Is it formal logic which is the "most essential element" to philsophical logic?

Question: Logic sprouted of different branches and now there is for computers, but as it grows the symbols tend to deal with problems not in accordance with what central philosophy tackles. It should therefore be specific to philosophy if the study is philosophical reasoning which is philosophical logic. Philosophical logic is asserted (by academic references) as the application of formal logic to philsophical reasoning, thus if so, is it formal logic that is the most important element of logic in terms of philosophy?
Comment: @MoziburUllah If memory serves, there were some pretty major developments since the rediscovery of Aristotle in the middle ages, particularly Suarez who did work on counterfactuals but before that the Islamic philosophers.
Comment: formal logic in the western tradition pretty began and ended with Aristotle until the modern 20C boom. I'd say that logic was marginalised during these two millenia. Reasoning of course was not. But you don't need symbols for that, you need language to discourse in.
Comment: (also, this question seems to be in need of an edit -- or else my ability to read at the end of the week has gone down significantly)
Comment: Ok - I think I probably exaggerated a little for effect; I haven't come across Suarez, thks - I'll check him out.
Answer: There is no single agreed upon axiom or theory of logic. Even the traditional laws of thought, such as the principle of identity and noncontradiction, are disputed by logics based on dialetheism (i.e., paraconsistent logics). There are of course different logical theories that are more or less appropriate given the context and subject matter. The particular axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, for example, are widely agreed upon as the most common foundation of mathematics. However, we need some way of determining whether the axioms and their associated theoretical assumptions are correct. For this goal we would appear to need some independent, or higher standpoint from which we can judge the acceptability of different proposed logics.
Contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy in the modern West, not everyone subscribes equally to the mathematical turn to symbolic logic. Historically speaking at least, it is dialectical logic that has held center stage in philosophical reasoning; a type of logical theory that has been largely rejected since the rise of positivism and analytic philosophy. However, in philosophical terms, dialectic plays a higher, more synthetic role than purely analytic or mathematical formalism, which is generally built up from calculi expressing fixed identity statements that are derived inductively or a priori. In other words, these logics represent a type of epistemic and semantic atomism. Dialectical logics, by contrast, are contextual and organic and deal with the movement of an objects identity within a total theory or system of thought. These logics thus represent a type of epistemic and semantic holism.
The former trend was present in embryonic form since Aristotle, the Medieval logicians, and more significantly in the Kantian critical philosophy. It reached maturity in the modern turn toward symbolic and propositional logic, which can be easily observed in the works of scientifically or mathematically inclined philosophers, such as Richard Avenarius, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, the early Wittgenstein and Kripke, and so on. The latter movement, however, was also present, and some would say to a larger extent, throughout the history of philosophy. The modern rejection of this type of logic has its roots in Kant's critique of dialectical illusion, and the supposed excesses of Hegelian philosophy. It was this German Idealist strand in 19-20th century British philosophy that the analytic school reacted against. However, there has been something of a turn, or at least, there is now a possibility of domesticating Hegel for analytic consumption. This movement began with the early Pragmatists, such as Charles Sanders Peirce, James Dewey, the late Wittgenstein, and Wilfrid Sellars, and is now a far more commonplace position, as can be seen in the works of post-analytic and neo-pragmatist philosophers such as C. I. Lewis, W. V. O. Quine, Donald Davidson, John McDowell, and Richard Brandom. As mentioned earlier, of course, there are also paraconsistent logics to consider, which can be seen as an attempt to formalize traditional dialectics and defend the productive nature of logical paradoxes.
The reason I bring up dialectics and holistic logical theories in response to the original question of whether formal logic is "the 'most essential element' to philosophical logic," is because I believe the nature of philosophy is incomplete without its speculative and systematic counterpart to the subject matter. A purely formal and rigidly analytic, or mathematical type of logic is, in philosophical terms, a lower and more artificial level of rationality. It is the least interesting and revealing kind of logic since it lacks the dialectical plasticity and systematic movement that characterizes, but also justifies, the concepts of philosophy and the nature of true being. For this reason, dialectics should at least be accorded some measure of respect as an integral component of philosophical thinking. Regardless of the current popularity of logical formalisms in mathematics, the empirical sciences, and computation, I think it's far from settled that formal logics are the best way to conceive of rationality, or even a sufficient account of philosophical logic.
Comment: excellent answer. I'd suggest the reason why logics made concrete in symbols are popular is simply the convenience of moving concrete symbols around. That they are the outcome of a dialectic logic is a truth that is generally acknowledged by a few.
Answer: To supplement the already given answer in a similar direction (although the post is a bit old), which touches many important issues, is the fact that each domain might (and usualy does) require its own logic (in the sense of descriptions of its own processes and interactions, whether formalised or not is another matter) and usualy these domain-specific or organic logics are not of the classical flavor.
This is manifested in modern mathematics and physics as well (surprisingly) in domains or toposes (places, spaces) which have their internal/organic logic of the processes and interactions and these are different from classical logic (mostly of the intuitionistic flavor, where the law of excluded-middle is actually rejected). However this should not seem surprising, that a positive science like physics or mathematics arrives at such notions, since if there is even a remote chance of this being realizable then all forms of knowledge should encounter it at some time.


Idiom about an equivalent explanation

Question: When one asks for explanation of something, the other give an equivalent explanation. Examples: "the weather is hot because it is not cold", "I am smart because I am not stupid". So what is the common idiom to describe this case?
Comment: Neither of those sentences necessarily convey an equivalence. Just because it's not cold doesn't mean it's hot. It could simply be mild. Similarly, somebody could be of average intelligence, neither smart nor stupid. Are you asking about this particular form of error in deductive reasoning? (*If it's not one thing, it must be the opposite?*) Or are you asking about a tautology—even though your sentences really aren't? (*If you're poor, you must not have any money.*)
Comment: @JasonBassford at some extend they are not equivalent. By the way, I am not native english speaker so these are just examples to describe the idea. Do you know some idioms about an equivalent explanation ? Maybe I mean tautology
Comment: It still depends on what you're trying to express. Are you looking for an idiom that captures *it's true because it's not false*? (Where there can only be two possibilities?) Is it known that it's not one thing—or is it just being asserted without evidence?
Comment: I think I go to tautology (the saying of the same thing twice in different words,) do you know any idiom about tautology?
Comment: Perhaps you're thinking of "circular reasoning"?
Comment: @Scott yes, any idiom that mocking about "circular reasoning"?
Comment: Dat - There may not be a word for this in English. Is there a phrase in your own language? If so what is the phrase that people use to describe circular reasoning in your language. Maybe we can understand that and find an equivalent.
Answer: I can think of no idiom that directly captures a tautological utterance itself. Not unless you want to imbue the tautology with a nonsensical meaning. In which case, there's A nod is as good as a wink (to a blind horse / to a blind bat).
But there is an expression that captures a response to a tautology.

"It's hot because it's not cold."
  "I don't care what you call it—I still have to wear a T-shirt."

The response can be captured with: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
This is the common quotation from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The actual two lines, as quoted from BookBrowse, are:

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
  By any other name would smell as sweet

In comments below your question, you said you weren't interested in anything related to reasoning or fallacy, just an idiom that expressed the idea of "the saying of the same thing twice in different words."
This expression can have a broader interpretation than just a tautology, but it can be used in the case of a tautology.
Comment: You make me so confused. Do you have any idiom that mocking about "circular reasoning"?
Comment: @dat I can think of idioms that mockingly tell somebody they aren't making sense (the first one I gave does that, although I think differently than you want)—but none that say they aren't making sense because of circular reasoning specifically.
Comment: @Jason Bassford - Note that the link you give re 'blind bat' gives an incomplete explanation and the phrase isn't in itself nonsense. A blind creature can't see a nod or a wink so they are indeed equivalent to that creature. Sorry this is going off at a tangent!

Idiom about an equivalent explanation


not allowing pasting of bank account number

Question: One of my credit card's bill paying site has an incredibly annoying limitation... it does not allow the user to paste in the bank routing and account number.  Therefor, every month I am forced to manually type these numbers in (twice!).  I have other credit cards and bills and none of them have this limitation.  Is there any security advantage to the one bank not allowing pasting?
Comment: Have you tried using a browser extension, such as [Don't fuck with Paste](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dont-fuck-with-paste/nkgllhigpcljnhoakjkgaieabnkmgdkb?hl=en)
Comment: That extension solved my problem with that site!
Comment: The fact that their "security feature" was easily circumvented by simply installing a publicly available browser extension seems to point out the "value" of this "feature"
Comment: If you have to type it (and even if you paste it) spyware may get it. As I see it, It doesn't really add security one way or the other. [You know those graphical keypads that change the position of the numbers and that the numbers disapear when you hover the mouse? - spyware may get those to, modern ones record video.]
Answer: The problem isn't with pasting, it's with copying confidential data. The copy buffer isn't a protected resource and can be accessed fairly freely.
That said, account and routing numbers aren't really confidential as you give them out on every check so this idea sounds hair brained. Perhaps they do this to give the impression of security to less informed users? Perhaps they're just really confused.
Comment: 99% of common users, and a good percentage of "technical" ones, have no concept of good security in the first place, much less even consider the implications of the copy buffer.  that is, this really only annoys end users.  Further, since it doesn't prevent you from doing the copy, it fails at the implied goal anyways...
Comment: I suspect it reduces copying of the account after multiple pasting attempts. For example, it seems that the OP has been conditioned not to copy. That said, I'm not convinced it's a good idea either.
Answer: Not allowing pasting can be for safety too. By forcing you to write them manually twice, you avoid the risk of incorrectly typing the numbers, which can result in money sent to the wrong bank account. Many users just copy the info from field 1 to field 2, to bypass the double-entry verification. In some cases, users do this from field 2 to field 1 if the field 2 had pasting disabled. That's why both fields have pasting disabled. It's for the same reason "paste" is disabled on the email/verify email, on signup forms.
So, it has actually nothing with security, but rather with safety. They don't want problems with customers mistyping account numbers, and then copy pasting them to avoid having Writing it twice, and then money lands at some bankrupt company and money is lost.
This sometimes happen here in Sweden. A bill-payer writes the wrong account number in their internet banking interface, and does not check the receiver name that pops up on "confirm payment". The company that receives the money is bankrupt and has debts, so the money is taken by the government to pay the company's debts. Thus "Conditio indebiti" is not enforceable, and then money is lost and the user in question has to pay a second time for the same bill.
Comment: That's asinine. I copy and paste my information precisely to avoid typos. If they want to keep you from copying and pasting from one field to the next, then prevent the copy, but don't prevent paste.
Comment: *"It's for the same reason "paste" is disabled on the email/verify email, on signup forms."* Yeah about that, please kill anyone doing this.
Comment: Risk of incorrect typing is not a reason for this. Most types of financial account numbers, including all IBAN numbers currently used also in Sweden, credit card numbers, etc use a variety of checksum systems that have guarantees that common typing mistakes (a typo, swapped neighbouring symbols, etc) must result in a number that fails validation. If you do enter someone else's account number, then you're actually intentionally entering someone else's number because of some misunderstanding and that can happen both with manual entry and copying.
Comment: @Rick Exactly, most of us use a password manager anyway which will automatically paste in correct number and is the most reliable means of input...
Comment: Full account numbers do have this protection, sometimes both by a length digit and checkdigit, but bill-pay numbers is only anywhere between 2-8 digits where one of those is a single check-digit, so It have actually happened that Money get sent to wrong Company. Thats why all banks nowadays popup a confirm dialog where the receiver Company name is shown. I don't know how the american bank system works, but since most of these numbers are not designed from the beginning to be typed, rather to be scanned by a MICR or OCR machine, they might lack checkdigits or such type error checking.


