Bema judgement of bad works

Question: Bible commentators generally believe that Christians will be rewarded for good works at the Bema judgement.
I am unclear of the purpose of judging my evil/bad/worthless works after I am already saved and in Heaven.
Is the purpose of that judgement to make the immortal me ashamed, guilty, or is it to make me fully aware of the extent of grace? Guilt and shame do not seem to belong in Heaven.
Comment: Welcome to the site, Bill. To help avoid your question being closed, some quotes from reputable sources about this 'Bema seat judgment' would be helpful, to show that this IS a general claim. As it stands, others could claim it is not a general view, and so the Q will go off-topic. And to focus Qs, it is also helpful to ask a particular branch of Christianity to answer, otherwise this will just become a melting-pot of disparate interpretations (personal interpretations being discouraged on this site.) Which group of believers do you think could offer the most helpful answers?
Comment: There must be many questions here on this topic already, search them first, and also look at all the topics on the Phil 3:12 verse here, before posting a new topic. Bema judgment doctrine is specific to the Baptist sect which separates the final real judgment/justice by diminishing it merely to special rewards rather than hell/heaven sending issue. https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/search?q=philippians+3%3A12
Answer: From a Protestant point of view, there are two judgments.  One is the great white throne (thronos) for unbelievers.  Two is the bema (bema) judgment for believers, which is the question of the OP.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. 2 Cor 5:10 (emphasis mine)

What's the point?  It's in the verse before.  To be well-pleasing, acceptable.

Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.

Well-pleasing because our works as Christians will be judged.  Not our salvation, but what we did after being born-again.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Eph 2:10

Believers are His.  We are His works to do good works that are there for us to do.  Do them and be rewarded.  Don't do them and the bad works are burnt, but the believer still saved.
Will we feel bad, guilty, shame if we fail at doing the good works? Based on what Paul said, we will feel grateful.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Rom 8:1
Answer: Rev. 20:11-15

11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. 14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

I think it should be noted that, ordinarily, all works are judged according to the worker. But, if they are found in the "Lamb's Book of Life," they are judged or reckoned according to the works of Christ because they are in Christ. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1)."
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Bema judgement of bad works


Can we visualize a feature space with 4 or more dimensions?

Question: I have a dataset with 6 independent variables, I have trained this dataset on a Support Vector Machine. Is there is a way in python or R to visualize the feature space with the hyperplane? Or for example, can I plot many 2D plots such that every plot has two features vs each other separated by the decision boundary in the graph?
Answer: For something like visualizing four dimensions, you could do something along the lines of constructing a 3D plot and then adding a color gradient to represent the fourth dimension. For five dimensions you could add scatter plot point size, for six perhaps even scatter point shape as well. After around four dimensions however, the 'standard' visualization of a scatterplot starts to look fairly clunky.
One way to visualize six dimensional data is to use a technique you mentioned above. Namely, create a series of 2D plots. One way to accomplish this in by using the scatter_matrix in pandas. You can read about that on its documentation here.
A minimal example is provided below:
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

# import the scatter_matrix function from pandas
from pandas.plotting import scatter_matrix

# create a df that contains a series of random numbers with 6 features
df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randn(60, 6), columns=['x_1', 'x_2', 'x_3', 'x_4',
                                                   'x_5','x_6'])

#create a scatter matrix and plot a histogram across the diagonal
scatter_matrix(df, alpha=.4, figsize=(8, 8), diagonal='hist');

The result:
Answer: It is possible to visualize 4D features or more by playing with the following parameters in a 3D space:

Color (ex: the more the dot is bright, the more it is high)
Size (ex: the more the dot is big, the more it is high)
Shapes
Animations

But it works mainly if you have features with less importance than others.
If you have features of similar importance, you can represent different 3D views interactively next to each other like in this example or maybe virtual reality could give some interesting views of hyperspace.


How can I run two instances of Civ 5 on the same computer (ports conflict when playing LAN)?

Question: I have two copies of civ 5, and I am using a program called SoftXPand to have a multiseat setup.  Both copies of civ 5 run fine, but when I try to connect to the other in the Local Network it says "error connecting to multiplayer session" .  I am able to connect to another computer in the network though.  So I assume this is a problem with a port conflict.  Does anyone have any way I can get this to work?
Comment: If you mean port forwarding, this doesn't apply to your Local Network (LAN).
Comment: No I do not.  I mean two copies of Civ 5 are trying to bind to the same port on the same computer.  Though I have not had this problem for other games, it seems just civ does this.
Comment: I don't think you can bind two applications to the same port.  That...counteracts the whole purpose of having dedicated channels for applications.  Maybe you can change the port one instance uses?
Comment: Yeah, @fbueckert is right. Two applications can *not* bind to the same port, ever. Changing the instance of one instance seems to be the only possible way.
Comment: Have you tried [virtualization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization)?
Answer: You might have already figured this out, but I have an explanation.
If you only have one wireless (or Ethernet) card in your computer, you will only have ONE IP address.
Both instances are trying to use the same address, and this is leading to your "kicking" issue - they are trying to override one-another.
You could purchase a second card (let me know how that works, I'm a bit curious), or changing the port one of your instances runs out of.
Hope this helps!
Comment: FYI: You can assign two IP addresses to the same network card in the ipv4 settings panel.
Comment: This shouldn't be necessary, for the same reason that you can run different application on the same machine (i.e. with the same IP address). As long as the OP can ensure the two instances use a different port number, the IP address won't matter.
Comment: Maybe a WIFI-Stick would be cheaper than a second network-card.


How we can select suitable Variance Influence Factor (VIF) critical value to detect collinearity?

Question: In Variance Influence Factor(VIF) we should use a critical value. A rule of for this value is 10. Is this a good value for detecting collinear based one VIF? How we can select suitable factor for every case?
Answer: You cant. A VIF of 10 implies that the standard errors are larger by a factor of $\sqrt{10}$ than would otherwise be the case, if there were no inter-correlations between the predictor of interest and the remaining predictor variables included in the multiple regression analysis.
I have yet to see a compelling argument, as as VIF of 10 could be fine if you have a (very) large sample.
Bottom line: Do you have a insignificant variable? If so look at the VIF, and determine if you have a correlation problem. What happens if you remove one of the highly correlated variables? Let your [reserach area]-intuition guide you
As per you comment:
The variance of the OLS estimator is:
$$
Var(\hat{\beta_j}) = \frac{\sigma^2}{\Sigma^n_{i=1}(x_{ij} - \bar{x}_j)^2} \cdot VIF
$$
The more observations you add, the larger $\Sigma^n_{i=1}(x_{ij} - \bar{x}_j)^2$ will get. And thus the variance will tend to 0, if n tends to infinity - regardless of how large the VIF is. But I would not think that 800 is large.
Comment: (+1) The sample size plays a role only insofar as it affects the standard errors. As Repmat has emphasized, you need to focus on the standard errors. If they are acceptably small for your purposes, then maybe you are worrying about nothing.
Comment: Let me repeat: *sample size is not the issue.*  Standard errors are the concern.
Comment: Thank you for answer. You mentioned (very) large sample. How many samples we have in a (very) large data-set? My samples are between 250~800
Comment: Thank you @whuber . I should not worry about collinearity because of low sample size? I didn't get  you purpose.
Comment: @whuber Can you mention the steps I need? Currently I'm using financial ratios as inputs (Logically we have collinearity between financial ratios). First I check VIF values (and correlation matrix) and remove variables which have higher than 10 VIP. After that I will investigate p-values of regression (I'm estimating logistic regression) and remove inputs that aren't statistically significant


Is it possible to develop ASP.NET MVC with MS Visual C# 2008 Express Edition and IIS?

Question: Is it possible to develop ASP.NET MVC with MS Visual C# 2008 Express Edition and IIS?
The tutorial states that 'Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Web Developer 2008 Express' are required.
Answer: You can't develop an ASP.NET (MVC or otherwise) using Visual C# 2008 Express without a big kludge. C# Express is mainly for Windows applications.
What you can do is download and install Visual Web Developer 2008 Express. This edition is for ASP.NET developer (in C# or VB.NET). Unlike the Standard or Professional, with Express the functionality is split into 4 seperate packages - C# Express for C# desktop development, VB.NET Express for VB.NET desktop development, C++ Express for C++ desktop development, and Web Developer Express for any type of ASP.NET development. You can download and install all 4 of these on the same machine (they should even share the same copy of MSDN Express).
If you want it all in one IDE, you need to pay for Standard or Professional.
Oh, and just make sure you download the SP1 version of Web Developer 2008 Express, it's really annoying trying to install SP1 on the Express editions (or at least it is if you have some other versions of VS on the same machine), and you need SP1 to install MVC.
Comment: Just the answer I was looking for.  Thanks David :)
Answer: It's definitely possible. I haven't really used the Express editions enough to know what is easier or more difficult in one edition or another but the Web Developer edition is also free.
Comment: Just to clarify:  Have you used MS Visual C# 2008 Express Edition?
Comment: Yes, I have. You can actually build ASP.NET applications with just a text editor and some web server, like Casini.
Answer: An easy way to do this is to get the Web Platform Installer. It installs everything you need to get going with web dev. Some have claimed that its vista only, but I was able to use it to install it on XP HOME on my asus netbook.
Answer: What do you mean regarding running ASP.NET MVC projects? To run it, you'd need a Web server rather than Visual Studio. For development, you can develop a class library in C# Express that will be used in an ASP.MVC app but project templates are only available for Web development product line (Visual Web Developer or full VS)
Update to reflect OP edit: To develop apps effectively, you'll need Visual Web Dev or VS. There's no point in not using VWD Express as it's free.
Comment: I want to develop, not just run MVC projects.  I have edited the question to make this clearer.
Answer: Yes. I have installed some of the previews.  You just don't get MS Test.
Edit:  That was with VS Express Web Developer Edition, however.
Answer: At least Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition SP1 requred. I think it's just enough for ASP.NET MVC development if you are not working in the team. There are a lot of great 3d-party testing frameworks - you are not constrained only to MS Test.


