Interpreting Implied Volatility in Commodities Options

Question: I understand that implied volatility is the expected volatility of an underlying contract in the Black option pricing model. This is easy to interpret for assets delivered at a point in time. But how about those delivered over a period of time, such as power? Is the IV the expected volatility of the monthly average price, for a monthly options contract, or of the daily price within that averaging timeframe?
Comment: Is this for OTC options of some kind or listed? If listed, what is the option?
Comment: I have two examples: one is for a monthly power option (listed on ICE — ERCOT North Day Ahead 345kW) and the other is an OTC Nov-Dec steel call option (CRU forwards listed on CME as underlying).
Comment: I would also be careful with your comment "This is easy to interpret for assets delivered at a point in time". The IV has little to do with the expected volatility of the underlying because the real world does not follow the assumptions of the BS option pricing model (otherwise volatility smile wouldn't exist). IV is merely the goal seek such that the current price in the market of the option equals the price determined by the BS model. This parameter accounts for so much more than only the expected volatility.
Answer: It depends on what you consider your underlying to be.
If you consider the underlying to be the thing which is being averaged, then you need to make sure that you're calculating the average price option on the underlying.
If you consider the underlying to be the "average price of the underlying over the relevant period" then you can just calc the implied vol of the option on this underlying.


How to secure a WiFi network?

Question: What do I have to do to secure a WiFi network? Is there any best practices?
I have been recommended to use WPA2 encryption on the router, is that enough? What can I do to improve the security even more? Is it recommended to only allow specific MAC-addresses, or isn't that needed?
I have heard that if someone else set up a WiFi net with the same SSID and stronger signal strength, my computer will connect to that network instead of my own. What can I do to protect against that?
Answer:
I take it when you say WPA2 you mean WPA2-Personal. It is good enough in most cases at the moment as long as its combined with a really good password. https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm is a good generator for them.
Disable Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS). Otherwise, an attacker only needs to break an 8 digit PIN -- and that is perfectly doable.
Cloak your SSID. It won't stop a determined attacker but will stop some of the script kiddie like attackers.
Only allowing specific MAC addresses can be a good step to manage user access. But once again won't really slow down a determined attacker, as they can just see what MAC addresses are currently connected to wireless in plain text anyway.
If possible a good tactic to reduce the chance of your WiFi being attacked is to position your wireless access point well so that the minimum amount of signal is broadcast outside of your building. That way the attacker needs to be closer to start the attack unless they have improved wireless antennas to grab from miles away.

Yes people can broadcast a stronger signal to try and get you to connect to them instead of your actual desired access point using tools like Karma. I don't know any specific ways to protect against this except not to allow any automatic associations instead each time you wish to connect to wireless, you should do it manually and verify you are connecting to the correct access point.
Comment: Cloaking SSID and MAC filtering are security by obscurity.  They're borderline useless.  Anyone that knows what Kismet is, has already defeated them.
Comment: Cloaking your SSID can actually put your client devices in a weaker security posture, as they'll be constantly looking for (and advertising such) your AP even when they're nowhere near it.
Comment: I completely agree with you Marcin. Hence why I said Script Kiddie deterrent only for SSID and MAC address only good for user control.
Comment: Windows 7 and others already natively discover routers that are "cloaked" so that part is worse than useless as it gives a false sense of security where none exists.  Not even against script kiddies.  +1 for the other items.
Comment: Could also add a RADIUS server or another similar service for authentication.
Answer: It depends on the network/environment. For SOHO wireless networks WPA 2 Personal with a strong pass-phrase used for the PSK should be sufficient.
For Enterprise networks or networks that deal with sensitive information the following controls should be used:

WPA 2 Enterprise tied to IEEE 802.1X/EAP
Wireless network segregated from internal network
WIPS and log monitoring in place to detect/prevent local attacks
Wireless clients that need internal access should have to connect via VPN
Limit coverage to what is absolutely necessary through physical controls and/or manipulation of signal strength
Answer: I agree with all the points mentioned so far, and as both Mark Davidson and sdanelson have mentioned radio coverage I just wanted to slightly expand on this as there are a couple of areas:
Signal strength - generally you want to use the minimum signal strength possible in a particular area, so an attacker outside your side can't gain access, but this can leave you open to an Evil Twin attack if a malicious access point copies your SSID and uses a much higher signal strength.
A solution is to think of your propagation paths - locating your access points around the outside of your site with antennae configured to be directional into your site will help a lot as you can increase the access point signal strength (so looking stronger to the clients) without propagating your signal so far outside the side.
A simpler, but more effective solution I have seen (which may be overkill for you - I have seen it used in a very sensitive establishment) is metal clad walls and ceiling with mesh in the windows - a wireless site survey of this site picked up zero RF leakage!
Security through Obscurity - in this case hiding SSID beacons - gives you a false sense of security. Your Access Point will still broadcast SSID, just not in the beacon frames. Many ordinary users will still be able to connect as drivers for many platforms will still identify the SSID, and all attackers will be able to find you as they normally would - try any of the tools on the Russix LiveCD and they will work quite happily with SSID broadcast disabled.
Comment: I generally disagree with using signal strength as a security mechanism.  Unless your network is kept in a shielded building/room, an attacker's ability to hear your network is beyond your control.  Additionally, this approach has the down-sides of potentially impacting the usability of your network and/or adding more complexity to its design requirements.
Answer: Just to throw this in here.
The single best "wireless" security model is to replace those wireless routers with regular CAT-5 wiring.
The next best item is to ensure all traffic between machines is secured using kerberos in addition to the encryption provided by the wireless router.  This can be done with group policy settings on windows domains.
Whatever you do, don't natively trust any machine that is able to authenticate against your router.
Comment: Wired is the new wireless ;o) But I agree with your second suggestion: treat the network segment as untrusted, wires or no wires.
Answer: On the assumption that this is a Wireless Router for a Home or Small Business I would have to recommend the following:

As a general rule change anything that is default on the router including but no limited to the SSID, and the web interface.
You should use WPA2 with AES encryption only and a strong key with alphanumeric password containing more than 8 characters. You do not need a 63 character password to secure your home network.
Use Wireless Mac Filtering to only allow permitted wireless devices to connect to the network. This information is referred to as the physical address or the MAC address and can be found on a windows machine by typing ipconfig /all from the command prompt.
If your wireless router supports it you should limit your range to within the confines of your property to reduce the area in which a hacker could position him or her self.
Lastly hiding the SSID will do nothing in the way of protecting your network and will actually make it more susceptible to attacks. Furthermore any one who is capable of cracking a strong WPA2 password is not going to be deterred by a hidden SSID. To learn more on this please take a look at the following article: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/28653/debunking-myths-is-hiding-your-wireless-ssid-really-more-secure/
Answer: Good defense is layered, so there won't be one guide to rule them all.  For wireless in particular, you might want to take a look at DISA's implementation guides.  You'll want to include other technologies for enpoint authentication, etc., but this is a good start.
http://iase.disa.mil/stigs/content_pages/wireless_security.html
Or, you could just run a drop and eliminate a lot of these issues.
Answer: If you are willing to run your own AP software (which will most likely mean hostapd), you can setup password-based EAP.
You can then have one password per MAC you know about, and a default password you rotate frequently otherwise.
Personally, I think that's a reasonable alternative to MAC filtering, but you could implement both.
It isn't as strong as a properly layered approach, but for SOHO and the mildly concerned, reasonable (I used a Pi3 for this).
I would definitely recommend making a VPN mandatory for anything significant (i.e. anything more than browsing public websites) if that is a concern.

How to secure a WiFi network?


Is there a way to change the default colors in Ubuntu 18.04

Question: Is there a way to change the default color from Orange? What I'm talking about is the close button on some programs, I actaully don't care for the color Orange, and I was wondering because I know Windows can, like whenever I'm moving programs from my Flash Drive to the computer or something like that, there's just something about the color Orange that's not pleasing to my eye, I wanna change it to blue and I'm running the latest version of Ubuntu.
Comment: Have you looked at changing the color theme?
Comment: I don't know where that is though or how to do that
Comment: I've posted an answer with a few images. See the link at the top of the answer to learn more about installing any of the 3 themes listed or the other 17 I didn't list.
Answer: Install gnome-tweak-tool. Install various themes after doing research into what they look like and whether they're complete1 and current.

Using a complete theme is important so that even window decorations (such as the min/max/close buttons) are themed. Some themes are gtk2-only!
Using a modern theme is important because there are several unmaintained themes that may not be compatible with your distro's current version.
If you're new to the game, stay with themes from the standard software repositories2.
Open Tweaks, which is what the gnome-tweak-tool appears as in the Dash, and choose from what you've installed. Changes are immediate.
In the attached image, I've used Adwaita Dark.

1 The installation process for some themes may also provide icon themes so that an overall consistent look is available to you. Note that you may choose an icon theme using Tweak, otherwise the default remains.
2 Note that if you look for themes in the Software Center, you may be offered snap versions as well as conventional versions. Please read up on snaps and their features.

Install as a snap or a package?

What are the differences between snaps, appimage, flatpak and others?
Answer: There are many themes available for Ubuntu that change your colours and appearance. This article sums up the 20 best ones in 2017. From that article I've summarized the article with images of the top two favorites. I also added number 10 which you might like based on "blue" preference and it's similarity to default Ubuntu with a touch of Mac OS added..
1. Windows 10 Theme
If you admire the appearance of Redmond's latest operating system, you can mimic the theme on your Ubuntu desktop. If you are looking for something really transforming and prevent unwanted attention, the Windows 10 unity themes might just be the one.

2. Macubuntu Theme
Straight from Redmond and to Cupertino. Apple's MacOS has always been quite stunning and if you want your Ubuntu desktop looking like that, there is a theme available. The Macbuntu theme allows you to setup your desktop with wallpapers, shells, icons and fonts that will have you spotting a Mac on "not a Mac".