How do I disable the sound indicator notification bubbles?

Question: I have Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Every time I press the volume up/down/mute button on my keyboard, this box appears in the top right corner of my screen telling me the current volume level. Is there any way to disable that box from appearing?
Comment: You can check this post for recent Ubuntu versions:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1044599/hide-or-remove-gnome-pop-up-for-sound-volume-level-indicator
Answer: AFAIK, this is option is not available as user configuration. You need to change & rebuild source of media-keys.gnome-settings-plugin (libmedia-keys.so)  from unity-settings-daemon package.
If you want disable all notification, then this is a duplicate. See How can I customize/disable notification bubbles?
I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 64bit.

Download build dependences & source:
sudo apt-get build-dep unity-settings-daemon
apt-get source unity-settings-daemon

Modify gsd-media-keys-manager.c to disable volume notification only
unity-settings-daemon-14.04.0+14.04.20140606/
nano plugins/media-keys/gsd-media-keys-manager.c

Use // to comment those two lines then return TRUE;:
static gboolean
ubuntu_osd_notification_show_volume (GsdMediaKeysManager *manager,
                                     gint value,
                                     gboolean muted)
{
        //return ubuntu_osd_do_notification (&manager->priv->volume_notification,
        //                                   "volume", value, muted, volume_icons);
        return TRUE;
}

Compile & replace the one from repository:
./autogen.sh
make
sudo cp /usr/lib/unity-settings-daemon-1.0/libmedia-keys.so /usr/lib/unity-settings-daemon-1.0/libmedia-keys.so.backup
sudo rm /usr/lib/unity-settings-daemon-1.0/libmedia-keys.so
sudo cp ./plugins/media-keys/.libs/libmedia-keys.so /usr/lib/unity-settings-daemon-1.0/libmedia-keys.so
restart unity-settings-daemon

How did I find it:

dbus-monitor
Click on volume media key, watch for the sender of notification call
You may see only as number (Ex: :1.14), use qdbusviewer to know name:
method call sender=:1.14 -> dest=:1.107 serial=176 path=/org/freedesktop/Notifications; interface=org.freedesktop.Notifications; member=Notify
   string "gnome-settings-daemon"
   uint32 0
   string "notification-audio-volume-medium"
   string " "
   string ""
   array [
   ]
   array [
      dict entry(
         string "x-canonical-private-synchronous"
         variant             string "volume"
      )
      dict entry(
         string "value"
         variant             int32 44
      )
   ]
   int32 -1

Now, you get the related package, report a bug!!! Changing Code is just an art, try it yourself. I'm not an alien.
Answer: Install NotifyOSDConfig, the GUI used to configure the NotifyOSD.
Then lets add it's PPA. Open a Terminal and type the command.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8

Next update list and start installation
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install notifyosdconfig

And How did I disable it?
Launch NotifyOSD Configuration from Dash and as you see in screenshot you need to change "Width" and "Corner Radius" to "0 px" and then click Apply.

Enjoy ;)
Comment: Wait, won't this disable *all* notification bubbles? I don't see anything in this answer that should make this apply only to volume notifications.
Answer: I found that (on Xubuntu) I was able to use xfce4-notifyd-config (located in settings>notifications) and navigate to the Applications tab to disable the xfce volume daemon from sending notifications. I'm unsure of the GNOME equivalent to this fix.

Attatched is an image of the UI:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/EGPBQ.jpg


Does P=NP imply polynomial solutions to #P?

Question: Is it true that $\#P$-complete problems could possibly be solved in polynomial time if P=NP? I know that even some counting problems related to polynomial time decision problems are $\#P$-complete, so even if P=NP it may not necessarily be true.  My confusion is over how we write the answer to a $\#P$-complete problem since it may be exponential in the size of the input (for example up to $2^n$ truth assignments to a SAT instance on $n$ variables).  Therefore, I cannot understand how, even if we find a fast way for computing something like the permanent of a matrix, we could still expect to write the answer in polynomial time. Am I missing something about the definition of $\#P$?
Answer: Your confusion is that the class #P only asks you to count the solutions, not to enumerate them, and you only need $n$ bits to write down the number $2^n$. This means that to express the number of satisfying assignments to a formula of $n$ variables, you need $n$ bits, because there are at most $2^n$ solutions (i.e. in the case of a tautology). Another example: the number of isomorphisms between two graphs is at most $n!$, which requires $\log(n!)\approx n\cdot \log(n)$ bits to write down. All these number of bits are polynomial in the size of the input
#P can be solved in polynomial time if and only if P=PP. This is a stronger statement than P=NP, because P=PP implies P=NP (and hence, it is less likely). If P=NP, then all #P problems can be approximated to within a constant factor by a deterministic algorithm.
Comment: So what about if just P = NP, without knowing if P = PSpace? Would that imply #P problems can be solved in polynomial time?
Comment: @Parry Good question. I looked it up in Arora and Barak's *Computational Complexity: A Modern Approach*, and updated my answer.
Answer: P$\,=\,$NP does not imply that P$\,=\,$#P (or, more properly, FP$\,=\,$#P). We already know that there are decision problems in P whose counting versions are #P-complete, such as perfect matchings.


In Red Mars, why did Frank want to kill John?

Question: I know he was jealous about Maya, but the book implied some political reason that wasn't ever explained, to my recollection.
Comment: Vague recollection says he was in cahoots with an ethnic group of colonists (Russian?) and John was blocking some of their proposals.  It never really mattered to the plot in the end... as Frank found out when it all went to hell, none of his ladder climbing and scheming gave him the slightest edge in just surviving.
Comment: It was the Arabs whom Frank was in tight with and they disliked John because of a perceived anti-Arab bias on his part. But I don't think that had anything to do with why Frank killed John. They just provided him a convenient scapegoat and tool to use. His reasons were almost entirely personal, from what I recall, and not just because of Maya.
Answer: There were two main reasons, I think.  First, Frank and John had political differences in how they viewed the proper evolution of humanity on Mars.  Oversimplifying greatly, John wanted to leave Earth behind and create a New Mars Human while Frank felt that this was utopian nonsense and that Mars must engage politically with Earth to assure a good future for Mars.  Secondly, Frank was jealous of John.  John was the First Man on Mars -- Neil Armstrong, John Glenn and Chuck Yeager combined -- as well as being a charismatic leader.  John stood politically in Frank's way.
Oh, yes.  There's also the love triangle with Maya Toitovna...
Which reason predominated? I think that's something each reader needs to decide on their own, as Frank is a decidedly complex character in a complex situation. KSR is a good enough writer that he doesn't tell us the answer.
Comment: Good answer! KSR really doesn't give that away at all.. My opinion is this-- the assassination happens early in the book, of course. Later, though, we learn that sometime before the assassination John manages to call up a summit on Olympus Mons that even Hiroko shows up. To me, this is the moment in time that Frank realises John has a much stronger influence as Leader in Mars and thus decides that John must be taken out of the picture. I don't believe that feelings for Maya was the driving force.
Answer: Getting back together with Toitovna was a nice bonus, but it was explicitly a political assassination that Chalmers thought was going to make him the primary moulder of the emerging Martian society in its first formative years, decades... possibly even centuries.
Frank Chalmers had had Plans With A Capital P for Mars since before the US first announced the Rust Eagle landing, and he allowed John Boone to take the symbolic victory of being The First Man on Mars in order to become the leader of the US Contingent to the First Hundred.
These plans were frustrated when Boone was able to use his influence to weasel his way back into First Hundred, ignoring the then-rule that people would only ever make the one trip to Mars due to radiation exposure. During the first years on Mars, Boone was seen as the unofficial leader by the population - given they were all literally following in his footsteps by being on Mars at all, this seems fairly natural. All of Chalmers's political nous was worthless when he had to go up against Boone's charisma and how universally beloved he was. As word of his death spread throughout Nicosia:

The streets glinted as if stars had fallen to the pavement. People stood in clumps, silent, stunned by the news. Frank Chalmers made his way through them, feeling their stares, moving without thought toward the platform at the top of town; and as he walked he said to himself, Now we'll see what I can do with this planet.

Chalmers tricked a group of young Arabs into believing that Boone was going to prevent a mosque from being built on Phobos and stoked that into a willingness to murder the most beloved man on Mars. He incited a riot by throwing bricks through windows in the street. Honestly, it's amazing that he got away with it given how beloved Boone was by all. Guess he was lucky that the murderers suffered an "unfortunate accident" that night.