How does grounding work?

Question:  This is a simple circuit that has been grounded. My question is, after reaching point $A$ will the current $I$ reach the negative terminal of the battery or will it go to the earth?
Comment: It is all the same.
Answer: It will normally just reach the negative terminal. Generally, current only flows in closed circuits. Hence, it could only flow into the ground if the positive terminal was also connected to ground, for example if you touch the positive terminal and you stand on the ground with bare feet or so.
Then you might ask, what the purpose of grounding is. The absolute level of voltage (the reference potential) is not well-determined if you do not ground the circuit. Only potential differences ("voltages") are defined. So anything that your circuit "catches" from the environment, would serve as the potential reference, because the whole circuit acts as a capacitor and an inductor relative to the environment. This is undesirable if different circuits are connected together (for example your computer and your stereo), because their different reference potentials will then cause additional currents, which might interfere with the function of the devices.
Another reason for grounding is safety. For voltages dangerous to humans (usually above ~50 Volts for AC), grounding ensures that a defective device does not expose its mains voltage to touchable parts. If you ground the housing of a device, any accidental internal contact between the housing and mains voltage will cause very high currents (ground is assumed to be low impedance), the fuses or circuit breakers to be triggered immediately, and consequentially, the current to be stopped long before you happen to touch the housing of the device and meet your maker prematurely.
Yet another application for grounding is that you only need a single wire to close circuits. In a car for example, a headlight only has one wire (per lamp), the circuit to the battery is closed via the car's chassis. However, this is not "grounding" in the literal sense, because the car's chassis is not properly connected to the earth (the tires have a high resistance). So this is more like a kind of logical grounding, which is also used internally in most electronic circuit boards: supplying the negative battery voltage by a bulk conductor to everywhere around the components.
Comment: @Barbierium: I am not sure why you think that. If the housing is grounded/earthed (desired) a contact between mains and the housing (undesired, dangerous) immediately causes a short circuit (desired), which blows the circuit breaker, and thus prevents that mains voltage stays at the housing and anyone touches it.
Comment: > *Generally, current only flows in closed circuits.* -- This is unfortunate formulation. Generally, it does flow also in closed circuits. However, only AC current can do so in a sustained way (because of its oscillating direction). DC current can flow in a closed circuit for only a limited time, which is often extremely short due to low capacitance of the disconnected circuit.
Comment: Note: For modern installations the metallic housing is connected to a special protective ground. (While there are a ground and a phase wire that are used to transfer the current). The protective ground branches off the "main" ground at the entry to the building, and is used to have a ground wire that is not counted by residual-current device. This leads to a far more sensitive circuit breaking (typically breaking the circuit at 30mA residual current) than having a fuse blow (which typically requires 16 A for 230V home installations). Of course, the details vary by country.
Comment: @oliver: Related Q&A on diy.stackexchange today: [I live in an older home without ground wiring. Is it safe to install 3-prong GFCI with only a hot and neutral?](https://diy.stackexchange.com/q/225370) - some of the answers there discuss the relative merits of GFCI protection vs. grounding, and corner cases where one will save you but the other won't.
Comment: "If you ground the housing of a device," don't you mean if you *not* ground the housing?
Comment: My fault! I thought damage was done to the useful circuit. But it's the fuse that is damaged, preventing damage to the useful circuits.
Comment: It's human fatality that is prevented by protective earthing. If you touch an electric heater with a metal housing, you don't expect to be killed. You don't care so much about the fuse (or circuit breaker, which can easily be reenacted anyway). And, you don't care about the heater, because it is already damaged anyway (probably a broken cable that got in touch with the housing).
Comment: So when the heater is already broke, this will cause electricity to be on the housing? Or maybe another cause. And this accumulated charge is taken away by the Earth (instead of by you or me upon touching the house)?
Comment: If electricity is on the housing, that is certainly not a mode of normal function, because it is potentially deadly. So the device would be called broken, yes. The saftey is not mainly restored by shorting the failure current to ground, although this would already help somehow because the resistance to ground would be a lot lower than the path through your body (the current tendentially takes the path of least resistance). The safety is rather restored by the circuit breaker detecting the resulting overcurrent and interrupting the circuit.
Comment: " because the whole circuit acts as a capacitor and an inductor relative to the environment. " it would be worth to elaborate on this
Comment: @JánLalinský: Absolutely true. I wanted to keep it simple, which is what I tried to indicate by "generally".
Comment: @SebastianRiese: very good comment. I considered mentioning RCD's, but I thought it was a little off-question.
Comment: @Buraian: I agree that this is an interesting point. However, I think that it is off-question. I have tried to find a link to a respective SE-question, but didn't find any. Although it is rather trivial that a circuit is a capacitor and an inductor (all conductors are), feel free to ask another question, that others may find more sophisticated answers to.
Comment: @JánLalinský I assume you meant: "Generally, it does flow also in **open** circuits... DC current can flow in an **open** circuit for only a limited time".
Comment: @nanoman yes! It should be open circuit.
Comment: @nanoman: Haha, Jan miswrote it and I misread it, but in the end my answer to Jan's Comment referred to what he meant... Minus times minus is plus. ;-)
Comment: @oliver Yes, there was no need for it in the answer – I just wanted to mention it, given the direction the discussion in the comments took.
Answer: Theoretically, none of the electricity will flow to ground because the current into the battery must equal the current out and there is no way that the circuit as a whole can gain or lose electrons other than through that single connection to ground. This is assuming our analysis of the circuit begins in a steady state with node A already at the same potential as ground: there is no reason for electrons to flow either way because the two nodes (ground and node A) are at the same potential to begin with, while the electrochemical reaction in the battery requires just as many electrons to enter the anode as are released onto the cathode.
But it is informative to take a brief excursion towards reality in order to illustrate a point. In reality, electrons will flow to ground in order to equalise the potential between ground and node A. Even assuming that node A starts with the same voltage as ground, imagine electrons being radiated onto the circuit from an external source. Without the connection to ground, the circuit as a whole would build up a negative static charge. It would continue to operate as normal, just with node A at -1000V and the anode of the battery at, say, -997V. With the ground connection in place, such a potential would immediately cause electrons to flow and equalise the potential back to 0V and 3V with respect to ground. Small scale "common mode" deviations from ground could even occur momentarily as a result of the internal dynamics of the battery: imagine turbulence in the electrolyte temporarily holding a bunch of negative ions away from the cathode, for example.
It is possible to model this concept within the familiar electrical engineering abstraction of ideal resistors, batteries etc.. Any static charge on the circuit can be thought of as existing across a capacitance to ground. The discharge of that static charge would theoretically take 0 time, but that can be changed by adding a resistance between node A and ground.

Above: with no grounding, the two nodes of the circuit acquire a 1000V and 997V potential with respect to ground. This can be removed again by discharging the capacitor.
With this amended model, the circuit can acquire an overall charge via the switch on the left hand side, which represents the extrinsic electron beam described earlier. At a later point, the circuit can then discharge to ground through the resistor on the right resulting in a flow of current. But for most engineering purposes, it is convenient to think of this happening continuously and instantly, with node A always at 0V with respect to ground and no current flowing in or out (no random imaginary CRT monitors spraying electrons onto our circuits and grounds alike; no unwanted resistance to ground either), so we set the capacitance to zero and the discharge resistance to zero.
Answer: When the circuit is first connected electrons will flow to or from ground if the average voltage of all the components happens to be different to the ground voltage.
Once that has happened the total charge in the circuit has no reason to change to any substantial degree, so the electrons will go around the circuit loop only.
Over time a small number of electrons might be gained or lost in the circuit by things that aren't shown - perhaps a person who became slightly statically charged touches a component, or small number fly off into the air every second. In that case more some electrons will flow to or from the ground to restore the balance of charges.

How does grounding work?


How to find the spherical coordinates limits calculate the volume of the solid region?

Question: The solid bounded below by the hemisphere $\rho=1,$ $ 0\leq z$ and above by the cardoid of revolution $\rho=1+\cos\phi$
I am new to the triple integral in spherical coordinates.
I know that limits of $\rho$ will be $1\leq\rho\leq 1+\cos\phi$, the limits on $\theta$ will be $0\leq\theta\leq2\pi$. So the integral will be
$$\int_{0}^{2\pi}\int_{?}^{?}\int_{1}^{1+\cos\phi}(\rho)^2\sin\phi d\rho d\phi d\theta$$
But how to find the limits of $\phi$ in this case, I don't know.
Can anyone help!
Thanks in advance!
Answer: Notice that for the cardioid of revolution, $\rho\ge1$ for $0\le\phi\le\pi/2$ and $\rho<1$ for $\pi/2<\phi\le\pi$. It intersects the hemisphere only in the $xy$ plane. Therefore, $0\le\phi\le\pi/2$.
Comment: Sir the limits on the $\rho$ and $\theta$ I have written are correct?
Comment: @NoorAslam They are correct


I have Elementary OS and windows 8.1 installed but want to remove Elementary OS and install Ubuntu. How can I do that?

Question: I have Elementary OS installed along with windows 8.1. I want to uninstall Elementary OS and install Ubuntu. How can I do that? I searched Google for any relevant article or link but couldn't help myself. Please guide me through the whole procedure.
Comment: Just boot the USB live media in the same mode (UEFI or Lagacy) the other OSes were installed. Then you have two options: 1. Use something else and select for use the exact same partitions used by Elementary or 2. Use something else, remove all Elementary partitions and create new ones. The installer should proceed as usual and, at the end, update Grub accordingly.
Comment: I don't know which mode other operating systems are installed. How can I know abouth their modes?
Comment: If your Windows 8.1 is factory installed and your eOS dual boots without requiring changes to UEFI/BIOS then both are correctly installed in UEFI mode.
Comment: Install Ubuntu using manual partitioning (see the linked question) and remove, or reformat the partitions of Elementary OS in the process.
Answer: It's simple.  Boot to the Ubuntu LiveISO and choose the Do Something Else option.
Follow the GUI prompts and pick the partition with the OS you want to remove the install partition.
When you pick the partition, you'll have the option of reformating the partition.  Of course reformating the partition will remove all the files from your previous OS.  If you choose not to reformat the drive, the installer will remove the system directories and replace them with Ubuntu.
If you choose not to format, your /home folder will be preserved.
If you are trying to preserve your home folder, you might consider renaming that folder before the install.  Some of the configurations files in the Elementry OS might conflict with some of the options in the Ubuntu configuration.
You can later copy your documents to the new home folder created.


