Do I need the copyright to mention Tim Hortons?

Question: So I'm writing a book, (duh) and I want to include a mention of a Tim Hortons cup, (Canadian coffee place) just to hint at the reader that I'm Canadian. I want to put it in there casually; it's gonna be mentioned as empty. But I'm not sure if I need the copyright to Tim Hortons first or not. Can anyone help me out?
Comment: What do you mean by "need the copyright"?  Are you asking if you need permission from the owner of the chain?  (By the way, you can't copyright names; that's a trademark, not a copyright.)
Comment: If you did, you would already be in trouble just for asking the question.
Comment: Worth noting that none of the answers below mention that Canadian copyright/trademark law almost certainly differs in significant ways from United States law on those subjects (though one did mention a difference in slander/libel law) -- nor did any of them mention which law they're based on (though they seem to match US law pretty well).
Answer: You may write:

When he came down from the Empire State Building, where he had been surprised to find Donald Trump giving an interview, John picked up a cup of coffee at Starbucks and slowly ambled down the street, enjoying the feel of his new Converse sneakers. Just as he was about to get into his BMW, his iPhone rang and he saw that it was Joan from Microsoft, who he had met on Facebook after he had been dumped by that CIA chick from Tinder. "I used to think maybe you loved me now baby I'm sure", he hummed, as he swiped to answer the call.

Nothing in this passage is protected by copyright or trademark law, and since there is no slander, it is completely unproblematic to bring in existing persons, buildings, companies, or government agencies or even quote a verse from a pop song.
If, on the other hand, you plan to show how your protagonist got sick and almost died from the coffee and how it is uncovered that mismanagement, greed, and corruption have compromised the quality of industrial food, you better invent a company and make sure it does not remind anyone of one specific real franchise.
Comment: Just to be pedantic, written defamation would be _libel_, not slander (which is spoken).
Answer: As @MonicaCellio noted in her comment, a name like "Tim Horton's" cannot be copyrighted. You can't copyright a name or slogan. It can have trademark protection, which is a different thing.
So to really answer your question: The point of trademark law is to prevent someone else from confusing potential customers of your product by using your name. Like if you tried to open your own coffee shop and call it "Tim Horton's", the existing Tim Horton's would have a very clear case for a trademark violation lawsuit.
But you are perfectly free to use the name "Tim Horton's" in speech or writing to refer to the real company. In general they're probably glad if you do -- free advertising.
Companies will bring law suits about mis-use of their trademark. Especially if you use a trademark as if it was a generic term, like Coca Cola is famous for suing people for using the word "coke" as a generic synonym for "cola". But I don't think that's the issue here. You're not referring to all Canadians as "hortons", I don't think.
There is the issue of libel if you say something bad about them. If you say that their coffee is contaminated with rat droppings or that the company paid bribes to politicians, they could sue you for libel. (In the US, if you can prove in court that your statements are true, you will win. I understand that truth is not an absolute defense against libel Britain and Australia, I don't know about Canada.)
But a simple casual reference like, "Bob dropped by a Tim Horton's and got a donut and a cup of coffee" is no problem at all.
Answer: No you don't need permissions to mention businesses. You don't need permission to mention anything or anyone, but they can sue you for what you say about it/them if its a lie or slanderous.
Using intellectual property like excerpts of written pieces does need permission.
Answer: No, a casual mention of a coffee cup is not going to get you hit by the copy right police.  You're not doing the brand any serious harm (heck, the fact that it's empty means someone really enjoyed to coffee) and if anything, they'll see it as free advertisement.  I recall part of the fun of reading Animorphs as a kid was that they did make reference to a ton of actual chains, stores, and other products I was familiar with as a kid (On two separate occasions, two different alien races thought Star Trek was the real deal and were terrified because of it... until they learned it was a work of fiction.).
As long as you're not being too mean to the company, and even then, it's still an issue of fair use, since the company does make a product and criticism typically falls under that.  In these cases, case law holds that the holder of the copyright must show that they have considered the case as Fair Use before moving forward with the suit (Youtube got into some trouble about a year and a half ago because they were blindly accepting copyright claims and disregarding Fair Use counter claims.  See "Where's the Fair Use" or #wtfu.).
In the United States, there was a case that held that using a pop song snippet of a pop song in an independently made video is not a copyright violation of the song in question, so long as the video is a derivative in nature. Popular Parody Artist Weird Al famously asks for permission from a song artist if he wants to parody them, but it is out of respect for the artist as a creator, not because of any law.  Since Canada and the United States are under Common Law, they same would hold true as Common Law nations may use case law from other nations under a Common Law system to interpret their own laws.  Since the United States and Canada are both Constitutional Government (i.e. they have a strict lists of laws that cannot be superseded) as opposed to Nations like the UK, Australia, and New Zealand (which are parliamentary, i.e. Laws made by Parliament cannot be superseded) it should be a matter of looking for any fair use differences on a Constitutional level, so you don't need to get terribly deep into legal case work.
On a note about Slander/Libel, if you are a United States Resident/Citizen, the U.S. will not extradite someone to stand for Defamation Suits in other districts if they are not legally considered Defamation in the United States.  Either way, United States Jurisprudence holds that the all speech is assumed to be Free Speech unless proven otherwise (that is, Speech is innocent until proven guilty)...  And the US is considered one of the most (if not outright the most) liberal nations when it comes to Free Speech.
Near as I can tell, the major difference between Free Speech in the United States and Canada has little to do with Defimation or Copyright.  The biggest gap is over laws banning Hate Speech (Canada does have them... the United States does not).