10. Yosembiance
Yosembiance adds a gentle touch of smoothness and flatness to the typical Ambiance theme that ships with Ubuntu. So if you want a theme very much Ubuntu with just a touch of MacOS, Yosembiance is just the one. Yosembiance comes in Atomic, Kraken and Ubuntu all with options in Blue and Orange.
Answer: How to change default orange scheme in Ubuntu 18.04
First of all there are two ways to do so:
Download an external shell theme from https://www.gnome-look.org and install theme.
However you may not find the color theme you want but this will at least change the orange color scheme (Also, not every shell theme changes the default orange color).
So there is another way. (Only suggested if you are good at CSS.)
The second way is that you need to edit the ubuntu.css file at:

/usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/ubuntu.css
  This file will allow you to change almost anything on you PC. From your login screen to shutdown menu. However it will take time to understand the ubuntu.css file but onceyou understand it you can customize your PC the way you like.

But remember to save a back-up of the original ubuntu.css file before you make any changes. Use the following command at the terminal to create a backup:

sudo cp /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/ubuntu.css /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/ubuntu.css.bak

Then, open the ubuntu.css file by the following command:

sudo gedit /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/ubuntu.css

Make the desired changes to the file and save. Remember that any change you make to this file will be applied globally i.e. to all user profiles. If you want to make changes to your account only then you need to edit the gnome-shell.css file at:

/home/username/.themes/theme-folder/gnome-shell.css

After that open the gnome-tweak-tool and click Appearance. Select the shell-theme you made changes to. If you have any problems with the shell-theme menu in the gnome-tweak-tool see: Why is Shell theme disabled in Gnome Tweak Tool?
And Reboot.
It worked brilliantly for me. Hope that also works for you!


Is it redundant to say "a spelling bee contest"?

Question: A "spelling bee" is an expression usually used to describe the spelling contest, but not necessarily. With that in mind, is it be considered redundant to call it a "spelling bee contest" or a "spelling bee competition"?
Comment: Bearing in mind that *spelling bee* is more familiar to Americans than Brits, it's possible a writer would simply add *contest/competition* to make the meaning crystal clear to all. But given that 90% of *everything* we say is "redundant", why pick on this example?
Comment: What have you discovered on the internet, say?
Answer: In the US, the term spelling bee is very common, but it is rarely seen or heard immediately followed by the terms contest or competition. This ngram shows that the phrase standing alone is nearly a hundred times more prevalent.
Most US speakers would consider the terms contest or competition to be redundant.
Answer: There is an entry in the OED which explains the term originated in the US farming community, where groups of neighbours would get together to help one another. They would, for example, hold 'an apple-bee' to gather in the apples; a harvest-bee, a quilting-bee etc. The term was an illusion to the social character of the insect. Spelling-bee derived from similar groups getting together to hold a spelling competition.
I have no idea if they still have them in the USA, but it is certainly a dated concept in Britain. Though I guess what we are doing here on this site might be termed a 'literacy-bee'.
Comment: Spelling bees are indeed still around (at state and national levels, even) and very popular in the United States.
Comment: In a way; but also more than that. It is an annual [national event](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripps_National_Spelling_Bee) broadcast nationwide on ESPN.
Comment: @Janus Bahs Jacquet They probably provide the same sort of social function as pub quizzes which are very popular in Britain.


How to achieve seamless Page navigation in WinRT?

Question: Whenever I seem to navigate from one Page to another in my Metro app, there is a "flash" where nothing is displayed - only the default background colour. How can I make the Frame.Navigate method transition properly? My app is quite Image heavy so I imagine part of it is down to the Image loading. I have tried with other apps though, and there seems to be similar issues.
Answer: The solution I found was to use the WinRT XAML Toolkit, that has controls for AlternativePage and AlternativeFrame. I use an extended splash screen to Preload the MainPage and any pages the user may need to get to quickly - I then Preload other pages as and when they may become needed.
Answer: I had the same issues when working with an image intensive Metro app. The short of it is, I never found a way for a seamless, non-jarring transition, even when ordering loaded items and populating the appropriate elements through async calls.
What I wound up doing was applying a fade out effect to the first page's parent element, and a fade in effect on the second. It made the load more pleasant to the eye. Rather than the pop-in effect with images, there is a smooth transition. It does add a very short delay over the non-fading version, but it just seems more organic and appealing.
Comment: Ok, how did you go about that?
Comment: For my case, I simply created a StoryBoard with a DoubleAnimation that animated from UIElement.Opacity 1 to 0 for fade out, 0 to 1 for fade in, and applied it appropriately. There are also FadeOutThemeAnimation and FadeInThemeAnimation elements you can use, though I had more custom needs. Because my navigation is triggered on click, I tied my storyBoard.Begin() to the click, and the did the actual navigation on the storyboard completed event. The second page starts with an Opacity of 0 on the parent element, and executes the fade in storyboard in the page OnNavigatedTo event.
Comment: Once again, this was all for a Metro App. Here's a link for animating UI elements. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/xaml/hh452703.aspx
Comment: As an aside, my App is XAML/C#, but the same transitions could be done in JS/HTML5, if the same problem exists there.


How do I establish the cost basis of shares bought in an employee stock purchase program?

Question: I have stocks bought in an employee stock purchase program that changed hands several times during the past 18 years.I have been unable to establish the cost basis for the ones that were purchased between January 1997 and December 1999. Can anyone help?
Comment: Did you contact the company's payroll office?
Comment: Can you elaborate "changed hands several times" and how can anyone help on cost basis if you don't know how much was paid.
Comment: What country is this in and what is the name of the company?
Comment: did you also reinvest dividends?
Answer: A public company should have a link for investor relations, which should help provide a trail of basis if this is a matter of company buyout, takeover, etc.
This gets you close, but if you don't have an exact date, it will just be close, not exact.
One clean way out of this, assuming the goal is to get rid of the stock and move on, is to donate the shares to charity. You will take the present value as a deduction, and be done. You can use a charitable gift fund such as those offered by Schwab or Fidelity, so if say, the shares are worth $20K, and you typically donate $5K per year, the fund lets you do this transaction at once, then send to the charities you wish over the next few years.


Saving email as file in mutt?

Question: When I press S in mutt, it saves the mail to a mail folder format (cur/ tmp/ new/), but I want a single file to be saved, just like how attachments are saved.
Is that configurable?
Answer: The s command saves to a mailbox, which for you is in maildir format. Unfortunately, there is no save-to-file command, perhaps because in the historical mbox format, a mailbox that contains a single mail is just a file containing that mail.
The mutt command pipe-message (default shortcut |) can be used for this. It opens a command line and you write cat > DESIRED-FILE-PATH.
The "pipe-decode" option controls what happens to headers and mime parts when you save a message this way.
One could probably write a macro for this functionality.
Comment: This works well and provides an efficient manner of saving 50+ emails (using pattern-matching tagging) to file. I had to dig a little to find that by adding `set pipe_decode=yes` to my muttrc was what Kai von Fintel was writing about.
Comment: Cool, this can save the headers as well, but for now, I'd use Michael's way, thanks!
Comment: also, this saves the attachments in the exported email file, as well.
Comment: this is fine, but i see un-processed line breaks with `=` doing this.
Comment: Awesome. This worked great for me. I just wanted to extract some 20+ emails from an obsolete Maildir. Cheers!
Answer: The actual message shows up as an attachment as well, so you can save it from the attachment list. From either the index or the message itself, hit v to open the attachments and s to save
Comment: Another note: this doesn't save any headers, including sender, recipient and subject.
Comment: Just a note: if your email message contains attachments, then saving just the first entry from the attachments list will save the message - but without the attachments included inside.
Comment: @Sparhawk It does save the headers but you have to press `h` to show them, first...
Comment: @m4110c That doesn't seem to work for me. In addition, I can always see some headers, and `h` just shows *all* the headers. Either way, the headers aren't saved.
Comment: @Sparhawk You're right, my bad. I just tested it and the headers are not saved this way. I guess the best way would be to go with the `|`  key and use a linux command to store the mail, as described in the answer of Kai von Fintel. Also setting the `set pipe_decode=yes`should not be omitted in the .muttrc
Answer: If you touch a file and then try to save or copy a message to it mutt will use it as a mbox.
Also you might want to use copy instead of save. Mutt assumes that a mail should only exist in one copy and saving a message to another mailbox will delete it from the first one, while copying will do a proper copy.
Comment: I needed to get the message with the full headers to paste it into a filter test script, and this worked perfectly.
Answer: Kai von Fintel's answer works perfectly, but I just thought I'd share a macro to streamline this process.
Firstly, in muttrc:
macro index,pager S "| ~/.local/bin/file_email /tmp<enter>"

This pipes the full email (including headers and attachments) to the following script. Create an executable file at ~/.local/bin/file_email.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Save piped email to "$1/YYMMDD SUBJECT.eml"

# Don't overwrite existing file
set -o noclobber

message=$(cat)

mail_date=$(<<<"$message" grep -oPm 1 '^Date: ?\K.*')
formatted_date=$(date -d"$mail_date" +%y%m%d)
# Get the first line of the subject, and change / to ∕ so it's not a subdirectory
subject=$(<<<"$message" grep -oPm 1 '^Subject: ?\K.*' | sed 's,/,∕,g')

if [[ $formatted_date == '' ]]; then
  echo Error: no date parsed
  exit 1
elif [[ $subject == '' ]]; then
  echo Warning: no subject found
fi

echo "${message}" > "$1/$formatted_date $subject.eml" && echo Email saved to "$1/$formatted_date $subject.eml"

This script saves the file to the first argument (i.e. in the muttrc example above, the email will save to /tmp). The format of the file name is YYMMDD SUBJECT.eml. It also converts / to ∕ to prevent creating subdirectories.
Comment: Wouldn't be easier to use `formail` in the script?
Comment: @0andriy I'm not familiar with `formail`, so I had a read. However, I'm not entirely sure which part of my script you were referring to? Using `formail` to extract subject and date? If so, probably a nice idea. I'd urge you to write an answer; I'd definitely upvote it.
Answer: I have tried all the suggested answers but could not get the raw, multipart (text/plain + text/html) e-mail to be saved to a file, including it's headers and everything. I needed this to feed my spam-filter with the e-mail to teach it, that a specific mail is spam or not...
The solution I came up with is pressing e (i.e. "edit message") on the open message, which opens the raw message in your editor of choice. Raw here means, that you get the message exactly as it arrived in mutt, so you have all the headers and all the bytes that comprise the message.
After hitting e, I just write the buffer (I set editor to vim) to a file with :w <path_to_file>/<file_name> and that's it.
P.S: I would have added this as comment but you need a certain level of reputation to do this. Also, I know the question is very old but as neomutt is still used by many people, I thought this might help someone.
Update: I overlooked the pipe-decode option that Kai was talking about. With that option set correctly it would have worked via |, too. Still my solution is working, too ;-)
Comment: Any solution if mailbox is read-only?
Comment: @OlleHärstedt You should go with the answer provided by Kai von Fintel. Don't forget the `set pipe_decode=yes` in your .muttrc however.