How to testfor what block an arrow ran into

Question: I'm trying to make a system that changes the block and arrow ran into. So far I've made the system that changes the block, kills the arrow, and ONLY the arrow that ran into the block, using blockdata I can change the block below or above easily but not all around. Thanks!
Comment: It sounds like you don't have a problem, but instead you want us to offer you a solution. Don't think this is the right place to ask for that.
Comment: You would have to somehow test if three of the four positions 0.1 blocks in each direction are the same, but I currently can't think of a good way to do that.
Comment: The arrow does actually save the block it's in: minecraft.gamepedia.com/chunk_format So you can get the type at least. And if it's a block entity, you can also get x, y and z, but putting those into coordinates is difficult.
Answer: This is my answer for 1.13 snapshots, which you should be using anyway so that your work won't be undone when 1.13 comes out soon! (Commands are pretty much rewritten in 1.13)
What you want to do is get the xTile, yTile, and zTile NBT values of the arrow with NBT of inGround:1b, then teleport an invisible entity (such as a NoAI:1,Invulnerable:1,Silent:1 area_effect_cloud which is commonly used for marking things), and set it to those coordinates. You can do this in the 1.13 snapshots using the execute store and data get commands: execute as @e[type=area_effect_cloud,name=whatever_you_want] store result entity @s Pos[0] double 1 run data get entity @e[type=arrow,limit=1] xTile 1, then do the same for Pos[1] and yTile, and Pos[2] and zTile. Then, have that invisible entity set a block at its location and afterwards kill that entity. Done!
Recap:

If the arrow is in the ground (has NBT inGround:1b), summon an invisible entity as a marker
Set the Pos[] NBT tags of the marker entity as the xTile, yTile, and zTile of the arrow
Have the marker entity set the block at its location to whatever you want
Kill the entity

Sorry for the long explanation, but you can't just have the arrow set a block at it's location because the arrow's position is always outside of the block that it's stuck in.
If you're set on using 1.12, I don't think there's a good way to do this. I couldn't find anything easily on google, but some further searching might turn up something.


Reference request for studying Lie group & Lie algebra representations

Question: I am learning representation theory of Lie groups & Lie algebras from the book by Brian Hall. Unfortunately, this does not discuss infinite dimensional representations. Which books should I study for this when I complete my study of Brian Hall's book?
Answer: The following lecture notes of James E. Humphreys on "Representations of Semisimple Lie Algebras in the BGG Category O"
might be interesting for you, also including infinite-dimensional representations of finite-dimensional Lie algebras, and much more: http://www.math.umass.edu/~jeh/bgg/main.pdf.
Answer: You could try  Kac, Victor G. Infinite-dimensional Lie algebras. Third edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990.
Here is a paper by Bernstein and Gelfand that seems pretty influential:
Bernstein, J. N.; Gelʹfand, S. I. Tensor products of finite- and infinite-dimensional representations of semisimple Lie algebras. Compositio Math.  41  (1980), no. 2, 245–285.
Comment: Thanks! Just one question. Does this book deal with infinite dimensional representations of finite dimensional Lie algebras as well or focuses entirely on infinite dimensional Lie algebras and their representations?


Max Connection Pool capped at 100

Question: I'm running SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1, on a Windows Server 2008 box. I have a .NET script running from Visual Studio 2010 that does the following:

Reaches into the database
Makes a change
Iterates

The total number of times it will iterate is 150, however it is stopping at 100 connections and I can't figure out why. I could adjust my script to just use a single thread, but I'd prefer to know where I'm missing a max connection setting as that will be more useful to know for future reference.
Here's where I've checked so far:

SQL Connection String in Visual Studio 2010 (it's set to 1000)
SSMS Database instance connection properties (it's set to 0 [infinity] user connections)
Googled some information on Server 2008, it looks like it can handle more than 100 connections
Stepped through my code alongside SP_WHO2 which gives more information on logical connections, seeing that the # of connections starts at 52 and the script errors with the "Max Pooled Connections reached" error at 152 logical connections.
Changed the connection string to use Data Source=PerfSQL02;Initial Catalog=Masked;Integrated Security=True;Max Pool Size=1000

I'm not sure where else to check, I know I have a lot of moving parts here but I'm getting the feeling I'm just missing a max pool setting somewhere.
Comment: Can you post your connection string?  Please see my answer.  That should be your remedy (this value will be specified in the connection string.  `System.Data.SqlClient` defaults to 100, which is why you are see exhaustion of the connection pool).
Answer: SQL Server allows a maximum of 32767 connections by default.  It can be altered using sp_configure.  To view your current configuration for this setting, use the following query:
select * from sys.configurations
where name ='user connections'

By default, you should see a maximum of 32767, value_in_use equal to 0 (use the default settings).  If this has been altered, you can reconfigure SQL Server to use other values as described in the link.
You should also review how many connections are actually being made, as there might be more activity outside your application (or your application is making more connections than you think).  You will want to look at General Statistics -> Logical Connections in either perfmon or query the values in sys.dm_os_performance_counters (cntr_value will show the current point in time value):
select * from sys.dm_os_performance_counters
where counter_name ='User Connections'

Comment: If you've checked all that and it still fails at 100 connections, the answer lies outside of the database settings.  FYI, those 51 connections are all the system processes (+1 for yourself).
Comment: Yep, I already checked the user connections (it's the first thing I went to, and is the easiest to find both in UI and in Microsoft's documentation. I also stepped through my code and kept an eye on the number of logical connections via SSMS by using SP_WHO2, which gives a decent amount of information about the logical connections. Idling, my server has 51 connections. When the script fails, it has build 100 more connections. That's how I've gotten to where I am now.
Comment: I clarified my question a bit more with steps I've taken. It might not be a setting in SQL at all, which is why I started looking at Windows and Visual Studio settings.
Comment: Just to provide some closure, that last comment ended up being correct. I took a closer look at why those 100 connections were being created and found a leak in the code. After fixing that it works fine. The above information is all still really useful though, and I hope others will find it useful as well.
Comment: How is the answer different from sp_who2?
Answer: In your connection string, specify max pool size=<your desired max pool size>.  So in other words, if you want to change max pool size to the value 500, your connection string could resemble this:
"data source=your_server; initial catalog=your_db; trusted_connection=true; max pool size=500"

Obviously I'm assuming so much with your other parameters, but this should give you a good idea how to proceed.  Connection pooling is client-side provider enforcement.  It's the client that will need to specify this max pool size setting, via the connection string.
Also, make sure you are closing or disposing of your connections properly, otherwise you will tie up connections.  Something like this (C#):
string connectionString = "data source=your_server; initial catalog=your_db; trusted_connection=true; max pool size=500";

using (SqlConnection dbConn = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
{
    using (SqlCommand sqlCmd = new SqlCommand())
    {
        sqlCmd.Connection = dbConn;
        sqlCmd.CommandText = "select 1;";

        // ... so on and so forth
    }
}

The using block (in C#) calls IDisposable.Dispose() upon completion.  You could also implement SqlConnection.Dispose() or SqlConnection.Close() in the finally block of a try/catch/finally block.
Reference:  MSDN Documentation on SqlConnection.ConnectionString property
Comment: Is that your connection string *everywhere*?  The reason I ask, is because different connection strings are going to be different connection pools.
Comment: This should be marked as the accepted answer as it actually answers the OP correctly. He mentions both the client conn string Max Pool Size parameter and the need to close/dispose connections.
Comment: Here is the connection string, updating my question too. `Data Source=PerfSQL02;Initial Catalog=Masked;Integrated Security=True;Max Pool Size=1000`
Comment: That is a very, very good question. I checked 3 connection strings so far, but they're all pushing for a high max pool. I'll see if I can find any other string that might cause it.
Comment: If you just debug the execution, you should be able to look at what the runtime value of `SqlConnection.ConnectionString` is for the particular operation.  That'd be the easiest way.  If `max pool size` isn't there, it's 100 then.
Comment: @AdamCaviness I agree. Who has permissions to change the accepted answer?

Max Connection Pool capped at 100


Question about scipy's ivp solver

Question: there is one thing I don't understand. Is the tolerance to compute the step size updated at each timestep or fixed at all timestep. Also, when we look at the documentation and how the tolerance is computed (see picture)  then we compute abs(y). Is y in this case the y value at the current timestep or the whole solution series up to that point. Thanks
Comment: Yes typically the sum you highlighted is updated in each time step with whatever current value $abs(y)$ is for the previous time step.
Answer: The error estimate used for time step adaptation is an estimate of the local error, i.e. the truncation error Indices by the temporal scheme over one time step. To ensure a given relative precision, you need to take your current solution as reference, hence the term rtol * abs(y). Note that if your solution does not vary much and stays close to the initial solution, then using abs(y0) could also make sense.
You can find more background on time step adaptation (using embedded Runge-Kutta as are most of solve_ivp's schemes) in the book by Haired and Wanner "Solving ordinary differential equations" for example.

Question about scipy’s ivp solver


Why are human immune systems comparatively weaker than other animal immune systems?