Direction of electric field while taking infinity

Question: A positive charge $q$ is placed somewhere. So electric lines of forces will be radially outward from this charge. While defining potential at a distance $r$ from $q$, we say it is the work done to bring a unit positive charge from infinity to that distance. I have a confusion here. Since point of infinity can be anywhere outside the electric field,there are lots of points of infinity and by bringing a unit positive charge we can bring that charge in any way we want,we can take a zigzag path or an absurd trajectory,or we go some distance forward and then go more distance backward i mean the path can be however we want. So the way we will bring the charge is not defined properly. How do we then deduce the formula for potential if we are bringing the charge in a curved path?
Comment: Concluding that "the way we will bring the charge is not defined properly" from "the path can be however we want" isn't reasonable. The property which makes the path irrelevant is $\nabla\times\vec E=0$.
Answer: As others have stated. The reason that the path taken is IRRELEVANT in electrostatics, is that the electric field can be written as $-\nabla V$. When a function can be written as the gradient of a scalar function, the line integral is path independant. This is an example of a Conservative field, where $\nabla × \vec{E}= 0$
For a formal proof, see my answer here,
Proving if a force is conservative and non-conservative
Solving the equation
$\vec{E} =  -\nabla V$
For V, yields the standard potential function.( can also be done using maxwells equations themself)


Can't link variable inside a switch when creating a new block

Question: I have a problem when connecting the variable (from the create a block) to a variable in the function because it's inside a switch. How can I link them?

I want to connect the variable to each (20) in the motor blocks
Answer: Using variables is probably a better solution, but you can pass data wires into a switch block if it is tabbed view.
Answer: To get technical, this thing (pictured below) is a "parameter", not a "variable".

"Variables" look like this:

You can use a data wire to write the parameter value to a variable before the switch block and then read the variable inside of the nested switch blocks. Something like this...


nm-applet not showing until NetworkManager restart in GNOME 3

Question: I have recently installed Arch Linux and GNOME 3 on my new laptop and have a problem whereby nm-applet is not showing in gnome-panel, unless I manually restart the NetworkManager daemon.
Comment: I am assuming that the applet doesn't show up after login? If so, a workaround is adding **`nm-applet`** to the Startup Programs, using **`gnome-session-properties`**.
Answer: I found the answer with help of the Arch Linux Forums:
I tried to start the networkmanager daemon before the dbus daemon, which does not work. Changing the order solved the problem.
Comment: how to change the order or deamons running, with systetmd?
I installed arch very recently and having the same problem, I coudn't find rc.conf to edit..
Answer: Another way is by adding to startup apps:
$ gksudo "/etc/rc.d/network-manager restart"


Google speech API

Question: I'm now working with my project and I'm about to build a Siri-like application for the desktop computer. I am thinking if Google Speech API is reliable and accurate for speech recognition? Can you suggest to me what speech API is the most accurate in terms of speech recognition? Most preferably a free API. Thank you.
Comment: You may want to consider running your own speech recognizer. CMU Sphinx provides specific acoustic models and build instructions for using in mobile devices http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/wiki/building
Answer: While the Google speech API is free it is not an official public API.  Some people have reverse engineered it, as is discussed in this blog.  If you are planning on accessing the API directly for a commercial product I would not recommend it because they can drop it or change it without warning, breaking your product. This recently happened to developers that used the Google Weather API.  If you are accessing it through a Chrome browser using x-webkit-speech on the other hand you are probably safe since it is supported by Google. Google's speech recognition is right up there with a lot of the more popular commercial solutions. They have a lot of experience with it in other projects like Google Voice and the now defunct Google 411. They have some of the top speech scientists working for them.  The only other free alternative I can think of is Sphinx which is an open source project out of Carnegie Mellon University. Steep learning curve using this solution and if you want it to be setup as a service you will have to develop that yourself.  Nuance is the other big player in the speech recognition market (I believe that is what Siri uses) and they do have solutions that offer speech recognition as a service. But they are pricey.
Update on Answer From Comments on Language Support
Windows Speech Recognition supports other languages, as does most speech recognition systems. But the caveat is that you have to tell the system what language to use and it has to support the language in question. Each vendor has a list of languages it supports and they are specific to a region. For example a vendor may support Mexican Spanish, American Spanish and Spain Spanish; which all have slightly different dialects. But the speech recognition engine can only support one language/dialect at a timer per user. A user cannot speak multiple languages to a speech recognition system without first requesting it to change to that language.
Updated 3/17/2014
The x-webkit-speech input field is being deprecated due to lack of support in other browsers.  This will be replaced with the Web Speech API, which is a javascript API. You can find an example on how to use it here.
Comment: Thank you so much for all of your response sir. i am using this Google speech API now for my project. about its accuracy its good but maybe i can change it the next time if some speech API's offers more accuracy than this.depends on what project i am going to use it.thank you..
Comment: I'm in complete agreement with Kevin on the Google API. I'd just add one more suggestion since the question was for a desktop app. Windows provides free speech recognition for both its desktop and server operating systems. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4213035/sapi-and-windows-7-problem and http://stackoverflow.com/a/6351055/90236 for more info.
Comment: Im having a trouble in terms of accuracy with the windows speech recognition maybe because it needs to speak in english. I'm also reffering for which API have the most accurate in terms of speech recognition and will also adopt other diction.thank you michael levy, nd kevin junghans.
Comment: The x-webkit-speech input field is deprecated.

Google speech API


Fireplace burner - air mixing valve needed?

Question: Currently in the fireplace there is a gas log lighter burner (a straight pipe with several holes in it), and it has an air mixing valve on the end between it and the natural gas source.  Does anyone know why this is needed?  Looking online it seems related to propane or to getting the flame bluer/hotter.  The context is replacing this small burner with one that outputs more heat (though with safety considerations like maximum BTU in mind) and whether something like this would still be needed.  The replacement burner in mind does not show one being needed.
Comment: Natural gas doesn't ignite unless it has the correct gas/oxygen ratio.
Answer: The replacement burner no doubt has one incorporated in its design, not bodged on as a separate part.
Natural gas needs air mixed in to burn correctly. The amount of air .vs. fuel (roughly 10:1) is different than the amount with propane, (roughly 15.6:1) but "none" is not the correct amount for anything that isn't a pathetic excuse for a flame.


Tree structure that is like a quadtree/octree but splits a different number of times in each dimension?

Question: I'm looking for a data structure that is like a quadtree where each level is a subdivision of the previous. However, unlike a quadtree I need the subdivision to occur a different number of times in the horizontal direction to the vertical direction. In a quadtree the space is subdivided once in each dimension (resulting in four children per node). In the tree I'm looking for the space may be divided a given number of times in one dimension and a different number of times in the other. Say for example, twice in the X and once in the Y (resulting in six children per node). Has such a space partitioning tree been given a name? Can anyone point me to an existing data structure that fulfills this requirement? Thanks!
Comment: Have you tried adapting quad-trees? Seems to me that such a modification should not influence the basic operations and their cost much.
Comment: That's exactly what I'm going to do! I'm just frustrated because I can't think of a name for my new Tree class and it feels like such a structure must already have a name!
Answer: You could use a k-d tree.  A k-d tree normally alternates between partitioning horizontally and partitioning vertically, but you could certainly modify it to change that pattern (e.g., partition horizontally twice in a row; or equivalently, partition horizontally into three or four regions rather than just into two regions).
Not everything has a "name".  There are many more possible algorithms and data structures than there are "names".  So don't take it as some kind of negative if you can't find a "name" for it.  "Modified quadtree" or "modified k-d tree" will do fine, if you need a way to refer to it.
Comment: A [bounding interval hierarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounding_interval_hierarchy) is a related data structure that may also be worth looking into.
Answer: Have you looked at STR-tree (sort-tile-recursive loaded R-Trees)? See examples here and here.
The basis is an R-tree. The STR-algorithm load it in a way that resembles a grid. For example in 2D space, when you specify a node size of 25, it will try to divide the space into a recursive tree of 5x5 nodes. That means each node will contain a 5x5 grid of subnode, except for the leaf nodes, which will contain 25 data points/rectangles.
Note that the splitting is usually not a regular grid of squares (covering the same amount of space), instead it creates rectangulars such they each cover the
same amount of data points. I'm sure this loading algorithm could be modified to form other types of grids, such as 3x8, if you wish.
This algorithm is meant for initial bulk-loading of data. Once the loading is done, additional insertions (or removals) may destroy the grid-like pattern.


Why did the Persian army lose the battle of Marathon?

Question: Persian army was an absolutely massive army,and persian empire defeated famous empires such as babylon using it, you know that then Greece wasn't a united country and it was built from different city-states,so naturally it doesn't have a well trained and united army,and Persian army was at least 200000 man large,so why was it defeated and why was it retreated from Greece land after it?(note:I'm not a professional historician or something else,so do not expect me to ask professional questions.I'm just a twelve year old student who is trying to learn )
Comment: Please be aware that the [Stack Exchange Terms of Service](https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-of-service#age) require that you must be at least 13 years old to use the Network or Services.
Comment: Welcome to History.SE @JamalIzadi! Could you edit your question to clarify where you've searched and what you found already, complete with links and references, and context if applicable? In particular, please let us know what you find missing or unclear about the [Wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon#Conclusions). This allows those who might want to answer to do so without needing to redo the work you've already done. You might find it helpful to review the site [tour] and [help] and, in particular, [ask].
Comment: Perhaps you can start with Wikipedia summary and then formulate a more specific question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon#Conclusions
Comment: @defaultlocale.thank you for your answer,but I read the Wikipedia summary and I don't understand why Persian army retreated after marathon?I mean Persian army was an massive army and it doesn't have a valid reason to retreat.
Answer:
Marathon was won because ordinary, amateur soldiers found the courage to break into a trot when the arrows began to fall, instead of grinding to a halt, and when surprisingly the enemy wings fled, not to take the easy way out and follow them, but to stop and somehow come to the aid of the hard pressured centre Lazenby, J.F. The Defence of Greece 490–479 BC. Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1993 (ISBN 0-85668-591-7) as cited in Wikipedia

The question proposes ". . . naturally [Greece] doesn't have a well trained and united army. . . " - assuming that a nation is required for a trained army.  I do not agree with that assumption.  The Greek city states fielded armies that were well trained and well equipped.  Greek armies could fight in the phalanx; any dense military formation requires fairly intense training. (despite the claim that the hoplites were "amateur".)
I cannot say for sure, but the following points seem relevant to me.

The Persian infantry was evidently lightly armoured, and no match for hoplites in a head-on confrontation.

The Persians knew that in a face to face slugfest, the hoplites were better armored; Persian strategy relied on decimating the hoplites with arrow fire before that face to face engagement.  The Greeks denied that strategy; they charged. They accepted the losses from arrow fire to close to personal combat.  All combat involves the courage of the participants and the Greeks demonstrated their courage to the Persians.