What does this syntax " decltype(*(T*)(0)**(U*)(0)) " mean?

Question: I am reading this question on isocpp FAQ here, this question is explaining how to write the return type for ???
template<class T, class U>
??? mul(T x, U y)
{
return x*y;
}

I understand the easy way is to write auto mul(T x, U y) -> decltype(x*y), however the question also gives another way, which is to replace ??? by decltype(*(T*)(0)**(U*)(0)). But I don't fully understand what this decltype(*(T*)(0)**(U*)(0)) is really doing, it seems that it is declaring a temporary pointer T* and initialize it to zero and then dereference the pointer, then multiplied by the same counterpart for type U, is my understanding right?
But why using pointers? I think decltype(T(0)*U(0)) or decltype(T{0}*U{0}) should also work.
Comment: Note, it is not undefined behavior since it is [in an unevaluated context](http://stackoverflow.com/a/28723577/1708801)
Comment: That assumes that `T` and `U` have a constructor that takes a single integer parameter. The pointer way makes no assumptions about the constructors of `T` and `U`.
Answer: decltype(*(T*)(0)**(U*)(0))

Let's split it up:
(T*)(0) //cast a null pointer to a T*
*(T*)(0) //dereference, giving a T

(U*)(0) //cast a null pointer to a U*
*(U*)(0) //dereference, giving a U

(*(T*)(0)) * (*(U*)(0)) //the result of multiplying a U and a T

decltype(T(0)*U(0)) is equivalent only if T and U have constructors taking a single int (or something which can be implicitly converted to from an integer literal).
The standard library already has a std::declval to do this in a cleaner fashion:
decltype(std::declval<T>() * std::declval())

Answer: this indeed error prone.
in your solution , you basically assume the construcor can get 0 as argument, and that may not be the case.
the snippet basically cast NULL to some T object pointer, then pull out T with the * operator, now we left with   basically decltype({T object}*{U object}) it assumes that in compile time, the decltype will be replaced by the real type and in run time there will be no pointers. but this code is very ugly and un-maintainable.
a better solution is to use C++11 std::result_of :
typename std::result_of<declval<T>()*declval()>::type
declval does something similar to *(T*)(0) only it returns r-value reference (meaning T&&)
Comment: That's not what `result_of` is for, and it wouldn't compile here.


Increasing sample size of multivariate data with bootstrapping

Question: I'm trying to perform variable selection methods on a small data set (approximately 100 observations with 14 predictors each). Is there any way to increase the sample size with bootstrapping? Are there any methods for bootstrapping multivariate data? If so, what are the concerns about bootstrapping multivariate data to increase sample size and how can I generate this data in R or Python?
Answer:
Is there any way to increase the sample size with bootstrapping? No. The bootstrap is basically a technique to approximate standard errors of complex estimators. It is not a data generating technique.
Are there any methods for bootstrapping multivariate data? Yes. Usually, the data lines are resampled together as a whole (see code below). This strategy may fail e.g. if the order of the lines is relevant to the problem (like in time series analysis).

