is, it includes the What, the Why and a little bit of the the How, along with references and results. Results are, however, only preliminary, which is why there is only an extended abstract. There are usually no tables nor graphs in it. There are also no chapters.
I believe the Why is the most important part, as it distinguishes your work from the literature and shows what you are going to add.
Comment: Even a short (normal length) abstract should summarize real results.  Preliminary results are what you find in a proposal.
Comment: I agree with the first sentence, but not with the same. In a proposal in Economics you don't even have preliminary results - you just propose that it's worth getting to them.
Answer: My view is that in economics an extended abstract is a short version of the paper. Conferences that accept extended abstracts usually expect them to include results, methodology and a short discussion, to be able to gauge the plausibility of findings and appropriateness of the methodology.
In terms of lengths, I'd say 2-6 pages, while a full paper is anything from 15 to 100 pages. So, while very different in terms of length, the main contributions in the paper should be found in the extended abstract.
Answer: Just answer from the perspective of whether it will be included in the proceedings, some conferences will be included in the proceedings like regular research, but some won't, you need to confirm it by email.
Comment: Please clarify: do you mean "some conferences include the extended abstracts in the proceedings like regular research"?

What is an extended abstract?


Interpreting QQ plot (Normal vs Heavy-tailed)

Question: I'm having some trouble interpreting the shape of this distribution. It is a distribution of price differences between an estimate and actual price. There are 219 points. I'm not sure if I can call it Gaussian or if it is heavy tailed or light tailed. The shapiro-wilk test for normality gave me a significant p-value of 1.96e^-5. While the KS-test(using a second normal distribution with he same mean and sd) gave me an insignificant p-value. (0.14). How an I go about finding a an appropriate distribution this can be described with?
Comment: You should search the site & read some of the existing threads on these topics.  There are *a lot*.  In addition, can you clarify why you need to know if the distribution is normal?
Comment: I've tried reading through a lot of them. It's just that my distribution is extra peculiar to me. If I can prove that it is non Gaussian or heavy tail like it will help relate it t the financial landscape from which it comes from.
Answer: The null hypothesis for a Shapiro-Wilk test
is that the population from which a sample was randomly sampled has some normal distribution (parameters unspecified). By contrast, $H_0$ for our Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is that the population
is normal with specified $\mu$ and $\sigma.$ (If you estimate $\mu$ by $\bar X$ and $\sigma$ by $S,$ the P-value needs to be adjusted.)
Here is an example of normal Q-Q plots and tests
for samples of size $n=250$ from normal and heavy tailed $\mathsf{T}(\nu=2)$ distributions. Because you show a Q-Q plot with Sample Quantiles on the
vertical axis (default in R), that is the type of Q=Q plots I show.
Moderate sample size. We use $n=250$ here because formal tests for
various distributions may be at their best for
such moderate sample sizes.

The S-W, and especially the K-S test, may have very poor power for small
sample sizes.

Also, in practice with huge samples, these tests may too 'readily' reject
a (nearly) normal sample as being non-normal because of
some small quirk that is not of practical importance.

Normal data. The sample is of moderate size
so the tests work well. Neither S-W nor K-S for
$\mathsf{Norm}(0.1) rejects.
set.seed(1234)
z = rnorm(250)  # standard normal
summary(z);  sd(z)
     Min.   1st Qu.    Median      Mean   3rd Qu.      Max.
-3.233152 -0.657095 -0.043433 -0.004079  0.623527  3.043766
[1] 1.017413  # sample SD
shapiro.test(z)$p.val
[1] 0.1382135         # Not Rejected (correct)
ks.test(z, pnorm, 0,1)$p.val
[1] 0.7156302         # Not Rejected (correct)

Heavy-tailed $\mathsf{T}(\nu=2)$ population.
This distribution has such heavy tails that it has
no variance (or standard deviation), so we do not
show its sample standard deviation in the summary.
Notice max and min both far from $\mu=0.$
u = rt(250, 2)
summary(u)
     Min.   1st Qu.    Median      Mean   3rd Qu.      Max.
-12.75136  -0.70875   0.05952   0.19331   0.93226  20.32579

The S-W test strongly rejects the sample as non-normal, the K-S barely rejects the sample as
not from $\mathsf{Norm}(0,1).$ The K-S test [based on the CDF of $\mathsf{T}(2)]$correctly fails to reject the population as sampled from this heavy-tailed distribution.
shapiro.test(u)$p.val
[1] 3.118322e-19       # Strongly Rejected (correct)

ks.test(u, pnorm, 0,1)$p.val
[1] 0.02851291         # Barely Rejected (correct)

ks.test(u, pt, 2)$p.val
[1] 0.1142186          # Not Rejected (correct)

Normal probability plots of the two samples. Many statisticians prefer to judge normality "by eye," using Q-Q plots, rather than by using formal
tests.
One expects normal data to yield a "nearly" linear
pattern of points, perhaps staying near a reference line based on upper and lower quartiles. However,
in the tails were data is sparse one does not
expect the data points to follow the reference line
closely. There is no question that the sample
from the heavy-tailed distribution fails to yield
a "linear" plot.

R code for plots:
par(mfrow=c(1,2))
 qqnorm(z, main="Normal")
  qqline(z, col="blue")
 qqnorm(u, main="T(2)")
  qqline(u, col="blue")
par(mfrow=c(1,1))

Finally, we show normal probability plots
for two additional samples of size 250 from
these same distributions.
set.seed(1122)
z = rnorm(250);  u = rt(250, 2)

Comment: Harold Jeffreys did an analysis of some real datasets in which measurement error was the main story and suggested that $t$ with $7$ df was a fairer approximation than normal. It's not easy to tell a normal and such a distribution apart with data.
Comment: @ NickCox. Thanks for that story.
Comment: @NickCox: Do you have a reference for that?
Comment: The most accessible summary is in his _Theory of Probability_ (any edition 1939, 1948, 1961). Note that the title is not indicative of the contents. It is about a Bayesian approach to data analysis and inference.


Flipping a fair coin until either H or TTTT appears; what is the probability of getting at most two T's?

Question: We flip a fair coin repeatedly and independently, resulting in a sequence of heads (H) and tails (T). We stop flipping the coin as soon as this sequence contains H or T T T T. What is the probability that this sequence contains at most two Ts?
Comment: If I read the problem correctly, there are only three possible sequences with at most two Ts: H, TH, TTH. Or am I missing something?
Comment: @Harald: I don't think so. And given the stopping conditions, there are only two other possible outcomes.
Answer: HINT: List the possible outcomes; there are only five of them. Calculate the probability of each. What fraction of the total of these probabilities comes from outcomes with at most two Ts?
Answer: Flip the coin exactly three times (if the rules said to stop, just continue throwing for fun). Now if you've obtained TTT, then you've already got more than two T's, and will continue to have them regardless of what follows. So in this case getting at most two T's fails. In all other cases you've got a H, so the game has stopped, and you have at most two T's (in all, of which only those before the first H really matter). In these cases getting at most two T's succeeds.
So you can compute the probability of success as that of getting something else than TTT after three throws. (So that probability would be the same even if the rule for stopping at $4$ T's were replaced by stopping at say $97$ T's).
Comment: would the answer be 14/16 since we don't want TTTH and TTTT?
Comment: Actually my answer say it suffices looking at three flips, so the denominator is $8$ rather than $16$. But yes, the answer you suggest has the correct value (and you can arrange the denominator to be $8$).


In the poweRlaw package, is the location parameter estimated for a lognormal distribution the $median=\exp(\mu)=\theta$ or $\mu$?

Question: I have a set of graphs (each with the same nodes but with edges' weights defined by different research subjects) for which I would like to report statistics. One of these statistics is the betweenness centrality of each node, which, for each graph, has a heavy-tailed distribution (reported to usually be a power law). Nevertheless, I have calculated the betweenness centrality for each node in each research subject's graph, and, again for each node, this empirical data fits well a heavy-tailed distribution, although it seems more lognormal than a power law, according to Gillespie's implementation in R (poweRlaw) of Clauset et al. method. I would like to report these results, but I do not know if the first parameter in this packages' estimation is the $median=\exp(\mu)=\theta$ or $\mu$. From the example with the moby corpus, it seems that the parameter is $\mu$, as its value is negative (-17.9), but the documentation is frankly lacking in this sense, as it focuses on power laws.
Answer: Colin Gillespie answered this question on GitHub. It follows the parameterization of rlnorm, hence the first parameter estimated is $\mu$.