Question: Humans get sick on such a regular basis and animals will hardly ever get sick. Animals are typically exposed to the same pathogens as humans, yet a dog won't have a cold or the flu twice a year, with other miner health issues occurring regularly in between. I understand that humans are very structurally flawed due to some evolutionary processes, and I'm just wondering why our immune systems seemed to have taken a pretty big hit as well.
Comment: Sorry, but this is opinion based nonsense. Animals get sick as well and our immune system actually works pretty well in protecting us from the world.
Comment: If animals could complain loudly in human languages, you'd probably hear a lot more about the illnesses they get.
Comment: Your pet dog likely isn't exposed to the hundreds/thousands of people a day that you are as you commute, perform your job, run errands, and just live your life. Your claim that humans are *"very structurally flawed"* is silly: compared to what? In what way? Do you have a citation for that statement? Do you have *any* evidence to support your claim that our immune systems are weak?
Comment: @Chris that was very harsh.
Answer: The question probably has a mistaken premise.  Human immune systems are pretty similar to other species, at least in major structural elements. Our differences in adaptive niche have led to differences in some aspects; humans don't fare well with rotting meat, for example, while a scavenger can eat it without a problem.  Many scavengers have unique adaptations for dealing with this.  Dogs do not, however. Humans too have a unique niche, which is highly social, and thus have a well-developed social immunity (sometimes called a behavioral immune system).
Many animal populations have endemic diseases at fairly high levels.  Koalas, for example, famously have a very high level of chlamydia.  Sea lions rookeries often have infections, bats can have high levels of rabies, and so forth.  Lots of animals do get lots of infections.
However your question specifically on dogs is interesting, and probably gets to a risk factor which is very human.  Humans come into contact with far more other humans (and thus, likely more infected humans) than dogs encounter other dogs.  Diseases which spread through close proximity, such as airborn upper respiratory viruses, spread more readily in humans than these relatively isolated animal populations.  Combine that with a concerted effort to wipe out in animals any diseases which can transmit to humans, and pet infections are indeed relatively rare.  This is not due to the immune system per se, but the social factors associated with each organisms' niche.
Comment: +1 - I agree with most of this, but not the last paragraph. (My vet bills speak volumes; only $240 says "anaplasmosis.") Pet infections aren't rare; house pets are vaccinated against many illnesses, and aren't exactly vocal about the rest (just as the koalas don't complain about chlamydia.) The feral population are a pretty mangy, parasite infected, ill (esp. cats) bunch. Dogs *are* interesting because of their close association with man for most of their existence.


htaccess redirect not working when query is 'index'

Question:
I am just learning mvc structure. In my mvc directory,
I have a .htaccess file which contains this:

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]

The idea is to redirect all the requests to index.php like:
http://www.domain.com/mvc/test
will be
http://www.domain.com/mvc/index.php?url=test

It is working fine.

But when I am trying to pass this:
http://www.domain.com/mvc/index
hoping to be converted to
http://www.domain.com/mvc/index.php?url=index

But it is not working.

I've seen some tutorial videos where this works.
There must be some settings which I don't know.
Comment: Welcome to stackoverflow. Your question is about basic redirect, it has nothing to do with MVC, so I removed mvc tag. Also, avoid horizontal scrolling of your text, it will make it more readable.
Comment: Do you have a directory or file in mvc directory, called "index"?
Comment: I have nothing called "index" in mvc directory. I just want it to treat "index" as any other non-existent phrase and want it to be redirected as '?url=index' as I've mentioned. But it is treating "index" as "index.php" and is not redirecting.
Comment: This video will help you to understand my problem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw28-krO7ZM
Comment: Sorry, can't watch youtube from this machine. Are you sure, that it's treating index as index.php, it shouldn't do it. Can you redirect to `google.com?q=$1` and check? Put R flag to RewriteRule.
Comment: I've checked all those. Still it is not working. I have been scratching my head for 3 days. But yet to find what's wrong...
Comment: Try to disable MultiViews: `Options -MultiViews` in htaccess
Comment: Done...Thanks a lot...I should have told you people before. Thanks again.
Answer: Try to disable MultiViews in htaccess:
<code>Options -MultiViews
</code>
Comment: Sorry. I forgot to mention. I've put the .htaccess file in mvc folder. Thanks.


Monoprice Select Mini v2 reattach boden tube to feeder head

Question: I have a Monoprice Select Mini v2.
The Bowden tube has detached from the filament feeder head... it was actually pushed out by the filament (175 PLA) as it fed.  It appears to have been held in place by a compression fitting inside the feeder head. I think the blue plastic collar provides the compression but I hesitate to attempt to remove it for fear of making matters worse.
Looking for advice on getting the Bowden tube and compression fitting back together without wrecking the feed
Answer: I had a similar issue with my bowden feed system, those could be the reasons:

the pneumatic connector is not keeping the pressure on the pipe -> replace
the Teflon pipe is faded/worn -> try to cut the end of the pipe
the hotend/nozzle is clogged -> clean/replace
the pipe is excessively bent and gives a lot of resistance -> that usualy needs pipe/tube replacement.
the nozzle temp is to low -> increase printing temperature

In some cases I had to cut the tube above the pneumatic connector and push it down to get it out as there was no way to  pull it back from the collar.


Premier inn old Trafford to Manchester airport

Question: I need to get from premier inn at old Trafford to Manchester airport for a flight at 8.30 Saturday morning. Quite a while since I've used the trams in Manchester. I will have a rucksack. Thanks
Comment: I don't understand what you're asking. Manchester has the usual mix of public transport options with timetables and phone numbers available on the web. What do you need from us?
Comment: @Chrissie Hall Have you checked whether your hotel offers an airport shuttle service? There'd be a fee but probably quite small and worth it for less hassle
Comment: International or domestic flight? How long before flights do you like to arrive?
Comment: @ReddHerring Plus the fact that services such as Google Maps will tell you exactly how to get from A to B by public transport.
Answer: Assuming you're asking for directions, here's the map for the TFGM Tram system:
https://tfgm.com/public-transport/tram/network-map
If you have the time and want to only tram it, you'll want to take the tram from Old Trafford to Trafford Bar (Frequency every 12 minutes, journey time 2 mins) where you can then pick up the Manchester Airport line (Frequency every 12 minutes, journey time 42 minutes from Trafford Bar).
This is going to make it a rough 1 hour journey and the earliest you can get from Old Trafford to Trafford bar is on the 06:04 from Altrincham - I'd expect it'll reach Old Trafford by 06:25. I wouldn't see you making Manchester Airport before 07:30 at the earliest if you do this.
Shown here though: https://tfgm.com/public-transport/tram/stops/trafford-bar-tram/tram-times/manchester-airport-tram#tram-times-panel you can get a Trafford Bar to Manchester Airport tram every 12 minutes from 03:12 and you can walk to Trafford Bar Tram Stop from Old Trafford Tram Stop in approx 12 minutes.
Depending on when you want to check-in then (and working backwards from that point), Pick your suitable check-in time, budget an hour into getting the Tram from Trafford Bar to Manchester Airport, and another 15-20 mins walk from the Travellodge to Trafford Bar (and maybe a little extra tolerance for the unexpected). That will give you your set off time.


What is the benefit of combining different web log files with different formats?

Question: What is the benefit of combining different web log files with different formats in terms of web application security? In other words, how does combining iis log file with apache log file help in identifying attacks?
Comment: I removed your extra question re different servers. It's better to ask one question at a time, if you can ask additional questions. However, the second question would fit better at serverfault.com anyway - it wasnt a security question.
Answer: What you are describing in your question is often called Informationfusion. By being able to connect different sources of logs you can more easily increase knowledge of the context of the requests and help to determine its interpretation.
The more logs you can put in context with other logs and information the more valuable they become.
For example say your webservers are all sent to a central logging device where their format is unified. Once your logs now are unified you can quite easily use commands like:
<code>cat weblogs.tz | cut $ip > ip.txt
netcat whois.cymru.org 43 < ip.txt > result.txt
</code>
And your now sitting on your users ASN, IP-address, Nettrange, country and other nice stuff from all your webservers. Taking this a step further you now look for suspicious clients who are visiting your servers in patterns that is not normal, maybe looking for a focused attack.
Now with all your webserver logs you could also look more into any patterns that is seen on all or just some of your webservers much easier. Like this list from zeltser.com/log-management/security-incident-log-review-checklist:

Excessive access attempts to non-existent files
Code (SQL, HTML) seen as part of the URL
Access to extensions you have not implemented
Web service stopped/started/failed messages
Access to "risky" pages that accept user input
Look at logs on all servers in the load balancer pool
Error code 200 on files that are not yours
Failed user authentication    Error code 401, 403
Invalid request   Error code 400
Internal server error   Error code 500
Answer: If you convert IIS log files to Apache format, you can then run apache-scalp.googlecode.com on them.


Debian hibernate problem PM: Swap header not found

Question: I have Debian 6 2.6.32-5-amd64 on netbook. With pm-utils Sleep works but hibernate fails with error: PM: Swap header not found!. Swap was enabled using ubuntu tutorial after installation - this is probably the key but can't find working solution.
Comment: Ok, I managed to get it work by creating swap as separate disk partition and by editing initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume.
Comment: I ran `sudo dpkg-reconfigure -pmedium uswsusp` and it allowed me to select the swapfile, fixing the problem for me.
Answer: You don't have a recognizable swap partition. Check that your swap partition is active: run cat /proc/swaps to see what swap space is in use.
This may be a symptom of trying to hibernate to a swap file. See e.g. Ubuntu bug #313724. Some hibernation methods accept swap files, but this depends on both the hibernation method and the kernel version, and it looks like yours can't cope with a swap file. Some versions of pm-utils can hibernate to a file; you need to configure the system to pass the proper resume_offset argument when booting back into the hibernated system.
If you created a swap partition with a more recent operating system, or had encrypted swap before but no longer, you may need to reinitialize the swap partition. Run mkswap on the block device corresponding to the partition (e.g. mkswap /dev/sdz99 — make sure that you get the name and number right, since otherwise this will overwrite one of your data partitions).


