Changing login method from email/social to One-time password

Question: There are existing users who login with their email or social accounts. How will existing users login if we get rid of social and email login?
Answer:
As Nash says it is better for legacy users that you let them login with their old method but if you cant.

You should invite your existing users to migrate to new form of login.
Explain them why the change.
Ask them to migrate their user.
Notify them the confirmation of the new way for login.

But as I say. The better is to let the two ways available.
Answer: Your options are:

Keep email and social login option for legacy users: Don't allow them for new users, though.
Notify old users via email or in the application of the migration: Tell the users that they need to change their login method until day X (This is also what a lot of banks have to do if they requirements for login change).


Is there a rocket that is publicly in the process of being certified to carry nuclear payloads to space?

Question: As it currently stands in the US, only 1 rocket has the proper certification to carry a nuclear payload to space, and that is Atlas 5. (At least, this was my last knowledge). Atlas is nearing end of life, are there any other rockets that are in the process of being certified?
Comment: LOL, I was reading my answer to that. The question I'm wondering is if there has been work to doing that extra piece, there are 4 rockets that are category 3 certified, but to my knowledge only one of them is actually certified for nuclear payloads to this date.
Comment: similar to https://space.stackexchange.com/q/17518/40489 "What does it take for a launcher to be nuclear-certified?" - oh wait, you answered that one
Comment: Presumably with the renewed interest in NPS's, and Vulcan Centaur's perceived replacing of the aforementioned launchers, that would be the next to be certified. I cannot find any information on SpaceX being interested in this for their FH.
Comment: More of a guess, but probably the late-stage development of SLS, with the payload capacity for a nuclear payload and it's related shielding and complications, and the NASA administration would probably be the first in the US to be able to certify the nuclear payload itself.
Comment: What about all nuclear ballistic missiles?
Comment: @Nightrider: Nope, just orbital capable rockets for satellites and space probes.
Comment: related:  [the NERVA-successor X-NTRV is planned to launch on a Falcon 9](https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/nasa-seeks-to-launch-a-nuclear-powered-rocket-engine-in-four-years/) though that's all early yet
Answer: If the below is so, I wonder where they are at the moment on this.
Not sure how valid this is, but came across this document from July 2021:
https://www.nationalacademies.org/documents/embed/link/LF2255DA3DD1C41C0A42D3BEF0989ACAECE3053A6A9B/file/DBBF2EFF80F894F223DF91F32AF5C87DFD4082914325?noSaveAs=1

SLS NUCLEAR LAUNCH

SLS has engaged the RPS Office on the topic of Nuclear Certification.
Nuclear Certification, which satisfies NSPM-20, is the responsibility of the payload
Work begins 6 years before the mission
Payload cooling is critical
DDT&E may be required for the fairing

SLS RTG Assessment (Underway)
Assessed Numerous permutations given input from the science study teams.
No major disconnects identified.
Participation from GRC/LaRC/KSC/MSFC/IN

Which hopefully supersedes this note:

launch
vehicles must be certified specifically for launching
nuclear material, which is expensive. The SLS rocket, for
example, has not been certified to launch nuclear material.

https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/c/cu/current-status-and-future-of-space-nuclear-power/nets-2018-lal-space-nuclear-status.ashx?la=en&hash=4595B1C941352626CBEED30371CC1F05
additional:
Launch Approval Processes for the
Space Nuclear Power and
Propulsion Enterprise
https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/l/la/launch-approval-processes-for-the-space-nuclear-power-and-propulsion-enterprise/d-10910.ashx
Comment: Just aside, 'work beginning 6 years before mission' matches NASAs current plan to launch dragonfly in 2027.
Answer: I am not aware of any public announcement for any launch vehicle to pursue NASA's nuclear certification, however, whatever launch vehicle is selected for NASA's Dragonfly mission to Titan (launch in 2027) will necessarily have to be nuclear certified to launch the RTG.
I would speculate that ULA's Vulcan is very likely to pursue NASA's nuclear certification. There is no reason to think that Blue Origin's New Glenn or SpaceX's Starship would not do so as well.
Note that NASA's Category 3 certification is a prerequisite for a nuclear payload certification. This requires at least 3 (or as many as 14) consecutive successful launches by the launch vehicle, so none of those three is eligible to start doing that yet.
Note: The SpaceX Falcon 9 is Category 3 certified, but the Falcon Heavy is not.
Comment: Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer).
Comment: Falcon Heavy is Category 3 certified. Psyche requires it, among other missions. Also, some of the DoD launches are equivalent. The path to getting a second similar rocket Category 3 certified is much easier than the first one.
Comment: Falcon Heavy has been certified for NSSL (National Security Space Launch) launches but not yet, to my knowledge, for NASA Category 3 launches. There was a fairly big deal made of Falcon 9 being certified to Category 3 by NASA LSP (Launch Services Program) back in 2018 and I would expect similar when the Falcon Heavy gets certified.

NASA requires a minimum of 3 successful launches of the common configuration of a launch vehicle, that happened for Falcon Heavy in November 2022. They should currently be undergoing Category 3 certification for the Psyche launch.
Comment: Europa Clipper is 100% a Category 3 mission. Psyche is as well. Both will launch on Falcon Heavy. They didn't make as big of a deal, but it is certified for 3 missions, or at least close enough to win contracts.
Comment: It is possible to compete for missions they are not yet certified for, so long as they will be certified by the time that mission launches. I'm reasonably sure that's the case here, given I cannot find any source that says the Falcon Heavy is Category 3 certified.


What title do you hold after you've defended but before you graduate?

Question: Two friends successfully defended their dissertations yesterday, and many people have congratulated them, calling them Doctor so-and-so. I explained to my wife that they actually don't have that title until the graduation ceremony, that it's similar to a President-elect, who isn't called the President until they are sworn in. So, what title does a doctoral candidate take after they've defended but before they graduate?
Comment: See this: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/12447/5674
Comment: possible duplicate of [When can you call yourself doctor?](http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9925/when-can-you-call-yourself-doctor)
Answer: There isn't a formal, universally accepted title here. The general standard has been to call them "Doctor" since everything else is in principle a formality.
The only other note that I'd make is that it's not commencement that makes the student in question a doctor, but rather conferral of the degree by the university. Some universities may confer degrees multiple times per year, but only have one commencement ceremony.
So, I would not include "Ph.D." next to my name, but in the education of my CV, I'd write "Ph.D. (to be conferred Month Year)," as that is entirely accurate representation of the state of affairs.
Answer: Formally, they don't take a title before the university awards it, and the awarding is usually done by handing out a certificate stating the title (independent of whether that involves a ceremony or not).
In informal situations, it's nice to address them with the title because they are usually happy and proud of their accomplishment, and what remains to be done before they actually get the title is more or less a mere formality. But you shouldn't put any doctoral title on name tags, staff directories, or anything formal like that before they actually get the document.
Comment: I suppose this is similar to me calling myself a "dad" even though my daughter won't be born for another two months?
Comment: @JonathanLandrum Yes, that's a nice comparison. Everybody will be fine with that, but you can't put it down in any official documents yet.
Answer: In most countries "Dr" is an honorific (in Germany I believe it is a legal title and part of your name) that is typically used when referring to individuals that hold certain types of degrees (most doctorates but not all, for example holders of the JD degree are not typically called doctor, and some non doctorate degrees, for example a BMedSci in the UK). As it is an honorific I think it is perfectly reasonable to bestow that honor to someone during a party to celebrate a doctoral defence. Similarly when seeing someone the first time after the defence using doctor is a nice why of honoring them. In some countries one can pass the defence and still need to make substantial revisions. I would use the honorific as long as the person passed.
In non-formal situations I would avoid it, but then again I avoid using the honorific even for people with doctorates. In formal situations where honorifics are being used I would definitely avoid it. I think it would set a bad tone to go to a job talk an allow yourself to be introduced as doctor. In that situation I would deflect the honorific and say "not yet"
Answer: In the (British) English Language the correct name for someone who has qualified to graduate but has not yet done so is a graduand.
One could formally say you are a doctoral graduand, but only other academics would understand.
Also, at the ceremonies in British Universities, the point at which you hold the title is when the Chancellor (or similar awarding officer) intones the word "I award upon those students who have qualified the degrees listed in the official record.. etc".  Until those words have been said, whatever handshaking and parading has happened, you do not have a degree!
Answer: In Germany, it is "Doctor Des." standing for Doktor Designiert (designated doctor)


Is a cracked roof title considered cosmetic

Question: I'm in the inspection step when buying a new property. The inspector found a few cracks on the roof. It's a tile roof and is 23 years old. A roof leak was found but it only reaches the attic... How much time realistically before I need a new roof and are the cracked titles considered cosmetic or should they be fixed or credited before I close?
Comment: What is the tile material?
Answer: Tile roofs can last anywhere from 35 to 50 years, depending on the roofing material installed under the tile. Cracked tile often happen from people walking on them during pressure cleaning or gutter cleaning. Some cracked tiles could even be from the initial installation as inspectors don't usually inspect each tile.
There are special adhesives designed to fix a cracked tile. It is applied with a caulk gun and prevents you from having to break loose the old tile to remove it, which can damage and crack the membrane below.  The adhesive comes in many roofing colors.
You should definitely get the roof leak that you found corrected before closing.
Answer: Ask the owner to fix the cracked tiles by settlement date. Tiles crack, it is just a part of the  maintenance. My house also has tiles and one cracked during a heavy hail. Make sure you check your roof at least once a year or after storm/hail etc.