Good customization tutorials for Dynamics CRM that are NOT sales driven

Question: I'm brand new to Dynamics CRM and have been asked to see if this is a viable replacement for the employee tracking software we're using now (AlexSys Team 2 Pro). We're not so much of a sales based company as the tutorials i see for CRM focus on. I know CRM is more for customer relations and sales tracking but i also know it's highly customizable and can do what i need it to do. I need something that keeps track of how many new tasks have been created and how many have been done and to show a graph or a report with the results. I've looked at some PluralSight videos and some windows videos but they all seem to focus on and really push the use of its sales side usability. We do sell our product here (i work at a software development company) but we need something that isn't focused on sales and is usable to management for tracking progress. So for example, lets say im aksed to do 4 things(tasks), I do 2 of those things and am in the process of handling my 3rd. I'm not a sales agent, lets say im a programmer, I need CRM to be able to show my manager that I had 4 new tasks, completed 2, and if possible to show that im in the process of working on the 3rd. AlexSys Team gives you different options for what state the task is in, such as In-Process and Completed but it does poorly when it comes to reporting. Are there any good places to learn how to do that in CRM, we are not using a partner and will not have someone coding this or changing this for us, i will possibly be the one working on that so i need something that can help show me how to customize it without constantly talking about sales. Im off to watch more PluralSight videos but maybe a user here knows of somewhere better to learn from or maybe just a specific PluralSight video i may have missed. Thanks for any input.
Answer: Dynamics CRM is as you've discovered very customisable and will almost certainly meet the requirements you've described.  Whether it is the correct choice only you can decide.
YouTube is a really good resource for CRM videos, you can also take a look at the CRM 2011 Technical Training Videos on Channel 9 produced when the product was first released.  These give a high level overview of CRM 2011 technical capabilities.
You may want to look at the basics of Activities ( in particular Tasks ) and Queues.  Make sure you're clear on the usage of Status and Status Reason and how you can customise them.  For reporting you can either use the built-in dashboard capabilities or create your own SSRS reports using BIDS that can be hosted within CRM.  The process of producing these reports whilst subtlety different will be easily understood by anyone with some some basic SSRS skills.
I'd recommend enlisting the help of a partner in the first instance even if it's to just verify your initial design.  The overall cost of their time in relation to the install and running costs of CRM won't be too significant and they may even be able to save you some money.
Answer: I'm not sure of a better place for videos, but I can speak to CRM's ability to serve as a rapid application development platform and the areas it excels.  It allows you to create new fields and entities (think Database Tables) without touching a database, as well as customize forms, roles, and security with 0 code.  You can also sign up for a free months trial online to setup a quick Proof of Concept.
There is so much that it can do, and do quickly, that your company may be better served to seek outside help, resulting in a better product, delivered quicker, with less overall costs than trying to do everything "in-house".


web application session cache

Question: I want to cache data for a user session in a web application built on struts.What is the best way to do it .Currently we store certain information from the DB in java objects in the user's session .Works fine till now but people are now concerned about memory usage etc.
Any thought on how best to get around this problem.
Answer:
Works fine till now but people are now
  concerned about memory usage etc.

Being "concerned" is relatively meaningless - do they have any concrete reason for it? Statistics that show how much memory session objects are taking up? Along the same line: do you have concrete reasons for wanting to cache the data in the user session? Have you profiled the app and determined that fetching this data from the DB for each request is slowing down your app significantly?
Don't guess. Measure.
Answer: It's usually bad practice to store whole objects in the user session for this reason. You should probably store just the keys in the session and re-query the database when you need them again. This is trade-off, but usually acceptable for most use-cases. Querying the database on keys is usually acceptable to do between requests, rather than storing objects in session.
If you must have them in session, consider using something like an LRUMap (in Apache Collections).

web application session cache


Thymeleaf Error for  date with th:pattern

Question: I'm trying to use th:pattern for date input form field like following for a thymeleaf template using spring-mvc but without luck. Anybody else experienced similar thing and has some insight or alternative?
I tried 1. hard-coding the pattern
<input type="text" th:pattern="MM/dd/yyyy" th:field="*{classDate}"/>
received Error:
Request processing failed; nested exception is org.thymeleaf.exceptions.TemplateProcessingException: Could not parse as expression: "MM/dd/yyyy"

And 2. setting pattern in java code for template to use
<input type="date" th:pattern="${classdate_format}" th:field="*{classDate}"/>
received Error:
Request processing failed; nested exception is org.thymeleaf.exceptions.TemplateProcessingException: Error during execution of processor 'org.thymeleaf.spring3.processor.attr.SpringInputGeneralFieldAttrProcessor'

Answer: pattern is html5 attribute of input tag.
pattern validates an input value using regex. So that value, which you inserts into pattern attribute should be correct regex pattern.
If you are using Thymeleaf's th: prefix, template processor trying to find appropriate variable in Spiring's model and insert it as a value of attribute. Thymeleaf is using Spring EL for it's templates.
So your first approach is incorrect because of using invalid SpringEL expression.
The second solution looks better, type="date" gives you exactly what you want, but works not for all browsers. ${classdate_format} looks like correct expression. To understand what causes the second error more code needed.
Anyway is there any reason to use th: prefix for pattern attribute? It needed only if you want to create regex pattern dynamically at server side. But in this case regex pattern is pretty straightforward, so you can use attribute without th:. To write correct regex for your case please refer to this answer.


Can anyone explain how this 433MHz RF transmitter module works?

Question: I don't know the basic functionality of the circuit and I need a complete description of every component.
Comment: Have you Google "how do modulators work"?
Comment: I haven't, thank for the keyword
Comment: Could you help me explain what Saw-433 do in this circuit ? Does it produce 433mhz carrier wave or modulated the signal ?
Answer: That's the simplest RF transmitter at 433.92 MHz that one can design.
That's the lowest cost RF transmitter ever.
That's an on-off RF transmitter.

T1, R1, C1, C3 and the SAW filter are the oscillator.
R2 and T2 allow the external digital command "DATA" to turn on and off the oscillator.
C2 is a DC blocking capacitor. You want to send AC signals only to the antenna.
L2 is an RF choke that allows the DC bias current only to arrive to the oscillator. It's a filter of AC currents.

When DATA is 3 V or 5 V then the oscillator starts oscillating and the antenna transmits RF energy in the air.
When DATA is 0 V then the oscillator stops oscillating.

SAW filter selectivity:
The selectivity of the of the oscillator is SAW filter's responsibility.
If the SAW filter is selective in frequency then the oscillator will send antenna narrow band RF signals.
If the SAW filteris selective then the RF energy sent to the antenna is well concentrated around the 433.92 MHz RF channel.
If energy is well concentrated around the 433.92 MHz RF channel, then the receiver is happy because its RF sensitivity and RF selectivity go up.

That circuit can be simulated by LT Spice free simulator.
One need to find an appropriate SAW filter at 433.92 MHz device model for LT Spice.
This in an interesting article about a spice model for a SAW device:
https://sbmicro.org.br/sforum-eventos/sforum2001/abarbosa.pdf

This in an interesting book about SAW filters:
"Understanding Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) Devices for Mobile and Wireless Applications and Design Techniques"
by Colin K. Campbell

The BJT T1 must have a cut-off frequency significantly higher than 433 MHz.

NEC's BJT 2SC3357 is an NPN silicon epitaxial transistor designed for low noise amplifier at VHF, UHF and CATV band.
2SC3357 is a low-noise and high-gain bipolar transistor.
<code>Features at bias point 1: Vce = 10 V - Ic = 7 mA - Zout = 50 Ω

NF = 1.1 dB - Ga = 8.0 dB - f = 1.0 GHz

Features at bias point 2: Vce = 10 V - Ic = 40 mA - Zout = 50 Ω

NF = 1.8 dB - Ga = 9.0 dB - f = 1.0 GHz
</code>
Ga = gain, NF = Noise figure
Comment: Notably the SAW filter has to be narrow < 1MHz bandwidth. And you also have to restrict the power to a few mW. Otherwise it will fail to meet the requirements of the band.
Comment: thank you thank you so much
Comment: It took me and my team a lot of time to study this, thanks again for your help !
Comment: You can simulate that circuit by LT Spice free simulator. You will need to find a SAW device model for LT Spice.
Comment: Thanks for your advice !


What's up with Snitchler, the giant treasure goblin?

Question: I had gotten a bounty to kill Snitchler in Act 3. When I got to him, I found out that he is actually a HUGE treasure goblin. He acts very much like a normal goblin. You engage him and he picks up his bag and starts running while occasionally dropping gold or loot. I figured he must do something special because he's so giant and his name is in purple (marking him as a unique enemy). As far as I could tell, nothing happened. The loot he dropped wasn't even that great. Is there something I missed? Is there a chance for him to do something different or give a unique item? Is there an achievement? Basically, Is there anything special about him?
Comment: I'm pretty sure there's absolutely nothing special about him. Except for the fact that he shouldn't open a portal and escape
Comment: Disclaimer: I do not condone violence against special people.
Answer: With the introduction of the bounty system came a way to be aware of most of the rare spawns in a game. For example, this also includes places like the Caverns of Frost in Act III where people farm for one of the components of the Staff Of Herding.
Prior to the expansion, these rare spawns would have to manually be sought out. Snitchler is one of these such rare spawns. However, Snitchler is not that rare because there are no associated achievements to Snitchler. I killed him last night, it took me 23 new games to get the bounty, and I got no achievement. When examining the list of rare spawn enemies to kill to complete Snitchler was not in the list.
Answer: As far as I know he is just a "regular" unique monster, and shares the same properties as the other ones. Stronger, bigger, sexier, but not really richer. Being a goblin or not doesn't seem to give more loot. :(


How can I link two PS4s without internet?

Question: I cannot get my 2 PlayStation 4s linked to play  7 Days to Die. I don't have internet and I'm trying not to use split screen. I have cables, but I'm not sure what to do with them.
Comment: Do you have a local area network (LAN) to try and play over? Not sure how 7 Days to Die will respond to that though.
Answer: For this game, if you want to play together and maintain separate screens, you'll need to play online. Otherwise, this game supports offline local co-op splitscreen. On Co-Optimus, it states under 7 Days to Die:

System link or LAN play is not supported.