How to e.g. bootstrap lines of a multivariate data set $X$:
<code>getBootSample <- function(X) {
  X[sample(1:nrow(X), replace = TRUE),]
}

set.seed(5)
head(getBootSample(iris))
</code>
Comment: This is a nice answer. I don't know where the notion that "bootstraps increase sample sizes" ever came from... Perhaps that the exact tests from bootstrap can have asymptotic-like properties in small samples, or that (as a consequence) you wind up with seemingly more rows of data. More efficient analyses could be afforded using a *parametric* bootstrap, but that's a silly notion since that's far too assumption dependent.
Comment: As it often makes sense to model many bootstraps and aggregate, the same samples are drawn alot of times.


How much does it cost to clog the Ethereum Network exactly?

Question: Currently the largest gas guzzler to clog the Ethereum network is the Mint contract below. Supposedly there are users purposely causing high gas prices using this function. Why would anyone do this besides trying to harm the network to make users use another network? But the real question is how much does it actually cost to clog the Ethereum network to cause $100-$300 gas fees with the current value of $2000/eth today?
Answer: The cost for an adversary to intentionally increase the gas fee on the Ethereum network depends on several factors, including the current gas price, the complexity of the token Mint contract you shared, and the number of transactions the adversary wants to include in the network. Although there are Gas Tips and additional features added to the fee calculation in later versions of Ethereum, the basic calculations would look as below:
To estimate the cost, we need to consider the following:
Gas Price: The gas price is denoted in Gwei (a denomination of Ether). Let's assume the current gas price is 50 Gwei (0.00000005 ETH).
Gas Limit: Each block on the Ethereum network has a gas limit, which determines the maximum amount of gas that can be included in a block. The gas limit is typically around 15 million.
Gas Fee Calculation: The gas fee is calculated by multiplying the gas used by the gas price. The gas used depends on the complexity of the contract and the operations performed.
Given these considerations, we can estimate the cost for an adversary to increase the gas fee:
Determine the Gas Usage: Analyze the token Mint contract to determine its gas usage.
To get a reliable value, you can look at the gas consumed per transaction for the particular smart contract on EtherScan by looking at the Ethereum trace history, and make your calculations.
Calculate the Required Gas: Let's assume the token Mint contract requires X gas per transaction. To increase the gas fee to $100, we can calculate the required gas price:
<code>Required Gas Price = Desired Fee / Gas Used
Required Gas Price = $100 / X gas
</code>


iTunes library update

Question: I have a new pc and just re-downloaded iTunes. When I tried syncing, the iTunes Library would not update from my iPad Library! instead it tries to replace the iPad library with just the few songs I bought online, which are in iCloud. But I have several old songs I burnt from CDs. Please how do i update the iTunes library with my iPad library?
Answer: The library never will sync from different computers, it's a way to protect the author right's and the unique thing that this will do is show your songs that you buy with iCloud.
The unique solution is going to your other computer and copy the song in the folder iTunes>Music and put on the new!
Good luck!
Answer: One of two ways...
Copy the data from the old computer to the new
or Lift the data off the iPhone directly - which requires 3rd Party software.

iTunes library update


How make object apear more round in blender?

Question: I hope you see it good on picture, as you can see this circular object isn't fully round. Is there any way I can make it look totaly smooth?
Comment: I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because there's a Blender stackexchange it should be posted to instead
Comment: That red outline over the mesh indicates you have marked the edges as sharp, this prevents smooth shading from blending the faces together, marking the horizontal edges as sharp is ok but you don't want every vertical edge marked as sharp.
Answer: Generally, shading helps with this so that the corners are not as sharp looking.
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19131/how-to-properly-use-face-smooth-shading
Alternatively, to make it truly more round you would have to use more quads/polygons to give the corners lower angles.
Answer: You have at least two solutions.
Solution 1 :
Look for Edge Split modifier. It will allow you to chose which edges to smooth or not, depending on the angle of the edge. In your case, you do not have apply a smooth shading on your mesh.
Solution 2 :
Look around for Subsurf modifier and Edge Crease tool.
Bonus solution 3 :
Look for Bevel modifier. Depending on your mesh, it can sometimes be the best solution.