Communication protocol so that messages are read "synchronously"

Question: Is there a communication protocol that ensures that both parties can read the other one's message at the same time (or at the very least, only after sending their own message, thus no party can read a message and then send their own).
Comment: SPI (serial peripheral interface)?
Comment: It occurs to me that "no party can read a message and then send their own" might be the defining property of "reading synchronization". It should not be inside parentheses at all. It would be great to describe your motivation such as why/when/where/how reading synchronization is useful.
Answer: I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to achieve (formulating the goal precisely seems tricky or unclear to me), but you might be interested in reading about "fair exchange" in the cryptographic literature.  See, e.g., https://crypto.stackexchange.com/q/8333/351.  The short version you're likely to find is that there are no protocols with strong guarantees (without making strong assumptions), but without knowing more context, it's hard to know whether there might be something that is good enough for your needs.
Answer: You might be interested in reading about various "commitment schemes" in cryptography.
Commitment schemes are easier to implement than "fair exchange", but make weaker guarantees --
typically they can be designed so two parties send some initial messages (where Alice has initial message A and Bob has initial message B) to guarantee that no party can read someone's plaintext and then pretend they composed a message before reading that plaintext, when that message was actually composed only after reading the other's plaintext.


Which of the four inner planets has the strongest magnetic field, Mars, Mercury, Venus, or Earth?

Question: Which of the four terrestrial planets has the strongest magnetic field, Mars, Mercury, Venus, or Earth?
Comment: Earth. Far, far.
Comment: I think this may be a better fit for Astronomy SE.
Comment: "better fit" is never a close reason. Planetary science questions are on-topic here in Space
@Panzercrisis Exploration SE. Planetary magnetic fields are carefully measure space-exploring spacecraft using carefully designed space-magnetometers. The magnetic fields affect things like trapped radiation which can damage spacecraft and so they need to be designed around it. *This is squarely on-topic here.*
Answer:
Which of the four terrestrial planets has the strongest magnetic field, Mars, Mercury, Venus, or Earth?

The Earth, by far.
The four giant planets have rather strong magnetic fields. Amongst the terrestrial planets, only the Earth has a moderately strong magnetic field, but weaker than those of the giant planets. Mercury, like the Earth, has a self-sustained dipole magnetic field, but much weaker than that of the Earth. The Moon, and possibly Mars, appear to have had ancient planetary dynamos, but not anymore. Finally, Venus also does not have a self-sustained dipole magnetic field.
One prior explanation for why the Moon and Mars do not have self-sustained dipole magnetic fields has fallen by the wayside. It was long posited that the cores of the Moon and Mars have long since frozen. This is not the case. Analyses of the gravity fields of the Moon and Mars have shown that those two objects have partially molten cores consisting of iron and other elements, just like the Earth.
It appears that three key ingredients are needed for a terrestrial planet to have a significant magnetic field:

A molten or partially molten core consisting of iron, nickel, and other elements. All four terrestrial planets and the Moon pass this criterion.
A sufficiently high rotation rate. What that sufficiently high is subject to debate. One rotation per sidereal day is obviously sufficiently high. Mars has a very similar rotation rate but does not have a self-sustained dynamo.
A sufficiently high heat flux across the core-mantle boundary. This is the one factor that distinguishes the Earth from the other four terrestrial objects. Mercury, the Moon, and Mars have static lid tectonics: their surfaces are frozen. Venus appears to have alternated between static lid tectonics (which is what it has now) and extreme volcanic tectonics (the most efficient way to cool a planet).
The Earth is the only one of those five objects to have plate tectonics. While not as efficient as extreme volcanism with regard to cooling a planet, it apparently is good enough to maintain the heat flux across the core-mantle boundary that is needed to maintain a self-sustaining dynamo.
Comment: "What that sufficietntly high [rotation rate] is subject to debate" – it is in particular also dependent on the size. The smaller the MHD region, the higher the rotation rate needs to be. (Other properties like density will matter as well.) — I would rephrase point 1.: "consisting of iron, nickel..." suggests that it needs to be ferromagnetic metals. That is not the case, the only important thing is that it's _conductive fluids_. The sun and the gas giants have hydrogen dynamos.
Comment: Looks like another "Goldilocks condition": Surface life may need a magnetic field to shield it from charged particle storms, but too much core-mantle convection probably regularly covers large swathes of the surface in magma, not conducive to life either. Geological activity needs to be "just right". Isn't it astonishing just *how* well Earth is suited to our development ;-).
Comment: What is a "dynamo"?
Comment: @TylerH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_theory Cf. also my answer here: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/373449/why-does-the-earth-even-have-a-magnetic-field/373469#373469
Comment: @leftaroundabout After some reading it seems the better link is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo, e.g. "*A dynamo is an electrical generator that creates direct current*". So here, a (self-sustaining) dynamo is just a self-sustaining electromagnetic field around a celestial body.
Answer: Mercury has a weak magnetic field (scientists were surprised it has any, as it was thought to be cold and have no molten core to provide a magnetic field)
Venus and Mars don't have any significant magnetic field either.
Of the 4, only Earth has a sufficiently large molten iron core for rotation and convection to provide our strong magnetic field.
Interestingly, the gas giants have much stronger magnetic fields than Earth, and they must generate it in a different way to the four inner planets. It is expected it may be liquid hydrogen at the core which is conductive, allowing convection to create magnetic fields.
Comment: The Earth is the only one of the five terrestrial objects that has plate tectonics. The current thinking is that the other four currently have static lids, thereby trapping heat inside the planet.
Comment: hmmm - bad wording on my part. Lemme fix. How's that?
Comment: Re **Of the 4, only Earth has a large molten iron core which provides our strong magnetic field.** This is incorrect. Mars and Venus almost certainly have a large molten iron core, and Mercury also appears to have one.
Comment: @DavidHammen *five* terrestrial objects?
Comment: @DrakeP I spelled them out in my answer: the four terrestrial planets and the Moon. The Moon, like the four terrestrial planets, is significantly more than large to have drawn itself into a more or less spheroidal shape and has an iron-rich core that is partially molten, a dense rocky mantle, and a less dense rocky crust. Ceres might or might not qualify as a terrestrial object. It formed very close to the "ice line", so it most likely is a mix of rocky and icy material.


hosting git repository, can't clone: ssh error: bad file number

Question: I followed this tutorial :http://www.jeremyskinner.co.uk/2010/07/31/hosting-a-git-server-under-apache-on-windows/
to host a git repository on a windows server
steps:
install git & create a test repository
install Apache (I'm using wamp server and it was installed before git)
edit httpd.conf, add:
<Directory />
    Allow from all
</Directory>
SetEnv GIT_PROJECT_ROOT C:/wamp/www/repositories
SetEnv GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL
ScriptAliasMatch \
        "(?x)^/(.*/(HEAD | \
                        info/refs | \
                        objects/(info/[^/]+ | \
                                 [0-9a-f]{2}/[0-9a-f]{38} | \
                                 pack/pack-[0-9a-f]{40}\.(pack|idx)) | \
                        git-(upload|receive)-pack))$" \
                        "C:/Program Files/Git/libexec/git-core/git-http-backend.exe/$1"

i know this is rather unsafe, but i'm just triing to get the basics working first
so i restart apache
and then i try to clone the repository from a desktop computer with the command:
git clone xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx/repositories/Test.git

and the output is:
Cloning into Test...
ssh: connect to host smarttelecom.no-ip.org port 22: Bad file number
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

what did I do wrong?
Answer: You have to use the HTTP portocol. By default git uses ssh which you don't want. Try to prefix the url with http://
Comment: ok, now i get: Cloning into Test...
fatal: http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx/repositories/Test.git/info/refs not found: did you run git update-server-info on the server?
Comment: @Berty: Sorry, I never used cloning over HTTP. But as the output suggest, you may have to run `git update-server-info`?


Can't get simple light path nod examples to work

Question: I've seen a few examples of using the light path node; looks cool and very useful! Most simply mix two shaders then control the factor via one of the outputs of the light path node. For example a green default cube with red shadows. I can't get this to work! Starting with a default scene, using cycles render engine, I place a plane under the cube then set the plane's shader to a simple white diffuse and the cube's shader up as shown in the demos. The result however is no different than if I just plug the top diffuse shader node directly into the material output. What am I missing? Have watched multiple examples of people explaining the node, all use the same node setup and no-one seems to mention any setting I might have missed.
Answer: I'm not sure what tutorials you've been watching, but this setup should work for you. Nothing special - like your attempt, the floor has a white Diffuse BSDF for it's material, and the material for the cube is shown in the graph. If this doesn't work, please let me know (ideally with a screenshot) what you're seeing instead:
This first image uses the Is Camera Ray output of the light path node to give a solid red shadow with no bounced light glow:

This setup uses the Is Shadow Ray output of the light path node, and gives a red shadow, with green bounced lighting:

Finally, this setup uses both Camera and Shadow rays, and gives a red shadow with red bounced lighting as well:
Comment: @ Christopher Bennett; Thank you! My fault was in not realizing the nature of the light path node, so following an example that mixed two diffuse BSDF nodes driven by the camera ray, but not realizing that one of those nodes was then switched to transparent BSDF when the ray was switched to shadow.


Has epistemology of science got any sense after pragmatism?