Please see the complete list of co-op features at Co-Optimus here.


DSN, ODBC: How to create DSN using different windows account

Question: Is there a possibility to create DSN (ODBC to SQL Server) using different Windows account than current coputer login account? I'm trying to create System DSN to SQL Server and I would like to create this connection using Windows authentication using my admin account. I'm creating this DSN using my normal windows account.
Answer: You can also use the "runas" command to launch the ODBC Data Source Administrator under your admin account while logged under your normal account.  That would enable you to configure and test the connection without receiving a "user is not associated with a trusted SQL Connection" error.
Here is an example Command Prompt command:
runas /netonly /user:domain\adminusername "C:\Windows\System32\odbcad32.exe"

As Jimmy said, the DSN definition would not be tied to the admin account, but would use whatever Windows Authentication account you were logged in as when using the connection later.  (So you would need to use "runas" again to launch any programs that used the connection, unless you were logged in under your admin account.)
Comment: I tried this. No luck though. I created the DSN, but an error came back saying that the computer I created it on didn't have access to the data source. Any ideas?
Comment: Right.  As mentioned above, using runas with the ODBC administrator is useful to test the connection and confirm it's configured properly, but you would still need to use the same runas command to launch any program that needed to run under that admin account.
Comment: Did "Test Data Source" fail during your ODBC configuration?  If it failed with "the user is not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection" then that could relate to the credentials or domain specified in your runas command.  If you're getting a different error, you may have a server of firewall connectivity issue and you may want to open a separate question.
Comment: I ran further tests and it turns out that even though I created the DSN as one user, it still used the computers credentials. So lets say I have a PC called FOO and a user I want to use called BAR: I created the DSN as you instructed: I ran cmd as admin, then ran odbcad32.exe as BAR and created a DSN. When I ran my program that uses the DSN, it said Login failed for user FOO (the name of the computer that is running the program).
Answer: A System DSN by definition applies to the entire computer irrespective of which logon account is used, so (if I'm reading your question right) that means that (1) the answer is "yes", and (2) you will need Admin rights to create the DSN.
Have you looked as DSN-less connections, by the way?  I believe that they would be much more appropriate for your requirement, and would also remove the need for client configuration before your app could be used.
Comment: How can I create a DSN-less connection so I can use with MS Access to connect to an SQL server using `company\user2` when I am logged into my machine (and using MS Access) as `company\user1`?
Comment: @imthenachoman : You should ask this as a separate question.
Answer: I'm going to add to Mac's answer that yes, this definitely works to set up the ODBC connection and it does work for a while. Probably for as long as the Kerberos authentication stays active. Unfortunately, this isn't the permanent authentication I would prefer for a System DSN. Here is the batch file that I use to launch odbcad32.exe:
net use \\dbserver-host /user:DOMAIN\username
runas /netonly /user:DOMAIN\username C:\Windows\syswow64\odbcad32.exe

Note that this can result in you being prompted to login twice, but it seems to work more consistently than runas by itself.
Answer: I don't believe there is the ability to do this.  Using a trusted NT connection to SQL Server implies that there is no password sent while authenticating to the server and that the existing NT token is used to authenticate.  In other words, SQL Server "trusts" the NT authentication.  It will use whatever user is logged in at the time of connection.
Answer: I have found that using the Windows Credential Manager works quite well. You can add the windows credential directly. The trick is you need to have the fully qualified domain name including the port, as well as your complete Active Directory username with domain qualifier, so something like mydb.myinternaldomain.com:1433 and the myinternaldomain\myusername with your password. Then you can add mydb.myinternaldomain.com as an ODBC source and windows will magically swap in the right credentials. This also works for Sql Server Management Studio.
It doesn't appear to work for non-windows native apps, that you still need runas.


Is it advisable to follow up journal editor for knowing the status of the manuscript submitted?

Question: I submitted a manuscript to one of a popular Indian civil engineering journal 6 months back. They haven't given any comments yet. Is it advisable to follow up them via. mail.?
Comment: This question has been asked in various guises a lot. The short answer is "yes". If you hear nothing at all after confirmation of submission, ~1 month should be enough to ask for a status update.
Answer: yes. you can. but do not over do it. and pls note the editor is not bound to reply. he may do so courteously. but instead of 1 month blank, find the average time cycle for that journal (every journal has different response times) and wait twice or thrice the same. some journals have query/ redressal links; pls use them before email. use email as last resort


I'd like to know sentence examples of the word 'bad' meaning excellent or good

Question: In OALD (9th edition), the word 'bad' is defined as 'good;excellent' in a definition. I'd like to know sentence examples.
When I thought much about it, I felt bad.
Is my sentence acceptable according to that meaning of 'bad'?
Comment: Example: The roller coaster was badass. I prefer to use badass when using bad as "good" as it is less confusing. But it's slightly vulgar. Don't say it in church.
Comment: "Did you see that hot rod? That was so bad."
Answer: No.
In most cases, bad means something negative.
So unless your context suggests otherwise, your sentence is perfecltly fine, but won't be understood in the way you intend it to be.
The use of bad meaning "excellent" is purely a slang use.
See definition 14 here:

bad
  14 excellent
  (badder, baddest) (slang, especially North American English)
  good; excellent
Answer: Bad tends to mean 'good' when describing something extreme, or something which is negative in an admirable fashion.
For example saying 'Georgia is one bad chick' can be endearment, or a compliment, if the speaker means that she breaks rules, swears, is rebellious, behaves impolitely in other ways, but in an overall endearing manner, or that while she is attractive, she carries an air of danger about her.
If not said with the correct intonation, it can also meant literally that Georgia is a bad person/is lacking in many qualities.
'Bad' is used to mean 'good' when you find some things considered 'bad' or slightly outside-the-norm (or extreme, in the case of 'bad' referring to someone who pulls risky stunts in a sport, like skateboarding) admirable.


Gotham Steel Pans

Question: I purchased two Gotham Steel 9 and 1/2" pans. I use an induction cook top. This was a match made in hell. Didn't realize that I needed an interface between the cooktop and pan. What would be the best direction to take?
Comment: Are you certain you got steel pans, I see they also sell titanium pans? do magnets work on your pans ?
Answer: Your best bet is to return the pans for ones made with iron that will work with your cooktop.
Answer: It's possible to use a pan that does not have magnetic steel on an induction cooktop, but it requires as you note an interface - meaning, a piece of magnetic metal that will heat up and transfer heat to the pan.  This won't be nearly as efficient as a pan that is magnetic; so this is not recommended when possible to avoid.  I'd try to return it for a new pan that does work.
When buying a pan, first look for the induction compatible symbol, such as this one:
That symbol means the manufacturer claims it is compatible; it's not a guarantee, of course, nobody is checking them, but it's a first start - and gives you more solid footing to do the return if it doesn't work.
Second, if you're shopping in person, bring a magnet with you.  Note how well the magnet sticks to the pan.  If it sticks immediately, then it's great; if it weakly sticks, then it might work - but may not be as efficient (I had a pan when I bought my cooktop that did have weak magnetism, but only worked about half the time - the sensor that determined the pan size didn't see the pan half the time; had to give that one away).
Third, make sure you're looking at the right kind of pan.  Induction won't work well with a pan with a narrow base - like many woks - as the size of contact surface determines how well it heats.  There are woks that can work with an induction stove, but it's very different from how they work on a gas stove.  Wider bottom base is better for induction.
Finally, when you get the pan, see how quickly it heats up.  Compare it to a pan you know works well.  That will tell you if it's performing well - it should boil water quickly, for example.

Gotham Steel Pans


Help me understand the relationship between positive, negative, neutral and ground in AC and DC

Question: This question stems from notations on schematics and seemingly conflicting information I'm seeing. I suspect that I'm seeing different vernacular for the same concepts--but I'm in a place where no one's ever told me that an "elevator" is a "lift". Then again, I may have the concept completely off, and need to be schooled so I don't blow up my workshop. :)
With DC: Batteries have +/- terminals. Most schematics I see show the circuit with voltage in and ground. I've heard that most schematics don't trace the return path to the negative terminal because that's understood and it doesn't need to clutter everything up. I've also heard that on a DC circuit, ground is SYNONYMOUS with the negative terminal. On schematics, I've seen V-in and ground, I've also seen V-in, ground, and a separate trace connecting to the negative terminal.
Then, we move to AC. There's a hot wire (positive), a neutral wire, and ground. I ~assume~ that in an AC circuit, positive correlates to positive, neutral to negative, and ground to ground. Transformers will correlate the +/- when changing DC.
What are the facts and what are the myths? How can I tell if I need to ground something to earth vs. "ground" to the negative terminal? When do I ground to the chassis of my device? Are there standard conventions in a schematic that would indicate GROUNDED ground vs. return-to-the-source ground? Or is that something you know from experience and doing an analysis of the circuit? Is it generally safe to assume I can connect ground to negative? Or are there cases in which that would be a Very Bad Thing, and how do I identify those cases?
Just trying to wrap my head around +/-/ground in AC vs. DC, and how that voltage is used...
Comment: Great question. And it's terrifying how many people answer with wrong or conflicting answers in general on this subject.
Answer: Ground means whatever is attached to this symbol in the schematic:

Everything that touches this symbol in the schematic is actually connected to everything else that touches the symbol. Since so many things connect to it, this makes the schematic easier to read.
Usually the negative side of a battery is attached to that. But, there are many circuits that work differently. Some circuits need a negative voltage, so the positive side of a battery would be "ground". Some circuits need positive and negative voltages, in which case there could be two batteries, one with the negative side attached to ground, and the other with the positive side attached to ground.
This works because voltages are relative. Put three \$10k\Omega\$ resistors in series, and attach them to a battery. The difference in voltage from one side of the battery is 3V (because it's a 3V battery). The difference in voltage from one side of a resistor (any of the three) to the other side of the same resistor is 1V, because the battery's 3V is divided among 3 resistors of equal value.
Since voltages are relative, ground exists as a sort of assumed reference voltage. If we say an input is "5 volts", we mean "the difference between the input and ground is five volts".
In the context of AC, things aren't really different, except that tradition has done a good job of making the same term "ground" mean many things. It still could mean whatever is attached to that symbol, or it could mean that 3rd connector on the wall. More on that later.
As far as the circuit is concerned, live and neutral are no different. Pick either one, and the other oscillates between a higher and lower voltage, relatively. If all you have are those two wires for reference, they are indistinguishable.
The difference is more important when you consider safety. The things around you are at some particular electromotive potential (voltage). Current flows when there is a difference in potential. The neutral AC line should be about the same potential as most of the things around you, so in theory, if you touch it, and also Earth, you don't get shocked, because there is no difference in voltage. If you touch the live wire, you do get shocked, because there's a difference in potential.
However, I said neutral should be about the same potential as Earth, and since you are probably touching Earth, you. But, I wouldn't trust your life on it. There could be a faulty transformer on the pole near your house. There could be a lightning strike nearby. The house would be wired backwards. Or, as I mentioned the circuit will function even if the wires are reversed, it could be plugged in backwards. In the US, one of the prongs is a bit fatter to prevent this, but you never know. This is why there's the third connector, called ground or earth. This should go to a big copper rod near your house stuck in Earth, like this:

It doesn't otherwise connect to anything else. There are some times this is important for safety, and other times it's important for other reasons. Point is, it has nothing to do with the electrical power supplied to your home.

How can I tell if I need to ground something to earth vs. "ground" to the negative terminal? When do I ground to the chassis of my device?

If we are talking about a device that plugs into the wall, leave these questions to someone else. Each country has safety regulations, and these regulations exist for good reason. Buy a DC power supply that takes care of all that for you, and connect to its output, and nothing else. Don't connect to Earth through the 3rd pin on the wall or you may circumvent the safety features of your power supply.
If you are wondering if the "ground" symbol on your schematic should also be connected to box your project is in, well, it depends. Maybe you want to do that for RF shielding. Or maybe you don't, because you don't want some other device with a different idea of "ground" to touch it, which could result in noise in your circuit or melting something. In many circuits, it doesn't matter at all.
Comment: @dwwilson66 I'm not sure what you mean by a "chassis ground tab on the power jack." This probably merits another question, with a photo and links to the datasheet for the power supply you are using.
Comment: @markasoftware You are describing two topologically different circuits, because you've included the Earth as part of the circuit. Of course they are different: they're not the same circuit. Most circuits aren't modeled to include the Earth, because (except safety considerations) it's not relevant to the device's operation.
Comment: Awesome explanation. RELATIVE voltages makes a lot of sense. My circuit has a wall-wart power supply, so I've let someone else worry about that already. By the time I get to my device, it's the +9VDC my circuit requires. . I've got a +tip, -ring, and a chassis ground tab on the power jack. In this case, there's no mention of a chassis ground in the schematic, in fact V-in is a single trace from the tip. Right now, I've got all my power grounds running to the ring. But what do I do with the chassis ground? Ignore it? Connect it to the ring? Ground it to the chassis? Nothing's specified...
Comment: next question... http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/55667/what-do-i-do-with-the-extra-ground-chassis-tab-on-a-dc-power-jack
Comment: If the neutral is about the sane potential as me and things around me how come we measure negative voltage in an ac cycle?  It's a real mental block for me. Hopefully you get my meaning.
Comment: @HörmannHH Sounds like a good new question.
Comment: "As far as the circuit is concerned, live and neutral are no different. Pick either one, and the other oscillates between a higher and lower voltage, relatively. If all you have are those two wires for reference, they are indistinguishable." Let's say I have a large copper block with substantial capacitance, and attach it to neutral through an ammeter. I can only imagine no current will flow. But if I did the same to live, I think I would get a current in alternating directions 60 times per second as the block charges and discharges. This seems like a fundamental difference between them.
Comment: I don't follow; how is the Earth involved? The block is floating.
Comment: @markasoftware In your example currently only flows due to the capacitance between the metal block _and Earth_ (or whatever neutral is connected to). Where else do you suppose [the charges come from?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_conservation)
Answer: Symbology
These symbols are used in the US (at least).

Appliance classes
Appliance classes
What are the Different Class Types for Appliances?
Isolation diagrams
Isolation diagrams are block diagrams, which show the isolation features, such as: transformers, opto-couplers, mains connections, safety capacitors.
Example of a well-detailed isolation diagram

Example of a crude isolation diagram
Comment: @Trevor  I don't think that I have mixed them up (although if you provide a reference I'll reconsider).
Comment: This helps. I always wondered if the two different ground symbols were the same concept or not. I'm glad to see differentiation between circuit ground and earth ground. Would the signal ground be equivalent to a chassis ground? ow what?
Comment: You have the "earth ground" and "power ground" symbols mixed up.
Comment: @NickAlexeev I was watching this video:  https://youtu.be/eGeFVIJ2u0w?t=3m2s If you google image search "earth ground symbol" you will see a consensus on this as well.  Even `⏚` = earth ground according to the Unicode Consortium.
Answer: with reference to alternating current. As I understand it for half the cycle, the live is positive to neutral and for half the cycle the neutral is positive to live. So, surely you will get the same shock by touching neutral and earth as you would with live and earth. In other words non rectified ac does not have a polarity and can be connected either way.
Comment: No, neutral is never more than a few volts different from ground under normal conditions. When "neutral is positve to live", it means that live is actually negative with respect to both neutral and ground.


Household income by ZIP+4

Question: Does anyone know of a source to find household income by ZIP+4? I have found IRS information on each five digit ZIP, but was hoping to find more precise information by ZIP+4.
Comment: I don't know if such a dataset exists that defines ZIP9 by geographic areas that would also tabulate household income. Aside from the sampling issues would also be concerns for privacy. Could you tell us why such data at such a geographic level is desired? Maybe you could settle for an alternative form of geography.
Answer: First, note that ZIP codes are not geographies (see this other answer).
Also, as Kotebiya notes in a comment, there aren't pseudo-geographies for ZIP+4 and if there were, they would probably represent too small a group of people to allow data sharing without concern for individual privacy.
There may be commercial services that approximate this level of detail, but I am extremely doubtful that any public agency makes it available.
Comment: The US Census would not publicly provide household data at this level since a Zip5+4 could be a single person or business.
Comment: That's what I was getting at: "too small a group of people to allow data sharing without concern for individual privacy."

Household income by ZIP+4


Multiple CVs on Jobs/Careers

Question: Is it possible to create multiple CVs on Careers? In order to better fit employers' expectations it is often sensible to emphasise different things in your CV.
Comment: No, CVs should absolutely be tailored to each employer just as much as the cover letter. It doesn't take long to have too much stuff to talk about and want to cherrypick by target.
Comment: Isn't that the purpose of a cover letter?
Comment: No, cover letter has a slightly different aim. CV needs adjustment too.
Answer: We don't have a way to version CVs right now and this isn't slated for upcoming development. However this is a valid use case and it is something we want to consider. I'm setting this to deferred as we'll be thinking about this in the future.
Answer: The export to PDF feature allows you to select which sections to show, and which ones to hide, on the PDF version of your CV. Perhaps you could create a complete CV, and generate different versions by hiding the things you don't want to emphasise on for a particular potential employer?
Comment: However we cannot add 2 sections of the same type to CV, for example 2 sections "Summary" or "Education". So it's not the point. I have several degrees which are not all relevant for the same position. In one case I want to highlight one and in other case I want to emphasize another.
Comment: It wouldn't fit all use cases, I agree. But in *some* cases it may be sufficient.

Multiple CVs on Jobs/Careers


Deviation in colloquial speech of nasal vowels in French

Question: Since coming to France I have noted a deviation of the nasal vowels pronunciation among native speakers from what IPA chart suggests. For example -en and -em are pronounced more akin to the nasal vowel /ɔ̃/ rather than /ɑ̃/. Furthermore I am convinced that -in sounds just like a nasalised schwa /ɘ̃/ and nothing at all like /ɛ̃/.

The peculiar part about this is that such pronunciation is observed (by me) even among seemingly educated Standard French speakers. I understand what nasal sounds are and how they're produced and also can reproduce schwa as it's present in my native language.