NavigationController becomes nil after popToViewController

Question: My navigationcontroller becomes nil after my "[self.navigationController popToViewController: [self.navigationController.viewControllers objectAtIndex:0] animated:YES];"
this is my scene:
InsertViewController - > [self.navigationController pushViewController:choiceViewController animated:YES];
ChoiceViewController ->  [self.navigationController pushViewController:choiceDetailViewController animated:YES];
ChoiceDetailViewController ->

InsertViewController *insertViewController =  [self.navigationController.viewControllers objectAtIndex:0] ;
UINavigationController *secondaryNavigationCtrl = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:insertViewController];
secondaryNavigationCtrl.navigationBar.barStyle = UIBarStyleBlackOpaque;
[self presentModalViewController:secondaryNavigationCtrl animated:YES];
[secondaryNavigationCtrl release];
[
When "ok" button pressed( self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem) in InsertView that just poped up, then it goes back to ChoiceDetailViewController and i do a
[code][self.navigationController dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES]; [/code]
After that i do a

[self.navigationController popToViewController: [self.navigationController.viewControllers objectAtIndex:0] animated:YES];

Which go back tot the InsertViewController, and when i do the cycle again i see my navigationcontroller is nil...
Any idea what I am doing wrong?
Thanks in advance.
Comment: Same problem here...did you ever solve this?
Answer: I'm not sure I've understand what you are trying to do but, when you go back to ChoicheDetailViewController i think you should do a [self.navigationController popViewController:...] instead of [self.navigationController dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES] because ChoicheDetailViewController got pushed on the stack in a non modal way in the first place. So with your code you are actually dismissing the whole navigationController.
Answer: Not sure if this fixes your problem but I had this problem because the class that implemented the code that popped the view controller was actually getting popped. This caused my self.navigationController to be nil because it itself was getting removed. I moved the code to a class that was not getting popped and it did not get set to nil.
Before the stack looked like this, one of the ViewControllers gets popped self.navigationController is nil.
PopableViewController
   functionThatCallsPopToViewController
PopableViewController
   functionThatCallsPopToViewController
RootViewController

After
PopableViewController
PopableViewController
RootViewController
   functionThatCallsPopToViewController

Since RootViewController is not popped self.navigationController did not get set to nil. The only tricky thing is, now you need to keep a reference to the RootViewController in your other viewControllers.


Cannot debug Mockito / JUnit code in Eclipse, works fine with just JUnit

Question: I've got JUnit tests that run just fine.  Added Mockito to my build and I try to put a breakpoint in my JUnit test that uses Mockito to mock out some of the public methods.  When I try to run the debugger on the class, I get the error "unable to install breakpoint in XXX due to missing line number attributes. Modify compiler options to generate line number attributes."  I checked my compiler and I generate line numbers is selected.
Comment: what version of Mockito are you using?
Comment: I had to add an `org.mockito.plugins.MockMaker` for mocking final class, which doesn't allow me to debug the source code.
Answer: The exception you're seeing is caused by attempting to debug dynamically generated empty mock methods created by the mock() function. From your question, it looks like you actually want to be using partial mocks instead of full mocks, where only some methods are mocked and the remaining calls are delegated to the real implementation.
To create partial mocks, you should be using the spy() method instead of the mock() method.
So, use
<code>MyClass myMock = spy(new MyClass());
</code>
instead of
<code> MyClass myMock = mock(MyClass.class);
</code>
Answer: Try by removing and re-adding your breakpoints, it might just be that a current breakpoint references an old version of a class. Just that!
Maybe this post in the Mockito group can help you.
Answer: I have the same messages (Eclipse Luna).
In spite of the large number of error messages, the debugging is still working if the debugger hits your breakpoint. You just have to click 'ok' on all of them, or disable these messages.
I think the problem originates from placing breakpoints on an extended class (mockito probably is dynamically extending the mocked classes) and Eclipse being unable to trace down the source code.
Answer: If it only happens when you use Mockito, then maybe it's because Mockito was compiled without debugger support?
Also, check that you have the same compiler settings for your test classes as for your regular code.
Comment: I think @albert-t-wong was saying the dynamic (generated) mock code didn't have debug information, no that he couldn't debug Mockito's source code.
Answer: Happens when you put a breakpoint in a mocked method
Answer: besides this question being old I had same problem today and the solution was quite simple, but took some time to figure it out.
So this may be of help to who stumbles here.
I just had some old breakpoint set and one of them was pointing to some changed code, so that the recorded breakpoint position was not good anymore.
My advice is to try to remove all the offending breakpoints and reinstall them on the current code. After a clean build, just to be sure to point to the latest binary. :)


Book about alien spiders that control people by popping into people's skulls and controlling them from the pain centers in the brain