In order to face the Persians in battle, the Athenians had to summon all available hoplites;[34] and even then they were still probably outnumbered at least 2 to 1.[38] Furthermore, raising such a large army had denuded Athens of defenders, and thus any secondary attack in the Athenian rear would cut the army off from the city; and any direct attack on the city could not be defended against.

To quote Sun Tzu, "Verse 5. If you are anxious to fight, you should not go to meet the invader near a river which he has to cross."  The Greeks knew that they were the last line of defense - there were no more hoplites to be summoned.  This engagement was the only opportunity to save their cities, their families and their posterity.  If they lost here, all was lost; they were fighting with their back to a river.   The Persians did not and could not bring that level of commitment to the fight. Defending forces with their back to a metaphorical river are difficult to break.

In war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four. Napoleon

The Greeks had the moral power (morale) arising from their lack of alternatives.  The invader has the option of retreat; the defender must win.
Skilled military historians might cite position on the field of battle and supply lines/logistics.  But for me, the reason the battle comes down to us in history is the courage of simple soldiers to charge into artillery fire, demonstrating that they were not just willing to die for their country, but to die in order to bring death to the enemy.
Comment: +1, but the problem with quoting Sun Tzu is that, while everyone can clearly see there's wisdom in what he's saying, nobody can agree on what exactly it is.
Comment: @T.E.D.: "*Ask not the Elves for advice - as they will tell you both Yes and No.*" seems appropriate about now.


Blackberry Web Works - Data Storage

Question: am using http://westcoastlogic.com/lawnchair/ to store data in my application. Lawnchair doesn't work in Blackberry Web Works. What framework can I use?
Answer: You should be using either the HTML5 localStorage API or the WebSQL Database.
If you're developing for BB OS 5, you'll need to add html5_init.js to your project and pages, since Webworks on BBOS 5 uses Google Gears instead of HTML5.
Answer: There is a Blackberry persistant storage currently in the lawnchair adapters list that you might want to check out under
adapters.
Answer: With JSON is easy, I have this tuturial: (but It's in portuguese) http://www.linhadecodigo.com.br/artigo/3627/html5-local-storage-com-json.aspx

Blackberry Web Works - Data Storage


What are the optimal settings for a video that will be played on a Galaxy Tab 10.1?

Question: What are the best size, compression settings, and format for making video for playback on a Galaxy Tab 10.1?
Answer: Video
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 will work best with MP4 files (H.264 encoding) at 720p (1280x720). Do not use Entropy Coding. I'm noticing a few problems with it; it could be the video / my setup though and not the device itself.
Use a constant bitrate at a reasonable quality level (RF:20 should be good, or around 1000kbps). Maximum B-Frames should be set to 0, and Reference frames to 4 or 5.
Audio
As far as audio goes you should be fine with most anything; a samplerate of 48 and a bitrate of 160 should be good. Make sure to downmix to stereo. AAC is probably you best bet for the codec.
Summary
More information can be found here and here (though you might want to experiment a bit with some of the advanced settings if you feel that you need them—Probably not a big deal though).
Audio: AAC with Bitrate of 160, Samplerate of 48; downmix to stereo
Video: H.264 in an MP4 wrapper at 720p (1280x720) at a constant bit rate
Comment: **Do not force resolution to 1280x720!** Always keep the aspect ratio!
Comment: @Richard Borcsik: Well yah; I wasn't suggesting he resize all of his videos to 1280x720; but assuming 16:9 that's what will look best. Just recommended dimensions.
Comment: I didn't think that you did, just mentioned it because you didn't, so people don't try to do so.
Comment: Great answer! One question: I don't use Handbrake, so I don't know what RF:20 means in terms of bitrate. Can you provide an actual bitrate number that would be ideal?
Comment: Thanks; I mentioned Handbrake because that seems to be the standard thing that most people use, but RF isn't specific to it. RF actually corresponds to the compression level, not the bitrate (my answer sounded a bit ambiguous, sorry). RF19 or 20 is about where a DVD is, which is why you'll see that number thrown around a lot. If you have to set bitrate separately, don't skimp. The Galaxy Tab will do fine with higher bitrate video (most things will set it automatically based on the compression level and the original source bitrate).
Comment: Oops, forgot to include the actual bitrate... 1000kbps should be a safe upper limit, and maybe more than you'll need. Answer updated.
Comment: Tells me everything I needed to know. Thanks very much! A bounty of 50 points for you! :)
Comment: Glad I could be of service
Answer: Take a look at this thread on XDA-Developers forums.  There's a good discussion with presets for Handbrake (conversion software) that should work well for GTab 10.1.
Basic settings are as follows:
Video: H.264 codec, MP4 container, picture width 1200, constant quality with RF:20, loose anamorphic with modulus 16.
Audio: AAC format, 128 bitrate.
Comment: While there's probably too much information in that thread to include it all here, if that link fails to work this answer is absolutely useless. Can you at least include some of the useful information here?
Comment: +1 for the Handbrake how-to, that's the path I'd choose.


Mac App Store is damaged error message

Question: I have an App that I'm submitting to the Mac App Store.  It code signs without any problems, producing a .pkg file as expected...
codesign -s "$app_cert" -f "$app_name.app"
codesign -d -vvvv "$app_name.app"
productbuild --component "$app_name.app" /Applications --sign "$installer_cert" "$app_name.pkg"

...and everything seems to work fine, no errors, everything checks out OK.  I then test install the App using the following...
sudo installer -store -pkg MyApp.pkg -target /

...everthing seems to go OK.  I then double-click on the App in my Applications folder and it asks me to enter my itunes account info.  I use the test user account that I set up in iTunes Connect and then I get this error:
"MyApp" is damaged and can't be opened. Delete "MyApp" and download it again from the App Store.

What is really odd is that this is an update to MyApp.  The first time I submitted, everything worked fine.  It's only now that I'm seeing this problem, but I can't figure out what is wrong.  There are no errors in the Console logs.
I've triple checked and there is no other MyApp.app on my entire drive as this is known to cause issues.
Anyone know what is going on?  I've resign and packaged this App 10 times with no change.  I've tried installing from several different machines, same error.  Nothing significantly has changed in my build environment since the initial submission that work find.
Answer: I had the same problem.
The problem was that we had the app version number in two places - in the XCode project, and also hardwired in the receipt validation code; when we updated the receipt validation version to match the XCode project it worked.
Answer: The error message can appear even if your receipt validation code is correct, apparently because a caching issue can cause the test receipt to be downloaded with an incorrect version number.
In that case, restart the computer to clear up the caching issue, and run a clean build (or delete the test receipt from the app bundle) to obtain a new test receipt. See this post on the developer forums for additional comment.

Mac App Store is damaged error message


Changing ID on an ipad 2?

Question: I am using IOS 7 ipad 2. I have no longer got access to the email associated with my ipad when I bought it so I have changed my iTunes id to a new email address but cannot seem to shift the old email address which my ipad keeps asking for. Help!! How do I get my ipad to accept the new id. I can't switch off "Find my ipad" because it wont let me as it keeps asking for the password  for the old id which is goodness knows what. I need some serious help!!
Answer: Whether or not you have access to your email does not affect your Apple ID, except that you cannot receive marketing emails. To answer your question, you must go to Settings>iTunes and App Store, sign out and then sign back in. You can also reset your password or change your email at:
https://appleid.apple.com
Once you have access to your account, you can log into iCloud and remove that device from Find My iPhone if it shows as offline or just remove Find My iPhone from the Settings app.
Comment: Thank you for your help. I carried out part one of your instruction and it worked. Excuse my thickness but could you expand on how to go about changing icloud? Thanks in expectation!
Comment: If you log in to iCloud with the new Apple ID and go to Find My iPhone and the iPad shows as offline (which it will most likely do) you can just remove it. Make sure that (on the iPad) you go to Settings>Mail, Contacts and Calendar>[your iCloud account] and turn on Find My iPhone under the new account.

Changing ID on an ipad 2?


acceptable level of crawl / 500 errors

Question: I wonder if there is any industry stats on what is an acceptable level of server errors e.g. crawl errors or total server errors or both, either as an absolute number or as a percentage of requests?
Comment: No errors should be the target for everyone.
Answer: 0
is both the percentage and the absolute number which should be your aim for the number of 500 errors that normal usage of your web applications and website will trigger.
More might be acceptable if the impact of such an unfulfilled request is limited, for instance when a client will simply try again at a later moment and continue to try until the request will have been completed successfully.
That will require analyses of which requests fail with an internal server error.

acceptable level of crawl / 500 errors


Semantics of `async for` - can __anext__ calls overlap?

Question: If __anext__ gives control back to event loop (via an await, or call_soon/call_later), is it possible for another __anext__ to be called on the same instance, while first one had not resolved yet, or they would be queued? Are there any other cases where it would be unsafe to assume that only one __anext__ is running at the same time?
Answer: Short answer: Using async for does not overlap, but calling __anext__ does.
Long answer:
Here is what I made while playing with __anext__ mechanics:
import asyncio

class Foo(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.state = 0

    def __aiter__(self):
        return self

    def __anext__(self):
        def later():
            try:
                print(f'later: called when state={self.state}')

                self.state += 1
                if self.state == 3:
                    future.set_exception(StopAsyncIteration())
                else:
                    future.set_result(self.state)
            finally:
                print(f'later: left when state={self.state}')

        print(f'__anext__: called when state={self.state}')
        try:
            future = asyncio.Future()

            loop.call_later(0.1, later)

            return future
        finally:
            print(f'__anext__: left when state={self.state}')

async def main():
    print('==== async for ====')
    foo = Foo()
    async for x in foo:
        print('>', x)

    print('==== __anext__() ====')
    foo = Foo()
    a = foo.__anext__()
    b = foo.__anext__()
    c = foo.__anext__()
    print('>', await a)
    print('>', await b)
    print('>', await c)

loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
loop.run_until_complete(main())
loop.run_until_complete(asyncio.gather(*asyncio.Task.all_tasks()))
loop.close()