Is mine a novel finding that went unnoticed among linguists?
Comment: Partial duplicate of _[Why is the nasal vowel /ɛ̃/ transcribed as it is if it is closer to /ã/?](https://french.stackexchange.com/a/36751)_
Comment: My French teacher joked: 'There are five nasal vowels in French: *en, en, en, en, en*.' There's a grain of truth in there xD
Answer: Admittedly, I am no expert on French, so take this answer with a grain of salt. This question seems quite subjective as well, so I may be completely off base in my analysis of what exactly is going on, but here goes.
The nasal vowels /ɔ̃/ and /ɑ̃/ can be distinguished in two ways. Firstly, by a change in oral tract articulation, such as the rounding of the lips. This is how the vowels are taught to most second-language speakers of French. The second is the quotient between the area of the nasal tract opening and the area of the oral tract opening. For /ɔ̃/, this quotient can be as high as 25/1, while for /ɑ̃/, it is almost always less than 5/1. Most speakers of French combine these distinct articulations (oral articulation and velum port opening), however, there are certain speakers, especially those with larger nasal tracts, which prefer one or the other. The paper I've linked here discusses this in further detail.
What I assume is going on with your perception of the back nasal vowels in French is you are focusing on the oral articulation of the vowels, which is what most non-native speakers, especially those not accustomed to nasal vowels, almost exclusively perceive. While it is certainly the case that nasal articulation can be properly produced and comprehended by a learner, this specific phonetic difference is particularly "in the weeds", and isn't really discussed outside of academic phonetics papers. However, it is still vital in the phonemic distinction between the two vowels.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the nasals are more akin to broad categories in terms of oral tract articulation, because there are so few of them. Much like how in languages with few vowels there is a lot of allophonic variation. However, there is a very clear distinction between the back nasal vowels outside of oral articulation, which is the nasalization quotient discussed earlier.
As for the front nasal vowels, the merging of /œ̃/ and /ɛ̃/ and their centralization has been attested since at least the 60's.
Here's another paper on nasal variation in French.


How to write trace output to a text file without a web server in AS3

Question: I have an application that writes traces with a timestamp when certain items are clicked or accessed. I need to write these to a text log file so that they can be accessed remotely.. The device the app runs on doesn't have a web server and doesn't run the flash debug player, os is xp. How can I send these traces to a text file? I noticed Arthropod writes to an html file, but I need to do this automatically without interaction.. any suggestions?
Answer: Adobe Air provides a file I/O API via the FileStream class.
You can also use it's embedded SQLite db if you need to store full logs.
Comment: Good ! In that case it would be nice if you could mark this answer as correct. Cheers.
Answer: Adobe AIR is definitely the way to go, some obscure other possibilities could be:
use Flash 5 and fscommand("save", "file.txt"); see a post on moock.org
or you can store the data in a SharedObject and try to access the objects on the harddrive.
More information here
Comment: Thanks Les, yes Adobe Air saved the day
Answer: I had this same problem with my video player.  Here is what I came up with.
I created a static Log class that I use instead of trace.
<code>Log.s("[info] Bla.onRemove")
</code>
Then inside the static s method I push the string into an array and trace the string.  I added a right click option to copy the logs to their clipboard.  Oh your might want to encrypt the logs so the user doesn't see them.
I had doubt about pushing this many items into an array.  But after some profiling and testing I had over 60k items in the array and I didn't see any memory increase so I guess its fairly safe.
My other ideas was to make an AIR app and connect it via LocalConnection but I had some issues getting that connection to work.  Although I have a lot less confidence in the stability of LocalConnections.
If you like this solution and want to see more code let me know.
Answer: You could set up a web host and write a web service that creates a log file or stores it on a database, and call the web service.
Or you could use something like dropbox or syncplicity to sync the local text file to their servers or another computer
Comment: The device has no outward access to the internet. The log files are retieved via 3G. I would also still have to create a text file to use dropbox or syncplicity... and that's where I'm stuck....


Max USB current on a Pi Zero V1.3

Question: Whats the maximum current I get out of the USB port of the Pi Zero? I'd like to power USB Speakers (5V 3W). Is that possible?
Comment: as far as I can find, the USB max current is 600mA
Comment: I did use cheap (0.50$) PAM8403 Stereo Audio Amplifier to output on 89 dB 8 Ω 3W loudspeakers ... [youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkCPt9qR_n4), [forum thread](http://www.friendlyarm.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=264&p=794#p794)
Answer: For the Pi2 the current limit is 0.6 A. (Don't know the specs of the Zero, but i think it is also around that level) Thats what your Speaker uses. So it MAY work.
I would just try it. What is the worst thing that could happen? Fuse would turn the Pi off, you unplug the speaker, fuse would reset and the Raspberry Pi would reboot.
If it does not work, maybe try max_usb_current=1 in the /boot/config.txt. That changes the Maximum USB current to 1.2 A. Then you should have enough power.
Comment: This was useful, why is it not the accepted answer?

Max USB current on a Pi Zero V1.3


Best way to present multiple types of data in a cluster bar chart?

Question:
This company has two different customer types and they all have two different kind of contracts. The aim here was to show all the contract prices in the same chart. As you can see I tried to map customer types with colors and contract types with patterns. As I was showing this around I saw that people couldn't understand this very easily and mostly confused about reading the legend correctly. Is there a way to show this data in a different format that might be more understandable, or maybe minor changes here that I can't see right now that will make reading this chart easier? Thank you.
Answer: The customers don't seem to need to be in order by number, so group the customers by type along the x-axis, so you can distinguish the customer type by position rather than colour. Then use colour (or keep using texture if you like) to distinguish the contract type.
So customer type goes from colour --> position
And contract type goes from texture --> colour
Comment: This is probably the best way to go thank you!
Answer: Your approach looks in the right direction, but I guess the confusion is due to a visual overload. If you ask the user to think too much - it generally leads to confusion.
Here's a suggestion -

In terms of graph readability, there's only one thing to focus on, contract prices.
Customer type is shown as a separate block and does not interfere.
It's expected that the user will read it as - Type A, contract price X. The design attempts to map that mental model too.

You could think of adding dual-colored user icons, instead of mentioning the customer types too in the blocks, but being direct if possible, helps to reduce the cognitive load.

Hope this helps!
Comment: This really helps thank you!


Is it halal to read smut (erotica) if you don't get sexually aroused or it leads to something else (masturbation)?

Question: Is it halal for me to have sexual fantasies about a specific fictional character and to read erotica about them without getting off and acting upon? Just for comfort or boredness, for example. When I read smut, I don't get sexually aroused or act up, it's normal for me and just makes me feel loved.
Answer: Asalaam Alaikum
it is NOT permissible in islam to engage in such acts. by reading them you are falling under the category of supporting it. just like supply increases as demand increase, you are unknowingly encouraging those who print, publish and distribute such material.
Allah says in quran

but do not help one another in sin and transgression [al-Maa'idah 5:2]

furthure more i will mention from authentic sunnah that prohibits such,
Narrated Ibn `Abbas:

I did not see anything so resembling minor sins as what Abu Huraira said from the Prophet, who said, "Allah has written for the son of Adam his inevitable share of adultery whether he is aware of it or not: The adultery of the eye is the looking (at something which is sinful to look at), and the adultery of the tongue is to utter (what it is unlawful to utter), and the innerself wishes and longs for (adultery) and the private parts turn that into reality or refrain from submitting to the temptation."

[Sahih al-Bukhari 6612]
what our eyes see and what our ears hear are very easily felt in our hearts. we may think it is just a very small sin, or no sin at all. but continuously doing small sins will eventually turn out to be a bigger problem. we must understand and know that our creator,Allah the mighty and sublime does not like such lewd and indecent acts. there are angels recording everything we do, so be careful of what you do.
there are numerous other verses in quran and many ahadith from authentic sunnah that forbids and prohibits these kind of 'faahisha' (indecent or immoral acts).
try to find comfort in something else, something permissible and find another way to cure your boredom.

Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest. [13:28]

may Allah grant you mercy and guide you to the straight path.
Allah knows best.


Does a statement have to be true for it be objective?

Question: For example let's say someone said "Dad just got home" as joke but the father hadn't actually arrived, or "He told you to take the trash out" but that was a lie and didn't actually happen. How would such statements be classified?
Comment: They would be classified as objectively false.
Comment: See [objectivity](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/it/dizionario/inglese/objectivity): "based on facts". A false statement is not subjective: it does not express a "inner state of mind".
Comment: Some introductory material may help; see e.g. Stephen Gaukroger, [Objectivity: A Very Short Introduction (2012, Oxford University Press)](https://www.google.it/books/edition/Objectivity_A_Very_Short_Introduction/zNgDYlWFvRQC): "The first understanding of objectivity is perhaps the most common one. It is that an objective judgement is a judgement that is free of prejudice and bias. [...] The second understanding is that an objective judgement is a judgement which is free of all assumptions and values. [...] 1/2
Comment: The third notion of objectivity is focused directly on how we arrive at our views or theories. It is that an objective procedure is one that allows us to decide between conflicting views or theories. [...] if we do away with all interpretations and assumptions, then we finally see things as they really are, independently of any subjective preconceptions we might bring to the judgement. That would connect truth and objectivity." 2/2
Comment: Review your theories of truth. Objectivity is about how truth is in someway independent of any one person's truth semantics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth#Major_theories
Answer: Objectivity means being impartial, trying to correct for any cognitive bias, or for mood, say. To make an objective statement is to take a neutral 'everyman' perspective, not related to personal and subjective experiences and views. Objective vs subjective distinctions belong to discussions of bias.
The statements you mention belong in a different context: finny vs not funny; true vs lie. So that's how you would classify them. If say a court case happened around the events, police and lawyers would interview everyone involved and look for evidence, to build an objective account of events that was independent of any one person's account.