How to reactivate AdSense account?

Question: My website was not approved on AdSense because of lack of content. Yes my mistake, but now I have added content and still do. But I can't find a way to resubmit the request to AdSense to be accepted and show Ads.
Please let me know what stepts should I take to activate Google AdSense?
Answer: Attempts to correct the content that go against the rules, and then sends a request for revaluation in Google with this form
Comment: the form sais:"Please do not use this form if your account has never been an active AdSense account."  My account had admob, so don't know what to say about this.
Comment: The message I get in adsense is: "After reviewing your application for .......com, we're unable to accept you into the AdSense for Content program at this time."
Comment: I have submitted the form you suggested, but they replied that my account was never been active. So it's not the right form.
Do you have any other solution for resubmiting my application for adsense after I got rejected because of insufficient content? (now i added content on my website)
Comment: Argoment of your website ?
Comment: sorry Daniele, I don't understand what are you asking. You mean what is the website-address?
Answer: The email you received when you you were rejected should have included these instructions for reapplying:

To update and resubmit your application, please visit
  http://www.google.com/adsense and sign in using the email address and
  password you submitted with your application. Our specialists will review
  your account for compliance with our program policies, so please make sure
  to resolve all of the issues listed above before resubmitting.

How to reactivate AdSense account?


Pros and Cons of a BCS integration versus a Custom Integration

Question: What are the pros and cons of using the BCS to integrate an external system into SharePoint versus a custom integration.
Comment: You will find a discussion here:
http://www.layer2.de/en/community/FAQs/BDLC/Pages/Feature-comparision-sharepoint-external-list.aspx

Think its not about "custom" only. Possibly a 3rd party app can do more compared to OOB BCS, especially with SharePoint 2013 or SPO/cloud. 3rd party tools avoid programming, and can offer all native list features, e.g. search, change notifications, workflows - not only displaying external data on SharePoint surface...
Answer: Pros
End User

Business Data Web Parts & External List can render data out of the box
Enterprise & FAST Search Integration with Managed Property Mapping support
User Profile Synchronization
Office Integration via External Data Column
Office Mapping for Tasks,Contacts and Calendar
SharePoint Workspace Support
Single Sign on Support
Workflow support via External Data Column and External List

Developer

Visual Studio Tooling Support
SharePoint Designer Support
Out of the box support for existing SQL Databases & WebServices
.Net Assembly Connector can connect to any other datatype
Server side API to develop custom web parts against
Client Side API to develop custom client integrations against
Write once work against any data source controls are possible

Cons
End User

Out of the Box Web Parts look outdated
External Data Column data needs to be refreshed

Developer

Generation and Maintenance of Model file is time consuming.
Data Model does not support subclassing.
Writing controls that work against any data source is time consuming.
Answer: Fabian Williams had a related post about the topic (BCS vs Alternates) a few months ago -
     http://www.sharepointfabian.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=202


What is the name of this filter?

Question: I am having this simple function which acts on two state variable $s_t$ (states being $\{0,1\}$, boolean in sense), and I am evaluating it in discrete time steps. The function is $f_t=1$ if $s_t$ has been $1$ for last $W$ samples (some fixed window size), and $f_t=0$ otherwise. So basically this will set the output to active if the input signal has been active for certain amount of time/samples. Is there some name or category for this? I thought it is latching but according to definitions on web it seems latching is more about delaying the signal, instead of asking "was the signal delayed on input".
Comment: latching isn't about delaying, I'd say. It's about acquiring, and storing, the state of an input on a specific condition, for example on a rising clock edge.
Answer: There's no known name for this kind of filter in the signal processing world, as far as I know – and what good would such a name be, anyway?
So, I'd describe it in a signal processing context as "discrete state moving window sum with threshold", since it's a non-linear filter (and not much of a signal filter, if you ask me!). Simply because that's how I'd implement it: Sum up the last $W$ states, and output a 1 iff the result is $W$.
If you leave the realm of signal processing and think more of the basic electronic circuits that implement that, or by the purpose: You could call it a watchdog, or a digital anti-ringing, or a self-resetting cycle counter with a threshold, for example.
Your approach with the latch is from the latter category of names; "latch" is not anything that I'd call a filter in a signal processing context. Especially, the functionality you describe is not a latch (alone).
Comment: The purpose for which it was used in my case was to ensure that an action is triggered only after some input condition is stable for some time, so that it is not triggered by some random fluctuations... The watchdog seems to be close (although it feels a bit of negated). Anyways I am fine if it has no name, just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something familiar/commonly used.
Comment: no, "watchdog" is usually meant to "watch" that e.g. a CPU hasn't crashed, and if it did (e.g. the "I'm in decode stage" flag is on for 10 cycles), reset it. What you seem to be describing is something that removes ringing (as in: when you press a button, it might lead to the input of a microcontroller oscillate from low to high, and back, for a couple of milliseconds, don't count each one of the low-high transitions as isolated button press)
Comment: Yes that anti-ringing is pretty much what I am after then, I guess. In the current system this functionality/filter (whatever) is called Delay, which did not make sense to me, guess I will rename it to some AntiRinger or something (although it sounds horrible :D )
Comment: "Delay" isn't that wrong – technically, you *could* implement this as an "self-resetting monostable", which *is* a delay.
Comment: Problem with "Delay" was also that people expected it to delay the signal, like it would give you the value from several samples in past (not sure what use that would be though), which is not what this does. There is also a function "Stable" which would fit perhaps as well, but that is more general (being within some min/max bounds for some time), but anyways thank you, you gave me a lot to think about, I will utilize that.

What is the name of this filter?


How can I reduce the size of the picture onthe detailed product page on Magento Go?

Question: I'm preparing a store on Magento Go to sell products for which the picture is not really significant. I thus would like to reduce its size on the product view, detailed information beeing inserted in the descritpion.
I'm currently using a standard theme.
Is it possible to define the size of the picture displayed, and how?
Or maybe some particular themes are already made to display small view and not large picture?
Does anyone have any idea?
Thanks?
Comment: I hope this link will be helpfull to you http://go.magento.com/support/kb/entry/name/image-type-and-size/
Answer: Go to Design -> Themes Editor
Click on customize for your current website theme
Click on catalog images.
Here you can change size of any image.
Reference Links : http://go.magento.com/support/kb/entry/name/resizing-catalog-images/ , http://go.magento.com/support/kb/entry/name/changing-the-size-of-catalog-images/


How to reveal type of material nodes in 2.8

Question: I'm having a hard time trying to figure out, which types of nodes were used in the creation of a shader/material in the node editor. I did download a Blend file from the web and was curious to analyze the shaders and nodes, but when I open the Node Editor I can only see the custom names of most nodes, and not their "type", which I would need to reconstruct and explore.
For example: I got a , which outputs a Factor and has a Texture, Thickness and Indentation. But I cant really figure out, which node this actually is.
Any help would be much appreciated!
Comment: It looks like a node group, if you select it and press tab you can get into, ctrl G to group nodes, ctrl alt G to ungroup
Answer: I think the question applies even if the nodes are not in a group. I think the question is about how to know which node the user needs to create (for example an IMAGE TEXTURE, or a NORMAL MAP), based on a existing shader setup.
To know a node type, in Blender 2.92, just press N in the SHADER EDITOR, and in the SIDEBAR, the node original name (or the node type) will be there.
Answer: This seems to be a Node Group.
It is not a node by itself - rather a kind of a directory/folder.
It contains a node tree, with different inputs and outputs.
To enter or leave it press ⇥ Tab or the little top right arrow
Inside of a node group.

It is used to organize complex node trees, or sharing node trees across materials.
You can also rename your group, or the nodes inside of it - so it's easier to navigate.
Further reading:
Node Groups Page in Blender Manual


Can't upload unmanaged package

Question: I created unmanaged package and when upload it I receive the following error: "Dependent class is invalid and needs recompilation: Class PageMessageComponentController Method does not exist or incorrect signature: {method_from_existed_class}". Class PageMessageComponentController is not exist (deleted long time ago). I checked and can't find it in developer console
Answer: This error is telling you that you have a class that called a method from the PageMessageComponentController class. As an educated guess, I would say that you wrote another class that provides unit tests for this class, and you forgot to delete that class as well. Use the Developer Console in Salesforce to search for PageMessageComponentController (Edit > Search in Files), and you should find the code you need to modify/delete.
Answer: Do you parent package for this one? because I think otherwise you wouldn't able to create a version with errors.
So you need to first install the parent package and this one
Answer: I pressed "Compile all classes" and find some errors in test classes. And after resolving I was able to upload the package.
However, I have no idea why it shows me an error in deleted class

Can't upload unmanaged package


How to create certificate for SslStream.AuthenticateAsServer()?