Saving email as file in mutt?


Get metadata out of a webHttpBinding endpoint

Question: With a reference to my previous question, I would like to know how would I extract information of a WCF service from a client application to know what methods/types are exposed if the service exposes only one endpoint that uses webHttpBinding?
Just to summarize, in my previous question, I came to know that an endpoint using webHttpBinding does not get exposed in the generated WSDL because it would be a JSON endpoint and is just not compatible.
Answer: WebHttpBinding is a REST-based binding - REST does not expose metadata like WSDL/XSD contrary to SOAP.
There's no way to extract the metadata from a REST endpoint at this time. There are some efforts under way to establish a similar construct for REST called WADL (Web Application Description Language) - but that's nowhere near standardized yet.
For now, with REST endpoints, you have to either figure it out yourself, or you need to have some documentation provided by the service provider on e.g. a static HTML page or something.
.NET 4 does provide some level of an automatically generated help page - see this blog post or the MSDN docs for more info. But it's still nowhere near as formalized and machine-interpretable as WSDL/XSD.
Answer: I wonder why the REST samples tell you to expose a MEX endpoint at all. It is not needed and here is how to cleanly remove it:

Remove MEX endpoint from the service section of the config file.
Remove service metadata enabled line in the service behaviour section of the config file.
Edit the Visual Studio project (assuming it's a WCF service library) and remove the line:
<StartArguments>/client:"WcfTestClient.exe"</StartArguments>

If you have other non-rest services you will want to leave the last 2 parts present. You must remove the WCF Client when disabling MEX otherwise it will complain during debugging if it cannot enumerate any services in the project (regardless whether they have any useful metadata or not).


Bugs' love for light

Question: Do bugs love light bulbs because they resemble the stars or is it the sun? How do they sense the bulb? What is the purpose of this "brightophilia" that has evolved in insects?
Comment: I had previously heard *in conversation* that insects are actually attracted to the dimmest possible surroundings, which appears to be behind the light.
Answer: I think the answer to your question is relatively unknown. The answer I have heard the most often, which is largely the most accepted, is that many insects orient themselves in space using light. So if they are flying at night, the soft light of the moon tells them which relative direction they are going. Light bulbs end up confusing them, because they think they can orient themselves to it, but they are wrong.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12903572
Additionally, insects do have very similar photoreceptors as humans and vertebrates. Fruit fly eyes are a major research topic because of the similarity of the photoreceptor proteins as well as the amazing genetics that can be done.
Comment: This is similar to what I've heard most often, as well. I've always heard that insects use the moon or the sun to navigate, and artificial lights create a false version.
Comment: So they carry sextants in their invisible backpacks to follow the celestine map? Did you mean up with "orient" or positioning?

Bugs' love for light


What is the difference between "Soccer" and "Football"?

Question: I am very confused about these two words. I mean these two words are used interchangeably. which make new comer so much confused. i need full explanation which can differentiate these two words with examples.
Thanks...
Answer: "Soccer" is the word for the sport in America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South-East Asia, and Japan (or a closely related pronunciation).  "Football" is the word for the sport in the United Kingdom and Europe, along with some other places.  The country where the speaking person learned English is the only difference between these words.
And be careful, because an American will use the word "fooball" to describe a completely different sport, similar in appearance to rugby but with different rules.
It may help to see this article and map by Business Insider.
Answer:
All these countries use different words, Which all refers to the game with 11 players on each side. All these blue countries in the map have a word "football" which genrally refers to "American football". More information about American football.
Comment: In Australia, football rarely, if ever, refers to American football. In most Australian states football usually refers to Australian Rules Football. In New South Wales and Queensland, football is more likely to refer to Rugby League Football. A smaller percentage of people in Australia would, amongst themselves, regard football as referring to Rugby Union Football.
Answer: Football is a term for a number of sports that use balls, the hands and feet in various ways depending on the rules of the particular sport.
Some versions of football are quite old the Royal Shrovetide Football match played in the town of Ashborne in Derbyshire, England has been played since the 12th century.
These various versions of football were played to their own rules until the middle of the 19th century when improved education, printing and communications all came together to allow the various games to codify their own rules.
In this era the various versions of football, Association Football, Rugby Football League, Rugby Football Union, Australian Rules Football etc. had their rules set down.
Soccer is a shortening of the term Association Football first coined in England, but that has become more commonly used as a term for the sport in America, Australia and some other countries. In these countries there is often a local version of the sport such as Australian Rules Football or the NFL that is considered football for that country, or they are in the sphere of influence of a country that uses football to describe another sport such as Japan's relationship with America after WW2 ( also the reason why Baseball is popular there).
Football is commonly used as the name for Association Football in the UK although some diehard fans of Rugby League or Union will  refer to it as soccer.
As the map Aiden Stewart has linked shows many other countries use a version of football to describe Association Football as a sport.


Redirect specific url requests to local site

Question: Is there a specific way to redirect requests for a specific URL from a browser to a local site or location?e.g. setting a Firewall or some OS rule to redirect a request for the jQuery lib to a location on my machine?
Answer: Try Redirector extension in Firefox.
edit:
other option is to set up www proxy server.
Comment: i am looking for a more OS based solution, something similar to iptables, that way i am not dependent on FF for this feature.
Answer: Considering your question and your comments, you seem to want to reduce bandwidth usage by blocking or caching some web pages and components.
There are Firefox extensions that may help you. In particular Adblock is a generic mechanism for blocking some URLs, and Adblock Plus comes with a list of ad sites to block. Another one is FlashBlock, which delays the loading of flash content until you request it.
Then you should use a web caching proxy. Wwwoffle
in particular was designed specifically with dial-up users in mind. Its name comes from its offline mode (serving cached pages only). It also has options to fine-tune how long things should be kept in cache. In particular you can tell it to trust the cache for longer than the site says it's valid (which is perfectly fine in most cases, occasionally means you need to reload pages explicitly, and plain doesn't work with a few sites of dubious design).
You will probably also benefit from a DNS caching proxy (DNS doesn't use much bandwidth but introduces latency).
Pdnsd keeps a cache on disk, even when offline (it's a bit like wwwoffle for DNS).
Dnsmasq is another possibility.
Comment: Just a heads up that the "Wwwoffle" link is down and out. // 6 years later, this can surely happen. ;)
Answer: Here's what I would do:

Open up your hosts file in a text editor.
Add entries at the end of the file that map the domain names you need to 127.0.0.1.
Save the file.
Create the directory structure for your domains that match the paths of the files you want to reference and copy the files there.
In the web server on your local machine, create websites that correspond to the domains you added in step 2 pointing to the folders you created in step 4.

For example, let's say you want to use Google's hosted jQuery, whose path is http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js.

You would add a hosts file entry of 127.0.0.1 ajax.googleapis.com.
You would then create this folder structure:  ajax.googleapis.com > ajax > libs > jquery > 1.4.2.
You would then copy the jquery.min.js file into the 1.4.2 folder.
After that, you would setup ajax.googleapis.com as a website on your local web server, pointing to the ajax.googleapis.com folder you created.
Comment: Nice, but every other request to ajax.googleapis.com (for example other version of JQuery, or other js libraries) will also hit localhost. Many sites rely on their CDN. Do you want to mirror whole ajax.googleapis.com on your localhost ?
Comment: I see what you are both saying. My problem is that i am in a very bandwidth restricted part of the world, but tend to hang out on sites which rely heavily on certain jscript libs. I am looking to host some of the more popular libs (jquery, mootools, prototype etc) locally since even CDNs aren't very effective from here. I will implement Tim's idea, and fiddle around to see what i get. I take it that it isn't possible to have an entry of type 127.0.0.1 ajax.googleapis.com/libs/jQuery/... is it?
Comment: @Carl_Platt: Yes, adding the suggested line would point http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js to http://localhost/ajax/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js   See how the hosts files work? Just the domain itself is entered, the folders and files underneath that domain aren't. So, install XAMPP or similar, and on your local machine in the server root for the web server, have the structure match that of the Google API URL: (ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/) and put "jquery.min.js" there.


Oracle Trigger Creation Issue

Question: i am working on an assignment which does the below.

create a PL/SQL trigger called STAFF_TRIGGER on the STAFF table. This
  trigger will be executed after every insert or update.  a.For inserts,
  this trigger should put the new STAFF.STAFF_ID value, the user in
  MOD_USER, and the system date in MOD_TIMESTAMP to record the creation
  of the data into STAFF_LOG.  b.For updates, this trigger should put
  the previous STAFF values into the corresponding STAFF_LOG column as
  well as recording the MOD_USER and MOD_TIMESTAMP.