Question: There is a book about small spiders that pop into people's skulls and control them using the pain center of the brain. Does anybody know the title of this book?
Comment: Alien Pain Spiders would be an awesome band name.
Comment: Welcome to the site! Take a look at [this guide](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9335/how-to-ask-a-good-story-id-question/9337#9337) to help jog your memory and and see if you can edit in any more details. There's not too much information in your question to go on.
Comment: Sounds like the Zotl - Alien spiders in A A Attanasio's books, only one I can remember them in right now though is The Last Legends of Earth, but im sure they are in others
Answer: Possibly In Other Worlds by A. A. Attanasio.
There is an alien race called the Zotl that control humans by attaching to the back of their head and burrowing into the pain centre:

Almost instantly, the spider dashed over his shoulder and onto his back. .With flailing arms, Gareth tried to brush it off while he rushed to the door. Its legs scratched the back of his neck and tangled in his hair, and as he reached for it, the thorns spurring the creature's long front legs stabbed his wrists. He slammed into the doorjamb, and spun about to see the black shivering bale in the corner lean over and reveal a glistening blue slugface, frothing with
  a putrescent ferment of juices. The sight of it made him scream.
  The spider gripping the back of his head shimmied tight against his nape, and its powerful beak jabbed him, piercing his skull with a sound like the crunch of gravel. Its probe needled into his brain, and jagged electric colors tore through Gareth with a searing agony. His body thrashed, and his brain went rubbery. He couldn't move. He couldn't yell.
  But then he was moving. Through the jackhammer throb of his hurt, through the sheets of flame snapping within him, he saw himself weightlessly rising to his feet and sleepwalking toward the slugfaced thing in the corner.

The Zotl also eat brains:

A zotl feast is ghastly. The male zotl piths the back of the skull, and a needlefine tubule is inserted into the amygdala, the pain center of the
  brain. The human is paralyzed but quite aware of what is happening. The awareness is important to the zotl's digestion, so the captive brain is injected with a serum that heightens perceptions. Then the pain center is activated, and the human suffers. The torment is horrendous, a molten tearing, all the more terrible because the body is left intact and is nourished by the zotl's glucose wastes. The feeding can last for weeks."

Lovely :-)
Answer: That's a very vague description, but it might be This Book is Full of Spiders by David Wong (sequel to John Dies at the End). It's been a while since I read it and I don't remember much of the plot other than the brain spiders; a few other details I recall are a plague that was widely misinterpreted as a zombie outbreak, a scene with a drone pilot who disobeyed orders in order to save civilians, and one of the main characters was a woman with one arm - does any of that ring a bell?

From Wikipedia:

A year has passed since the events of the previous novel. John and David still live in UNDISCLOSED. David continues to work in the video store, and John works at whatever jobs he can temporarily hold down.
In the opening pages of the book David and John witness what appears to be a large military convoy driving through the outskirts of town. The convoy crashes, and the pair go to investigate. They discover a strange box guarded by G.I.Joe like action figures in the back of one of the convoy's trucks.
One night while asleep in his bed, David is attacked by a spider-like creature. When a police officer arrives to investigate the disturbance, he is unable to see the creature, which then turns on him. The creature takes control of the officer's body, inducing a zombie-type infection. Despite the efforts of David, John, and a detective named Lance Falconer, the infection spreads throughout the town, panic ensues, and the town is cordoned off in an attempt to stop the spread of the infection.
David and John become separated. David is captured and, assuming he may be infected, authorities imprison him in the hospital along with several hundred other presumed-infected. The hospital grounds are fenced off as a quarantine zone. Meanwhile, John makes his way to a town two hours away, where David's girlfriend, Amy, goes to school.
John and Amy eventually make their separate ways back to UNDISCLOSED, each with the intention of finding and rescuing David. Meanwhile, David and several other hospital prisoners discover a tunnel in the basement of the hospital that will potentially lead them to freedom. David is prevented from escaping, which turns out to be fortuitous, as all of the escapees are slaughtered at the other end of the tunnel by would-be rescuers who believed the escapees to be zombies.
Answer: Could it be "Alien Prey" by John Peel?
One of the plot points in the book involves the realization that a town is infested with mind-controlling (alien) spiders - only a few kids ended up being immune.  The spiders were well established enough that most people were infected as infants, but it was possible (and shown) for older people to be infected as well.

 the kids were immune because they got infected by another race, one at war with the spiders, via little crystals in their hands.  Much less invasive than spiders in their brains, especially since said crystals didn't seem to have taken them over.