Question: I'm trying to write a server application that uses SSL to communicate. After accepting a connection, I believe I have to call SslStream.AuthenticateAsServer. However, this expects a certificate and I do not understand how to create one.
I followed the advice given in the answer to this question:

I ran the following to create a server.pfx file:
makecert.exe -r -pe -n "CN=localhost" -sky exchange -sv server.pvk
server.cer pvk2pfx -pvk server.pvk -spc server.cer -pfx server.pfx

Then I loaded it in code with:
certificate = new X509Certificate2("server.pfx", "password");

However, I did that exactly, and I get a CryptographicException saying "The specified network password is not correct.", which is patently false because I used the password x, which is very hard to mistype. What am I doing wrong?
Answer: How to: Create Your Own Test Certificate


When you are adding new pipes segments to existing lines and they are capped at the end(ex copper stub outs)? what happens with the air trapped there?

Question: I am in the process of adding new pex segments and I have this question:when you are adding new pipes segments to existing lines and they are capped at the end(ex copper stub outs)? what happens with the air trapped there?
does it get pushed out if I open the taps to adjacent sink (next room) or upstairs (bathroom)
Answer: These dead ends will immediately or eventually fill with water. How fast this happens depends on their orientation and whether water can pour in and air can escape back into the main branch and escape through a different fixture.
Sometimes air can remain trapped for a long time if the dead ends are pointed upward.
A closed off upward column of a foot or two is used in plumbing to absorb water pressure hammering.
When a nearby fixture rapidly closes (e.g. a solenoid valve in a washing machine), the water comes to an abrupt requiring a place for the kinetic energy to go, and the water would "ram" or hammer into the valve thus forming a water hammer. The hard hammering can be softened by providing an air cushion in the form of an air filled standing pipe with a dead end as a shock absorber.

However, it turns out that the air and water do mix over time, and the the length of the air column shortens in that upright closed pipe, eventually rendering this kind of water hammer arrester ineffective.
Today plumbers will install a spring or membrane based water hammer arrester. The membrane based absorber operates on the same principle as the dead end stand pipe, allowing a pocket of air and the elasticity of the membrane to absorb the shock. The membrane maintains the integrity of the air pocket by preventing the mixing of water with air.
Comment: Excellent answer thank you. Yes my lines went live a few minutes ago and I can feel the cold on the 3/4" pipe. No warm on the hot lines. However if I had leaks at least I should her the air coming (and later water) out which has not happen yet. I will be watching them for a while. I opened the main valve gradually to avoid a rush flooding of the pipes and make sure the new segments get flooded dradually. They are all below the main lines which are in the ceiling (this is a basement bathroom)


Do galaxies have a preferred orientation?

Question: This article: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2011/jul/25/was-the-universe-born-spinning asserts that the universe was "born spinning" and that there is a preferred rotation direction for galaxies in the universe.  My question is whether there is a preferred galaxy orientation in the universe, that is, whether there is a preferred plane for the galaxy disk?
Comment: You can compare the angular momentum vector of the plane of a disk galaxy to one another, so it's relative to one another.
Comment: Correct me if I'm wrong, but given that orientation is relative in space, how COULD there be a preferred direction?  When no one can say which way is up, who can say which way is clockwise?
Comment: galaxies seem to have a preferred orientation relative to their embedding large scale structure filaments http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.2816
Answer: There is no evidence for that. That's either a systematic observation error, or a random result within usual statistical fluctuations, compare this Q&A site.
Comment: Please sum up your links, since they can go down eventually.


Disable nested sorting in dojo enhancedGrid

Question: I'm currently trying to disable the nested sorting, as it does not pass the parameters for the nested sort to the store url (only the first sorted column gets passed over). I tried to set "nestedSorting: false" in the grid setup (programmatically), but the sorting is still being showed in the grid headers. Isn't it possible to disable the nested sort?
Answer: Please note if DnD is on, nested sorting feature will be turned on automatically, this is a precondition to use DnD, since you need to select and also sort a column - which could only be possible when nested sorting is on. Please see http://docs.dojocampus.org/dojox/grid/EnhancedGrid for more details.


Why use python over MATLAB?

Question: So in my bachelors and throughout my engineering degree, we did everything in MATLAB. But I've heard that many companies use python over matlab. Trying Python out for myself, it seems harder to use in every way; you have to load in modules while in MATLAB they're included by default, plotting is not included by default, indexing starts at 0 (okay cool, but why?), there is no transfer functions by default, and there is no nice way of carrying everything over between MATLAB and something like SIMULINK... So MATLAB pretty much seems superior in every way, why do so many companies apparently use Python instead?
Comment: They're just diffetent. If you are in a unix environment, you can mix and match them freely.
Answer: While I agree that MATLAB is far easier to use than Python with having a bunch of 'extensions' (if you will) already included, variable sharing / incorporation with simscape and SIMULINK (for control of multibody systems you're going to have a far harder time in python).. I think you are overlooking one major factor, and that is price:
https://nl.mathworks.com/pricing-licensing.html
On what I can find directly on the mathworks site, 800-2000 euros for 1 license key; for company wide licensing you need to request a quote. If your company is small, and multiple people will have to share files/data, the cost will start piling up. Python... is completely free, and you won't have to mess around with any licenses. So if you're not using specific toolboxes that MATLAB only has / don't have the capital, and you can get by with Python, it is the more practical alternative.
Comment: Man... I feel like a doofus now. That is so simple I did not even consider it, and I've been re-filling in my license key every year...
Comment: To be fair, there is a free (open source) equivalent to Matlab, called Octave, which has been around for over 20 years. It is not bad at all.
Comment: still octave doesn't have SIMULINK and a lot of the toolboxes of matlab. For most users though it's a solid choice

Why use python over MATLAB?


How to straighten PTFE tubes?

Question: PTFE tubes are typically delivered coiled up. And because they are quite stiff, they always want to spring back to their original curvy shape, making them harder to route properly.
Is there a way to straighten them out?
Comment: @tbm0115: But there are practical advantages to using the tubes, like **[1]** You can feed your filament from an almost entirely sealed container to keep out moisture, and **[2]** the moving print-head won't experience sudden forces pulling on the spool from various directions (causing artefacts in the print and tangles on the spool).
Comment: I've considered using a heat gun, but I'd like to be sure I can do it without damaging the tube. Has someone tried this before? (If you have, go ahead and create an answer, rather than replying with a comment.)
Comment: I just live with the bent-ness. If they are in the extruder, the tube straightens them. If they are a guide for the plastic then the filament straightens them as much as matters.. If you are having issues you might have too thick of a tube. Heatgun likely wont help due to the super high melting point.
Comment: @StarWind: I guess I don't like *how* they bend. In my setup, they sometimes get caught behind something while the printer is working. So I would like to exercise some control over that. One way would be to use a drag chain, but that seems overkill.
Comment: I hated the tubes! I ended up ditching them and mounting my filament directly above the printer to avoid using the tubes.
Answer: I just plugged the ends of tube and soaked it in real warm water for 5 minutes then stretched it out on a table. That helped then the hard part I spooling it up against the arch and soaked it again. This seem to work the best.
Answer: You could use a hairdryer to introduce a spot-bend where you need it.
Comment: Hi and welcome to SE.3DP. SE is a Q&A website. Could you expand upon your answer a little as it is a bit terse? Also, I've made it more of a statement, rather than a question.
Answer: A colleague of me puts spring steel wires in the tubes and leaves the tubes on the central heating for a certain amount of time (probably hotter than 60 °C).

How to straighten PTFE tubes?


Why are there "Jedi" and "Sith" tags?

Question: Is there a reason such specific tags in existence? I don't think anyone would try to check "Jedi" and "Sith" tags over "star-wars"..
Comment: Does Sci-Fi do regular tag maintenance?  Could be suggested during that, if there's evidence provided that these tags are indeed not all that useful.
Comment: Jedi and Sith seem like odd examples to pick out, considering we have a [tag:brain] tag.
Comment: @AnthonyGrist Jedi and Sith could be combined into Star Wars, while brain isn't a subcategory of one mythos. However, it seems to me there are a fair number of questions about Jedi and Sith, and many many more about Star Wars, so I can see Jedi and Sith being useful, especially if I had a question about one, and wanted to look for an already-asked version of my question before writing it up.
Comment: @Dronz Brain is a subset of [tag:biology], though
Answer: While I generally dislike over-normalization, or over-tagging, there are valid uses of the tags.
Currently jedi has 80 questions tagged. sith has 40. Granted, many of those questions can probably do without some of the Jedi/Sith tags they have.
The tags should be used to help specify or categorize the question. A question about the titles and ranks within the Jedi Order makes sense to be tagged with "Jedi". A question about a doctrine specific to the Sith makes sense to be tagged with "Sith".
Will anyone try to check "Jedi" or "Sith" over "Star Wars"? No, probably not. The same case could probably be made for a lot of tags which might be grouped within hierarchical tags (which we'll likely never get).
Comment: I used "Sith" tag in searching. Don't tell me the odds!
Comment: Note that tags help add material into the 'related' questions on the sidebar.  Tagging jedi or sith can help provide better quality related questions rather than just star-wars alone.  (Consider how poor the 'related' are on Stack Overflow when someone has a question tagged just 'java' compared to 'java' + 'for-loop' + 'algorithm-analysis')
Comment: For few questions (which can be counted on fingers), I don't think tags are necessary unless its for a franchise.

Why are there "Jedi" and "Sith" tags?


Can anyone identify this die with an 'a', a cheese wedge, a movie camera, a G-clef, a coffee cup and a moustache?