So far this is what i have, i am using oracle database express edition.
create trigger staff_trigger
after insert or update on staff
for each row

begin

if inserting then
   insert into staff_log (staff_id, mod_user, mod_timestamp)
   values(new.employee_id, new.last_name, sysdate);
end if;

if updating then
   insert into staff_log (mod_user, mod_timestamp)
   values(new.last_name, sysdate);
end if;

end;

When i execute the code i am getting the below error.
ERROR at line 9: PL/SQL: SQL Statement ignored7. if inserting then
8.    insert into staff_log (staff_id, mod_user, mod_timestamp)
9.    values(new.employee_id, new.last_name, sysdate);
10. end if;

Any ideas as to what may be the cause of this?
Comment: Tip: when you're putting code in your post, select the code and click the button that looks like `{ }`.  This will format the code and make it easier to read.
Answer: try this (:new instead of new)
create trigger staff_trigger
after insert or update on staff
for each row

begin

if inserting then
   insert into staff_log (staff_id, mod_user, mod_timestamp)
   values(:new.employee_id, :new.last_name, sysdate);
end if;

if updating then
   insert into staff_log (mod_user, mod_timestamp)
   values(:new.last_name, sysdate);
end if;

end;

Oracle Trigger Creation Issue


Angular Service to Express API Route + Posting Data

Question: I am in the process of converting one of my sites (http://maskedarmory.com) from LAMP (using Laravel 4 MVC) over to the MEAN stack and it has been quite a journey thus far.
I have managed to get the landing page up and running and the input POSTing to Angular controller that I have it routed to.
Now, the problem I am having is getting the service to send over the POSTed data that is in Angular over to the Express API.  I keep keeping a 404 Not Found error on the /api/character URL path.
Also, how do I access the 'characterData' variable that is on the Angular side that is being passed over by the factory?  Because I am trying to do a console.log on the 'characterData' variable on the server side and I am sure that that is out of scope.
app/routes.js (Express Routing)
// public/js/services/ArmoryService.js
angular.module('ArmoryService', []).
    factory('Armory', function($http) {

    return {
        // Get the specified character by its profile ID.
        get : function(id) {
            return $http.get('/api/character/' + id);
        },

        // call to POST and create a new character armory.
        create : function(characterData) {
            return $http.post('/api/character', characterData);
        }
    }
});

app/routes.js (Express Routing)
module.exports = function(app) {

    app.post('/api/character', function(req, res) {
          console.log(characterData);
    });

    app.get('/', function(req, res) {
        res.sendfile('./public/index.html'); // load our public/index.html file
    });

};

If I do a console.log before the $http.post to the API, 'characterData' has all of the information it should.
I am sure that this is a routing issue of some type, but I will be damned if I can figure it out.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Answer: Try this:
app.post('/api/character', function(req, res) {
  console.log(JSON.stringify(req.body));
  res.status(200).send('whatever you want to send back to angular side');
});

app.get('/api/character/:id', function(req, res) {
  console.log(req.params.id);
  res.status(200).send('whatever you want to send back to angular side'');
});


Simplest way to Convert an existing Method to generic object Type

Question: Let's assume I have an existing method which ALWAYS returns a variable of type OldClassType
//Takes 1 parameter p1
//Returns a variable of type OldClassType, after doing a bunch of logic.
protected OldClassType MyMethod(int32 p1)
{
   OldClassType myVar = new OldClassType();
   myVar.name = "Hello";
   myVar.age = "36";

   return myVar;
}

Now, I have a NewClassType which has exactly the same  properties as OldClassType but is of a different namespace. I need to convert the same method (MyMethod) so that instead of ALWAYS returning OldClassType, it should return a variable of type either OldClassType or  NewClassType - based on a newly added parameter useNewType
So something like :
//Takes 2 parameter: p1 and useNewType - which determines when to use the NewClassType or default to the OldClassType
//Returns a variable of type object, after doing a bunch of logic. I'll modify the Call to this new modified method to cast the object to the appropriate Type (OldClassType/NewClassType)
protected object MyMethod(int32 p1, bool useNewType)
{
   object myVar = new object();
   myVar.name = "Hello"; // Do I use PropertyInfo and then set value?
   myVar.age = "36";

   return myVar;
}

EDIT:
One additional piece of information is that the OldClassType will be removed from the code in the future. So I'm trying to find the solution with least impact.
I was in fact wondering if the use of dynamic will solve it , ie minimize the changes to support NewClassType and when will the time to remove the OldClassType, I can simple change one line where I init it- example
protected dynamic MyMethod(int32 p1, bool useNewType)
{
   dynamic myVar = (useNewType) ? new NewClassType() : new OldClassType(); // Is this allowed?

   //So all code below stays exactly the same
   myVar.name = "Hello";
   myVar.age = "36";

   return myVar;
}

Comment: Can you still change anything about `OldClassType`, like implementing an interface with the common properties between old and new type?
Comment: Return a common interface?
Comment: No I cannot change anything about OldClassType and one additional info is that the OldClassType will eventually be removed from the code.
Answer: You could make NewClassType derive from OldClassType so that it inherits all of its base type members.
public class NewClassType : OldClassType { }

You'd then have to make your method Generic, like this:
protected T MyMethod<T>(int p1) where T : OldClassType, new()
{
    T myVar = new T();
    myVar.name = "Hello";
    myVar.age = "36";

    return myVar;
}

I don't think you should use a bool value to specify if you want to return an instance of your new class type, you can just do:
var o = MyMethod<NewClassType>(10);

You could even define an overloaded method that still returns OldClassType but uses your generic method under the covers:
protected OldClassType MyMethod(int p1)
{
    return MyMethod<OldClassType>(p1);
}

Comment: What if OldClassType is going to be deprecated in the near future... so I cannot inherit from it and all sources of this OldClassType will be removed?
Comment: @Gotcha Then you have to either introduce an interface or do some sort of mapping.
Answer: I would avoid reflection, it is tricky and potentially slow.
Add a constructor to NewClassType that copies an OldClassType:
class NewClassType {
    public NewClassType( OldClassType old )
    {
        Name = old.Name;
        Age = old.Age;
        . . .
    }
    . . .
}

and then:
protected object MyMethod(int32 p1, bool useNewType)
{
    OldClassType myVar = new OldClassType();
    myVar.name = "Hello";
    myVar.age = "36";

    if (!useNewType) return myVar;
    return new NewClassType( myVar );
}


Are my home canned dill pickles safe to eat?

Question: I followed the instructions from my canning book in making the pickles approximately a year ago. I opened them today and could pull the lid off with my fingers. They had seal marks in the rubber lining of the lid, but I should have needed a bottle opener to get them off. There is no obvious signs of spoilage or mold. Do dill pickles with a high vinegar content have to be hot water processed?
Addendum: I hot water bathed the quart jars for 20". The jars sat undisturbed for 24hrs. All jars sealed, meaning the lids had depressed centers. When I went to open them, the centers were still depressed. It just concerned me that I did not need a bottle opener to pop the lids off. The jars were stored in a rack in a spare room at room temperature.
Comment: Welcome Erin, we need more information to give good answers. How did you process your jar(s) and where were they stored?
Comment: Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer.
Comment: I can open sealed lids with my fingers, no opener required. The important question is whether the lid (assuming standard safety lid that does this) was down, and **popped up** in the center when opened, or was already popped up before you opened it. The former is good, the latter is "discard contents carefully.."
Comment: Thank you for the responses. I edited my entry to best answer these questions.
Answer: When I went to open them, the centers were still depressed.
Then they were still sealed, and should be safe to eat.


Code Management using Endevor

Question: I am new to Endevor. I want to learn the Code Manmagement using it.
Could you please provide me the link of Study Material for the same?
Regards,
Manasi
Answer: CA Endevor is a large and complex product to master.
Access to CA (Computer Associates) product documentation is provided from this page
but requires registration to log-in.  I did not attempt to register so have not gained further access to their documentation from this site.
The shop I work in uses Endevor and, as many customers do, has download several
CA Guides and Tutorials to our LAN. The documentation is extensive and takes some patience to navigate.
Your systems administrator should be able to provide links to or copies of relevant documentation if Endevor has been installed at your site.
I found the following documents "floating" around but they provide a very limited view of the product:
Getting Started - Installing and configuring
and User Guide.
Sorry, I cannot be any more helpful than this!
Answer: Endevor is a tool for which primarily is used for source control with features to hook in to change management, release management and configuration management systems. For start have a read through SCM theory and related topics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_control
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_configuration_management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endevor

Every tool has its own take on how theory is applied. There is no one true way.
Once you understand the basics of SCM then learn how Endevor implements SCM and how your shop has configured Endevor.
At the heart of Endevor is the environment, system and type configurations and SCL which is the language used to execute Endevor functions. Your system administrators should have a map of the defined Endevor environments for your SDLC showing DEV TEST PROD etc.
The Endevor user guide will help you get started. Much of what you really need to actually use Endevor will be dependant on how Endevor is customised at your shop. Your local Endevor administrators should have documentation to get help you started and visualise the system configuration. You can also find this documentation via google. E.g. The SCL manaual is ftp://ftp.ca.com/caproducts/endevor/workstation/ews80/docs/ews80scl.pdf or search google for ews80scl.pdf
Your Endevor system should have SMPLTEST and SMPLPROD environments defined which you can use to learn how Endevor works. Your local system documentation will show you how to access Endevor via ISPF and submit Endevor batch jobs.
Pro Tip: An action submitted from the Endevor ISPF interface generally submits a batch job. Go to SDSF and view the JCL of Endevor jobs to learn what Endevor is doing when elements are added, updated, deleted, moved, checked in, checked out, etc.
The Endevor Quick-Edit option makes using Endevor via ISPF a lot easier, as does RDz (Rational Developer for System z) which provides a workstation client side view of Endevor allowing you to use Endevor without logging on to the mainframe.

Code Management using Endevor


Can one eat avodah zarah food?

Question: My question is simple: Can food offered as avodah zarah be eaten? Why?
Comment: @Yehonathan I am assuming (based on the question mark at the end of the sentence) that a question was intended, and have edited the wording to make that more obvious. If that's not your intention, you should be able to roll back the edit.
Comment: Do you mean like the food in a restaurant that was placed before an idol before being served to the patrons? I remember a story in which the waiters did this and the restaurant was closed down until the staff was replaced and the mashgiach was able to ensure that it would not happen again.
Comment: It is forbidden, see https://www.ou.org/torah/mitzvot/taryag/mitzvah111/
Answer: Food offered to Avodah Zarah falls under the category of Tikrovet Avodah Zarah, offerings to an idol, and are prohibited from benefit absolutely. See Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 139 for details.
Comment: Maybe you could quote the relevant passage(s)?
Comment: Is it possible now to ask the rationale? What happens to the food in a spiritual sense that makes it forbidden? Does it kind of "absorbs" impurity and therefore is forbidden?