403 Error when using nginx to access file other than index.htm

Question: I set up nginx on Ubuntu 12.04 and when remotely accessing a file other than the index.htm/php/html, the server says that access is forbidden. I tried to search for a solution but no luck. Any ideas/hints/solutions???
Comment: Have you checked the permissions of the files/directories? `ls -l` will list all the files and their permissions. If the permissions of index.* are the same as the other files then something else is wrong. Let us know if this is the case
Answer: 403 errors in nginx get thrown when ownership of other files isnt compatible with the user that nginx runs as.  Use ls -l on the web root folder to find ownership of the files.  Make sure that the group part is www-data.  If its in any user-level folders (such as your home directory), make sure that www-data can read the file directory structure to there.
Without more details, though, I can't explain how to fix this any better...  attaching details about the file structure, where on the drive your files are sitting, etc. may help.
(Source: Me, as I'm on the nginx team)


Legality of swapping identical pieces

Question: In an offhand blitz game without touch-move, my opponent, on his opening move as White, just to be a wise guy, picked up his b1 knight and put it down on f3, then moved his g1 knight to b1, and punched the clock. He did it all with one hand. Apart from rules against distracting or annoying ones opponent, did he make a legal move?
Comment: @ReinstateMonica We were playing clock-move, not touch-move. If he picked up the g1 knight and dropped it on g3, let go of it, then picked it up again and set in on f3, and then punched the clock, would you say he played two illegal moves?
Answer:
In an offhand blitz game without touch-move

In other words, you are not playing by the official rules of any chess federation, either national or international. You are playing by your own rules. So, you and your opponent, as the arbiters of the rules you are playing by, are the ones to decide whether or not what was done was legal.
Comment: In my experience, real people commonly play blitz chess (i.e. 5-minute chess) with clock-move rather than touch-move rules. I would be satisfied with an answer according to the rules of any organization which organized competitions under clock-move rules .
Comment: I think i'm real. And i never ever played clock-move. Never. And all organizations that i know of have touch-move in their rules. So you really are on your own. There is no official answer for inofficial rules except "stick to the rules".

Legality of swapping identical pieces


Master-Detail/Binding Source Issues

Question: Both my DataGridViews correctly display the parent and child records. I can also successfully add child records and save them back to my data source (an XML file). However, when I attempt to add a new parent and child, my program throws an exception saying there are no child records to add even though they are present in the detail DataGridView.
So, the issue is that my child records are not being bound to the class when they are new. What am I missing?
My classes are structured like this:
public class Roads
{
   public string RoadName { get; set; }
   public List<CrossStreet> CrossStreets { get; set; }
}

public class CrossStreet
{
   public string CrossStreetName { get; set;}
}

I have 2 DataGridViews and I am binding my classes to them like this:
BindingSource roadBindingSource = new BindingSource();
BindingSource crossStreetBindingSource = new BindingSource();

// _roads contains both the road and cross street data.
roadBindingSource.DataSource = _roads;

crossStreetBindingSource.DataSource = roadBindingSource;
crossStreetBindingSource.DataMember = "CrossStreets";

dataGridViewRoads.DataSource = roadsBindingSource;
dataGridViewCrossStreets.DataSource = crossStreetBindingSource;

Answer: The issue was my class implementation. Instead of:
public class Roads
{
   public string RoadName { get; set; }
   public List<CrossStreet> CrossStreets { get; set; }
}

public class CrossStreet
{
   public string CrossStreetName { get; set;}
}

I used:
public class Roads
{
   private List<CrossStreets> _crossStreets = new List<CrossStreets>();
   public string RoadName { get; set; }
   public List<CrossStreet> CrossStreets { get { return _crossStreets;} }
}

public class CrossStreet
{
   public string CrossStreetName { get; set;}
}

Master-Detail/Binding Source Issues


VB6 in Visual Studio 2010

Question: Is it possible to create a VB6 application in Visual Studio 2010 for creating COM applications?
Answer: No, this is not possible.  VB6 application cannot be created in any version of Visual Studio beyond Visual Studio 6.0 SP6.
You can, however, write assemblies in .Net (any version) that are "Com visible."
You can set an assembly as "Com Visible" by checking the "Make COM Visible" checkbox on the project settings dialog in whichever version of Visual Studio (that supports .Net) you choose.
Comment: No, they're not COM-visible by default.  I think making them COM-visible requires updating the registry, and that's something that .Net tries hard to steer you away from.
Comment: .Net is not the "new COM" at all, and actually uses COM all over the place internally since so much of Windows is COM-based.
Comment: Aren't all VS .net projects COM-visible by default?  (i've yet to have to care, and i seem to remember .net being the "new COM" or something.)
Comment: Unfortunately, when you are opening something like Outlook with .Net and setting various properties for the first time - its performance is extremely slow. We have done this in VS 2010 in C#, and it takes almost 20 seconds to open. It must do this in 3 seconds.

VB6 in Visual Studio 2010


Wave rectification

Question: I'm just a bit confused about what is actually happening when a wave goes up and down. It's a graph of voltage vs. time, so therefore wouldn't that mean the voltage was going up and down constantly? But why? Also, with capacitors, what do they actually do that results in the wave being smoothed out. I understand that they hold charge, but why does this result in the smoothing out of the wave form? what actually happens inside the circuit?
Comment: What why? Waves on the ocean go above and below sea level quite often.
Comment: Waves are waves and are not voltages. Show the circuit you refer to.
Answer: Yes, the voltage is going "up and down" - this is called "alternating current" and is the power that arrives at your house from generating plants such as dams.
Consider just how that wave you are looking at is generated: in its simplest form, there is a magnet rotating inside a coil of wire.  At some point the north and south poles of the magnet are aligned in a direction that produces a maximum positive voltage, then the magnet rotates around and that produces a maximum negative voltage.  The waves you see reflect the voltage that is produced in the coil and the wires as the magnet rotates at high speed.
The capacitor is able to smooth out the rise and fall in the following way: when current is flowing and the voltage is rising, the capacitor charges; when the current starts to reverse and the voltage falls, the capacitor discharges back into the circuit - which serves to counteract the falling voltage.  This is a highly simplified explanation - a basic book on electronics should answer this and provide diagrams - look for the section on "voltage rectification" and power supplies.
Answer: Yes, the voltage is going up and down constantly. We call that "AC" for Alternating Current.  That is what is used virtually everywhere on this planet for distributing utility power.  The other major type of current is "DC" for Direct Current. That is what comes out of a battery, for example.
As to why AC is used for power distribution, that question has been asked and answered several times here on StackExchange.  For example...

Why are the power transmission/distribution systems AC and not DC?
Why is there alternating current in my wall socket?

Capacitors basically store a charge, but in the Real World, that basic effect is used for many purposes in electrical and electronic circuits.  They are used for "AC coupling" where we want to allow an AC signal (such as audio) to pass through, but we need to block the DC part of the signal.  Or, as you suggest, we use them to "smooth out" a signal to make it more uniform, like when making a power supply that rectifies that AC mains power into the DC that most electronic circuits operate on.
There are perhaps a dozen explanations of how a capacitor works and some of them may help answer you question better than others.  If you look at the Wikipedia article on Capacitors, and especially the Applications section, you will see a summary of the most typical applications, and hyperlinks to better descriptions of them.
Comment: Thank you. But why does a current that is constantly changing direction mean that the voltage is changing? Also, does the DC signal always need to be blocked and why?
Comment: "Alternating current describes the flow of charge that changes direction periodically. As a result, the voltage level also reverses along with the current." Does this just mean when the current reverses in direction, that instead of a voltage drop occurring it gains the voltage back?
Comment: @SarahLarry: It means that the voltage drops in the other direction.
Comment: Voltage and Current are directly dependent. There is a simple formula for calculating current from voltage or vice-versa. It is called **Ohm's Law**. The current direction and amplitude change exactly with the voltage alternation.  In many (most) cases, when we amplify or otherwise operate on an AC signal, the end result is the AC signal superimposed upon (added to) a DC voltage.  Typically the DC factor is unwanted and undesirable, so we can easily block it with a capacitor.  In a crude definition, the capacitor "remembers" the DC voltage differential and "subtracts" it from the AC signal.

Wave rectification


Problems with WPF application on Windows XP Tablet having memory leaks

Question: I am testing an application that was developed in C#, .Net 3.5 SP 1, and WPF.  It runs just fine on all kinds of hardware running XP.  Including really old 386's with little memory and slow hard drives.   However, we are having problems with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 SP 2.   We are seeing what looks like a memory leak, which we have not seen on any other system.  As we click on various GUI items and run the application through it paces, the memory keep growing and growing.  After a certain point ( ~145 MB), the interface becomes almost unresponsive.  I have tried forcing the GC to collect on a regular bases, with no change in behavior.
Has anyone experienced a similar issue.
Answer: Are you using Bitmap Effects... I've had problems with them not being released and cause my applications to leak?