Question:
We have a random die, probably from a trivia game but we're not sure. Does anyone recognize it?
Comment: My first thought was Rory's Story Cubes but all images of that seem to be white dice.   There be other versions or clones.   I'd guess it some sort of story cube game but sadly can't find anything definitive.
Answer: This dice is from Hipster Dice.

BGG:Hipster Dice


Plasma confining with magnetic fields

Question: How is it possible to confine plasma inside a container? I know that plasma consists of a mix of charged particles, electrons, and the positively charged ionized atoms. Researching, I have found out that the Lorentz force (because of an acting magnetic field) is an important principle used plasma propulsion (which results in circular acceleration), and then is transformed into linear momentum to produce thrust. So if you had a gas, for example, hydrogen, for simplicity, which was then ionized and turned into plasma, it would then consist in a positively charged nuclei, and negatively charged electrons. If you desired to confine that plasma, to prevent it from contacting the container's border, you would use a magnetic field, with either the negative or positive pole surrounding the plasma container (supposing multiple magnets around the container), but it would then repel the nuclei if the positive side was facing the container, and attract the electrons (probably damaging the container), the same applying vice versa.
Note: this is not homework.
Comment: the reasons why this is almost impossible are given in Seife's book about the history of artificial fusion power.
Comment: Would a spiraling (electro)magnetic field be a possible solution to confining plasma? Or would it just result in the ions finally colliding against the container's border?
Comment: all sorts of things have been tried and failed. see anna v's comments below.
Comment: The basic idea would be to have the magnetic field lines wound inside the chamber avoiding its walls, but the particles don't exactly spiral around the magnetic field lines and, as niels said, there are considerable difficulties due to, among other things, several instabilities in the system.
Answer:
negative or positive pole [...] would then repel the nuclei if the positive side was facing the container, and attract the electrons

The poles of a magnet are not electric charges. There's actually a deep, beautiful connection between the electric and magnetic forces, but for now consider them independent: a force originating from electric charges, and a force from magnets, whose poles are called North or South according to how they align with the Earth's magnetic field.
The most important ingredient, then, is the behavior of electrically charged particles in a magnetic field, which is given by the Lorentz force:
A positive charge moving to the right through a magnetic field coming straight out of the screen will be curved down:

If the charged particle moves in the same direction as the magnetic field, there's no such force. And, in the general case, the particle will tend to spiral around the magnetic lines:

Knowing that, the outline of what it means to confine plasma magnetically is already in anna's answer, namely, to have the magnetic field lines wound inside the chamber in such a way as to keep away from the wall the particles spiraling around the field lines. As anna and niels point out, there are considerable difficulties due to, among other things, the fact that the particles only approximately follow the lines, as well as several instabilities in the system - not to mention that confining the plasma is only one of the requirements, you also want, for example, high enough plasma densities and temperatures.
Answer: The way plasma  can be confined  is by designing complicated magnetic field lines.
The plasma particles, positive or negative, spiral around those lines and thus can be manipulated and a geometry that does not touch the walls designed.
It is difficult to contain high energy plasma. For example see this article on Tokamaks which are used for nuclear fusion reactors that depend on plasma physics.

Plasma confining with magnetic fields


Swing JWebBrowser issue - SocketException

Question: I made a swing  app that integrates a JWebBrowser. It worked fine and it still does when run from NetBeans but suddenly when I ran it from dist folder-execution folder it gives me:
java.lang.RuntimeException:java.net.SocketException:Connection reset

This is the same message I got when I tried to run my Windows made java app in Ubuntu . How is that I am suddenly getting this error - exception and I was not getting it before when I was running my application?
What I did recently is that I installed Mozilla Java plugin - I thought this was the issue since JWebBrowser  uses Mozilla engine , but I deactivated Java Mozilla plugin and my app will not show the browser it shows it only when I  run it from NetBeans . What is this all about?
Answer: It seems that that problem was in the lower level of java installed on pc I was running my app .


Is it possible for a single user to route connections through several IP addresses?

Question: I have searched google for an answer to my question and can't seem to find one. Maybe you can help me out. Is it possible to use somebody else's IP addresses to post on a forum with? I am a moderator of a health website where we had multiple sock puppet accounts. Duplicate IP's associated with one user came from a Comcast static broadband account, A & T mobile account, a mail server belonging to a business, and a doctors' office.  I asked the member who the IP's were matched to what was going on. He said a friend of his who had been banned from our website had asked him to put software on his phone, his wifi, and his business that would make it look like he was posting from these addresses. That didn't explain the use of the doctor's office IP. Is this possible or am I being lied to? Thank you for taking the time to answer me.
Answer: (For clarity, I'll refer to the "banned user" and the "other user" in my response.)
The banned user could ask anyone, including the other user, to install software such as a proxy or a VPN that would allow him to route traffic through those computers.  Such software could be installed on routers, computers, or cell phones, so all of the sources you describe are certainly possible.  While I can't say for sure, it's possible that the doctor's office was visited by the other user and his phone connected to their wifi, resulting in the traffic appearing to come from that source.
IP address bans are quite fragile in this way.  There are many ways for someone who knows a little bit about technology to make their traffic appear to come from any number of sources -- public proxies, VPN services, TOR relays, private proxies, compromised servers, public WiFi, among others.  Beyond that, most ISPs in the US use a system (DHCP) that assigns IP addresses for only a period of time, after which the IPs may be rotated.  So not only might your banned user end up with a different IP address at their home, but the IP you have banned might end up being assigned to someone else who will wonder why they have been banned from your forum.
Comment: It was impossible that the Dr's office was visited by the other user according to the information I was given. The IP spoofer lived in another country. The home IP address still came up for the user a month after he said he removed the software from his devices.  Their home wifi address remained static. Does this software actually exist. My brother in law, a forensic computer expert told me he doubts it does.


Irish Setter or Cocker Spaniel?

Question: I'm currently learning about dog breeds and I would like to know which breed of dog the following is. Is it an Irish Setter or a red English Cocker Spaniel? Thanks.
Answer: This dog looks like a mix of possibly and English Cocker Spaniel and Irish Setter. The setter has longer legs, the English Cocker Spaniel has a shorter stout body.
This dog seems to be lacking the sleek, angular body of the setter, but it's legs seem to be too long to be an English Cocker Spaniel. To be honest, it looks like a mixture. More pictures are always helpful, to get a better look.
Answer: Given the high ears, the fur and the high legs, I suspect that this is a Cocker Spaniel with more hunting lines. I have a puppy of 7 months with the same characteristics.

Irish Setter or Cocker Spaniel?


how to access the bit fields of an registers in microcontroller

Question: I am working with PIC18f4550 micro controller . i have connected a lcd in 4 bit mode to port d<1:4> pins .So how can i send data  only to the 4 bits of port d <1:4>  register  without affecting (port d0,d6,d7 ) bit values.
Comment: -1 for messy question.  You won't tell us what PIC (does it have LAT registers, for example), clearly haven't even looked at the datasheet, and bits "<1:5>" (ususally written <5:1>) is five bits, not four.
Comment: -1 Too confusing...please revise.
Answer: There are five approaches that may be used on the PIC18Fxx parts to change some set of bits in a register.

Read LATx into W, mask off the proper bits and compute the proper value, then write the value back.  This will update all bits cleanly, but requires that no interrupt can write any part of the register.  All bits will update simultaneously.
Load W with the bits that aren't of interest, ANDWF the bits onto the register, load W with the desired values of the bits of interests, and IORWF the bits into the register.  All bits of interest will be cleared simultaneously, and then all such bits that should be set will be set simultaneously.  Interrupts may safely affect other bits of the register, or may modify bits of interest in the same way the main-line code is doing.
As above, but IORWF all the bits of interest, and then ANDWF with the a value that has all bits set except those bits of interest that should be cleared.  All bits of interest will be set simultaneously, and then all bits of interest that shouldn't be set will be cleared simultaneously.  Interrupts may safely affect other bits of the register, or may modify bits of interest in the same way the main-line code is doing.
Load W with the value of the register, XOR W it with the values of the bits of interest, AND W with the bits of interest, and then XORWF back to the register.  This will perform all updates simultaneously.  Interrupts may safely affect other bits of the register, but interrupts which change any bits of interest may have weird effects, even if the changes match what the main-line is trying to do.
Use a sequence of BSF/BCF instructions to modify bits as needed.  This approach will affect only the proper bits; the updates won't be simultaneous, but will avoid any inappropriate edges; combining main-line and interrupt operations won't have any odd side-effects.

Approaches #1 and #4 generate perfectly clean output; only approach #4 can safely be used with interrupts.  If the program were written in assembly language, approach #1 could safely interact with interrupts if code were written as something like:
<code>UpdateBits: ;  Call from main-line to write bits 0-3
  movf   LATA,w,c
  andwf  0xF0
  iorwf  NewLowerBits
  bsf    PortAWFlag,0,c
  mowwf  LATA,c
  bcf    PortAWFlag,0,c

Interrupt:
  movwff WREG,SAVED_W
  ...
  ...  ; Code to write bits 4-7
  movf   _LATA,w,c
  btfsc  PortAWFlag,0,c
   movf  SAVED_W,w,c
  andlw  0x0F
  iorwf  NewUpperBits
  movwf  _LATA,c
  btfsc  PortAWFlag,0,c
   movwf SAVED_W,w,c
  ...
  movff  SAVED_W,WREG
  retfie
</code>
I don't know that I've ever encountered any scenarios where this approach would be better than simply disabling interrupts before updating the port bits in the main-line, but if there's interrupt code that simply cannot abide the possibility of being delayed by about six cycles while the main-line updates the port, the above approach could work.
Answer: The process is very simple:
Read the datasheet.
Do what it says.