Can one eat avodah zarah food?


can't update plugins or wordpress or install new plugins

Question: how to update plugins wordpress how to replace my code in new plugins ??
I have some plugins that need to be updated (as well as WordPress) and I have tried the automatic update button and the update fails. I get an error message "Could not create directory.: /public_html/wp-content/upgrade." I have tried to delete the upgrade folder in cPanel and then create a new one but it won't let me create a new .php file.
Comment: This is not a WordPress issue. I suggest you contact your server provider to ask them what would be the best steps to take or read here http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/a/23569/45047
Answer: Some plugins require the /wp-content/ folder be made writeable, but in such cases they will let you know during installation. In some cases, this may require assigning 755 permissions. If you are on the shared hosting they always uses the "suexec" and above case will not apply for them. If your hosting use the "suexec" approach for running PHP binaries which is a popular approach used by many web hosts
In such cases an "suexec" configuration, the correct permissions scheme is simple to understand.

All directories should be 755 or 750.
All files should be 644 or 640. Exception: wp-config.php should be
440 or 400 to prevent other users on the server from reading it.
No directories should ever be given 777, even upload directories.
Since the php process is running as the owner of the files, it gets
the owners permissions and can write to even a 755 directory.

Use FTP and and connect to your hosting and Update the Files permissions as mentioned in https://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions
Follow this guide it's very simple to follow. I had the same problem and as i follow the guide it actually solved my problem.


When and how were relative distances to the planets first measured?

Question: I understand that the absolute distance to a planet can be measured using earth-baseline (e.g., diurnal) parallax, and that the first reasonably accurate such measurement was made for Mars by Cassini (and his assistant Richer) in 1672, and then, famously (with some modifications) for Venus by Halley, Cook, and others and others during its 1769 transit; but when were earth-baseline relative distance measurements first made for each of the planets?
Interpretation of such measurements requires assumptions about the nature of the orbits of planets, but some of the most compelling evidence for the validity of these assumptions is Kepler's third law of planetary motion, the persuasiveness of which itself rests on observations of relative distances. In fact, all of my texts say, in effect, that the third law "fit" the observed pattern of orbital period and relative distance.
Where did these distance measurements come from? What relative distance measurements were available to Kepler in 1619? When was earth-orbit-baseline parallax used to make these measurements for each of the planets?
Answer: The relative distances to the planets is fixed immediately by Copernican model, and this is what makes heliocentrism ten thousand times better than geocentrism, even without any known physical cause for the orbits.
The relative distances are fixed from the radius of the epicycle — the epicycle transfers Earth's orbit onto the planet, and the ratio of the epicycle radius (not the angular extent, which also includes the planet's motion along the deferent) to the deferent size in the Copernican interpretation directly gives the ratio of the Earth's orbit to the planet's orbit. The relative size of Venus and Mercury's orbit, relative to the Earth's distance from the sun, is given by the maximum in angle they get away from the sun.
This is not surprising, because the epicycle radius is giving you the parallax from the point of view of the Earth's orbit of the different planets. Once you know the absolute size of Earth's orbit, you know the distance to everything else, which is why the Earth's orbit is called the "Astronomical Unit".
This means that just Brahe's observations are sufficient to fix the entire solar system size except for the absolute scale of the Astronomical unit. The location of all the planets in 3 dimensions is completely determined from the assumption that the Earth's orbit is shared between all of them. The fact that the epicycles all are given by a one-year orbital period for the Earth is Baysian-wise extremely compelling evidence for heliocentrism without anything further to say.
This is why it is not correct to say that geocentrists were somehow justified, or had any valid points, or were anything other than the dimwitted reactionaries that they were. This includes Ptolmey, who buried the heliocentric work of Appolonius for political reasons, although even the most casual astronomer of the era was aware that heliocentrism was correct.
Comment: Given the ratio of people trying to explain planets motion to ordinary people just minding their business, one understands why geocentrism remained a good day to day point of view for so long.
Comment: @Shaktyai: Yeah, that's not a good explanation for the bias among astronomers. The real reason is that those day-to-day people needed a philosopher to justify them owning slaves and amusing themselves by torturing people in an arena, and Aristotle was their go-to guy, or else Roman Gods or whatnot, and heliocentrism showed these to be stupid. Further, when Christianity replaced Aristotlism, it had an even more stupid cosmology (although not so stupid ethics), and this meant nobody except astronomers had any interest in astronomical truth. But instead of sticking to their guns, they fudged.
Comment: I'm still not clear how this worked: Were the distances measured using parallax (or some other technique) or can they be calculated from their epicycles and the assumption that the orbits are in fact circular (in which case I need help visualizing: a diagram would be great!)?
Comment: You cannot praise Tycho Brahe and then condemn all geocentrist astronomers as dimwitted, as he was one of them and did not even believe in the Earth's daily rotation.
Comment: @Henry: Brahe was half-heliocentrist in that he believed the inner planets travel around the sun, and he was open-minded enough to take accurate measurements. That he was dimwitted enough to hold on to geocentrist views doesn't diminish his achievement, and I am sure had he been alive to see Kepler's orbit reconstruction, he would have changed his mind.
Comment: @raxacoricofallapatorius: There is nothing much to visualize--- imagine jupiter standing still in space, at a distance of it's orbit (this is a reasonable approximation), then every year it wobbles back and forth, and the angular wobble in the sky is the parallax due to Earth's orbit, and the angle subtended by the wobble is equal (to first order) to the ratio of Earth's orbit to Jupiter's orbit. The only correction is because jupiter is moving a little along its orbit too, but the parallax motion of the planet due to the orbit of the Earth is another name for the epicycle radius.
Comment: Ron: Brahe believed that the Earth could not move at all as it was too heavy.  I suspect it is more likely that seeing Kepler's calculations he would have thought the Sun moved around the Earth in a daily circle and annual ellipse and the other planets around the sun in ellipses.
Comment: @Henry: This is reasonable, it's a coodinate transformation minus the parallax and abberation effects of the Earth's motion on the distant stars, things which came much later, and minus Newtonian gravity, which came a little later. What's dimwitted is that the epicycles of the outer planets are independent. As long as you believe the relative distances are as in Copernicus's model, you could reasonably believe back then the Earth is fixed. But it is ridiculous to ascribe the yearly epicycle motion to the planets, rather than to one thing with a yearly period, either the sun or the Earth.
Comment: @Ron: Remember, what I'm asking is a historical question. So I want to confirm: is that in fact how Copernicus arrived at his ratios (0,3763:0,7193:1.000:1,5198:5.2192:9.1743); and Kepler (via Brahe) at his (0.389:0.724:1.000:1.523:5.200:9.510)?
Comment: @raxacoricofallapatorius: I didn't read it, and I don't know the exact ratios in the two works, but yes, Copernicus had all the ratios of the distances correct to 5% for sure. I would rather give this credit to Aristarchus and Appolonius in ancient times, they knew the relative distances to the planets.
Comment: @Ron: So all these guys used the method you describe *historically*? And they were calculated in the 100s BC?
Comment: I've accepted the answer and asked a [follow up](http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/36458/2540) about the specific method Copernicus and his contemporaries used.
Comment: @raxacoricofallapatorius: It was done in the 100s BC, but it was all suppressed.
Comment: I've made some edits to clear up some confusion I had, but am still unsure. What "deferent" size is used? We must be talking about Ptolemaic epicycles (right?); but  Ptolemy gave no "size" for deferents other than the ones he based on nesting of spheres. (Sorry to be so dim.)
Comment: @Ron Do you have a reference to the distances of planets from the sun being measured by Aristarchus? Is it in one of the ancient texts? Did Copernicus attribute his method to measure distances to Aristarchus or Appolonius?


While setting up lactated ringers bag I accidentally poked it with needle causing small leak, can I still use?

Question: While setting up lactated ringers bag I accidentally poked it with needle causing small leak, if I tape the hole can I still use it? Thanks
Comment: Yes, new bag and new needle. I played it safe and did not use. Thank you
Answer: No, you have compromised the contents.  Tape is not going to make a seal that will keep the contents sterile.
I am assuming the needle was new and sterile.
I am assuming a brand new bag, that was just removed from it's outer container.
In this case and if an emergency I might use it for the one IV/Sub Q dose that I was trying to deliver when I accidentally poked the bag.  But I would throw it out and get new supplies for the next treatment.
If either the Bag or Needle were not brand new at the time of the accident, I would not even consider it for emergency use. Excepting life or death, which this would not be if there is time to look online for an answer.
Related How long do subcutaneous fluids (lactated ringers) keep?


Military uniform identification ?French

Question: This photo comes from a collection from my great grandmother. When she was in her 20's she is supposed to have been nanny to this officer's children. Supposedly his name was Jean Lerede and he was French. I'm not sure if this photo is him or if the soldier is even French. Can anyone identify him?
Thanks in advance
Comment: Your great grandmother isn't very helpful without knowing what years she was in her 20s.
Comment: The regiment numbers on the collar look very French. Also the medal on the right (as you look at him) looks like the Croix de Guerre. I'm not sure that adds much information to what you already have though
Comment: ... and the medal on the left looks like the Médaille Militaire (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9daille_militaire), so it seems pretty conclusive that this is a picture of a French soldier. Seems like both medals were quite widely awarded, especially during WWI, so I don't think this is much help in tracking him down.
Comment: she was born in 1874 and looked after the kids in the late 1890's before she got married in 1902. She kept up the friendship with the French family for many years after.
Answer: I think this is probably a French army uniform of WWI (or soon after), for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, the number patches on the collar are distinctive of French army uniforms around this period. The number indicates what regiment the wearer belongs to; in this case, it's '30'. French Wikipedia suggests several potential regiments that this could be:

30e régiment de dragons
30e régiment d'infanterie
30e régiment d'infanterie territoriale

Secondly, the two medals also look like French decorations. From left to right (as we look at them):

The Médaille militaire.
The Croix de Guerre. This was first awarded in 1915, so it dates the photo to WWI or later. The pattern of the ribbon indicates what war it was awarded for; unfortunately the photo resolution isn't high enough to make out a pattern.