Question: Pragmatism proposes that scientific method exists because it works -as far as I remember. If it is so, is there any need of epistemology?
Comment: Hi, welcome to Philosophy SE. Please visit our [Help Center](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/help) to see what questions we answer and how to ask. One-line posts are discouraged because it is hard to tell from them what people are looking for. "Truth is what works" is only one approach within pragmatism (James's), Peirce, for instance, was a [realist with elaborate post-Kantian epistemology](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/47006/9148). And even on James's view what works and how still needs to be studied, epistemology then merges with methodology.
Comment: "No" is the book length answer that Rorty developped in his *Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature* (if the question is not really about him/it).
Comment: Depends on your metaphysics: See SEP's [Naturalism in Epistemology](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-naturalized/)
Comment: > scientific method exists because it works < -- no, that's not how it *actually* works. Rather, we *assume* that scientific method works. That assumption itself is fundamentally irrational -- it is a leap of faith. However, *making* that assumption, that leap of faith is our *only* rational choice. We *must* make it in order to have any agency (and any freedom) whatsoever.
Comment: "Pragmatism proposes that scientific method exists because it works" sounds to me like some kind of epistemology.
Answer: I could have the wrong take on this, but to me, this question should have a similar maxim to 'Correlation does not equal Causation'.
A pragmatism in science still deals with the provable, instead of the certain. There was a time when science supported the application of leeches (and bloodletting) in medicine 'because it worked'. That these medical approaches were applied and patients got better just reinforced the believe.
In my view, epistemology looks at the world through a more theoretical lens than scientific pragmatism. In that way, epistemology is more like meta-science (not in the conventional semantics of meta-physics, but in the true intent of meaning behind the term - the science of science, or scientific strategy).
Another way of putting this; science is an inherently tactical method; you observe, you hypothesise, and you prove or disprove through experimentation. This method is deliberately non-strategic in nature because to put a strategic direction behind it would put bias on certain beliefs or approaches. As we learn more about the body, the views mentioned above (proven in a wealth of experimentation and practice) must be called into doubt when related fields clash with it.
Epistemology on the other hand looks at the approach being applied from that strategic standpoint that allows us to change major directions when we're headed down a scientific dead-end, so to speak. This is because (in my humble view) epistemology is focused more on truth which can be applied practically, where as scientific pragmatism implies truth from practice.
Both climb the same mountain, but from opposite sides.
Answer: "Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it," according to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The above, however, does not imply that "scientific method exists because it works".
Rather, we must assume that scientific method works. That assumption itself is fundamentally irrational, Søren Kierkegaard's leap of faith. However, the act of making that assumption, making that leap of faith, is our only rational choice.
Indeed, we must make it in order to have any agency (and, thus, any freedom) whatsoever <== I can explain the last point as well, if you think it would still be on topic.
Comment: I don't think that answers the question. It doesn't work *because* of a leap of faith. We have to leap somewhere, and if we choose to pick where by looking carefully, we make science. What you propose, is intrinsically *scientism*.


Given information about remainder and find the dividend.

Question: The number m yields a remainder p when divided by 14 and a remainder q when divided by 7. If p=q+7 then (Find the value of m) m=?
Comment: Welcome to MSE. It will be more likely that you will get an answer if you show us that you made some effort.
Comment: Not sure I understand the question... As is, any number between any number of the form x+14k, where x is in [7, 13] and k is a natural integer, would work...
Answer: From the fact that $m$ leaves a remainder $p$ when divided by $14$, we can model $m$ as: $m = 14r + p$, where $r$ is the quotient. Now if we take $m$ modulo $7$, we get: $m = (14r$ mod $7)$ $ + (p$ mod $7)$ $= p$ mod $7$ $=q$. So, the information that you gave $p = q+7$ doesn't help more than just telling that $p$ which is a number modulo 14, i.e. $p \in \{0,13\}$ is indeed $\geq 7$ and $\leq 13$. Now you can iterate over all these values of $p$, and assume $r$ by yourself (you can iterate over $r$ as well starting from 1), to get all the valid values for the number $n$ within the mentioned constraints. Another observation to prune down your possibilities for $m$ is that $q$ can not be 7 because if it is $7$, then $p$ has to be 14, which is not possible.


Initiating Translation

Question: We are working on our blue print design and want to take translation strategy into picture. SO my question is :
I have Global Content layer, Translation layer, master website layer, regional website layer and then countries websites.Can it be possible to initiate Translation at Regional layer by Regional owners. Means instead of pushing translation from Global layer or pulling translation job at translation layer, translation can be triggered by Regional owners after their approval at regional layer and content from global layer get translated and pulled down to Translation layer then then to regional layer. I hope my question is in understandable form. Do we need to change our blueprint because of this scenario??
Answer: I think you'll be fine with it. The way translation generally works is that you need to specify "language pairs" for your publications. Something along the lines of
Language Pair "English -> French"
Source Publication "030 Regional English Content"
Target Publication "040 Regional French Content"
TM will read the content from the source publication, then localize the related components or pages in the Target publication. Obviously, the same publication can be a source for multiple language pairs, but cannot be the target for multiple languages (I think technically it can, but it doesn't make much logical sense).
Basically, the content source does not need to be the publication where the content is created, it can be a child publication of "Global Content", so I think your scenario will work.
Comment: As of around Web 8, Organizational Items could indeed be configured for translation where the same Publication could have different target languages set on Folders, Categories, or Structure Groups.

In discussions since, our architect wondered if we really needed this amount of granularity. Though no plans have been set to change this. In all the BluePrinting hierarchies I've seen it was always _one Publication per language_.

Initiating Translation


Converting File Geodatabase Table to Access 2007 ACCDB table programmatically?

Question: Does anyone know of a method to convert a File Geodatabase Table into an Access 2007 Table programmatically.  I have been trying using the PYODBC library and a series of insert statements but am having difficultly with some of the data types and NULL.  Basically an unload to Access.
Comment: I've not tried this but can't you simply use the Table to Table tool? Set up your OLE DB connection to Access in ArcCatalog then use the Table to Table geo-processing tool?
Comment: All the ESRI literature I have seen only covers the reverse, [getting ACCDB files into ArcMap using an OLE DB connection](http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Connecting_to_a_2007_Microsoft_Access_database_accdb_in_ArcGIS/005s00000024000000/), so great question!
Comment: Do you have the Data Interoperability Extension or FME? If so that would probably be a lot easier to use than PYODBC.
Comment: Hronbydd - I don't believe that ESRI provides write capabilities to an ole db connection string for Access 2007 - i have tried this and the tool failed, that is why i have begun going down the PYODBC path.
Answer: Untested, but this should work: Create a personal geodatabase, import file-gdb into that, then open the resulting .mdb in Access 2007 and upgrade it from the Access side. If any of the source feature classes exceed 2gb you'll need to do add some logic for splitting things into pieces and recombining.
Comment: Yes this would work, unfortunately i want to add my table to an existing working database. We have an ongoing project that tables need to be added to monthly and this DB is already built in the ACCDB format.  Thanks
Comment: @dklassen, in that case what about using table-to-table to export and then suck them in on the Access side as linked tables? If the table names are predictable or static every time the Access db is opened they'll be current.
Answer: Along the lines of this question, I wonder if you could pull the table out of the file geodatabase into a text file, then programmatically slurp the text file into Access? Here is a post on Stackoverflow to check out and here is a blog post on using Python with ADO.
Comment: This is basically what i have created.  I have used the pyodbc library to connect to the Access DB and then looped through the File GDB table and create a series of Insert SQL Statements for the Access DB.  Then execute them.  Seems to work fine, but keeping track of all the possible data types is a bit overwhelming.


Why my transaction is always reverted and the other one not?

Question: I have a ethereum smart contract online. There is a function anyone can execute. In fact it's a bug, then there is a guy always execute the function successfully and rapidly with low gas, while my transaction is always reverted even with higher gas. It seems that the guy has a priority and higher speed to execute the function. How did this happen? And how should i solve this issue? I use ethers.js as client lib. Thanks very much.
Answer: It's not possible to explain why a contract behaves the way it does without examining the source code. You say "it's a bug", so I'm guessing you've seen it?
Things are not always what they seem. People and software don't always play nice. There is a particularly nasty kind of software called a "honeypot". These things are designed to trick people into thinking they do one thing when, in fact, they do something else.
If you find yourself sending it funds and getting a surprising result it might be best to pause for moment and post a link to the code so the experts here can help you figure out what's going on.
Hope it helps.


Spam blacklisting monitoring

Question: I own a store and have a bunch of affiliates who promote it, for an affiliate fee.
Lately I encountered situations where affiliates spam via email, getting my store domain name blacklisted, usually only a few days down the road.
Is there a good blacklisting monitoring tool, both for MX records and for spam DB's?
I'd be happy to pay for a quality service.
Answer: Yes. Doubtless there are others, but I recommend HTTP:BL, which uses blacklist data compiled by Project Honeypot. There are easy-to-use plugins for a lot of common CMSs.
It can be used for free if you set up a "honey pot" (a trap which reports spambots) on your site. For certain commercial and high-traffic applications, you need to contact them.

All active members of Project Honey Pot may use the basic http:BL service for free. To qualify as "active," merely install a honey pot, add a QuickLink to your site, donate an MX entry, or refer some friends to the Project. If you qualify, you can request an Access Key for http:BL.

Spam blacklisting monitoring


CiSRA Puzzle Hunt Backups?

Question: I found this article describing what makes a good puzzle, and it references several puzzles which, as best as I can tell, were designed for something called the CiSRA Puzzle Hunt. However, the website they link to is down, and I can't seem to find anywhere that's hosting the puzzles. The Wayback Machine works for 2009, but not most years. Does anyone know if these puzzles are still around?
Answer: Mezzacotta (the successor to CiSRA) posted the 2007-2013 CiSRA puzzles on their site a couple days ago: https://www.mezzacotta.net/puzzle/cisra/
Answer: The Wayback Machine seems to work for other years -- here's the link to 2012, for instance. The site (including the archive of puzzles) seems to be completely usable to me through the Wayback Machine.
Comment: Hm, you're right. I checked a few in 2018 and then went back to the largest snapshots, but I guess I missed a couple in between.

CiSRA Puzzle Hunt Backups?


Why was Moshe buried alone?