After step 1, you will notice several things:
The PIC has instructions that can set or clear individual bits in any register, including a port register.  Look up BCF and BSF.
Even without bit manipulation instruction, you can still set or clear individual bits in a byte by performing ORing and ANDing.  For example, ORing with binary 00101100 will set bits 5, 3, and 2.  Likewise, ANDing with 00101100 will clear bits 7, 6, 4, 1, and 0.
This PIC has a LAT register for each port.  That allows performing read-modify-write operations like AND, OR and bit set/clear without inadvertantly using the actual pin values as input, as apposed to the value you last tried to set the port to.  In your case, it seems you want to perform your operations on the LATD register instead of the PORTD register.
Answer: The OP tagged this question with [C]. So I'm going to assume they are using the C18 compiler. I think the easiest ways to access bits in a register is to use the types that are defined in the device header file for your processor. In your case that would be "P18f4550.h".
You can write the bits individually using LATDbits.LATD1, LATDbits.LATD2, LATDbits.LATD3, LATDbits.LATD4. To write them all at once use a mask like LATD |= (newValue & 0x1E). Reading individual bits uses similar nomenclature (PORTDbits.RD1).
Answer: I agree with Olin. Just want to add this:
If you don't understand how to use these instructions, you can check out the documentation of programming language which you use.
Comment: Olin is talking about assembly language, and these instructions are documented in the datasheet, which he already said to read.
Comment: I know that. But pic programming by using C language and variations is very frequent nowadays. In such situation, one does not simply read the datasheet and implement it by using high level language. He should also read the documentation of that high level language.


What makes a good recorded video poster presentation for an academic conference?

Question: A "video poster presentation" sounds like a logical impossibility, but now that conferences are online, they seem to be a thing.  What makes one effective?  How is this different from a recorded conference talk? What makes for good content?
Comment: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2330/what-are-some-general-good-principles-for-creating-a-poster-for-a-poster-session
Comment: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/116055/what-is-the-optimal-way-for-poster-presentation-in-conference
Comment: What in *your view* differentiates a "recorded poster presentation" from a recorded talk? To me, what makes a (live) poster presentation different from a (live) talk is the asynchronous nature (no start/stop, people come up at different points) and the interactivity (much more question-asking and tailoring presentation to individuals present versus a lecture-style talk). It seems like you need an answer to that before someone can answer your second and title question.
Comment: @BryanKrause I'm not sure what you want me to answer, but I am sure I don't know the answer to it.  Asking because I have zero experience with this format.
Comment: I am currently organizing an onljne conference that has a virtual poster session, but it is not acyncronous -- we put up the posters a week ahead of time and let folks write questions, then they can ask and be addressed during the session. This could be modified by gathering questions ahead of time and sending them to the presenter who can address them during the recording. This has several drawbacks though...
Answer: I am specifically answering the question of video poster presentations. This is not advice about making good videos or demos in general.
An in-presence poster presentation is a short oral presentation in front of a poster, with questions. The poster itself is a large surface usually divided into a small number of panels that the presenter can point to. You can functionally replace the oral poster presentation by a pre-recorded video, replacing the individual panels by a matching number of slides, and shedding a tear for the lost opportunity to answer questions.
Our practice therefore is to treat video posters as 5-minute oral presentations.
We find that the hard part is fitting a high-impact presentation into that time frame, whether it is for a poster or not. For guidance we use Christopher Lortie's "Ten simple rules for short and swift presentations" from PLoS Comput. Biol. 13(3), https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005373.

Plan a clear story
Provide only one major point per slide
Limit use of text
Use simple visuals
Develop a consistent theme
Repeat critical messages twice using different visuals
Use the principle of parsimony in explanations
Allocate more than one slide to effectively end the narrative
Use the final slide for contact information and links to additional resources
Use timed practice
Comment: OK, the edit made the answer much more relevant.
Comment: What does this have to do with video poster presentations?
Comment: "Plan a clear story" I've heard advice about "stories" for years and it's never once been useful.
Comment: When we make video poster presentations we treat them as recorded short oral presentations. How do your students do it?
Answer: First, this answer isn't based on experience of creating such things, but just on general principles. I assume that you want an audience to actually watch the video to the end and that what you have to say isn't so earth shatteringly novel and important that they naturally will. But also, I assume that what you want to say has value in itself, though more for some than others.
First, I think you have about 15 seconds at the start of the presentation to answer the viewers question "Should I continue with this or not?" But the answer has to be obvious from the presentation, rather than just saying outright "This is why you should watch." If you aren't immediately compelling, people will hit the "next" button. It isn't like a class where students are forced to sit and watch.
The last 15 seconds are probably also very important so that people have a succinct message to carry away - make it memorable.
Talking heads are boring. A video has an advantage over a live talk, of course, since interested watchers can hit rewind if they miss a point, but still, do something to avoid the talking head issue. An overly pedantic presentation will probably also induce watchers to move on.
I assume that the most interested people will have some way to contact you after the presentation so that you can get follow up. The format suggested by walkar in a comment sounds like it might be very good, so that people can ask questions after viewing and possibly get some synergy going. But I also assume you don't have control over format.
I'd suggest, actually, that you take some inspiration from an early science oriented TV show intended for children: Watch Mr. Wizard. It was a half hour of simple science done live. The wikipedia article points to some similar things that this show inspired. Some of the shows are available on [YouTube[(https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mr.+Wizard). And note that by using another person, in this case a youngster, as an assistant, Don Herbert avoids the talking head problem. You can have a "conversation" with an assistant that you can't have with the audience.

Background: I'm an old guy with hearing problems. I don't watch TV or depend on video much. When I do, I'm looking for visual impact and am quick to move on if the presentation starts out too slowly or gets boring. On the other hand, I'm interested in lots of things. If you catch me early, I might stick around. I don't need to take notes anymore, so won't, but a clear message about the key insight (the last few seconds) will stick with me and make you memorable.
Oh, and I never missed an episode of Mr. Wizard.
Answer: Online poster presentations are displayed on a small screen.  Usually the user interface makes it hard or impossible to zoom and scroll.  Therefore, poster graphical design does not work.  Instead, large fonts and a much smaller number of images should be used.  Essentially, the poster should look like a slide instead of a poster.


How to make links open in a virtual desktop browser instead of the second screen?

Question: When I use a monitor with my Mac, it's to watch videos and multitask. I'd have a Chrome window open on my main screen in a virtual desktop and another Chrome window open on the monitor. When I switch to another virtual desktop on my main screen, then open a web link, OSX always opens it in the monitor instead of the other virtual desktop. I interacted with the virtual desktop Chrome window last. How can I choose to open links in the virtual desktop?
Answer: This isn't decided by the last interaction, it's decided by window enumeration.
By default, an external link will open in the first window opened in a browser. [Last would be more helpful, but that's not how it works.]
The only way to really persuade this to behave is to close all your windows, open one, then move it to the other screen. Then open a second on your main screen.
This behaviour may change after a reboot, when the windows open again. If you find a pattern to this, then it's just easiest to not fight it & move the windows to where you want them visually rather than by the contents of each.
Comment: Well, that's stupid, as it defeats the meaning and intended use of a virtual desktop.

I want the browser links to open in **the current window I'm currently in**.
Comment: It's because the "intended use" of virtual desktops never included using any app on more than one desktop simultaneously.
Comment: How come? Are they "partially virtual" then? It's because Apple, who really should know better at UI design, is doing a poor service to their users. That's why.
Comment: Who knows why they made any given decision? Spaces hasn't been changed since the introduction of fullscreen. Then they played with split screen. Now they've moved on to Stage Manager. All designed for laptops with a single screen, really.
Comment: They haven't made any decision IMO. They simply didn't do the proper QA assurance / testing to virtual desktops; along with to other silly UI "decisions", by the way.
Comment: Well, complaining to me about it about it here isn't going to get it fixed, is it?
Comment: :-) Let's see. At least, it gives the issue some visibility?

Sorry for venting my frustration on you. I should really go on and create a proper bug fix / request for improvement at Apple. And, good luck with that!