Both these medals were awarded to members of allied armies (and civillians). However, given the collar patches, I'm pretty confident that this is a French uniform.
The OP says of their great grandmother:

she was born in 1874 and looked after the kids in the late 1890's before she got married in 1902. She kept up the friendship with the French family for many years after.

Given that this photo was taken after 1915, it could either be her former employer, or one of the children she looked after. Or it could be someone else entirely!
Comment: thanks so much Jayfor. I appreciate your help
Comment: Regarding the CdG medal it also has palm and star additions on the ribbon though what grade is uncertain due to the colour of the photo.
Comment: @foolingreens - you're welcome. I'm afraid none of this information is of much use in identifying the person in the photo, but I guess it at least gives you an earliest date. If you're really invested in finding out more,  there is an old question on Genealogy stack exchange about French army records which might be useful https://genealogy.stackexchange.com/questions/9791/seeking-army-records-for-jean-baptiste-cordier-an-officer-in-the-french-army

Military uniform identification ?French


Am i able to use client's certificate in iPhone

Question: I'm iphone developer and have a client.
One day he wants to update uploaded live app in App Store and give me source code, his apple id and password.
I entered iOS Provisioning Portal by using his apple id.
there was already one distribution certificate and i downloaded it (distribution_identity.cer) and provisioning file (xxx.mobileprovision).
I setup provisioning file, but i got a error "iPhone App Signing: A valid signing identity matching this profile could not be found in your keychain".
so I setup distribution_identity.cer file but still got the error.
I think I need the p12 file for distribution certificate.
can i make the p12 file?
or do I need the p12 file to client?
I'm not working out a solution.
Answer: you need the .pi2 file from the client.
The other method is , revoke the certificate  from the portal and regenerate it from scratch.
Comment: Thanks. But if i revoke the certificate, can i use distribution provision for the uploaded app?
Answer: You need the p12, and you might also want to create a separate User account on your Mac for using it so that the XCode doesn't get confused by having multiple Developer certificates in the current account's Keychain.


Alternative of AWS SSM for configuration compliance in GCP

Question: we want to implement compliance monitoring in our cloud environment. For AWS, we are using AWS SSM to do it. But there is no alternative product in GCP, the only thing that will have the same functionality is cloud security command center and its still in alpha phase.
Is there any alternative for AWS SSM that can be implemented in GCP? We also want to do it with automation, so more preferable if it has API command. Thanks.
Comment: Do you mean like [Cloud Checker](https://cloudcheckr.com/) or [Cloud Health](https://www.cloudhealthtech.com/)? I think there are others, but none come to mind right now.
Answer: At this time, The Google Cloud Security Command Center is the only alternative to AWS' SSM. What you could do is deploy any of the Security tools available in the marketplace such as Qualys or BeyondTrust but note that these aren't GCP services. They are third party solutions.
If you would like to test an early access of the Cloud Security Command Center, you may fill up the form in this link to try out Google Cloud Security Command Center since it is currently in Alpha release.
Answer: Yes, I use the GCP secrets manager (you can choose to encrypt or not when you create a secret) and it operates similarly to AWS SSM Parameter


"Build a PC", "assemble a PC", or something else?

Question: When you have all the parts of a PC and you need to connect them into a working PC, which is the appropriate verb to describe this action: build, assemble or something else?
Comment: Both build and assemble are common, but the latter is more industrial-sounding than the former. I built my last PC myself from parts I got online, but I might work in a computer store assembling units.
Comment: I would say _assemble_, but there may be some specialist term used in the industry.
Answer: To me building a PC is buying all the actual components (RAM, SSD, sound card, screen, etc) and putting them all into a case to make a computer. Whereas, assembling a PC just sounds like unpacking one from the box and plugging everything into the right port.
Comment: Spoken as a true hardware geek/connoisseur. Only an actual hardware geek like you would understand why yours is the most appropriate answer.
Comment: I wouldn't call unpacking a machine and connecting monitors and keyboards and such things 'assembling' it—that's just connecting it (or something like that). I'd say your first sentence is spot on, though: what makes _building_ a PC is the fact that you choose, find, buy, and procure the individual parts yourself. Once you have all the parts, putting them together into a box is the bit I'd call _assembling_ it. If you only assemble a machine, it is implied that the parts are already there for you, they just need to be put together.
Answer: You assemble a kit into a PC; you build a PC of choice configuration from the parts as needed.
So, decide if you want it a la mode or a la carte.
Answer: When "building" a PC, you're just assembling a pre-produced, unique, specialized and working parts into a working rig. The most logical word choice here is "assemble".
Building would imply making those working parts from scratch, but that's what factories do.
Comment: But we still speak of people building houses, when all of the 'parts' (bricks, joists, roof tiles, floor tiles, carpets, etc.) are made elsewhere.
Comment: The way I personally see it: Computer parts (motherboard, Graphics card, processor, fans) are highly specialized parts with many components themselves. A brick is just a brick, not unique from other bricks in any way. You're not merely putting bricks together, there are processes behind it. Putting a GPU in its place and plugging it in doesnt seem like building to me. Just my view on this.
Answer: Assemble is the verb you need to use, as you are putting together all the parts.
All PC companies, and even the ones who custom-make them, use the word assemble.It is the accepted industry term.
Assemble:
fit together the separate component parts of (a machine or other object).
"my new machine is being assembled and my old one dismantled"
(Google dictionary)
Comment: This is not correct: 'assemble' is not the only choice here; it is in fact the inferior choice in some contexts.
Comment: "Assembling a PC" is the most commonly used phrase that I have heard.Also,even when the parts are bought from different companies and put together, it is called assembling.


How do I convert and compress a psd file to a pdf file without compromising quality?

Question: I am designing a billboard with artwork that is 12" x 24" with a resolution of 500. (This is what they wanted.) The psd file is 170MB and they only want a 20MB file. I am using Photoshop CC. How do I save this file as a PDF that's about 20MB without compromising the quality? I am a complete beginner. Thanks
Comment: The reason the file is so big is because of dimensions, quality, and the fact that it's a PSD not sure what you're expecting here. Billboards don't need 500 dpi, so that's be a quick way to cut down on size, also sending them an outputted file vs the raw PSD would probably cut down on size too.
Answer: Adobe Indesign has the features of importing a .psd file.
You can create a single page document in InDesign and import the PSD there and then 'Export' or 'Save As' the .indd (InDesign document) in form of a pdf.
Advantages are that InDesign provides a lot of ways to compress and store the PDFs.
Answer: Depending on your colour depth, 72 megapixels (12" x 24" @ 500 PPI) will not quite get to a 20MB file with a lossless compression. So you will probably have to comprise the quality somewhat. You can do this in a way that might not be noticeable.
I would check how far JPEG2000 would get me and go from there. Don't forget that this file size is just a guide line, the printer will likely accept the file if it is close enough.
The 'proper' way would be to look at your image and decide which compression technique fits best. For example if you have an image with a lots of graphic design reducing the colour space to the most common colours might be a great idea. Or for a more photographic image you could loose some of the chrominance information by choosing for chroma subsampling.
Either way, I highly recommend going to the printer and see one print. It is amazing to see a print head flying past whilst splattering the canvas!


How to handle pixel-perfect collision detection with rotation?

Question: Does anyone have any ideas how to go about achieving rotational pixel-perfect collision detection with Bitmaps in Android? Or in general for that matter? I have pixel arrays currently but I don't know how to manipulate them based on an arbitrary number of degrees.
Answer: I'm not familiar with Android so I don't know what tools you have at your disposal, but I can tell you a way to implement this in general terms. How easy it will be depends on what Android provides for you. You're going to need matrices or at least they'll simplify calculations a lot.
For starters do a bounding box collision check and return immediately if they don't collide in order to avoid further computations. That's logical because if the bounding boxes don't collide it's guaranteed that no pixels will be colliding either.
Afterwards, if a pixel perfect collision check is needed, then the most important point is that you have to perform that check in the same space. This can be done by taking each pixel from sprite A, applying a series of transformations in order to get them into sprite B's local space, and then check if it collides with any pixel in that position on sprite B. A collision happens when both pixels checked are opaque.
So, the first thing you need is to construct a world matrix for each of the sprites. There are probably tutorials online teaching you how to create one, but it should basically be a concatenation of a few simpler matrices in the following order:
Translation(-Origin) * Scale * Rotation * Translation(Position)

The utility of this matrix is that by multiplying a point in local space - and for instance if you get the pixels using a method like bitmap.getPixelAt(10,20) then 10,20 is defined in local space - by the corresponding world matrix will move it into world space:
LocalA * WorldMatrixA -> World
LocalB * WorldMatrixB -> World

And if you invert the matrices you can also go in the opposite direction i.e. transform points from world space into each of the sprite's local spaces depending on which matrix you used:
World * InverseWorldMatrixA -> LocalA
World * InverseWorldMatrixB -> LocalB

So in order to move a point from sprite A's local space into sprite B's local space, you first transform it using sprite A's world matrix, in order to get it into world space, and then using sprite B's inverse world matrix, to get it into sprite B's local space:
LocalA * WorldMatrixA -> World * InverseWorldMatrixB -> LocalB

After the transformation, you check if the new point falls within sprite B's bounds, and if it does, you check the pixel at that location just like you did for sprite A. So the entire process becomes something like this (in pseudocode and untested):
bool PixelCollision(Sprite a, Sprite B)
{
    // Go over each pixel in A
    for(i=0; i<a.Width; ++i)
    {
        for(j=0; j 0;