Question: Why did Hashem bury Moshe in an unknown place, and did not do so with other great Tzadikim like Avraham, Yitchak and Yaakov?
Comment: ...or his wife.
Answer: Moshe had a very different role in all sorts of ways.
One answer might be, based on the Meshech Chochmah, that Moshe had a higher level of prophecy than anyone else, but because of that, there was the problem that people might think he was a god too.  Also, he was such a great leader that the people felt they couldn't manage without him (that's why they built the Golden Calf).
If everyone could visit the "Moshe Rabeinu Grave Site", first of all, some people might try to worship him, and more importantly, the Jews might have refused to leave there.  So this way, Hashem said: "I'm burying Moshe, I'm not telling you where; the point is he's dead now; you'll cry for a few days, but then you'll have to get up, move on, and follow Yehoshua into the land of Israel."
Comment: "One answer might be, based on the Meshech Chochmah" How is this based on Mesheck Chochmah? What does he say?
Answer:
Rabbi Wein always quotes the maxim:
  "No man is indispensable, yet no man
  is replaceable." This is very true. No
  man is indispensable to the extent
  that "we cannot continue onward." Yet
  no man is replaceable either. People
  have their own unique contributions
  that can never be replaced.
This is another explanation of why
  Moshe's burial place is not known. The
  Jewish people had to move forward.
  They had to continue with the next
  leader and the next generation. "A
  generation passes on and a new
  generation comes." [Koheles 1:4] We
  can only go to the leader who is
  present in our own generation. This is
  the way of the Torah and this is the
  way of the world.way of the world.

http://www.torah.org/learning/ravfrand/5767/zoshabracha.html
Answer: Avraham, Yitzḥak and Ya'akov were not national figures at the time that they lived.  They were fathers, and even leaders of their small clans and growing tribes.  But they never led a nation the way Moshe ultimately did.  Moshe had led the nation to hear the word of G-d themselves, and when they were not capable of withstanding that experience he acted as intermediary and delivered the word of G-d to them.  He was also a national leader who had led them out of Egypt and led them for 40 years as the equivalent of a king, providing for them (with the aid of G-d) when they were hungry and thirsty and leading them to success in battle.  Despite the occasional mishap he was much beloved as well.  Even aside from the level of prophecy Moshe attained, it is easy to understand why the people might have refused to go on without him and might have even begun to worship him had his burial place been made known.
Answer: According the the BaH on Sotah 14a, Rabbi Hama son of Hanina says that Moses' burial site was hidden because God knew he would eventually destroy the temple and exile Israel from the land. If they knew where Moses' burial site was, they would go to it, alert Moses of the evil decree, ask him to pray for us, and Moses would nullify it.
He proves that Moses was unique in his decree-nullifying ability, citing the sin of the golden calf, and pointing out that of all the righteous people in the generation, Moses alone was approached by God to intervene.
He also remarks that the righteous are even more precious in death than in life, which would exacerbate Moses' special role.
Comment: ...so the procedure and result you describe in your first paragraph would've been such a bad thing?
Comment: possibly relevant http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/20247/what-is-a-persons-consciousness-in-the-next-world
Comment: @Gary See the Book of Job
Answer: IMO, Moshe's burial place was made unknown with the purpose to prevent the People, still in their slavish mentality, from breaking the first commandment of the Law by getting involved in idolatry, as they did with the nahash of copper in the desert, which had to be destroyed for that reason.
Comment: Point well taken, but it was already made above by Shalom.
Answer: To answer the second half of the question:   and did not do so with other great Tzadikim like Avraham, Yitchak and Yaakov?
Moshe was not allowed to enter Israel. Perhaps this rule was also true after his death, and not just before it. All the other great tzadikim were burried in Israel.  (Except for Aaron and the generation that died in the desert... but that's a separate question.)
Comment: See also http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/8312.
Answer: Another reason Moshe's burial is unkown, in a kabalistic sense, and I wont quote a source: Moshe did not need to be buried.  He had perfected his body in a spiritual sense so he did not need to decompose and regenerate.  This is alluded to where there is no vertical line between "Moshe Moshe" in the Torah, as there is for "Avraham | Avraham".
No sources.  If you dont like it - move on.  The answers above are good.

Why was Moshe buried alone?


Google Drive, child folder into multiple parent folders

Question: I need to put a child folder in multiple parent folders. I used to be able to do it in Google Docs, but for some reason now, holding the ctrl key and moving or just moving, it removes it from one and adds it to another. I can't seem to make multiples.
Comment: Google Docs used to treat "folders" like labels in Gmail in that you could apply multiple labels to a document. Now that it is Drive, however, it needs to act more like the directory structure on your hard drive where, for most people, a folder only "lives" in one other folder.
Answer:
Select the folder that you want to copy to multiple folders (this can be done by clicking the check box beside the folder)
Click on organize (located on the top in between the Share button and Trash button)
Select multiple folders (Ctrl+click) in which you want to keep the child folder and then click on Apply changes
Comment: I'm surprised this actually works. It even makes copies of files in the OS file folder(s) that Drive syncs to. There's a delay, though,  so things can sometimes seem out of whack.
Answer: I solved it this way:
Search for the file, open details from the more button and click on the folder in which the file is located :)
Comment: How does this answer the question?


Why does angular momentum in quantum mechanics have selected directions?

Question: In classical mechanics when one set system coordinate, length of projection of angular momentum(L) on the axis z can take continuous value from -L to +L, so any direction of L is possible. In quantum mechanics when one set coordinate system, values of projection are finite set of numbers, and so only particular directions of L are possible. However, if one choose another coordinate system, set of possible directions change. And if one repeat this procedure many times, set of possible directions turns out to be as in classical mechanics. I see some contradiction (defining coordinate system determine directions of L) in this fact and I wonder if someone explain that there is no contradiction.
Comment: The issue is that the direction of $\vec L$ in quantum mechanics can not be defined. It has no meaning.
Answer: There is no contradiction, the spin space for a 2-level system is for example spanned by the Pauli matrices $\sigma_x,\sigma_y,\sigma_z$ , but any other basis transformation to, say,
$\sigma_{x'}=\sigma_x+\sigma_y,\sigma_{y'}=\sigma_y+\sigma_z,\sigma_{z'}=\sigma_x+\sigma_z$ (up to a proper normalization) would work fine.
Yes, measurement will always produce a discrete result. But since Heisenberg prevents you from measuring multiple axes simultaneously, this does not lead to a paradox. There is no fundamental 'special direction', only the one you happen to be measuring and others you don't.


An effective counter to spawn camping?

Question: Occasionally when playing TF2, the other team pushes us all the way back to spawn and camps there. I am fairly experienced with the game, and have a mic to help coordinate with my team. Is there an effective counter-strategy to push them back when dealing with the small bottleneck of the spawn doors?
Comment: God I hate spawn campers *so, so much.*
Comment: Which map? How are they pushing you back? Turret emplacement or raw firepower from actual players?
Comment: @mikeTheLiar You shouldn't need to - see the first paragraph of my answer below.  Spawn-camping is more of a "serves you right, I'm just going to go out of my way to rub it in" type of thing.
Answer: Spawn-camping is one of the riskier strategies a team can employ - you are fighting the enemy team outside a one-way door which only they can open, and behind which is an infinite supply of health and ammo that only they can access.  It only works if the team being spawn-camped is so uncoordinated that they would be losing badly anyways even if not being camped.  The team inside spawn actually has the advantage of being right next to their resupply cabinets - they can change classes and loadouts and refill ammo and health at will.
Breaking even a serious spawn camp merely requires some coordination.  Running out one at a time is not going to work - they will have time to repair their sentries and reset their sticky traps in the time it takes you to respawn.  Have a medic (preferably two or three - they probably have at least one medic) build uber (normal uber) on some scouts / soldiers / demomen who can inflict self-damage to speed up the process.  Deploy the ubers on some heavies right out of the gate and clear any sticky traps and other immediate threats that may be present.  Have the demomen and soldiers follow behind to destroy sentry nests and teleporters.  Once you do that there should be no more spawn-camp.  Kill as many enemy players as you can and go for the objective to make up for any lost time.
If you are playing on a public server and your team is uncoordinated enough to get spawn-camped, it is probably game over.  There is very little you can do alone, unless you are a very good spy (but remember, even if you walk out cloaked, they can see the door open).  If you feel up to it, try coordinating / organizing your team a bit via chat (text or voice).  Nobody likes being spawn-camped so odds are if someone takes charge people will follow.
One last note - most maps have more than one spawn exit (typically 3).  If they aren't camping all exits simultaneously you can just sneak out and let the campers waste their time.
Comment: @NickT I think you missed the point of my post.  It's not possible for "balanced teams" and "successful spawn-camping" to simultaneously be true.  If a team isn't good enough to break a spawn-camp then the other team is better and would be winning anyways without rubbing it in.  Admins don't need to get involved at all.  Just get yourself a better team.
Comment: If you are on a pub server getting spawncamped, be the hero your team needs (but does not deserve) and become Medic.  Then find the only other competent player on your team and uber them out, just as you would with a friend.
Comment: Yeah, if the teams are balanced and you're getting successfully spawn-camped, there's no hope regardless.  If the players like doing this on your server, find a new server.  If the admins don't do anything about it, find a new server.  If the teams are unbalanced and the server isn't configured to autobalance, find a new server.
Answer: If your team has at least a few smart players and you're getting destroyed hard enough, the best idea is probably to just sit in spawn and charge Über, then have everyone bum rush out the doors while it's being deployed. If you're feeling lucky you can try to get multiple Übers or an Über-Kritz combo going. Make sure that you try and stay out of line of sight and splash from the door, because you know there'll be that one guy who keeps opening it.
Once you have your charge, hit the button before the door actually opens to minimize the probability that the server decides the enemy stickies/Kritz/Phlogs went off first. Focus all your team's firepower on the Sentry and Teleporter (if they have them), followed by the enemy Engineers and Medics. If your team has a clue, the rest of the enemy team should thin out pretty quickly after that, or at least get thin enough that you have some territory back.
It would also be helpful to try having a Dead Ringer Spy get out the door, fake a dumb Scout/Engineer/something death, and stab at least one guy just before you launch the party. That way people will hopefully turn towards the Spy while you have your fleet barging in. (Exception: If there's an Engineer setup camping you, it's far more important to get the stuff sapped then to stab anyone.) Of course by the time you get your charges up, you'll probably have at least two GENIUS SPIES trying to do this and so letting the spy-checkers get wise. Depending on the situation, a Bonk Scout can also provide a distraction.
If your team is particularly bad, it's possible to get spawn-camped even without the aid of a Sentry or stickies (say, just a smart Heavy-Medic pair). You don't really need to charge Über for this, you just need to get people to stop exiting spawn one at a time and instead charge out in unison.
Answer: Having a well-experienced Scout who has a Bonk! Atomic Punch can help when you ca kill one or two enemies, but there are still too much to exit spawn. Once the Scout can get out of the campers, he can pick off valuable targets, such as a heavy/medic pair, an experianced demo.  He can also use this method to absord sentry fire. When the sentry is firing at him and when he grabs the attention of a few players, he can lure them away from spawn, so your team can get out and take revenge.
Comment: A Bonk! Scout...that's actually not a bad idea.  Better idea though (and you should edit this into your answer) is that once you are out, go destroy their teleporter entrance.  No immediate re-enforcements = no more spawn camping.
Answer: I know how. Go medic with the stock medigun, and stick around in spawn until you build an uber. Once the uber is built, charge a heavy, soldier, or pyro, and push out of spawn, killing the campers in your wake. Or, if you don't want to go medic, call for a medic and tell them to charge you with full uber to push out of spawn. If it didn't work, try again, it will eventually. If it does work, play on!