Qml Text new line

Question: If I enter: "Subject:" + "/n" + vak + "/n" + klas as the text property of a Text element it returns everything in a straight line with "/n"'s in.
How can I get it to create new lines?
Answer: I don't know qt or qml, but in most languages the escape character is a backslash, not a regular slash, so the escape sequence would be <code>\n</code> for a newline
Answer: Enter the text as "Hello \n World"
it works

Qml Text new line


Sync iPhone apps with iTunes without deleting them

Question: I have a few apps on my iPhone, and would like to sync them with iTunes without erasing them from my phone. Is this possible without downloading them all again?
Answer: I just tested this out by alt clicking iTunes, creating a new library, and connecting my iPod.  This happens when you try to sync with a library that is not the same as the one your iPod is associated with.
<code>* cancel the sync
* secondary click the iPod on the left
* click "transfer purchases"
</code>
Afterwards, you can sync, and everything will be erased and rewritten to the iPod.
I'm not sure why Apple makes this so confusing. The only reason I can come up with is that they want people to have to repurchase stuff but that seems a little over the top even from Apple.
Answer: From an Apple.SO answer:
I had this same issue after I recreated my iTunes library. This may be totally off because it was about a month ago, but I think I did this:

canceled the sync
clicked on the iPod under devices or whatever (maybe I secondary clicked)
I think after I clicked (or secondary clicked) on it, there was an option to copy purchased items
Answer: If the apps were not downloaded from iTunes in your system, while syncing you should be asked if you would like to transfer your purchases to iTunes, say yes at this prompt. Alternatively, there should be an option in iTunes for transferring purchases.
Comment: it never asks this if you haven't synced your iPod to the current iTunes library before.


Creating an Attachments Custom Field for a Custom Object?

Question: We have a custom object in Salesforce and I would like to know if there is a way to add an attachments field to the page layout so that users can upload screenshots if they needed to.I know we can add Notes and Attachments as related list.Any other way to do it.
Answer: Not something I would want to do, but if you needed it to be a field on the object, you could just add a rich text field to the object.  Users could add all the screenshot images to that field.  That way the images would be visible on the standard view page.
Again, I would agree with @sfdcfox, that it is best to use the standard functionality, but this is a workaround that could offer this capability.
Answer: The only other means would be to create a Visualforce page to upload the attachments in; they couldn't just click "edit" and have an upload field without a Visualforce page taking over the edit screen. You're probably better off letting them use the standard functionality.


Free centralized patch management for Debian

Question: We have a number of Debian servers that need to be patched and manual patching becomes an issue as their number grows.
What I am lookig at is a way to push patches to the servers from the central location and have some sort of reporting on how it goes.I believe that there shoud be relatively easy way to do it without buying third party tools.
Puppet comes to my mind but maybe there are other ideas that can serve this purpose better?
Answer: Puppet is great, but doesn't really handle that problem.
What should work (I've done the theory but haven't rolled it out) is using cron-apt in combination with repositories managed by debmashal to approve the patches that cron-apt will then deploy.
Debmarshal is out of google and there's a tech talk available on it:
http://code.google.com/p/debmarshal/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3hRToC23mQ
Answer: We are trialling using puppet to roll out the majority of security updates. We only use it to roll out packages that we don't care about. We don't use it, for example, to upgrade MySQL, because we would need to arrange downtime, and should do that by hand. On the other hand we have upgrades like Mutt, which can just be upgraded without much concern. We did this by creating a define which takes the package name as the name and a version parameter. We didn't implement this using the native "package" type, because there could be conflicts with other manifests and there is no way to only upgrade packages which are installed. Puppet would install the package regardless.
Our current problems with this solution is that we have three different distributions to track (Jaunty, Hardy and Dapper) and keeping the file up to date with the output of apticron is a little time consuming, but hopefully both these problems can be fairly easily solved, or at least greatly reduced, with some scripting to automatically create the manifest files direct from the emails. This is the next step. If this works, then I'd recommend it as a valid method. If it doesn't, then it's possibly too much work.
Answer: I'm not sure how many Debian servers you have so it's hard to say whether or not this would scale appropriately for you, but we do this using SSHD with key-based authentication, ClusterSSH and cron-apt. It's simple enough to start ClusterSSH for our two dozen or so Debian machines, and execute an aptitude update && aptitude upgrade (or whatever apt command is required). Because cron-apt is set to automatically download, but not install the appropriate .deb files, it is just a matter of reviewing what patches are available, deciding which ones we want to install, and then sending the desired aptitude commands to all of the hosts to upgrade them in one fell swoop.


What is an Astral Node?

Question: I'm still confused on how to do more advanced things with nodes, but I came across an Astral Node, and I can't find info about it anywhere. Also, nothing new was learned when I scanned it, unlike the other kinds of nodes. Does anyone know anything about them?
Answer: Astral nodes react to the light level
The Thaumcraft 5 wiki states:

Astral Node - the Astral Node is a rare Node type that replenishes the respective Aura it is attuned to depending on the amount of light it is exposed to, with higher levels of light correlating with faster output of aspects into the Aura.

While the above was written for TC5, reddit user /u/Xirema notes:

Those were in the previous versions. They work exactly as expected: the greater the light level near the node, the more aura they put out.
Answer: The greater the amount of light, the faster the astral node recharges the aura.

What is an Astral Node?


How to know that my father who has passed away some days ago is forgiven by Allah and he is at the best place?

Question: My father has passed away a few weeks ago. I miss him dearly. I am desperate to know that he is better placed, Allah had mercy on him, he is in Jannah and he does not have any regrets and sorrows in another world. I am desperately want him to be in best place.
Answer: Ordinarily, nobody is able to determine whether any specific person enters heaven.  This is included within Knowledge of the Unseen (Ilm ul Ghayb).  There's many Qur'an verses on this, e.g.:

Say, "None in the heavens and earth knows the unseen except Allah, and they do not perceive when they will be resurrected."
Qur'an 27:65

Tafsir al-Tustari writes of this verse: Thus, no one knows what has been predestined for him by God.
We're supposed to trust in Allah's forgiveness and justice, even though that's incredibly difficult when experiencing grief.
Hadith encourage us to pray, read the Qur'an, do good deeds, and give in charity on the deceased's behalf.  See the fatwa Giving charity and reading Quran for the deceased.  There's a few ahadith on this matter, e.g.:

When a man dies, his acts come to an end, but three, recurring charity, or knowledge (by which people) benefit, or a pious son, who prays for him (for the deceased).
Sahih Muslim 1631
A woman said: Messenger of Allah, my mother suddenly died; if it had not happened, she would have given sadaqah (charity) and donated (something). Will it suffice if I give sadaqah on her behalf? The Prophet said: Yes, give sadaqah on her behalf.
Sunan Abi Dawud 2881 [grade: sahih]
Answer: To know what happens after death is not in our powers , it is Allah's power . Best part is that we can pray for them.
Answer: When a person loses a loved one, he or she is looking for a way to make the soul of the deceased happy.
Given that the dead are short of good deeds; They need the kindness and prayers of their believing children, relatives and friends. Various narrations and hadiths state that praying for the dead is one of the best deeds that the living can do for the dead. Because when a person dies, he no longer has the opportunity to do good deeds and atone for his sins. Therefore, praying for the dead can bring joy and peace to their souls.
Reference: https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1399/12/27/2471777/%


What are the best practices for tooltips on mobile websites?

Question: What are the best practices for tooltips on mobile websites? I'm designing the mobile version of a website for customers' accounts (where they can see their latest bill and settings for their accounts). The desktop site is filled with tooltips: to explain terms. For instance, on a page to edit customers' settings, there are tooltips for each setting (each setting can also be ticked). We also have customers' bill pages: accounting terms have tooltips.
We're considering tooltips (an 'i' icon next to each item, but each "i" will have to be quite small: not really usable), or a single tooltip button at the top or/and bottom of each page needing tooltip. Or a tooltip pinned to the bottom of the page.
I think we need to minimise the number of tooltips. In addition, I'm not sure what is the best practice, usability-wise, to present them on a mobile device.
Comment: Why do the icons need to be small? Why not redesign to leave more space for them?
Comment: It seems a shame that there is a standard way to display toolstips but mobile browsers haven't found a way to use it without non-standard workarounds to re-implement the same functionality.
Answer: How to display
I would not scatter your UI with i-icons or question marks. Instead, use a dotted underline to make it clear that the user can interact with the work but to set it apart from a link.
How to interact
Keep in mind that on cursor-devices the tooltip is hidden again on mouse-out. You can't do that on touch devices, so make sure the tooltips are hide-able by a double-click (first click opens the tooltip, second closes it). You can even add a nice message to explain this, as Zurb's Foundation Framework offers:
Answer: Adding "i" next to each item will make your mobile interface ocean of "i". Applying tooltip directly on the text itself will not only save space but will be more usable too.
Demo link -
http://osvaldas.info/examples/elegant-css-and-jquery-tooltip-responsive-mobile-friendly/
Recently checked working fine on android(Ice Cream Sandwich)
Answer: The project I'm working on has similar issues with progressive disclosure. Our website is littered with info icons that are suddenly useless in mobile. Although I like the dashed underline option, it does present the problem of how to dismiss the info bubble once read.
Think about how to expose more layers of information with the basic mobile gestures of swipe, tap or drag. See below:
Comment: do you have a working example of this somewhere? I'd like to see it working.
Comment: Hmm, screens give the impression that they are separate items when really, they are the same. The second screen is just the editable version of the first screen.
Answer: It depends on the size of the icons, for example, if these are LARGE buttons, and the user is going to be using the site in a linear (left to right or top to bottom), you can implement something similar to the about page of stackexchange (see: https://ux.stackexchange.com/about) where as the user scrolls down tips come up, another method would be to implement something like youtube did with it's new "guide" button, the first time the user visits the site they go through a javascript-guided tutorial with message bubbles next to buttons and then they click Okay, got it, and it doesn't appear again. More clarification about the website, the size, the users, etc, would be greatly helpful, and would allow me to improve my answer, and go further in-depth.
Answer: It seems like the web site is being simplistically ported from desktop to mobile.
Each page should be entirely redesigned to let user fulfill the task on a mobile instead of making the desktop website work on the mobile.
Comment: Even so, how should tooltips be rendered on a mobile device?
Answer: I am having this same issue. Is it explicitly known by the user to touch a tooltip to close it on mobile?
See how this site treats it here in the image.
I do like the idea of a dashed underline also, which has been mentioned here with examples.