I had implemented __anext__ to return future instead of just being async def, so I have better control of intermediate steps of resolving these futures.
Here is an output:
==== async for ====
__anext__: called when state=0
__anext__: left when state=0
later: called when state=0
later: left when state=1
> 1
__anext__: called when state=1
__anext__: left when state=1
later: called when state=1
later: left when state=2
> 2
__anext__: called when state=2
__anext__: left when state=2
later: called when state=2
later: left when state=3
==== __anext__() ====
__anext__: called when state=0
__anext__: left when state=0
__anext__: called when state=0
__anext__: left when state=0
__anext__: called when state=0
__anext__: left when state=0
later: called when state=0
later: left when state=1
later: called when state=1
later: left when state=2
later: called when state=2
later: left when state=3
> 1
> 2
~~~ dies with StopAsyncIteration ~~~

In async for case it can be seen that __anext__ completes first, then event loop kicks in and runs whatever was scheduled with a delay. If __anext__s were stacking, event loop would take this opportunity to schedule another __anext__ call until delayed later would start - instead, event loop blocks until it's later's time to run.
So, if your async iterator is only to be used in async for, it's safe to assume that there would be only one __anext__ running at the same time.
With __anext__ it's worse: you can stack them up as much as you'd like. However, this shouldn't be of much concern, if your __anext__ is coroutine - it shouldn't keep any state when invoked anyway. Or at least I think so.
Comment: As worded, your answer is no responsive to the original question.  The question talks about awaiting within the anext.  I think what you do is isomorphic to that, but your answer would be significantly better if you reworded to help the reader be convinced of that.
Answer: Now that we have asynchronous generators, I wondered what the answer to this question was for concurrent calls to __anext__() when the implementation is provided by an asynchronous generator. I tried the following test program:
import itertools
import trio

async def foo():
  for i in itertools.count():
    await trio.sleep(1)
    yield i

async def go(aiter):
  return (await aiter.__anext__())

async def amain():
  aiter = foo().__aiter__()
  async with trio.open_nursery() as nursery:
    nursery.start_soon(go, aiter)
    nursery.start_soon(go, aiter)

trio.run(amain)

This fails with:
RuntimeError: anext(): asynchronous generator is already running

As far as I can tell, this comes from CPython and not trio. So in CPython at least, I believe that concurrent calls to the __anext__() created automatically from an asynchronous generator are checked for and not permitted. Presumably it is up to the caller to make sure this doesn't happen.
I haven't been able to find a definitive specification that says that the behaviour must be like this, so perhaps this shouldn't be relied upon. Ensuring that the caller never does this seems to be the reliable bet.
Answer: Yes, this is possible to executed multiple __anext__ tasks simultaneously. As with any other generator, every call to __anext__ will execute until first yield (await is yield from).
Whether this is safe or unsafe depends on the implementation:

Implementation that enforces order via queue or other synchronization primitive will be safe
Implementation whose __anext__ uses internal state should be safe, but order of the results will undefined
Implementation that modifies shared state will be unsafe


How to get underlying stock from ADR

Question: How can I get the underlying stock from an ADR? What are the fees and general bureaucracy to archive this. Does this depend on the ADR emitting bank, or is a generalized process?
Answer: How do I convert my foreign shares into ADRs and vice versa?

To convert your ADRs back into foreign shares, you should instruct your broker to cancel the ADRs, and provide him or her with complete delivery instructions in the issuer's home country.
Comment: it is worth noting that this may not always be possible, as there may be capital controls in the home country, or the company deliberately only trades on a foreign stock exchange for the lower reporting requirements (like non-US companies listing as an ADR...)

How to get underlying stock from ADR


Sql Server Differential restore

Question: Our network team is going to restore a server (ie the entire vm) with sql 2014 on it from a backup taken on Monday.  This would include all database files.  Out last full DB backup was taken the previous Friday and we have done diffs/tlog backups on a regular basis since.  We want to get the databases up to date as close as we can, so I'm wondering if once the server is restored, can we just restore the most recent diff?  Or do we need to restore the previous full and then the most recent diff?  Tran logs will come next, but for timing purposes I'm wondering if we need the full first, or since the database will be older than the diff after the server is restored, can we just start with the diff?
Comment: Think you need the last full first, not sure. Make sure you take a tail log backup of the current system if it's still live.
Answer: Full backup restoration goes first with no recovery, latest diff comes next (no need for the other differentials) with no recovery still then restore the series of the transaction log backups after restoration of the latest diff, each with no recovery but using with recovery for the very last transaction log backup.
Answer: No you start with the full backup which is the base for the most recent differential backup each time specifying norecovery, then restore the sequence of transaction logs in order oldest after the differential backup first also specifying norecovery only when the latest transaction log has been restored should you recover the database.

Sql Server Differential restore


To check whether the problem of a particular string being a member of CFG G is decidable or not, why can't we use a PDA?

Question: Why can't a TM simulate a PDA? Then we can easily construct a PDA P which is made from grammar G. And contruct a TM that simulates P to prove that this problem is decidable.
Comment: You have different question in title and in the body. Why do you think that TM can't simulate PDA? Is something missing in the excerpt pasted?
Comment: Due to epsilon transitions, there's no obvious upper bound on the number of steps that the PDA executes.
Comment: @Evil What I overlooked was that PDA's can't recognize all context free languages...only the deterministic ones.
Answer: Consider a pushdown automaton which has an $\epsilon$-transition which adds $A$ to the stack, and another $\epsilon$-transition that removes $A$ from the stack. Clearly, this PDA has accepting computations of unbounded length. There is no a priori bound on the shortest computation needed to accept a string of a certain length (though perhaps you can come up with such a bound if you're smart enough!).
Why is this a problem? Consider a deterministic Turing machine which runs all possible computations of the PDA, accepting if it finds an accepting computation, and rejecting otherwise. If there is no computable upper bound on the length of a computation, then the Turing machine will have to try infinitely many computations in the rejecting case, and so won't halt on rejecting inputs.
The same problem occurs with context-free grammars having unit productions (consider for example a grammar with the productions $A\to B$ and $B\to A$). After removing unit productions and $\epsilon$-productions, the problem goes away, and you can use dynamic programming to decide the language of the context-free grammar. This is (essentially) the CYK algorithm.


Is there any jquery plugin for facebook like button in a lightbox

Question: I am trying to find a plug-in for showing like our web site on facebook message for new visitors of my web page.

Is there any jquery based plugins for that ?
Answer: Any lightbox plugin will do the job, the content in the box you show is a standard facebook Like button with pictures (you just have to play with their generator settings).
This tutorial from line25 "How To Add a Custom Facebook Like Box to Your Site" walks you through it.
Answer: Fancybox v2 is pretty nice http://fancyapps.com/fancybox/ You will probably have to use the inline or ajax method so that when the modal opens Facebook can get the current URL for the like button. I'd first try using inline with fancybox


Any reason to scan gas giants?

Question: StarControl II (these days called Ur-Quan Masters) has quite a lot of grinding in terms of scanning planets for minerals, life forms and energy beacons. Gas giants seem to always produce empty scans. Is there a reason to ever visit\scan gas giants in StarControl II?
Answer: In general, no, there is no reason to visit gas giants. There are no resources to be found on them.
However, there is one important exception: One single gas giant in the galaxy should be visited as it holds something special.
SPOILER:

 The Slylandro are the only species who have a gas giant as a homeworld: Beta Corvi IV. Visiting this planet is necessary to put a stop to the random attacks by the red tumbling drones.
Comment: @jonathan, it is possible to get this information in-game.
Comment: Do you need to discover this specific case by yourself, or do you get a hint about it from some conversation? If the latter is true, then indeed I can stop visiting them...
Answer: Nope.
You can't land on them, therefore you can't collect anything from them. The best you can hope for is a moon with something worth collecting.

Any reason to scan gas giants?


if $\lim_{x\to 0} \frac{x^2\sin(\beta x)}{\alpha x-\sin x} = 1$ then $6(\alpha+\beta)=?$

Question: Let $\alpha, \beta \in \mathbb{R}$ be such that $$\lim_{x\to 0} \frac{x^2\sin(\beta x)}{\alpha x-\sin x} = 1$$ then what is the value of $6(\alpha+\beta)$
Answer: Applying l'Hospital:
$$\lim_{x\to0}\frac{x^2\sin\beta x}{\alpha x-\sin x}=\lim_{x\to0}\frac{2x\sin\beta x+\beta x^2\cos\beta x}{\alpha-\cos x}$$
Since the limit in the numerator is zero, it must be the same in the denominator, so $\;\alpha=1\;$ ...Can you take it from here?
Comment: @ResearchEngineer No intuition at all: we **are given** that the limit equals $\;1\;$ . If $\;a\neq1\;$ , then the limit is zero over non-zero = zero...! Thus it **must** be that also the denominator vanishes and thus we can use l'Hospital once again.
Comment: @ResearchEngineer Because $\;\alpha-\cos x\xrightarrow[x\to0]{}\alpha-1\;$ , and since this is zero then $\;\alpha=1\;$ .
Comment: @ResearchEngineer In the right hand of my solution, the numerator clearly tends to zero when $\;x\to0\;$ , right? If $\;a\neq1\;$, then the whole overall limit is $\;\frac0{\alpha-1}=0\;$ , and this contradicts what you're given! Thus, it **must** be that $\;\alpha=1\;$ so that the denominator on the right side equals zero, and thus you can do l'Hospitale once again (in fact twice) .
Answer: You can rewrite your function as
$$
\frac{\beta x^3}{\alpha x-\sin x}\frac{\sin(\beta x)}{\beta x}
$$
If $\alpha\ne 1$, this also becomes
$$
\frac{\beta x^2}{\alpha-\dfrac{\sin x}{x}}\frac{\sin(\beta x)}{\beta x}
$$
Note that the second factor has limit $1$ and the first factor has limit $0$ (the numerator has limit $0$; the denominator has limit $\alpha-1\ne0$).
Thus if the limit has to be $1$, we need $\alpha=1$.
Now it should be well known that
$$
\lim_{x\to0}\frac{x-\sin x}{x^3}=\frac{1}{6}
$$
(apply l'Hôpital or a Taylor expansion), so we have
$$
\lim_{x\to0}
  \frac{\beta}{\dfrac{x-\sin x}{x^3}}
  \frac{\sin(\beta x)}{\beta x}
=6\beta
$$
Now it's just an easy computation.
Answer: $$
\begin{aligned}
\lim _{x\to 0}\left(\frac{x^2\sin \left(\beta \:x\right)}{\alpha \:x-\sin \:x}\right)