Said spiders did control by crawling into people's heads (and presumably mucking with their brains, though specifics are not included).  There is a scene where a spider is seen exiting a person's skull after they are killed, and the cover itself has a spider-and-skull picture.
The book doesn't mention the pain centers or any such specifics, which doesn't quite match your description, and it also takes a while for the spiders to come out as the cause of various mysteries the kids were investigating - as something of a surprise for the protagonists.  Even so, it seems like a decent match to your question.
Answer: 'The Last Legends OF Earth' by A. A. Attanasio
One of my top 5 best reads of all time. A magnificent work of linguistical art & storytelling.
Comment: Hi there! Could you [edit] your answer to explain how it's a match, such as providing a summary of better yet, quotes? :)
Comment: This appears to be essentially the same answer as John Rennie's answer above.  What makes this particular book of the series a better match?


transactions traffic jam possible?

Question: or there is security from that?
Comment: Please ask only one question per post.
Comment: 1) each block got empty space. I mean block close every something like 10mins as for now it's about 60% of 1MB so the 40% is still empty space that could also contain transactions? 2) let's say that men that always try to centralize system for control it. 3) yes.
Comment: As @NateEldredge already mentioned, each question post should only ask about one topic. I will put your question on hold and suggest that you edit this post to reduce it to one topic, then post the other questions as separate posts. When this question has been improved, please flag it for reopening.
Comment: I don't understand any of the questions you're asking. 1) What empty space? 2) 'bloody hell reachmen'? 3) You're talking about Sidechain Elements, right?
Comment: later. no time for that right now. thanks for mensioning.
Comment: people afraid to answer now :-D or nobody know the answer?
Answer: This site is intended to be one question per post and your questions don't really make sense. But maybe if I answer your first question you can use that knowledge to improve your further questions and ask those separately.
Blocks do NOT have empty space. 60% full means the size is 60% of the limit, but of course only that 60% is sent over the network and stored.
If the limit gets raised to 20MB it does NOT mean all blocks will be 20MB. The size will still be exactly the same as before until demand starts growing and there are actually more transactions to be put into those blocks.
Comment: that morning I tried to concentrate what I don't understand all in one. it seems not make sense for others but me. guess I was too busy to turn my head on :p
Answer: Surprise surprise!
Smart people has done it already and made an interesting stress-test that You, my dear friend, can read about right here - this is Part 5 that have links to other parts as well. Probably you want to start from the beginning then have a good read!

transactions traffic jam possible?


2007 Dodge Charger acceleration

Question: So about a year ago my 2007 Dodge Charger that has (223,000 miles on it) started acting up. I had to get two of the three computers replaced and right after that, few weeks later the  headlights started flickering off and on, but it stopped after a few months. Then when I drive my car and the engine would get warm on the temp gauge my traction control would automatically turn on by itself and my car would slowly accelerate after the second gear it would take 5-10 seconds to increase 10-15 mph. I put it in neutral and the rev the engine and it won't go higher than 3500 rpm. Can somebody please explain to me what is going on with my car and give me a tip on how to repair it.
Comment: There can be alot of things wrong with the vehicle. I suggest plugging it into a computer to check if there are any codes.
Comment: I agree with @Granny, you need to hook up an ODB reader and see what the car tells you. If you want to do something quickly check the spark plugs and plug cables, but you really need a diagnostic.
Answer: Sounds like there are definitely issues with the car - the overheating is certainly something you need to get checked out ASAP. It could be a spurious reading from a failing sensor or other electrical issue (given some of the history you mention) but it could equally indicate something mechanically wrong and that being the case you could be inflicting ongoing damage to the car by continuing to drive it.
The behaviour you describe of the slow acceleration and limited revving sounds exactly like the ECU has detected a fault and has put the car into a "limp home" mode to protect it from further damage. Again this could be the result of an electrical malfunction but there isn't really anyway for you to tell that yourself.
You could get an OBD II reader and use that to get the fault codes from the ECU which will give you a starting point but unless you are fairly mechanically inclined it's unlikely that there is anything you'll be able to do at home to resolve these issues so I would advise taking it to a trusted mechanic/garage as soon as you can and I wouldn't drive the car except possibly very gently to take it to said garage.

2007 Dodge Charger acceleration


When can "and" be replaced with "&"?