Hide Facebook friend's events from calendar

Question: I added my Facebook account to the calendar to sync up my Facebook friend's birthdays in my calendar. But along with the birthdays, few useless events also got added automatically. Like if my friend who is a football fan, is attending a Football match somewhere, that event is displaying in "MY CALENDAR".
It is very annoying to see my friend's events in my calendar. How do I stop that?
Answer: Has your friend invited you to the event? I've never seen my friends' events in my calendar, only when they've invited me too. For these events you need to remove the event by going to the event's facebook page, scrolling all the way down and clicking the "Remove from My events" link in the footer. Facebook won't sync the RSVP info for some reason, so "Hide declined events" in the calendar options won't hide events that you're not attending (which is very annoying by the way).
Answer: The way to solve this requires you to go onto the web version of facebook. From the newsfeed page, select 'events' from the column on the left. On the events page, select list and press the cross in the right hand corner of the event you want removed. Then on your phone, open calendar and press the menu button, select sync and it should remove the event. For some reason, facebook doesn't seem to inform your calendar of declined events, so removal is essential.
Answer: Depending on the calendar app on your phone, you may be able to do this easily. I'm using a Samsung Captivate with Froyo, and can hide Facebook events by doing the following:

Open Calendar
Menu > More > Settings
Calendars
Check on or off the various calendars you want to display. On mine i have Phone, Gmail and Facebook. Unchecking the Facebook one removes these events from my calendar.

In addition to which phone and calendaring app you use, this may also be affected by how you sync your Facebook calendar, via the official Facebook app or via some other 'social' software.
If you give details about your phone, calendar and social software being used, someone may be able to give more detailed and/or directly applicable help.
Comment: Note that this hides all events from Facebook, including your own.
Comment: Good point to make, should be clear about that. So while this would work, it wouldn't be the ideal solution if you do have your own events in Facebook that you want to see in your Android calendar.


Is including passages of books or articles into an answer admissible?

Question: In my answer to this question I included a whole passage of a textbook as an image in order to save me the time to write up this part myself. Is this ok (as long as I give a reference to the source, of course) or are there some legal issues?
Comment: @ManishEarth In this case I took the opportunity to get my thoughts on the subject straight, though it took a lot more time than I expected. It is mostly an "educated guess" on my side, so I also hope that experienced users who read it and discover flaws in my interpretation can correct me.
Comment: Whoa, long answer. Looks like I already upvoted it though :)
Comment: @ManishEarth Originally, I wanted to keep my answer short, but when the OP asked for details concerning the specific way the reactants approach one another, I couldn't think of a way to avoid a long answer ;)
Comment: Note: if the OP asks for more details for an answer that is addressing the question, you're under no obligation to provide them. Of course, if you want to, that's great :) I'm particularly fond of longer answers, because there are a lot more treasures buried in them.
Comment: Yep, I find that answering stuff is a great opportunity to un-abstractify thoughts. This is true for teaching in general, for that matter (I'm not a teacher, but I do try explaining stuff to those who ask for it). And, of course, answering leads to people pointing out where one went wrong. Always good to know :)
Answer: Yes, this is OK. Try to use blockquote formatting (select the text and use the quotation mark button on the editing toolbar) when quoting text from a book. In this case you've used an image, so you don't need to blockquote.
Stack Exchange is protected as a DMCA safe harbor, so even if copyright violations are posted, neither Stack Exchange is not liable (you may be, but till date I haven't seen a case where that has happened). If the copyright holder wishes, he can easily submit a DMCA takedown request to SE, and they will remove the relevant content.

While it's not against the rules to quote from books, it's always a good idea to have a good amount of "wrapper" material that you've written to go around the quote. This is to better tailor the answer to the question (a quote rarely exactly addresses a question), and also to make the answer less dependent on the quote. Even before the huge edit, your answer had a nice amount of wrapper text :)
So you're fine. Carry on :)
Comment: [Safe harbor](http://chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID125) explicitly mentions the service provider, which is SE in this case.  Is there documentation that supports your argument that the user who answers the question is not liable either?
Comment: @bobthechemist Turns out that it's quote the opposite, a copyright holder can issue a subpeona to get the user's identity. Not really sure what can happen after that.


Was Alfred one of the people who trained Batman?

Question: In the comics, did Alfred train Bruce Wayne to fight before he left to train around the world like he did in the Gotham TV series?
Comment: In *which* comics? Batman has had more origin stories than I've had hot dinners
Comment: Heck, [he was pretty incompetent](https://nypost.com/2014/11/11/batmans-loyal-servant-alfred-follows-a-long-line-of-guises/) for the first few decades, and just a butler for the next few.
Answer: Depends which continuity we're talking.
In the main comic continuity, Alfred doesn't train Bruce Wayne. Alfred was a British spy in WWII, but we never see him train Bruce Wayne (mainly because espionage isn't exactly a Batman skill). Generally, Bruce Wayne would be trained by a myriad of other people. Most other continuities have kept to some version of this story, including people like Zatara (father of Zatanna), Ra's Al Ghul, various detectives, etc.
Alfred might be in some lists, but not in the purest "Batman training" sense (i.e. training him to do the spectacular things he does). Alfred is someone who is often seen chastising Bruce Wayne for neglecting Bruce Wayne

If not for Alfred, Bruce might not be so keen on keeping up his appearances as Gotham's number one playboy, and instead showcasing himself around as the dark and brooding superhero that stalks the criminals of Gotham.

He is also often shown as the one patching Batman and his compatriots up.
Some continuities do give Alfred a more active role. Beware the Batman has their Alfred doing a lot of Batman training

As Bruce grew, Alfred trained him in criminology, computer hacking, forensics and martial arts, preparing Bruce for his future as Batman. After Bruce took on the life of a costumed crime fighter, Alfred took on the role of a friend and confidante to his employer, helping track down leads and examine evidence from the Batcave while Bruce worked in the field.
Comment: Alfred was also Bruce's primary trainer in the TV show Gotham.
Comment: @CristobolPolychronopolis It does, but the question already mentions that and wants similar stories.


Should I model a humanoid body as separate body parts?

Question: Well I am working on my own game and I was wondering if it is a good move to make the humanoid in separate parts? Let's say I create the head and paint it separately, I create and paint separately the legs, hands, accessories...etc and then combine the UVs and make an atlas with those textures. I find it easier for me at least and I do not get lost in a big mesh.
Comment: You can do it that way. Do what you think is best. But if you want the mesh to defiorm when the parts move, you should use a single mesh.
Answer: Generally speaking it's not how 3D game artists are building their models. Separating the head and the limbs from the body might make things easier in the beginning of the modeling process but later on it will be harder to produce a good result.
Separate limbs always result into seams. You can hide them under garments but you cannot get rid of them by painting over them.
As for the aspect of rigging and animating them you might want to take into account that most of the rigging tools (for Blender and otherwise) are designed to work with single meshes. At one point you will have to weight-paint your mesh to get a good result. Having two separate meshes even in the same model leads to gaps and deformities which cannot be fixed. It's just the way inverse kinematics work.
About that "getting lost in a big mesh" part - you can always hide parts of your mesh in edit mode. Select the part you want to hide, then hit H to hide it and Alt+H to unhide it.


What types of data analysis do not count as statistics?

Question: When does data analysis cease to be statistics ?
Are the following examples all applications of statistics ?: computer vision, face recognition, compressed sensing, lossy data compression, signal processing.
Comment: Whatever you do in Excel does not count.  Just kidding...
Comment: Statistics is not a subset of data analysis -- it is a theory that is used in data analysis.
Comment: @Dirk: Wow...your hatred towards Excel knows no bounds.  :)
Comment: This should probably be community wiki since it is subjective/argumentative.
Answer: This may be slightly controversial, but certainly most of the examples that you give are not statistics (some of these would more properly fall under machine learning):
Statistics usually covers the scenario where you are making inferences something when you only have a subset of the data (hence the use of things like the p-value).  The goal is to come to a deeper understanding of the underlying process that generates the data.
In the examples that you provide, the goal is to perform some kind of action; whether the model itself is an accurate depiction of the underlying process is completely irrelevant so long as the predictions are accurate.  See my related question about the difference between machine learning and statistics.
Answer: A statistic is any sample estimation of a population characteristic is it not?  Thus, I would suggest so long as inference from a characterized sample to a population is taking place what is occurring is, at least in part, statistics.  Under my definition machine learning would be a discipline that makes use of statistics.  For example, under many examples of machine learning it seems like part of what is happening is an attempt to take information provided to the system (a sample) in order to guess from which distribution (a population) it arose.