An effective counter to spawn camping?


Why is this operator self-adoint

Question: We have that $\lambda, \overline{\lambda} \in \rho(T)$ and $\lambda \in \mathbb{C}$. Now, I want to show that a symmetric operator and closed operator $T: \operatorname{dom(T)} \rightarrow H$ must be self-adjoint. Notice, that $T$ is not necessarily densily defined. Does anybody here have any ideas? Actually, I concluded the closedness of this operator from the fact that the resolvent is not empty by myself, so this may be somehow a tautology in this exercise.
Comment: $T$ must be densely defined, or it doesn't have an adjoint.
Comment: the point is that you should probably show that this includes that $T$ is densely defined.
Comment: If $T$ is symmetric, then $T\subset T^\ast$ (the definition of being symmetric), which implies that $T^\ast$ exists. Which implies that $T$ is densely defined.
Comment: Don't get it. Don't you need the fact that $T$ is densely defined a priori, in order to know that $T^*$ exists uniquely? ( I also don't quite see the duplicate)
Comment: One of your premises is that $T$ is symmetric. That implies that $T$ must be densely defined, since otherwise $T^\ast$ doesn't exist. So the denseness of $\operatorname{dom} T$ is part of the premises, though implicit.
Comment: could you explain, how this follows? I mean symmetric means $\forall x,y \in \operatorname{dom}(T): \langle Tx,y\rangle  = \langle x,Ty\rangle$. How does this imply the existence of $T^*$? In my functional analysis textbook it says that you can only define the adjoint, if you know that your operator is densely defined, so your argument sounds strange to me.
Comment: Sigh. A different definition of symmetric :( But T.A.E.'s answer at the duplicate handles that.
Comment: could you first try to explain how my assumption is related to $R(A+i)=H$? ( There should be one, as you insist on the fact that my question is a duplicate ;-) )... all I get is $(T-\lambda)^{-1}$ has only zero in the nullspace, thus the image of $((T-\lambda)^{-1})^{*}$is dense.
Comment: You have $\lambda, \overline{\lambda} \in \rho(T)$ - I assume that indicates $\lambda \notin \mathbb{R}$, otherwise we have a problem. Reducing that to the case $\lambda = i$ is done by adding a real multiple of the identity, and scaling.
Comment: no, $\lambda , \overline{\lambda} \in \mathbb{C}$ is what the exercise wants me to do. Thus, $\lambda \in \mathbb{R}$ is not forbidden I think.
Comment: I have the inkling that it doesn't follow for $\lambda\in\mathbb{R}$, but I'm not sure.
Comment: counterexamples would even be better, as this would complete my exercise even faster ;-)
Comment: I'm trying to think of one.
Answer: If $A$ is symmetric and $(A-\lambda I)$ is surjective for for some $\lambda\notin\mathbb{R}$, then the domain of $A$ is automatically dense. To see this, assume $A-\lambda I$ is surjective for some non-real $\lambda$ and suppose that $y \perp \mathcal{D}(A)$. Then $y=(A-\lambda I)x$ for some $x \in \mathcal{D}(A)$, which gives
$$
            0=(y,x)=((A-\lambda I)x,x)=((A-\Re\lambda I)x,x)+i\Im\lambda(x,x).
$$
Because $A$ is symmetric, then $(Ax,x)=(x,Ax)$ must be real. Therefore,
$$
                0 = \Im ((A-\lambda I)x,x) = \Im\lambda\|x\|^{2} \implies x = 0\implies y = 0.
$$
The conclusion is that $A$ must be densely-defined if $A$ is symmetric and if $A-\lambda I$ is surjective for some $\lambda \notin \mathcal{R}$. Therefore $A^{\star}$ is closed and densely-defined with $A\preceq A^{\star}$, meaning that $A$ is a restriction of $A^{\star}$ to $\mathcal{D}(A)$.
Now assume $A$ a densely-defined symmetric operator. Then $A$ is closable, which implies that $A^{\star}$ is closed and densely-defined, even if $A$ is not closed. Assuming $A-\lambda I$ and $A-\overline{\lambda}I$ are surjective for some $\lambda$, I'll now show that $A=A^{\star}$ (here $\lambda$ can be real.) We know that $A\preceq A^{\star}$ because $A$ is symmetric; so it is enough to show that $y \in \mathcal{D}(A^{\star})$ implies that $y \in \mathcal{D}(A)$. To prove this, assume $y\in\mathcal{D}(A^{\star})$ and choose $z \in \mathcal{D}(A)$ such that
$$
                     (A-\overline{\lambda}I)z = (A^{\star}-\overline{\lambda})y.
$$
Then, for all $x\in\mathcal{D}(A)$ one has
$$
             ((A-\lambda I)x,y)=(x,(A^{\star}-\overline{\lambda}I)y)=(x,(A-\overline{\lambda})z)=((A-\lambda I)x,z),\\
               ((A-\lambda I)x,y-z) = 0,\;\;\; x \in \mathcal{D}(A).
$$
Because $A-\lambda I$ is also surjective, then $y = z \in \mathcal{D}(A)$, as was to be shown.
Added: If you assume that $A$ is densely-defined and symmetric with $A-\lambda I$ surjective for some real $\lambda$, then $A=A^{\star}$. That's because the arguments of the second paragraph above remain valid. Alternatively, if $A-\lambda I$ is surjective for some $\lambda$ for which $((A-\lambda)x,x) > 0$ for all non-zero $x \in\mathcal{D}(A)$, then $A=A^{\star}$ is a closed densely-defined selfadjoint operator.
Comment: what do you think about the condition $\lambda \notin \mathbb{R}$. is this necessary?
Comment: The first part of my argument does not work if $\lambda \in \mathcal{R}$; I'm not sure if the result holds either in that case. However, if $A$ is non-negative and $(A+\lambda I)$ is surjective for some real $\lambda$, then it is true that $A=A^{\star}$ because $((A+\lambda I)x,x)\ge \lambda\|x\|^{2}$ holds, and the first part of the argument is okay. Then the second part also holds, too, because that argument works whether or not $\lambda$ is real (I changed the answer to reflect that in the second part of the argument.)

Why is this operator self-adoint


Combining -webkit-mask and -webkit-transform on Android default browser

Question: On an Android 4.3 device, using the default browser, I'm creating an element that uses both -webkit-mask and -webkit-transform: rotate. But when I combine the two styles, the element's background color doesn't get masked correctly.
Here's what it looks like without the rotation (top) and with it (bottom). As you can see, the bottom image doesn't have the background masked:

And here's what I'm expecting. This is what I get on Chrome and other browsers:

The bottom element has the following styles (the full source is here):
background-color: red;
-webkit-mask: center center url('data:image/png;base64,...') no-repeat;
-webkit-mask-size: 2em 3em;
-webkit-transform: rotate(-180deg);

Is this a known issue with the stock Android browser? Any way around it?
Answer: I'm not an expert, but have you tried:
body {
background-color: transparent;

}
Comment: This doesn't make any sense.


When to use aware / conscious / deliberate?

Question: As far as I understood, aware and conscious are synonyms in which the last one being more formal.Is deliberate even more formal or highlighting an aspect I didn't get yet?
Comment: *As far as I understood, aware and conscious are synonyms* There are very, very few true synonyms in English. The guidance is "**If it is a different word, it has a different meaning or, at least, a different nuance.**"
Answer: Aware and conscious can be synonyms in some contexts. If you are aware, or conscious, of something, you can tell that it is happening.
Deliberate is not at all synonymous with them. If an action is deliberate, you are doing it on purpose.


Backup/Restore Android

Question:
Possible Duplicate:
How do I perform a full pre-rooting backup of an Android phone?

I am considering rooting my Motorola Droid, and I am wondering if it is possible to revert back to the exact state that my phone is in right now (ie unrooted, with all my apps, settings, etc).
I know I can backup all the files on my SD card (in fact I have that job running right now).  But how can I backup/restore the phone's internal memory?
Is this what SPRecovery does?  All of the 'how-to-root-your-phone' tutorials say that you start by installing SPRecovery, but I can't find any details on what, exactly, SPRecovery does, and how to use it.  I suspect it does more than what is necessary to load a rooted ROM, but I just can't find any details.
Answer: Could you use Nandroid to do this? I understand that this creates a full image of your phone for restore.
Comment: Does it require rooting the phone? I've galaxy I5801
Comment: @Ismail In most cases, yes.
Answer: The Marketplace has a few different free and pay apps that do backup. They can backup apps and the data stored with the apps as well as other things on your phone like your call log.
Backup on Android has never been too big a deal because most of what is really important on a phone (contacts, email) are stored in Google's cloud.
Once you root your phone you won't want to go back anyway!
Answer: Note that you do not need to backup Contacts & Emails etc. They are automatically backed up in your google account.
The state of your apps (i.e. the purchases you have made) is also backed up to your google account. So if you move to a different android phone, you can install them again without having to pay for them again.
For photos, I have been very happy with Lookout for Android. Important features include:

Data Backup (I use only photo backup)
Anti Virus (which I never use)
Remote Locator (in case your phone gets stolen/lost)

Backup/Restore Android