Question: I usually find "&" in the trade name, say, "John & Company". I do not find "&" being used in sentences. What is the correct rule of usage of "&"? When can "and" be replaced with "&"?
Answer: It's more of a choice rather than a norm.  23andMe is an example of 'and' instead of '&' in a company name.  '&', however, is more common and is more prevalent than 'and'.
For a formal usage '&' is widely used:

Business names: e.g. AT&T
Addressing couples: e.g. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Academic papers (when there are multiple authors): e.g. Green, Black & White

Informally, it depends on the user.
Answer: Anywhere, but it doesn't exactly help readability. It's great for personal notes, which is what & was made for, but when you want things to be publicly readable, it tends to break the flow. So & is normally used in company names and personal notes, and that's about it.
Comment: shift- Then why did people use "&" in company names? Company names go public. They are not meant to be of broken flow.
Comment: Well, for one, it's perfectly fine for a name to break the flow, because you want people to notice a name. Just having a & in place of and in the middle of a sentence really makes the & stand out, when it's just a conjunction. But that's more of a reason why it's okay to do it, not a reason to do it in itself.
Comment: In previous times, when most writing around businesses were personal notes of some sort, like meeting minutes and the like, the ampersand was much more widely used, and was even expected to be used instead of and. A few centuries ago, children were taught that there were at least 30 letters in the English alphabet, and the extras were wynne, thorn, eth, and ampersand. We had completely lost the first three by Early Modern English.
Comment: shift - Can a company name use "and' in place of "&"?
Comment: Sure, that's their choice. I'm not aware of one that does, though. I even just looked through a list of companies looking for one and didn't see one.
Comment: I wonder if there's a trend for companies to use "and" because you can't put & in a domain name.  Companies with an ampersand in their names seem to take a variety of approaches: Johnson & Johnson becomes jnj.com, AT&T becomes att.com, Barnes & Noble becomes barnesandnoble.com.
Answer: This is largely a matter of style, rather than of the language itself. Most style guides traditionally frown upon the use of symbols to replace letters and words in formal communication; this goes not only for the ampersand (&), but for the percent sign (%), hash mark (#), and for that matter numerals, at least for smaller numbers. Suffice to say, emoji are right out.
Common guidance is that the ampersand should only be used in names, terms, or titles which are conventionally written with one (e.g. Marks & Spencer, P&G), but not as a generic replacement for and in body text. The Economist style guide is typical:

Ampersands should be used
  1. when they are part of the name of a company (eg, AT&T, Pratt & Whitney);
  2. for such things as constituencies where two names are linked to form one unit (eg, The rest of Brighouse & Spenborough joins with the Batley part of Batley & Morley to form Batley & Spen. Or The area thus became the Pakistani province of Kashmir and the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir);
  3. in R&D and S&L.

APA style says the last two names of authors in a citation may be joined with an ampersand, whereas MLA and CMOS say to write out and. The AP Stylebook even tweeted that ampersands should only be used in a company name or composition title - House & Garden - or in accepted abbreviations: B&B, R&B.
Answer: It stands for the Latin "et" ("and"); it is the two letters ("e" and "t") merged into one. It has been in use since 1st Century A.D.
It can be traditionally used in company names, or when one wishes to refer to the joint authorship of a book when quoting it more than once in an essay (i.e. "Duke & Diesel" rather than "Witty But Vulgar, by Archibald Duke and Humphrey Diesel"). One can also use it when taking notes: a poor man's shorthand, so to speak.
It is impolite to use it anywhere else.

When can "and" be replaced with "&"?


I need a list of linux-image names

Question: I've update to linux-image-3.2.0-30-generic-pae 3.2.0-30.48 and now Ubuntu don't open smoothly and take time to boot but it's not that weird because I had this problem when I was using 11.10 all the time but some how when I upgrade to 12.10 it fixed, so now after I got like 3 new kernel images update the problem got to back again, what I'm asking here is how to bring back the old linux-image to system and you must know I have remove all the old kernels with Ubuntu Tweak janitor option so now only one I got is linux-image-3.2.0-30-generic-pae 3.2.0-30.48.
Answer: Just install the Linux images again
<code>sudo apt-get install linux-image-3.2.0-23-generic-pae linux-headers-3.2.0-23 linux-headers-3.2.0-23-generic-pae
</code>
You should now have option for booting the previous Linux image. Boot to that image and remove the updated one.
If you really want to get a list of all Linux images, You can check the repository pool by going here
A screenshot is added below:
Comment: but I already have 3.2.0-30!? and I can't booting the previous Linux image because I've remove them all with Ubuntu Tweak janitor!
Comment: what were the previous versions. replace the version number in the command
Comment: that why I've asked for "a list of linux-image names" the title.
Comment: For a list, go to this link http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=linux-image