            // Calculate where that pixel lies within sprite B's bounds
            Vector3 positionB = new Vector3(i,j,0) * a.WorldMatrix * b.InverseWorldMatrix;

            // If it's outside bounds skip to the next pixel
            if(positionB.X<0 || positionB.Y<0 ||
               positionB.X>=b.Width || positionB.Y>=b.Height) continue;

            // Check if pixel is solid in sprite B
            bool solidB = b.getPixelAt(positionB.X, positionB.Y).Alpha > 0;

            // If both are solid then report collision
            if(solidA && solidB) return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

Comment: @DavidLively Indeed it will, this an expensive process computationally. And I think even with the matrix calculations being unrolled into regular calculations with trigonometry - possibly leaving out scaling if it's not being used - it would still be pretty much the same. There might be other solutions, but I couldn't think of any. Ultimately the best solution would be to ponder whether pixel perfect collision detection are really necessary at all. And some games that use pixel perfect collisions (like the first Sonic games) abstract the characters into a series of collision points instead.
Comment: I like this because it's elegant, but using matrices like this  - multiplying a 3x3 matrix per pixel per frame- will introduce some pretty serious performance penalties for any but the smallest bitmaps, especially on most Android devices.
Comment: good point; I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with an alternate solution that doesn't involve subtracting bitmaps and looking for peaks. There's probably an opportunity for a paper in this somewhere. :) Mantra: optimal vs sufficient... optimal vs sufficient..
Comment: Thanks a lot that is really great explanation. I currently have bounding box collision detection set up and if that occurs then I check pixel overlap between the two bitmaps but only in the overlapping rectangle. This all works great and isn't too processor intensive. The problem occurs when I rotate the image. The pixels themselves are not rotated in the bitmap. I am just drawing a rotated image. So when I continue to check the pixel collision it is still using the old pixels. I like what you said about mapping pixels to world coordinates. This may very well be what I need to do. Thanks!!!
Comment: +1 I've always wondered how the algorith works, Thank you @DavidGouveia
Comment: A potential optimization would be to have a list of perimeter pixels in the rotated object, and only test against those. Though keep down this path and you'll quickly end up at polygons...
Comment: @Kieran if you need to check for collision between a rotated bounding box, then your best bet is probably Separation Axis Theorem, it all depends how you're storing your bounding box though, for SAT you need vertex coordinates, you could adjust the bounding box each time you rotate the image also, you check which x, y is the most top, bottom, left, right, etc.
Answer: While David Gouveia's answer sounds correct, it is not the best solution from a performance point of view. There are several important optimizations you need to do:

sort out and avoid unnecessary checks by checking first with a simple circle collision:
to get the center and radius of your sprites in any rotation, get the minima and maxima x and y coordinates of all 4 (already rotated) vertices: then you can construct an circle closing in the sprite by:
center = max_x-min_x/2 , max_y-min_y/2
radius = max(max_x-min_x, max_y-min_y)
now you should have not too many candidates to check by rasterizing the already transformed (rotated) images basically by using a simple affine texturemapping algorithm. Basically you keep track of 4 lines per rasterized sprite:
2 lines going from vertex a to the next vertices of your rotated box (b and c)
2 lines going in "bitmap space" from vertex u1/v1 to the next vertices u2/v2 and u3/v3:
Note: I googled this image and it shows a triangle, your boxes are just two triangles. It is vital for this algorithm to draw horizontal lines (that's why it is called "rasterizer") to avoid "holes" inside the bitmap due to round off errors.
By calculating the lines with a bresenham algorithm, you need for each pixel only 4 additions and 4 compares (and sometimes two additional adds, depending on the slope)
What you do is you write your own polygon texturemapper, however without the costly(and difficult to optimize) 3d correction.

you can easily reduce the resolution of the collision bitmaps (for example by factor 2) and save even more time. a collision check on half of the resolution shouild be unnoticeable.
If you are using graphics accelleration it could be possible to use some kind of HW-accelerated Buffer check(stencil?) to avoid coding the rasterizer by yourself..

The main problem is: Java is not very fast on accessing bitmap data stored in an 2D-array.
I would recommend to store the data in a 1-dimensional array to avoid at least 1 indexOutOfBounds check for each access. Also use power-of-2 dimensions(like 64x64, 128x128, etc. By this you can calculate the offset via bitshifting and not multiplication). You can also optimize the second texture access to perform it only if first one has value != 0 (transparent)
All these problems were solved in software rendering engines, it could be useful to look into sourcecode


Keyboard Switcher-Does Not Display on Navigation Bar

Question: I have the Nexus 9 and the HTC folio keyboard.  I cannot get the keyboard switcher to display in the navigation bar.  I have checked the settings for apps and both Google keyboard and Swiftkey apps are enabled and the notifications boxes are ticked. I want to display the switcher so that can turn off the folio keyboard which is a battery hog.
Answer: things have changed a bit in Lollipop. On the Nexus 6, for example, there's a new softkey you can use to change keyboards.
Comment: I only have this icon when the device keyboard is activaated. And even when this does display it doesn't show the Folio keyboard.  I a looking for an easy way to turn the keyboard on and off.
Answer: was the Keyboard activated through the app?
you should be able activate the keyboard through the app.
alternatively, you can go to:
settings.
language and Input.
and select, selector Icon.
or in the Language and Input menu Choose you keyboard.


What arrangement of web members is better?

Question: I have a problem regarding following two structures.
First one:

Second one:

What arrangemet is better ? Why ?
Actually I have no idea which one is better.
Answer: The one with diagonals opening out up and out gfrom the center, number one.
By inspecting the members we immediately say that the diagonal members are 1.41 times longer than the horizontal and vertical members.
The longer members with the same cross-section perform better in tension than compression, due to slenderness factors and buckling concerns.
In the first configuration, the diagonals are under tension and will just need to be checked for pure tension.
In the second configuration, the diagonals are under compression, we would need to make sure the diagonals are strong against in-plane and out of plane buckling.


Develop a module that adds a new content type with custom fields

Question: How do I start to develop a Drupal 7 module that adds a new content type with some custom fields, so it generates all the output I want?
Answer: Although its possible to do programatically, your easiest bet would be to use features.
This is how you would do it:

Manually create your content type
Manually add fields
Create a new feature and export the content type (and its fields)
Done!

Now if you install this feature is a fresh Drupal installation that content type and fields will be automatically added.
Comment: Well I need to develop this as a normal module. So can I later add more code in the files and "upgrade" this module and it works like a totally normal module?   Is it better to rely on features or is it better to write a module from scratch that makes all this and creates the content ype, adds the fields ...  and later does some database querys, file conversion ...?
Comment: You can always update your content type, re-create the feature and existing installations will be updated. And if you want to add something special, you can always implement a second module which does that using the various hook_node_* hooks.
Comment: Well I will give it a try.
Comment: You can just add your code to the .module file created by features, for Drupal this is just a regular module.


Are State Plane Coordinates always derived from longitude and latitude?

Question: Do state plane coordinates always begin as longitude and latitude?
In other words, they are not another system that can be calculated without Long. and Lat., correct?
I guess I'm saying, back in 1930+ they came up with the State Plane system.  To make that work, however, they had to start with L&L.  Today, I am guessing I can simply compare it to a database.  But if for example, I have a GPS device and I want to know the Plane Coordinate, I have to convert it.
Comment: If you are asking a historical question, [this](http://archives.profsurv.com/magazine/article.aspx?i=1180) article may be interesting to you.
Answer: Almost all software for doing coordinate projection use geographic coordinates as a standard system in the middle and defines "forward" (from geographic to projected) and "inverse" (from projected to geographic) routines for projections.
So, to go from a UTM projection (say "UTM 10 N") to a stateplane projection (say "Washington Stateplane North") you'd first run the inverse projection from UTM to geographic, then run the forward projection from geographic to stateplane.
Answer: There are algorithms that will transform from a grid system to another grid system without going without requiring a conversion to lat-long.  So the best answer I can come up with is not always, but often they use lat-long.


Is there a good list of nomenclature for modal axioms?

Question: I would like to see what names that has been suggested for useful modal axioms. By name here I mean some abbreviation such as $T$, $K$, $4$, $.2$, $E$ and so on. In particular I am interested in suggestions that would amount to a good name for the useful modal axiom $\Box\Box\alpha\rightarrow\Box\alpha$ which corresponds with density of frames.
Answer: One of the most complete online summaries of modal logic systems is still Halleck's list. Even though the axiom corresponding to density is not explicitly identified in the latter list, it is a particular example of the Chellas/Lemmon/Geach G$(a,b,c,d)$-axiom $\lozenge^a\Box^b\varphi\to\Box^c\lozenge^d\varphi$, where $\circ^n$ denotes an $n$-long string of the modality $\circ$. Each G$(a,b,c,d)$-axiom corresponds to an appropriate confluence property $(\forall x,y,z\in W)(xR^ay\land xR^cz\to\exists w(yR^bw\land zR^dw))$, where $R^m$ means accessible in $m$ steps. Accordingly, one option would be to simply call the density axiom G(0,2,1,0).
At SEP one may find the density axiom called by the alternative name C4 ---standing for 'converse of axiom 4', which could also be called G(0,1,2,0)--- but you will probably not consider C4 a 'good name', for the density property is nothing like the converse of transitivity.  I have also seen the converse implication of axiom 4 called 4$^{-1}$ ---a name that looks equally bad as C4, for it has a purely syntactical motivation, but not a semantical one.  At any rate, as the 'sacred' (Hilbert-style) tradition on modal logic is clearly losing way to the 'profane' (Kripke-style) tradition (see here and also here), it would not seem advisable to choose names that focus on old-school axioms rather than the thereby induced modal properties.
Finally, let me point out that in the literature on labeled deductive systems the density axiom is nowadays standardly referred to as axiom X, while the particular confluence axiom G$(1,1,1,1)$ representing the property in the diamond lemma of ARS is called 2. This terminology seems to have been widely adopted in recent publications that deal with uniform useful proof theories for modal logics. Accordingly, KX would the name given to the extension of the basic normal modal logic K by the addition of the density axiom.
Comment: No, Frode, the **G**-axiom (a.k.a. *Catach-Sahlqvist incestual schema*) is only a *very* particular example of the [**Sahlqvist schema**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahlqvist_formula).
Comment: If you're looking for my personal opinion, it will be hard to make me vote for a nomenclature connected to the old-school sacred approach to modal logic. By the way, [here](http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/q/20635/16763) is a question I made a year ago about the converse of axiom **5**.
Comment: Isn't that the Sahlqvist formula or condition, João?
Comment: OK. I think of these names as names of the axiomatic schemas, and not as names of the corresponding properties.  So I do not see a problem with a purely syntactical criterion for the use of the notion converse here.