Dissolve lines with same attributes that are connecting in QGIS

Question: I have a road network for a city. In that city, I have multiple roads with the same name and each road consists in multi-lines that are connected. In the end, I want a new line for each road, which means if I have three roads that have the same name I will have three parts. I tried dissolve but is not working properly, I tried after dissolve to use multipart to single part but is not what I want.
Comment: How did dissolve "not work properly"? Why is "multipart to single part" not desireable?
Comment: Hi, @Erik.  Thanks for helping.  if there are more than 2 lines connected at the same point then when doing multipart to a single part it's not keeping just a part consisting of that three lines but it creates three parts.
Comment: That still leaves the first question unanswered: How does dissolve "not work properly"? What are your settings? What outcome did you expect, which did you get?
Comment: The combination of them both doesn't bring the expected results. The dissolve work as intended.
Answer: Another solution could be the tool Explode Lines-
Under Vector geometry --> Explode Lines
You should have a separate line for each road segment, even if they have the same road name


Previewing changes to a Google Gadget with preferences

Question: I just finished building a map for my Blogger.com blog.  Now I'd like to convert it into a Gadget so that I can move it into the sidebar on my blog's design and share it with other bloggers.
Is there a strategy I can employ to test my gadget during development — preferably something that will let me make some changes, then refresh the page in my browser to test them?
Adding the gadget to a sandbox blog doesn't work; it seems like the XML file is cached, so I have to wait to preview changes (or keep changing the name of the URL to the XML file, but that gets irritating real quick).
I've added the Google Gadgets Editor to my iGoogle homepage so that I can preview the Gadget, and that almost works... except I can't specify values for my Gadget's preferences in GGE's preview panel, so it won't render.
Answer: Have you tried adding
<code> ?nogadgetcache=1
</code>
When you load your gadget ?


Is there a way to find out if hosted code on sourceforge is svn or cvs and script the download process?

Question: For instance, is there a way for me to use svn or cvs (and how to find out which?) for a project if I have their project page -- for example, http://sourceforge.net/projects/ecb/?
Answer: Looking on the Source page for that project, it gives the CVS command
cvs -d:pserver:firstname.lastname@example.com:/cvsroot/ecb login
Other projects that use CVS should follow the same naming convention. SVN looks to be similar:
svn co https://<project>.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/<project>
Answer: Something tells me you want to 'screen-scrape' to figure out which revision control a project uses. The project page has the link to the main 'Code' page which you can grep out by looking for the word scm. For e.g:
The command (in unix, say):
curl -s http://sourceforge.net/projects/<project-short-name>/ | \
grep 'scm/?type' | sed 's/\(.*type=\)\([a-z]\+\)\(&amp.*\)$/\2/g'

Should get you the words svn or cvs or both (or even other words ?) from the html links. This is just to illustrate how you can figure out the SCM a project uses programatically. You might have
to write more or less code depending on where you want to 'script' this i.e. Questions like, is it on unix or windows ? is it for an eclipse plugin ? and many more come to mind.
Disclaimer: Many websites consider screen scraping a violation of the Terms of Service. Please check the sf.net policy to see if its ok to scrape the web-page before you do.
Comment: This is indeed be nice but I will stick with manually looking up for now...


What is meant by Ems? (Android TextView)

Question: What is meant by Ems (related to a TextView)? For example in
android:ems     setEms(int)

Makes the TextView be exactly this many ems wide.
Comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Em_(typography)
Comment: Anyway, that's good to have a look at google before asking here: the answer is on the top results if you enter "ems android".
Comment: Yes I searched some terms didnt use "android" keyword, Thanks all for your answers
Answer: android:ems or setEms(n) sets the width of a TextView to fit a text of n 'M' letters regardless of the actual text extension and text size. See wikipedia Em unit
but only when the layout_width is set to "wrap_content". Other layout_width values override the ems width setting.
Adding an android:textSize attribute determines the physical width of the view to the textSize * length of a text of n 'M's  set above.
Comment: Why does my EditText can have 17 "M" letters even though I set it to 10ems? I have three EditText in a horizontal LinearLayout and all of them set to "wrap_content"
Comment: set minEms and maxEms
Answer: Ems is a typography term, it controls text size, etc. Check here
Comment: It *relates* text size to sizes of other things.
Answer: It is the width of the letter M in a given English font size.
So 2em is twice the width of the letter M in this given font.
For a non-English font, it is the width of the widest letter in that font. This width size in pixels is different than the width size of the M in the English font but it is still 1em.
So if I use a text with 12sp in an English font, 1em is relative to this 12sp English font; using an Italian font with 12sp gives 1em that is different in pixels width than the English one.
Answer: While other answers already fulfilled the question (it's a 3 years old question after all), I'm just gonna add some info, and probably fixed a bit of misunderstanding.
Em, while originally meant as the term for a single 'M' character's width in typography, in digital medium it was shifted to a unit relative to the point size of the typeface (font-size or textSize), in other words it's uses the height of the text, not the width of a single 'M'.
In Android, that means when you specify the ems of a TextView, it uses the said TextView's textSize as the base, excluding the added padding for accents/diacritics. When you set a 16sp TextView's ems to 4, it means its width will be 64sp wide, thus explained @stefan 's comment about why a 10 ems wide EditText is able to fit 17 'M'.
Answer: em is the typography unit of font width. one em in a 16-point typeface is 16 points
Answer: ems is a unit of measurement
The name em was originally a reference to the width of the capital M. It sets the width of a TextView/EditText to fit a text of n 'M' letters regardless of the actual text extension and text size.
Eg :
android:ems Makes the EditText be exactly this many ems wide.
<EditText
    android:ems="2"
/>

denotes twice the width of letter M is created.
Answer: em is basically CSS property for font sizes.

The em and ex units depend on the font and may be different for each
  element in the document. The em is simply the font size. In an element
  with a 2in font, 1em thus means 2in. Expressing sizes, such as margins
  and paddings, in em means they are related to the font size, and if
  the user has a big font (e.g., on a big screen) or a small font (e.g.,
  on a handheld device), the sizes will be in proportion. Declarations
  such as text-indent: 1.5em and margin: 1em are extremely common in
  CSS.

Source:https://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/units
Answer: To add to the other answers in Android, Ems size, can, by default, vary in each language and input.
It means that if you want to set a minimum width to a text field, defined by number of chars, you have to calculate the Ems properly and set it, according to your typeface and font size with the Ems attribute.
To those of you struggle with this, you can calculate the hint size yourself to avoid messing with Ems:
val tf = TextField()
val layout = TextInputLayout()
val hint = "Hint"

val measureText = tf.paint.measureText(hint).toInt()
tf.width = tf.paddingLeft + tf.paddingRight + measureText.toInt()
layout.hint = hint


How to add php plugin code in theme

Question: I've installed WP-PostRatings plugin
It is to set up but I am trying to add it to the theme. In plugin template there is such code: I have tried to add these code so  <php echo " These code here" ?> but it doesn't show. If I need to insert in comment php. How can I generate code for PHP loop? Not shortcode

But in Admin panel it shows me ratings:
Comment: You may get an answer here; but all plugins in the wordpress.org catalogue have their own support forums; in this case: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-postratings  some plugins' forums provide excellent support others may not.
Answer: If you, for some reason, don't want to use the shortcode ([ratings]), you can always use the_ratings() directly in your template.
Make sure you are within the loop so it'll be able to identify the correct post ID for you.
If you want to use it outside the loop, you can pass your ID manually. The function's signature is
function the_ratings($start_tag = 'div', $custom_id = 0, $display = true) {

so you could call it as
the_ratings("div", 123)

if you wanted to output the ratings for the post with the ID 123.
Answer: To print a shortcode in your own code you need to use the do_shortcode() function, eg: echo do_shortcode('[ratings id="1" results="true"]');

How to add php plugin code in theme


Grub Menu doesn't appear when pressing SHIFT

Question: I'd like to access my Grub Menu at boot by pressing Shift.
After I press Shift I see a message saying "Grub loading.."
but then no menu appears and the computer keeps booting normally
into my Ubuntu Installation.
Do you know how I can access the Grub Menu at boot?
Thanks a lot for your help!
Comment: I fiugred that out, the value GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT in the file /etc/default/grub has to be set to a value greater than 0.
Comment: If this solves your problem, you can answer your own question with this information and mark it as correct. Then other users will see this question is answered.
Comment: I can do that only after 8 hrs... Will do it tomorrow..
Comment: Sounds good. A lot of users never update their questions. Glad you solved your problem.
Answer: The issue is solved by modifying the parameter GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT in the /etc/default/grub file (need to be super user to modify it), and (as always to apply configuration changes made in this file) running sudo update-grub.
Changing the value from 0 to some positive value allows to enter the GRUB menu by pressing Shift during boot.
For those not familiar with updating your GRUB settings:

Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a terminal.
Run gksu gedit /etc/default/grub.
Change the GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT line as above, save it, and close gedit.
Run sudo update-grub.  You can now restart.

If you want from the GUI
To open the terminal:
Open Dash (Super Key) or Applications and type terminal

For older or Ubuntu versions:
Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal
Then type the command gksu gedit /etc/default/grub
and then change the value in GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT as above.

Save it and close the editor.
and run sudo update-grub in the terminal.
Answer: This finally worked for me :

Goto your BOOT menu and then go to BOOT settings - change "BOOT MODE" to "Legacy" from "UEFI" --> Save
Shut Down and restart.
In my case, it showed "No operating system found"
Quick shut down your system(by pressing the power button continuously for 15 secs)
Goto the Boot menu again and reverse the Boot mode back to UEFI.
Restart your System. This time most probably the GRUB menu will appear.


Is there such a thing as "North" in outerspace?