& = \lim _{x\to 0}\left(\frac{x^2\left(\beta x+o\left(x\right)\right)}{\alpha \:x-\left(x-\frac{x^3}{3!}+o(x^3)\right)}\right)
\\& = \beta \:\cdot \lim _{x\to 0}\left(\frac{6x^2}{6α+x^2-6}\right) (\text{so } \color{red}{\beta \ne 0})
\\& = \beta \:\cdot\lim _{x\to \:0}\left(\frac{6x^2}{6+x^2-6}\right) = 6\beta   \text{ (with } \color{red}{\alpha = 1})
\\& = \color{red}{\frac{1}{6}} \:\cdot\lim _{x\to \:0}\left(\frac{6x^2}{6+x^2-6}\right) = \color{blue}{1}   \text{ (with } \color{red}{\beta = \frac{1}{6}})
\end{aligned}
$$
So, with
$$\alpha = 1, \beta = \frac{1}{6}$$
$$6(\alpha + \beta)=6\left(1+\frac{1}{6}\right) = \color{gold}{7}$$
Answer: HINT:
As $x\to0$, $\sin(\beta x)=\beta x+O(x^3)$ and $\sin(x)=x-\frac16 x^3+O(x^5)$
Comment: Of course this did not help: you're only interested in the final result.
Comment: @researchengineer What did you try to do with the hints?
Answer: Apply L'Hospital's rule repeatedly. Doing so just once shows that $\alpha$ must be $1$. Then doing so two more times shows that $6 \beta$ is the limit, i.e., $6 \beta = 1$, or $\beta  = \tfrac{1}{6}$. Thus, $6(\alpha+\beta) = 6(1 + \tfrac{1}{6}) = 7$.
Comment: @ResearchEngineer It is the same as mine, but he is giving you the final result without any further explanation.  Apparently you didn't want to learn stuff, only to get the result. You could have said that in your question...
Comment: @ResearchEngineer Of course "good" I am not your professor: in any of my classes you'd have to **show your work and explain it**, and not **only show the final result**. You can congratulate yourself again I am not your professor: you'd flunk *any* of my courses .
Comment: I don't mind if the solution is posted. Please check it, verifying the final answer on your own.
Comment: @ResearchEngineer Have it as you want: you don't even understand a trivial step in my proof, much less you can understand how come $\;\beta=1/6\;$ . You were only interested in the final result, not in how to achieve it. *Anyone* could have told you from the beginning that $\;l\alpha=1,\,\beta=1/6\;$ ...but if you write that in an exam or work, any **decent** college/university will grade you zero points. In this answer you were given the final result only after being hinted that l'Hospital must be used...in fact, thrice. What "clear explanation" are you talking about??
Answer: I tried to not use L'Hospitale to make the result more explicative:
First you should note that $\beta$ is not zero, because the resulting limit is not one.
Second:
$$\lim_{x\to 0} \frac{x^2\sin(\beta x)}{\alpha x-\sin x}=1 \iff \lim_{x\to 0} \frac{x^2\sin(\beta x)}{\alpha x-\sin x}-1=0$$
$$\iff \lim_{x\to 0} \frac{-x α + \sin(x) + x^2 \sin(x β)}{x α - \sin(x)}=0$$
$$\iff \lim_{x\to 0} \frac{-α + \frac{\sin(x)}{x} + x \sin(x β)}{α - \frac{\sin(x)}{x}}=0$$
$$\iff \lim_{x\to 0} \frac{-α + \frac{\sin(x)}{x} + x^2β \frac{\sin(x β)}{\beta x}}{α - \frac{\sin(x)}{x}}=0$$
if $\alpha$ is something different from 1 then the limit would not be $0$.
I think that the rest you should complete it.
Answer: Since the given limit $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{x^{2}\sin \beta x}{\alpha x - \sin x} = 1$$ is non-zero, it follows that both the numerator and denominator of the expression under limit operation are non-zero as $x \to 0$. Hence $\beta \neq 0$. Now taking reciprocals we see that $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{\alpha x - \sin x}{x^{2}\sin \beta x} = 1$$ or $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{\alpha x - \sin x}{\beta x^{3}}\cdot\frac{\beta x}{\sin \beta x} = 1$$ or $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{\alpha x - \sin x}{x^{3}} = \beta\tag{1}$$ We next use the well known limit $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{x - \sin x}{x^{3}} = \frac{1}{6}\tag{2}$$ (easily proved by Taylor's series expansion or L'Hospital's Rule). Subtracting $(2)$ from $(1)$ we get $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{\alpha - 1}{x^{2}} = \beta - \frac{1}{6}\tag{3}$$ and then $$\alpha - 1 = \lim_{x \to 0}\frac{\alpha - 1}{x^{2}}\cdot x^{2} = \left(\beta - \frac{1}{6}\right)\cdot 0 = 0$$ so we can see that $\alpha = 1$ and from $(3)$ we now get $\beta = 1/6$. Thus $6(\alpha + \beta) = 7$.

Most answers here try to deduce $\alpha = 1$ by using contradiction. It is much easier to use algebra of limits directly to reach the conclusion $\alpha = 1$.
Comment: @ResearchEngineer: I don't know how the website math9to12.org works. You can try to copy paste this answer there. I don't have any problem with this.


Ender3 printing tilted layers

Question: I bought an Ender 3, and after assembling it following the description and some YouTube videos and after correct leveling, I printed the test dog gcode on the micro SD card that comes with the printer. PLA 1.75 mm. Attached the image of the printing result. What went wrong? I didn't change or modify any settings what so ever, I just assembled the printer, and printed the test dog. Please help me, I am a beginner in 3D printing.
Comment: Hi and welcome to 3D Printing.SE! Do the belts have a proper tension? It looks as if the positioning is not very accurate causing some filament to be printed with an offset to the previous layer as seen by the bulged out filament.
Answer: This is an extreme case of repeated layer shifting in the Y-carriage, which can come from some pieces related to the carriage. Luckily for you, they are easily fixable.

The Ender3 Y-carriage has an eccentric nut to adjust the force the wheels press down on the V-slot. Adjust it (most likely loosen them a little) so it moves smoothly when the motors are off, but keep it tight enough so it does not tilt.
The belt in the Y-carriage might be loose. Tighten it till it gives a nice ring when struck.
Check if the gear on the Y-motor is tightened down correctly. If it slips or wriggles, the backlash results in the layers shifting.
The Ender3 has the cables to the gantry and the bed running across each other and quite open. Make sure nothing can be caught in them.
Make sure the gantry is parallel to the bed and stays so in moving upwards - adjust the wheels as needed.

To ensure this, make sure the lead screw is orthogonal to the gantry. Level the bed afterwards. You might need to adjust the motor mount, possibly by shimming.
Comment: Thanks. Turns out the problem was because of the z motor not behaving correctly. It moves up&down correctly some times it doesn't. I fixed the issue with putting some thick papers between z motor and the left z supporter.
Comment: @MinjunKim that reads to me like you fixed the alignment slightly.
Answer: Ender 3's have a reputation to be not quite square on the base. Make sure that your X, Y, and X axis' are all perfectly squared.

Ender3 printing tilted layers


How is the traffic in York opinion based?

Question: I got my question on traffic in York closed because it's apparently "primarily opinion-based", but didn't get any suggestions on how exactly that was the case.  I would have thought a question about the state of traffic in a particular location would be simple to answer without an opinion.  Can someone please let me know how I can improve this question?
Comment: The new wording it is objectively measurable and therefore, I reopened it.
Comment: Looks like people started voting to close when it asked if traffic was "better" then others sadly piled on even after you changed it to be a simple factual comparison
Answer: Agreed, when it was 'better' it was simply a matter of clarifying what you meant by that. 'Better' has been historically a dirty word on here, when people ask 'what's the best route to take' or 'the best lake to visit' etc.
I don't believe I voted to close though, despite being the one asking for clarification there - I was pretty sure what you meant, but wanted to clarify.
Anyway, it's back open again :)
Comment: Thanks - I'll note to avoid "better"/"best" even if it should be fairly obvious what it means.
Comment: @Mark Just curious, what other possible answers to what "better traffic" means are there? "By 'better traffic', I mean *more* traffic and congestion, because I'm a carspotter"? "By 'better traffic', I mean a higher percentage of yellow cars and cars with WWJD stickers?"
Comment: @user568458 like I said, I wasn't the one to close it, I just knew it was a 'dirty' word on here. You'd have to ask the others.
Looking at it he asked originally if better to drive on a weekday or weekend, so it was quite a different question than it is now.


Restated financial statements versus the original

Question: Is there any reason you would want to look into the original statements if you have the restated available?
Comment: I want to invest in stocks, and I am contemplating the reasons for why someone would want to look at the original statements if the restated ones are available
Comment: Could you elaborate how it is related to personal finance ?
Comment: Add that in your post to clarify. It doesn't seems so from your post.
Answer: Personally, I would want to compare the differences between the original sheets and the restated sheets.  A lot of times this is simply a recategorization of an asset or a liability or something but I'd be wary if a company has a habit of restating its financials.


What is the history of the word "lobby"?

Question: I would like to know if the word "lobby" would have been used in 1890s Georgia (United States) and to what exactly this word would have referred in that time.
Answer: The entry for lobby in the Online Etymology Dictionary is:

lobby (n.) 1530s, "cloister, covered walk," from Medieval Latin laubia, lobia "covered walk in a monastery," from a Germanic source (cf. Old High German louba "hall, roof;" see lodge (n.)). Meaning "large entrance hall in a public building" is from 1590s. Political sense of "those who seek to influence legislation" is attested by 1790s in American English, in reference to the custom of influence-seekers gathering in large entrance-halls outside legislative chambers.

So, to answer your question, yes, it could be used in 1890s Georgia to refer to seeking to influence legislation. If you mean for it to be the entrance to a public building, then it is much older than that.
Comment: That depends on what sort of lobby. From the OED it looks like the noun use of things like "the alcohol lobby" are new to the 20th century, but the verb related to lobbying for something is indeed as old as you describe.
Answer: The oldest still-extant sense of the noun lobby is, per the OED:

A passage or corridor connected with one or more apartments in a building, or attached to a large hall, theatre, or the like; often used as a waiting-place or ante-room.

The OED's first citation for that sense is from Shakespeare, and it continues to be used in those ways in contemporary English.
However, the extended sense of lobby seen in "the alcohol lobby" or "the anti-pollution lobby" and meaning

a sectional interest (see interest sb. (def#4)), a business, cause, or principle supported by a group of people; the group of persons supporting such an interest.

is a wholly modern one that arose only in the second half of the 20th century.  The earliest provided citation for that sense in the OED dates from 1952 in The Economist.  There are later citations from other periodicals like The Listener (which ceased publication in 1991) and The Telegraph.
Given that all citations are from periodicals, one might speculate that this is a "newsy" sort of sense.  It would certainly be anachronistic coming from the mouth of someone portrayed as being from the 1890s in Georgia.
On the other hand, if you are looking for lobby as a verb, the thing we talk about when speaking of lobbying organizations and meaning either of:

trans. To influence (members of a house of legislature) in the exercise of their legislative functions by frequenting the lobby. Also, to procure the passing of (a measure) through Congress by means of such influence. Also transf.

intr. To frequent the lobby of a legislative assembly for the purpose of influencing members' votes; to solicit the votes of members.

Then those sorts of uses arose during the earlier half of the 19th century in the United States, and so would not necessarily seem out of place in your chosen milieu.
Answer: The US Library of Congress has made available millions of pages of newspapers in their Chronicling America archive, and it can be searched by state and decade.
One would expect newspapers to be a good source for the political meaning, however a search of Georgia newspapers between 1890 and 1899 strangely reveals no results at all. The same happens searching for news, so clearly there mustn't be any Georgian newspapers indexed between those dates.
Widening the search to include neighbouring states gives 278 results. Here's a few examples that show it used as a group to influence policy, and as a waiting room or hallway (which just so happen to be in the senate and White House).

Bradford County telegraph., June 14, 1895, (Starke, Fla.)

Mr Palmer was probably entertaining or being entertained in the lobby when the general appropriating bill was read and passed in the senate, and he ought to read it now as a matter of information.

The news and herald., September 12, 1895, (Winnsboro, S.C.)

There has been a good deal of lobbying going on in regard this matter.

The watchman and southron., May 20, 1896, (Sumter, S.C.)

Whereas, the members of the supreme council have during its session been hounded and badgered by a large McKinley lobby, composed
  of members and non-members of the
  order, that used the most disreputable blackmailing methods to discredit the advisory board and to turn
  the supreme council into a McKinley
  ratification meeting, and, having signally failed to clear McKinley of the
  consequences of his pro-papal political record, to-day, alter two thirds
  of the delegates had started for home,
  attempted to take revenge by abolishing the national advisory board, and
  accomplished the same by a vote of 30 to 29 ;
Resolved, That we, the delegates
  in condemnation meeting assembled,
  denouuce the unwarranted interference of the paid McKinley lobby
  with the affairs of the order and denounce the cowardly denial by McKinley of his endorsement of the principles of the order given by him to our committee ;

Gulf Coast breeze., April 08, 1898, (Crawfordville, Fla.)

There was an intensely expectant crowd of newspaper correspondents, larger than often gathered at the white house at night, waiting in the lobby outside the president's office.

The Anderson intelligencer.,February 01, 1899, (Anderson Court House, S.C.)

The dispensary lobby invaded
  the hall of representatives and pursued
  members in the aisles. We saw one
  lobbyist ran after a member and catch
  him by his coat, eagerly appealing to
  him to change his vote. This nuisance
  became so intolerable and the
  confusion so great that on appeal to
  the chair the hall was ordered cleared.
  But even then the lobby did not retire,
  and was present to applaud a motion or
  a vote which told in its favor.
Answer: Copied from www.parliament.uk:

When there is a division (vote) in the House of Commons, MPs leave their seats and walk into whichever division lobby corresponds to the way they want to vote. By tradition, Aye is a 'yes' vote in divisions in the House of Commons. If MPs want to vote yes, they go into the Aye Lobby. The Aye Lobby is the room on the right of the Speaker, behind the Government benches. If they want to vote no, they go into the No Lobby. The No Lobby is the room on the left of the Speaker, behind the Opposition benches. In the House of Lords there is a Content Lobby and a Not Content Lobby.

The House of Commons has been around for a long time.


Find $f(2a-x)$ from the given equation $f(x-y)=f(x)\cdot f(y)-f(a-x)\cdot f(a+y)$ and $f(0)=1$

Question: I have been trying to solve an exercise based on the relations and functions. Right now I had stuck to a question based on functions. The question says:

A real valued function $f(x)$ satisfies the functional equation
$$f(x-y)=f(x)\cdot f(y)-f(a-x)\cdot f(a+y)$$
where $a$ is given constant and also $f(0)=1$. Then $f(2a-x) =$?

So far I know in these kind of questions we have to replace a specific variable with another value (maybe any constant or another variable). Like I had done an example previously.
Here is an example:

Question says, $f(x)+2f(1-x)=x^2$, Then what is $f(x)$?
Answer:
Given, $$f(x)+2f(1-x)=x^2\text.\tag1\label1$$
Replace $x$ with $1-x$.
So now equation is $$f(1-x)+2f(x)=(1-x)^2\text.\tag2\label2$$
So after multiplying equation \eqref{2} with $2$ and subtracting equation \eqref{1} we can get the $f(x)$.

I know This one is quite easier than that I had asked because my question would need much more substitutions.
Answer: Let $x = y= 0$. This gives $f(0) = f(0)^2-f(a)^2$ or $f(a) = 0$. Then let $x = 0$.
This gives $f(-y) = f(0)f(y)-f(a)f(a+y)$ or $f(-y) = f(y)$. Then let $x = a$.
This gives $f(a-y) = f(a)f(y)-f(0)f(a+y)$ or $f(a-y)+f(a+y) = 0$.
In this equation, set $y = x-a$. This gives $f(a-(x-a))+f(a+(x-a)) = 0$ or $f(a-x+a) = f(2a-x) = -f(x)$ as desired.
I dont think that finding a closed form is easy.
Answer: $\bullet \quad x=y=0$ $\rightarrow $ $f(a)=0.$
$\bullet \quad x=0 \rightarrow  f(y)=f(-y)$. i.e., $f$ is an even function.
$\bullet \quad x=y=a \rightarrow  f(2a)=-1$
$\bullet \quad y=2a \rightarrow  f(x-2a)=f(2a-x)=-f(x)$
Answer: Writing out $f(a-0)$ one realizes that $f(a)=0$. Knowing that it is easy to check that $f(-a)=f(0-a)=0$ and that writing out $1=f(a-a)$ leads to $f(2a)=-1$. With this we can write out
$$
f(2a-x)=\underbrace{f(2a)}_{-1}f(x)-\underbrace{f(a-2a)}_0f(a+x)=-f(x)
$$
But then I do not know much more by now.


partly obscured Rubik's cube

Question: I just came back from a beach which features a large Rubik's cube (2m high).  The base of the cube is not visible and the top is not coloured. The four vertical sides are each divided $3\times 3$ into coloured squares as they should be.  I was idly wondering: how can I tell if the patterns appearing on those four sides are actually possible for a real cube?  Clearly there are necessary conditions like having at most 6 different colours and at most 9 squares of each colour, but is that sufficient?  Can the legal configurations be characterized?
Comment: Very nice question! But clearly the criterion you mention is not sufficient, since the role of center, edge and corner pieces are relevant. You can't have two centers of the same color; can't have more than four edge pieces or more than four corner pieces of the same color; can't have two sides of the same edge or corner piece the same color.
Comment: Assuming all the constraints on having the right number of squares of the right type of the right colour, there is the question of whether the configuration is solvable. Alternatively, you could ask how many 'legal' colourings the obscured/uncoloured squares have, aside from the obvious choice of how to colour the two blank centre squares.
Comment: Matt Parker has a nice [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLAFNvxDPMw) on this topic.
Answer: Is this your cube?
http://www.redbubble.com/people/yolanda/works/6358896-rubiks-cube-at-maroubra
If so, it is not solvable. The dark blue (grey?) and white centred faces are opposite each other, but there is a corner with both colours.
Edit: the linked site's interface changed slightly, so now the two images are on different pages. See here http://www.redbubble.com/people/yolanda/works/6351863-surfing-fun-at-maroubra-beach for the alternate view showing the corner.
Comment: Yes, that's it (though it looked a lot cleaner today than in the photo). Pity it isn't solvable; it would have been easy for them to use a real one as a model.
Comment: New question: $\:$ What's the smallest number of face colors that could be $\hspace{1.8 in}$ changed to get a solvable cube? $\;\;$
Answer: You might be interested in this:
How to tell if a Rubik's cube is solvable
and Henning's answer.
Comment: @Zack: It's easy to first check if you have the right pieces based on the center squares. Then you can apply the test in the link.
Comment: Note that this is different from taking apart and reassembling an actual cube, since the real cube is properly coloured in some configuration and has just those 12 different arrangements. The sculpture is more like a repainted cube, which may still be unsolvable even if it satisfies the corner/edge/permutation parity - just take a solved cube and repaint two of the small faces. So there should be more configurations to discard as impossible - like the one at Maroubra.
Answer: Having two opposite faces obscured leaves a lot of room for filling in.  The primary criterion after making sure the number of facelets (squares) does not violate cardinality constraints is to check that adjacent visible faces of the same cubelet also do not violate cardinality and chirality constraints.  To wit, one should not have more than one red-blue edge cubelet, and the two corner red-blue cubelets must not both have a red-blue-X orientation
going clockwise when viewed from the appropriate angle.  Beyond that, it gets harder depending on what choices are made to color in the missing squares.  If you can partially unscramble the cube and there are two red-X edge cubes available, say, then if other constraints are filled, almost any parity conflict with edge cubes can be resolved by coloring in the appropriate colors.  The coloring of the corner cubes is an independent problem; you might look at the literature for the 2x2x2 problem, which should be computationally tractable.
Gerhard "Not A Rubik Cubic Expert" Paseman, 2012.10.09
Comment: Actually, there is a little more to worry about.  The coloring of the edge cubes must be consistent with the coloring of the corner cubes, e.g. having rb, by, and yr edge cubes implies an rby corner cube, for example.  So certain triples of edge cubes must also be considered. I suspect there will be no procedure that a human could use to test mentally a configuraion.  A number of small tests can detect some invalid configurations.  Gerhard "Not Looking That Mentally Tractable" Paseman, 2012.10.09

partly obscured Rubik's cube


Why does scp get stalled? How do I resolve it?

Question: When I attempted to copy a file (of size, ) over the network using scp I get a error <file> stalled
Why does this happen? How do I resolve it?
Comment: I like [rclone](https://rclone.org/) for this; I've never had any problems with it.
Comment: I canceled and restarted the scp command and the problem went away for me
Answer: This happens because scp is trying to grab as much bandwidth as possible, and any delay (by a firewall, etc.) can stall it. Limiting the bandwidth (with -l option) will fix it.
For example, you might want to limit the bandwidth to 1 MB/s (= 8192 Kbits/s):
 scp -l 8192 <file> <destination>

Source: http://www.aixmind.com/?p=1371 - Wayback Machine
Comment: @elmicha 8192Kb==1MB
Comment: Just to clarify: the example limits scp's bandwidth to 8192 Kbit/second. The source article's author suggests that this number should work fine for connections of upto 1 Mbit/second.
Comment: Worked like a charm :)
Comment: Thank you for your answer and the link to the source. But I think your source says that `-l 8192` means 8192 Kbit/second, and the `-l` might work up to 1 Mbit/second (which seems to be a bit outdated nowadays).
Comment: @Eknath Oops, you're right.
Comment: @LelouchLamperouge _8192Kb==1MB_ Not really, 8192 Kbit is 1 **k**iB!
Answer: I've managed to solve it by using rsync:
rsync -avz -e "ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null" --progress /tmp/bigfile.txt firstname.lastname@example.com:/tmp/

Answer: Any chance you're behind a Cisco ASA firewall? If so, turn off "sequence number randomization" and that'll help a lot -- also disable TCP Offload (ethtool -K $INTERFACE tso off gso off gro off) if you're on a Cisco ASA with Broadcom NICs in your server.
Comment: That's genius. Is that change permanent or do I need to put the command somewhere?

Just to be clear, you have to set that on your NIC, not on the cscotun interface.
Answer: Given the error message that we received when the scp stalled I suspected that it was the encryption that was failing.
"The authenticity of host 'myserver (10.10.11.12)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:+zkyskXlxVQ0kRorLW26pzprIYbsM4N3hbaDLz1RNpo"
With that in mind I ran "scp -c aes128-ctr /tmp/test.dan/bigfile.src myserver:/tmp/bigfile".   scp WAS successful with the alternate cipher.   Is there an issue with the default cipher blowing a buffer space?
Might try adding "-c " with an alternate cipher and see if it resolves your stall.


What KPIs can we measure for a BPM tool other than time to complete the process

Question: I am working on a BPM tool were i can define SLA for each workflow in regards to the time needed to complete the whole process and each activity within the process. but my question is what other KPI can a BPM system have other than the optimal time to complete the whole process .
In my case the KPI is the "maximum time to complete a process" and then i define the SLA to be 10 hours.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Best Regards
Answer: Basicaly, you may record all information you need, temporal or business information. Then, what information the tool allow you to access depends on what this system supports.
The BPMS I know best is bonita where you can access temporal informations (time someone pass on a task, time waited for a task, if the task is late, how long a case take to finish, ...), process informations (candidates, choices made, ...) and even business data.
Hope it helps


If you phone is seized, can you erase sim or stop them from cloning?

Question: If your phone (for example, an iPhone) gets seized by the police, do they have sufficient technology to copy sim card (or any data) even if you cancel you provider and put phone in lost mode? If so, is there any way to remotely wipe sim and/or data on said phone?
Comment: Unless you are storing data on the sim, there is little that they would want the sim for
Comment: The SIM is more or less just used to store the secret keys needed to log your phone onto your carrier's network these days. Any personal data like SMS and contacts are likely stored in phone memory by default unless you explicitly specify the SIM as the storage location.
Comment: If your phone is taken by the police it may be illegal to attempt to destroy data stored on it. However, like all legal questions it depends on the jurisdiction.
Answer: No you can not. On the other hand, with iOS 11.4 it will be possible to limit what a third party can do to your phone as the Lightning USB connection will go into restricted mode if you don't use the phone for a day.
Regarding your SIM: the data on it and the access it provides is trivial to get from the phone company. If they were interested in getting SMS messages or cloning your subscription, it would be much easier to just call the provider.
Answer: As far as I am aware they can't (legally) access your sim unless you give them the Pin details. If your sim doesn't have a password (different than phone password) then they can just put it in another phone. It is technically possible to crack a sim/puk number:
Is it possible to crack a PIN / PUK code on a phone SIM card?
But it is very hard to do just looking at the above. Not this is from 2014, so possible is that more advance cracking software exists AND that this exploit is been patched. So if I were to gable I would say access to your phone is safe.
However, finger authentication is different. Its covered under different laws and they can legally force you to unlock it or just lift a fingerprint and open it. So if your mate is doing illegal things I would suggest that he doesn't have finger authentication.
Comment: Depending on where you are you can also be compelled to reveal passwords
Comment: @jrtapsell That is true. I guess in OP's case the question about if they can get into your phone is more to do with the privacy laws than actual technology.
Answer: I think there is a misunderstanding in the concepts. If your friend is using an iPhone, there will be very little data in the sim card. It basically would only allow to use that number. It may contain sms and addressbook info, but on a smartphone, you most probably are storing this data on the phone itself.*
The sim is only giving usage of this number. This is not trivial in itself, as it could allow the seizing actor to receive your calls and sms, and could be enough for triggering password resets on other services (your should use recovery/second factor systems not tied to his phone number). However, that's already available to the telephone company, which could issue a new sim linked to the same number (or the calls/messages to your number could be rerouted through several ways). Obviously, once you cancel it, that sim gets useless.
Note 1: You could store that data in the sim if you really want, but it's quite unusual.
Note 2: There may be old data in the sim, before your friend started using this smartphone. As it is unused (transfer them to the terminal if it wasn't already done), they can be deleted in advance, so there is nothing there when seized.


What do you call a person who tries to be the first to answer and/or answer the most questions on stack exchange?

Question: More specifically, those on StackExchange or similar Q&A sites that seem to be trolling (as in fishing) for new questions to answer solely for the potential reputation gained and/or to be viewed as a subject matter expert and to reap the rewards of the resulting stardom achieved from such activity.  It seems that some view themselves as StackExchange rock stars in reading some responses and votes to remove questions that imply they are upset because the person asking the question has wasted their time and was unworthy of their attention.  These types most often have the first response to a question and it is within moments of the question being asked.
I'd like to get the phrase coined for this annoying behavior if it doesn't already exist.
Comment: Does anyone really want to be viewed as a subject matter expert here? :/
People commenting just for the sake of earning reputation would be called 'rep-whores' to answer your query.
Comment: Actually, you've described several different behaviors there, and my impression is that there is little overlap between the categories -- a single individual tends to stick to one or two of the half-dozen different stereotypes.
Answer: In first.  One term for it is "gunner."  Another term is "rep whore." A related question was asked here.
Comment: Ha ha!  Not lame, @user1783711, but definitely a thinly veiled rant! :-)
Comment: nice... couldn't have been more than just a couple seconds after posted :)  only thing that would have been better is if you would have verbally abused me for the lameness of my question.
Comment: Curses, foiled again thanks to people like Kristina seeing through the veil... ;)
Answer: "rep whore" is certainly closest to the mark.  They're usually part of a larger tribe that I call a "kangaroo cabal,"  which is typically made up of half people who have absolutely nothing better to do in their lives than be "king of the heap" in stack exchange, and the second half of each tribe is fake users...sock puppets.
They exist in all the different boards.  They follow each other around and upvote their own answers, and downvote all others.  When it first happens to you it's annoying, until you realize that the rep point thing actually matters to them, because they have nothing else in their lives that's meaningful.
Answer: What's wrong with glory grabber?
Perhaps such a person did not get much recognition from his mother when he was a kid and would say to her, "Mommy, see what I can do," and then he'd do a cartwheel. The mother yawns and looks away. This is purely conjecture on my part, but it could happen!
We all need and crave recognition (some folks more than others, obviously). The line between a normal need and a neurotic need for it is sometimes hard to draw. Has not a single contributor to this--or any similar site--not ever bragged to someone, "Oh, I have a reputation of 80,000 on __________ site!" (shades of "Mommy, see what I can do!").


Environment to do updates to legacy (4.7) version of WP while staying on php 5.6?

Question: So, I think I know what needs to happen but I wanted to get the opinion of the community and hopefully some more experienced people. I have to do content and theme updates to a site still running php 5.6. Because of a custom built app that interacts with the site, we can't currently update the php version, although we know this is a security no-no. So, I need to be able to keep the WP codebase compatible with php 5.6. The site already has the update blocking plugin on it, but I assume I would need to have a custom container for local development and a droplet or other VPS for showing to be able to show the updates off before pushing them to them to the live site. Is that right? Are there any shortcuts here? any chance the site will run on a php 7 server? I think most of the changes I need to do are just JS/front end stuff, so I'm hoping to take the lazy devops route here if possible.
Answer: nizz0k,
so not sure exactly what you are looking for but I will give it a try. If you have not updated your WP core or any of the plugins running on this PHP5.6 server then most likely you will have some issue/issues trying to run this same code without any updates on a PHP 7.0 server.
What this issue will be of course is hard to tell as I have no idea what plugins you are running. Here ares some issues I have experience over the past years jumping from PHP 5.6 to PHP 7.0 to PHP 7.2
I have not had my WP site crash but I have many PHP warnings go off. I have also had some things not function properly and some plugins functionality breaking, custom theme templates not working right etc..
The only way for you to know this and figure out everything is to spin up a PHP 7.0 server, if that is your version of choice and place a copy of your site and start updating one item at a time. Turn on debug and start fixing any issues. Then you can get your WP site updated and running on PHP 7. This custom PHP application will also need to be eventually done the same as the site.
This is the only way I see moving your current stuff over.
Comment: question is more about considerations for setting up an environment to stay on php 5.6 without getting forced to upgrade. I need to do the updates on the legacy system and keep it locked at a php5.6 friendly codebase. I can do this on my local and test servers, so I guess that's the route for the moment.
Comment: nizz0k, so yes, depending on your hosting, you can have  dev/test site on a php 5.6 server with your legacy php code and WP site and turn off ALL WP automatic updates and of course do not do any updates from  the WP admin.  But my question is: Is you current Live site and this legacy code still running on PHP 5.6? PHP has Ended the Life of PHP 5.6 at the beginning of this year. So that is why my suggestion of you needing to eventually, move your current WP site to a more secure updated supported PHP version and then convert your legacy code over at some point.