What do you think of my idea to turn the "4" upside down?
Answer: Apparently $\Box\Box\alpha\rightarrow\Box\alpha$ is known as C4 (Converse of (4)).
Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Comment: Perhaps $ C_4$ or $4_C $?
Comment: Yes, I saw that suggestion in the article by James Garson. To my mind it is not a good name as it uses two characters. I like names with only one character (or a character with a glyph) so that we can identify useful combined logics by a series of characters such as KD4.2 or KD45.

Garson's term "C4" is, if I remember correctly, motivated by it being the converse of 4. Perhaps by using that idea we could instead name the scema by rotating the numeral "4" 180 degrees? To me that would be an aesthetically more pleasing baptismal.
Comment: I think I will settle for \begin{sideways}\begin{sideways}4\end{sideways}\end{sideways} with the rotating package for the text I am writing up. The instruction will turn the "4" upside down, and we will have a general scheme for naming converses.


Is this infinite sequence of transitive models of ZFC equiconsistent with Con(ZFC)?

Question: Is it provable in $\sf ZFC$ that the existence of a transitive model of $\sf ZFC$ implies the existence of a sequence $(M_n)_{n \in \mathbb N}$ of transitive models of $\sf ZFC$ such that $M_m \in M_n$ for every naturals $m< n$, and such that each model proves all axioms of $\sf ZFC$  relativized to the lower models, but at the same time no model proves the lower models within it being models of $\sf ZFC$.
Comment: Since ZFC+Con(ZFC) is not strong enough to prove the existence of a single transitive model, it will let alone not be able to prove a whole sequence of them exist.
Comment: Yes! correct. I've corrected the post.
Answer: Transitive models must have the same $\omega$ as the universe, so they all must agree on the theory of True Arithmetic, which include the list of axioms of $\sf ZFC$.
Now, if you look at the second $\alpha$ such that $L_\alpha\models\sf ZFC$, then in that model there is a unique height of a transitive model of $\sf ZFC$.
Comment: what happens if we remove transitivity condition?
Comment: Without transitivity yes, because the theory $\operatorname{ZFC}+\{ c_m \in c_{n} : m < n \} + \bigcup_{n} \operatorname{ZFC}^{c_n}$ is consistent if $\operatorname{ZFC}$ is consistent, by reflection and compactness. At the same time, if $\operatorname{ZFC} + \operatorname{Con}(\operatorname{ZFC})$ is inconsistent non of the $c_n$ can satisfy that $c_m$ is a model of $\operatorname{ZFC}$.


Microsoft Access Security

Question: So I get how to connect Access to SQL Server, and I understand that the tables have to be linked, but my problem is security. If I link the tables from SQL Server into Access, then anyone who comes into the Access forms to enter data can ultimately get at the tables via the link can't they? I know that newer Access versions have no user security, but is there any way to restrict what data they see in some of the tables, or do I need to do that on the back end in SQL Server Express?
Answer: The easiest way to do that is on the back end.  Define a user that has only the access you want and then update the ODBC DSN that Access uses to that user account.
Comment: I think the OP's point is that no matter what account they set up for Access, the user could get the username/password and connect to SQL Server directly, bypassing the forms.
Comment: Okay thanks, I will do it on the back end in SQL Server. As a related issue, do people generally create a "dummy" table in access to link to? I want all the tables in SQL Server, so how do I determine which one to pull out and put in Access so I can create the link?
Comment: I'm not sure if I understand the question.  You only have access to the tables defined in the database/catalog defined in the DSN.  If you want access to every table on the server (assuming you have multiple databases) I don't know of another way besides defining a DSN for each database.
Comment: I just meant that I need something in Access to link to right? So I need to have a table back in Access that links to all the "actual" tables in SQL Server (if I'm understanding this correctly). If that is the case, it seems odd to leave 1 table behind in Access as a "link" while all the rest are put in SQL Server
Answer: You just need to make sure that the credentials used to set up the linked tables only have the bare minimum permissions they need to do the things the forms do.
You will always have to deal with the fact that if you give someone the keys to the door, they will be able to get into your house even when you are not home.
So you need to make sure that if your forms implement any kind of constraints, business logic, etc. that this is repeated in the database, so that it will still be enforced even if users bypass the forms and interact with the tables directly.

Microsoft Access Security


Spanning Tree -DesignatedPort

Question: What's the interest of Designated Port in STP algorithm ?I didn't get their goal,we have both RootPort and DesignatedPort
Comment: Did any answer help you? If so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you could provide and accept your own answer.
Answer: I'll try to answer this to make you get the idea, without diving deeply into details.
STP builds a tree.
So, think of these port roles from the perspective of direction you're going over this tree - upstream (to the Root Bridge) or downstream (from the Root Bridge).
The Root Port basically is an upstream port, and Designated Port is a downstream port.
The Root Port receives BPDUs from the Root Bridge (directly or indirectly), caches them, and replicates out its Designated Ports.
Why does it matter?
The ultimate goal of STP to ensure that there's only one logical path between any two points in the topology - that's how it makes the topology loop-free.
That's why there may be only one Root Port per switch - this is the only exit point on a switch to reach the Root Bridge.
The Designated Port, on a contrary, is the port that sends BPDUs and connects the segment to the Root Bridge (that's why the Root Bridge has all its ports as Designated). So, there're multiple Designated ports per switch - as many as the number of the physical segments (from port to port, or, collision domain like matteo have mentioned) the particular switch serves.
Keeping in mind the goal of the STP, it's obvious that there may be only one Designated port per segment (to ensure only one logical path from the segment towards the Root Bridge).
These port roles are exactly about how the tree is actually built.
Once the Root Bridge is elected you have the root of the tree. Now, you need to construct the tree itself.
The tree is constructed in a downstream manner, i.e. from the Root Bridge down the rest of the topology.
This is done through the exchange of BPDUs. In most STP versions (I won't touch different 'additions' from STP toolkit or MSTP here to avoid overcomplicating things) the Root Bridge is the only source of BDPUs - rest of the switches just receive them, cache for some time, and replicate downstream the topology (changing few parameters in them).
Look at the picture below and imagine the process of the construction of the tree:

Root Bridge is elected, and all of its ports are Designated.
The fact that there is already a Root Bridge means that to this point all switches has all necessary information to construct a tree - they were exchanging BDPUs for some time and now all they know who is the Root Bridge and where it is located, in terms of direction (the port), the distance (the cost to reach it), and the upstream switch on the way to it.
Downstream bridges each elects exactly one Root Port - the path to the Root.
Once the Root port is elected, each bridge elects its Designated ports.
If the Designated port (the downstream port) is also receiving BPDUs, this means that it's connected to the similar Designated port - i.e. you have two ports that both lead to the Root Bridge - this directly violates the goal of STP because you have two logical paths to the same point (the Root Bridge), and it's essentially a loop (imagine frames flow from the Root Bridge, exit from one of these Designated ports and going into another, getting back to the Root Bridge).
So, to avoid this, STP simply blocks one of this ports thus breaking the loop.
Answer: The Root port in a switch is the port connecting to the root bridge or has the lowest cost to the root bridge.
The designated port is a port on a link with lowest cost to root bridge. So on a segment with two switches, neither being the root, the switch with shortest path to the root bridge will have the designated port on that segment and the other one will be blocking. On a link where the port on one side is a root port, the other side will be a designated port.
You could say that the designated port is the one responsible for forwarding traffic to a segment.
Found this picture that might help explain it.

Sw1 being the root bridge has only got designated ports. The other port on those two links are both root ports as they connect to Sw1. Sw3 which has got the lowest cost to the root bridge(Sw1) has got the Designated port(DP) on the third segment which leaves Blocking state for Sw2 since that link is not the shortest path to the root.
Comment: That's not quire correct.  The designated port has the lowest cost (to the root) on that segment or link.  Every network segment will be connected to  one bridge with a designated port.  Also, every port that is neither the root port or the designated port will be in the blocking state.
Answer: Actually you might find useful to approach the spanning tree operations in terms of network segments.
A segment is a collision domain or, technically speaking, a portion of a network where connected devices use the same physical layer.
So, for instance, the cat5 wire that connects a switchport with a PC is a segment, and if 2 switchports of 2 different switches are connected to an old hub in which a common IP subnet is assigned, these 2 ports are on the same segment, etc.
From the spanning tree point of view, in a single segment only 1 switchport is allowed to forward frames to that segment, and it is the designated port, and any other port should be blocked unless there is a switch that choose the segment as the best path to the root bridge.
Indeed, every switch choose which of its segments is the best one to reach the root bridge (and in which it defines one and only one root port).
So, in a segment that is not selected by anyone as a path to the root bridge (ie. a leaf of our tree), one designated port is elected and is in charge of the forwarding of the frames into that segment.
In a segment that is used by one or multiple switches to reach the root bridge (ie. a node of our tree - eg. a typical connection between 2 switch in cascade), the switch with the best BID will have its switchport in designated mode, and all the other switches will have 1 port each in root mode.
In other words, a designated port forwards traffic from the root of the tree of STP to its leaves, while the root ports forward the frame from the leaves and the nodes up to the root (or to the proper intermediate note).

Spanning Tree -DesignatedPort