Question: On Earth, North is determined by the magnetic poles of our planet. Is there such a thing as "North" in outerspace? To put it another way, is there any other way for astronauts to navigate besides starcharts? For instance, if an astronauts spaceship were to be placed somewhere (outside of our solar system) in the milkyway galaxy, would there be a way for them to orient themselves?
Comment: There must be because the Enterprise always meets the aliens with their ships both the same way up;-)
Comment: If you add 2 other axis to make everything 3D, there's is no reason not to establish a 'North'.
Answer: North is determined by the geographic poles of our planet, i.e., by the axis on which the planet rotates.  There is such a thing as "magnetic north", determined by the poles of the Earth's magnetic field, but "north" by itself almost always refers to geographic north.  (For one thing, both sets of poles move over time, but the geographic poles are much more stable.)
We do use magnetic compasses for navigation, but typically only when (a) the few degrees difference between magnetic north and "true" north doesn't matter or (b) when we know what the offset ("magnetic declination") is.
There are other possible meanings of "north", determined by whatever rotation axis happens to be relevant:

The plane of the ecliptic, determined by the Earth's orbit around the Sun, defines a kind of  "north", about 23.5° away from geographic north.
If you're on or near another planet, "north" is typically determined by the rotational axis of that planet.  Most of the planets in the Solar System have axes that are close to parallel to Earth's axis; Uranus is a notable exception, and Venus rotates in the opposite direction.
The Galaxy itself rotates on an axis; if you're in deep interstellar space, you might use that as a frame of reference.

So far no astronauts have gone far enough out for most of this to be relevant.  Unmanned spacecraft such as Voyager have gone to other planets, and their navigation is quite precise, but it doesn't necessarily depend on defining what "north" means; you just need a way of determining where you are and a consistent way of describing it.
Within our Galaxy, it should be possible to navigate by observing the positions of known stars.
It's not likely we'll be using magnetic fields as a primary source of navigation information in deep space.  As long as you can see the stars, there are better sources of information.
Comment: @RonMaimon: I suspect that by the time we're able to travel thousands of light-years, we'll have a very good idea where all the stars in the neighborhood are.
Comment: The galaxy is big, and we haven't mapped out enough stars that can be identified. You would be better off looking for known objects orbiting the black hole at the center, and figuring out your position from their plane. But the easiest way is CMB.
Answer: You could orient yourself using the CMB fluctuations as your compass--- given a detailed WMAP picture of the CMB flutuations, you could tell which way is which anywhere in the local galactic region, and how fast you are going relative to the CMB.
Comment: Doesn't 'how fast you are going relative to the CMB' violate special relativity? There is no fixed reference frame, right?
Comment: Could you please edit with definitions or a link for what CMB and WMAP are?
Answer: On Earth the north and the south are defined by the south and north magnetic poles respectively of the Earth's Magnetic field. In space there is a thing called the Galactic Magnetic field which permeates galaxies, including the Milky Way (http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0207240). However, the strength of the Galactic magnetic field is much much lower than the Earth's magnetic field. Our compasses wont be able to detect this and be much more influenced by magnetic fields of nearby planets or stars, rather than the Galactic field. The Galactic magnetic field acts on much larger scales. In 1997 one scientist discovered that the supernova remnants (left overs of an exploded star) align them selves to Milky Way's magnetic field. Intergalactic magnetic fields have also been recently discovered but I believe little is known about their structure.
So in short, I think, theoretically there can be a "north" in space because there is a magnetic field present. Whether or not we can make use of it (due to its weak strength) is a different story. There are other coordinate systems that are used e.g the Galactic Coordinate system and  Right ascension/declination.
Comment: Actually, the cardinal directions are *defined* by the rotation of the Earth/the position of the Earth's axis. As the other answer pointed out, the geographical and the magnetic poles don't overlap. The magnetic field is used as only a convenient rough approximation.
Comment: Another issue in using the galactic magnetic field as a compass is that it undergoes reversals, and seems to follow the gas in the spiral arms. You are not going to be able to use a compass to easily determine direction, since it will be very much location dependent.
Comment: I agree, there will be a "north" but that north will vary depending on your location. Although, would the intergalactic magnetic fields be any better? They appear to exist on super cluster scales and presumably will be less susceptible to variations from individual galaxies?
Answer: Actually, North on the Earth is determined not by the Earth's magnetic field, but by the apparent motion of stars as the Earth rotates.  Magnetic North is not toward the northern end of the spin axis of the Earth, in general.
There are easily identifiable distant galaxies, and pulsars, that can serve very well as navigational beacons for interstellar navigation and even for navigation outside our galaxy.
From some perspectives the 10 million year lifetime of a pulsar is too short.  Navigation within our galaxy using pulsars as beacons would be a bit messy, since the EM radiation emission of a pulsar is in a cone that seems to be 6 to 15 degrees wide, whose axis itself sweeps in a cone as the pulsar rotates. That means a pulsar will typically be visible from at most about 10% of the sphere surrounding the pulsar.  But it also means, because there are something like 1000 known pulsars within 2500 light years and the Milky Way is ~ 100,000 light years across, that there must be at least 1.6 million pulsars in our galaxy.  Depending on where our galactic explorers are in the Milky Way, some pulsars would be visible and others would not be, but there should always be at least a few hundred pulsars visible from any point in or near our galaxy.
Edit 9/25/2019:  Although pulsars and distant galaxies can serve as navigational beacons from which to triangulate position, pulsars offer an additional bonus: Measuring the relative phases of a set of pulsars whose period is in the millisecond range should be able to provide a GPS-like accuracy much better than one light-millisecond.  The distance from the Earth to the Moon is around 1.3 light-seconds.  One light-millisecond is just 186 miles.
Comment: Pulsars are not suitable for navigation. They are (relatively) short-lived and emit beamed radiation that can only be seen in specific directions.
Comment: Please see the edit to my answer.
Comment: Much easier to use the directions of external local group galaxies and globular clusters.
Answer: there is no axis of rotation, and no plane of rotation, so there is neither longitude nor latitude; likewise, there is no North, south, east, or west. Navigation consists of knowing where Here is, in relation to There (as it does all forms of wayfinding). Thus, the Sun is a Prime $(x, y, z = 0)$, the plane of planetary rotation can be the equator; locus of Earth at time of departure can be the prime meridian. I posit these conditionally, for one may only need know $x^2+y^2+z^2=w^2$, being the Direction & Distance hence. This is merely triangulation in three dimensions.
Another method is similar to coastal navigation: the arc (angle) between any pair of stars, or a trio of stars, gives a fix; there are plenty of stars, seen from earth, that appear close together, yet are separated by a great distance; also using celestial coordinates in the same manner as Terrestrial astro-navigation, in order to reckon where Here is, in relation to Whence & Whither.
Answer: The value of North changes at different parts of the Earth. Imagine placing a stiff, flat sheet wherever you're standing.

(source: sedris.org)
You could parallel-translate that sheet, and its definition of North, to anywhere in outer space. But even on the Earth "North" isn't meaningful unless we know where you're standing.
So I would say yes—it's possible to talk about North in outer space, in the same way that it is on Earth. You just need to say "North relative to my uncle's house" or whatever, the same way you do here.

It probably wouldn't be a very useful direction, because the definition of "North relative to my uncle's house" would be moving along with the Earth, whereas I'm imagining you in a spaceship.

But let's say you were in a satellite orbiting the Earth, and kept looking down at your uncle's house. You could still use that reference point and it would be meaningful and, maybe a little useful.


Can I use Decoy Dragon's effect after Dream Sprite's effect?

Question: Both Dream Sprite and Decoy Dragon can change the attack target of a monster and if Dream Sprite was used to change the attack to Decoy Dragon would Decoy Dragon be attacked or would Decoy Dragons effect take place?
Answer: In short, Decoy Dragon would be attacked, due to an important part of Dreamsprite:

When attacked by your opponent's monster, select another 1 of your Monster Cards and designate it as the attack's target, then calculate damage.

This means that damage calculation must be immediately performed, so the Battle Step has been skipped. As Decoy Dragon's effect is activated "when this card is selected as an attack target by your opponent's monster", it is only performed on the Battle Step (as that is when it is targeted), so is not activated in this case. An official ruling also backs this statement up:

"Decoy Dragon's" effect is activated during the Battle Step when it is selected as the target for your opponent's attacking monster.

To back this up further Konami has also ruled the following two things about Dreamsprite:

If you control "Dreamsprite", "The Legendary Fisherman", and "Umi" is on the field, "Dreamsprite"'s effect can still change an attack target to "The Legendary Fisherman" because he is not being targeted with an attack, but is being targeted with a monster effect.

This means that Decoy Dragon would NOT be being targeted by the opponent's monster, but by Dreamsprite's effect.

If you control two "Dreamsprites" and one is attacked, you cannot continue to switch the attack target between the two "Dreamsprites" because the effect of "Dreamsprite" says that you must calculate damage on the new target.

This further emphasises the point that the Battle Step is ended due to the effect.
I hope this helps!
Source: Konami's Individual Card Rulings (web archive version as it has not been online since early 2013): http://web.archive.org/web/20090218205242/http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/yugioh/en/gameplay/faqs/cardfaqs/default.aspx?first=D&last=E


Unlocking Meta Stack Overflow?

Question: What is the best way to get more points and unlock more features within the stackoverflow community?
Comment: http://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges
Comment: Look at the help center and see for yourself.
Comment: _'what is the next big thing'_ There aren't any "big things" to achieve at Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange, aside reputation points, additional privileges or badges. You should try to achieve "big things" off-line, here it's all _virtual_.
Comment: As you've edited your question a bit, to become clearer, IMHO the answer boils down, to what's stated in these articles: [`How do I write a good answer?`](http://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-answer) and [`How do I ask a good question?`](http://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask)
Answer: Participation on Meta Stack Overflow is your first awarded privilege in a series that you gain access to as your reputation and experience on the site grow.
You now have the ability to participate on Meta because you have gained at least 5 rep on the main site.
However, you may want to read What's Meta? to better understand what Meta is used for.
See the privileges page in the Help Center for the full list.

Unlocking Meta Stack Overflow?


Selenium 2 - Android Server crashes when trying to SendKeys into a field

Question: I'm using WebDriver Selenium-dotnet-2.11.0 and Android server 2.11.0. Tests are run by NUnit.
This works well for navigation around web pages and clicking elements. However, when I try to enter a value in a field (SendKeys), the .apk app on the device (a.k.a. Selenium-server) crashes due to an unknown error.
I'm using a real device HTC Desire Z1 (the one with slide-out keyboard).
The piece of code that leads to the crash is:
IWebElement _element;

_element = _driver.FindElement(By.Id("loginEmail"));
string username = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Environment"] + "Username"];
_element.SendKeys(username);

username is acquired correctly and doesn't contain any special characters, except '@', but I checked that it's not causing the problem.
Device debug log shows following error:
11-04 12:10:24.619: I/dalvikvm(3941): Could not find method android.view.KeyEvent.normalizeMetaState, referenced from method org.openqa.selenium.android.EventSender$2.run
11-04 12:10:24.619: W/dalvikvm(3941): VFY: unable to resolve static method 51: Landroid/view/KeyEvent;.normalizeMetaState (I)I
11-04 12:10:24.629: W/dalvikvm(3941): threadid=1: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x4001d5a0)
11-04 12:10:24.649: E/AndroidRuntime(3941): FATAL EXCEPTION: main

I wonder what is the cause of the problem. I can't type anything into a field, but haven't found anyone else having this problem. It looks like either I'm doing something wrong or the device.
Answer: I had the same problem. I just upgrade to android server apk 2.1.3 and the send_keys works fine.


Electromagnetic Shielding of radio waves

Question: Would a radio wave beam (perhaps a cm in diameter) with the same frequency as ordinary AM or FM radio waves and also the same voltage (v/m) have the same skin depth for any metal utilised to shield against it?
Comment: It should not in theory, since the "shielding effect" is produced by the availability of free electrons in the metal. Different metals will have different valence electrons per atom. Now, since the number of electrons is so large (10^23 in a mol which is 10^23/A atoms per gram where A is atomic mass) then you will probably need a very intense radio wave to see the difference.
Comment: Such a beam can not be made in the fist place. An electromagnetic wave in the AM frequency range has a wavelength of hundreds of m. If you wanted to make anything resembling a beam of that size, you would need a wavelength about ten times shorter (i.e. 1mm), so that puts you into a frequency range of, at least, 300GHz.
Comment: Thanks rmhleo. Thanks CuriousOne. @CuriousOne, if an EM wave of frequency 30GHz works omni-directionally like home internet wi-fi, & there is also a separate singular beam of 30GHz (approx. 10mm), will a metal then still have the same skin depth for both wave transmissions (ie same quantity required for shielding)?
(Given all other factors are equal; such as voltage, and the dimensions of the Faraday cage (ie 6 sides of 5cm2) etc.)
Answer: The skin depth of a good conductor is given by the expression
$$ d = \sqrt{\frac{2}{\mu_r \mu_0 \sigma \omega}},$$
where $\omega$ is the angular frequency of the EM wave and $\sigma$ is the conductivity.
Using this we can say that the electric field strength penetrating a conductive material decays as $E = E_0 \exp(-x/d)$ and of course the penetrating power will be proportional to $E^2$ and thus will have an e-folding length which is a factor of two smaller.
Thus if $\omega$ is fixed, then the skin depth just depends on the conductivity (and relative permeability). Different metals have different conductivities; e.g. copper is about 10 times as conductive as lead, so the skin depth in copper would be smaller by a factor $\sim 3$.
Also, don't forget that there is an important reflection effect from the surfaces of conducting materials too. For a good conductor, the modulus of the transmission coefficient (from air/vacuum into the conductor) is approximately
$$ |T| = 5.3\times 10^{-3} \sqrt{\frac{\mu_r \mu_0 \omega}{\sigma}}$$
Thus a more conductive material will transmit less field at the interface between the conductor and air/vacuum. This effect is more important for attenuating the E-field at low frequencies or cases where the conductor is not thick compared with the skin depth.
Comment: Thanks Rob Jeffries, does this formula mean the voltage (v/m) of an EM wave is completely irrelevant to the amount of metal required (skin depth) to block it?
Comment: @tjsb55 No, because whatever effect you are trying to block will have some threshold field to trigger it. This is an e-folding length for the field strength. See edit.
Comment: Thanks again things are a lot clearer now, although can you tell me what E, E0, x & μ0 mean in the above equations?
Comment: @tjsb55 Electric field strength, initial electric field strength and the permeability of vacuum.
Comment: Thanks for those, however seem to be missing the definition for the X within (-X/d)
Comment: @tjsb55 distance travelled.


Do exorcisms need to be performed in a particular language?

Question: In Catholicism, does an exorcism need to be performed in a certain language, such as Latin? Or can it be performed in a language of the priest's choice? Does it need to be one that the demon-possessed person understands?
Answer: Do exorcisms need to be performed in a particular language?
The short answer is no.
It may be true that the Devil and his agents hate the use of Latin within the Roman Rite, but an exorcism may be performed in another [vernacular] language as well.
For example a Catholic priest of the Greek Rite is quite free to use the "Rituale" of their particular rite. This applies to all liturgical languages (such as Greek or Ukrainian) of all other rites which possess a "Rituale" according to their liturgical rite.
The language used in an exorcism does not need to be understood by the victim of possession to be efficacious. Generally speaking, very few possessed persons understand Latin.
Prior to Vatican Council II, all exorcisms in the Roman Rite were in Latin. This not so much true any more, although many exorcists still use the Rituale Romanum in Latin for exorcism. The Devil hates Latin.

The first official English-language translation of the ritual book "Exorcisms and Related Supplications" is available from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Distribution of "Exorcisms and Related Supplications" is limited to bishops, though exorcists, other clergy, scholars and seminary professors also can obtain a copy with the permission of a bishop.
Having it available now in English "should make it easier for a bishop to find a priest who can help him with this ministry," said Fr. Andrew Menke, executive director of the USCCB's Secretariat of Divine Worship.
"Given that there's less facility in Latin than there used to be, even among priests, it opens the door to more priests to do this. Until now, not only did the priest have to be wise and holy, but he also had to have strong facility in Latin," Fr. Menke told Catholic News Service.
"It makes it easier for a priest who might otherwise be a good exorcist but who would be intimidated by a requirement to use a Latin text. Having it available in the vernacular means he can concentrate on prayer and on the ritual, without needing to worry about working in another language," he explained.
The translation is from the rite that was revised following the Second Vatican Council. It was promulgated in Latin in 1999 and then slightly amended in 2004. The revised text draws from rituals used by the Catholic Church for centuries.
The USCCB approved the English translation at its 2014 fall general assembly. The Vatican gave its "recognitio," or approval, of the translation earlier this year. - US bishops publish English-language translation of exorcism ritual

The Church has now approved the 1999 Rituale Romanum in a number of other vernacular languages.

The traditional Rite of Exorcism can be said also in Slovenian and Croatian. The two vernacular translations of the Rituale Romanum were printed in 1932 (slo) and 1929 (cro). Benedict XV gave permission for the use of vernacular Rituale for all the dioceses of the then existing Kingdom of Yugoslavia. - Mohor Fortunat
Answer: San Jose diocese's exorcist Fr. Gary Thomas* explained in a talk

that the Rite of Exorcism is only said in Latin. One reason is practical - there is no approved translation in English as yet. He gave another reason why he was so strongly in favor of the use of Latin in the Rite of Exorcism: "The Devil hates Latin, it is the universal language of the Church."** I asked him about this afterwards, and he repeated it, saying that his personal experiences as an exorcist who has performed many, many exorcisms have convinced him of this. He told me he had heard from exorcists who did exorcisms in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (the only approved vernaculars for this Rite) that Latin was the most effective language.

*upon whose story the 2011 film The Rite was based
**One reason "The Church uses the Latin language instead of the national language of its children" is "To avoid the danger of changing any part of its teaching in using different languages" (Baltimore Catechism #566).
See also Vice.com's article "Latin Is Still The Best Language for Fighting Satan"
Comment: Ken Graham's answer appears to indicate that there is an approved English translation published in 2014, in contrast to this article. Is there some subtlety I'm not seeing?
Comment: @Thunderforge Perhaps Fr. Thomas's talk was before then.
Comment: The article [The Devil Hates Latin, Says Exorcist](http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2016/02/the-devil-hates-latin-says-exorcist.html#.WwIzbvbn8dU) in which Fr. Gary Thomas' quote is taken from was posted on Tuesday February 16, 2016. They should have verified their facts first.