I need a list of linux-image names


Flash CC won't update AIR or Flash Player version

Question: I am working with Flash CC and since I've downloaded it, new versions of Flash Player and AIR (11.8 and 3.8) have been released.  I have downloaded these updates, but Flash CC won't use the updated versions. In the target bar, the options only go up to 11.6 and 3.6. I have looked around and cant figure out how to update the versions in my projects. How can I update the targets in Flash CC?
Answer: Flash.cc menu > help > Manage AIR SDK  then browse to where you unpacked the sdk archive > choose folder,  done!
Answer: I suspect you're installing the AIR runtime. You must download the AIR SDK, not the AIR Runtime. The AIR SDK can be found here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/air-sdk-download.html
After downloading the appropriate ZIP or TBZ2 file, you can install the SDK from within Flash CC with the option "Help / Manage AIR SDK".
There is no such an option to install updates for newer Flash Player targets, so in that case you have to follow these instructions (it's for CS6 but should work in CC):
http://johnbarrett.net/updating-flash-professional-cs6-to-support-11-5/


Differences between php apc and template caching

Question: Hi guys im a bit confuse with Apc and template caching.
By i mean template caching is something like smarty caching functionality.
Basically what is the difference between both of them
Answer: APC cache is to compile php script into executable binary op-code and used it later.
In short, compile once, stored into memory, and reusable until time-to-live ended, or until file get updated.
Despite this major usage, APC also can used to store run-time variables into memory (you can treat this as global session for everyone accessing the same page)

While smarty caching technically is not a binary op-code cache, PHP binary still need to convert it to binary op-code every time it get executed.
What benefits of smarty caching as is it will stored the rendered HTML/output into disk (or you can save the output into APC, the second usage)
Which mean, it save the execution cycle instead of compilation cycle
Answer: ajreal's answer is a good one.  I'll just add the following:
Smarty's template caching, and APC's opcode caching, are the same thing at different levels.  If you've got a smarty template, and no caching going on anywhere, here's (roughly) what needs to happen in order to execute the template:
1) Run (lex, parse, and intepret) the smarty template code.  The end result is PHP code.
2) Run that PHP code.  The output here is php bytecode.
3) Run the Bytecode.  The output here is machine code. (unless there's some intermediate step I don't know about).
4) Run the machine code.
Caching in smarty caches the output from step 1.
APC caches the output from step 2.


Irreducibility of fundamental Weyl modules

Question: It is known that for a simple algebraic group over an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic (which I assume to be {\it good} for the group), the Weyl modules corresponding to the fundamental weights are irreducible if the group is either $SL_n$ or $SO_n$ (Wong 71). For the symplectic group, this is not true for an arbitrary fundamental weight. Foulle provides certain conditions on the weights satisfying which the corresponding Weyl modules of the symplectic group are irreducible. Does one know anything about the irreducibility of the fundamental Weyl modules for the exceptional groups? I believe its true for $G_2$ by results of Premet, Humphreys and others. Is it true also for other exceptional groups?
Comment: @P-Samuel: You should accept Sasha's answer, since it is likely to be the only complete one.
Answer: It is true in types $G_2$, $F_4$ and $E_6$, but in types $E_7$ and $E_8$  one has to exclude $p=7$, $p=13$ and $p=19$ as well (I think $p=19$ occurs only in type $E_8$). More on this can be found in Jantzen's paper "First cohomology groups for classical Lie algebras" published in  Progress in Math., vol. 95, 1991 (the best way to find this paper is to google the title). For related results, see also the paper by Gilkey and Seitz titled "Some representations of exceptional Lie algebras" and published in Geom. Dedicata, 25, (1988), 407-416.
That the Weyl module $V(\varpi_6)$ for $G=E_7(K)$ is reducible in characteristic $7$ is quite easy to see directly: the minuscule module $V(\varpi_7)$ has a nondegenerate
$G$-invariant symplectic form and by using Weyl's formula one observes that $V(\varpi_6)$ can be obtained from the second fundamental Weyl module for $Sp_{56}(K)$ by restriction to $G$. The latter Weyl module is reducible in characteristic $7$ as $7$ divides $56$.
Comment: Thanks for pointing out this paper by Jantzen, which I completely overlooked when putting together my survey; I will add it to the revisions list.    In his table on page 299, the prime 19 indeed occurs just for `$E_8$` and `$\varpi_3$`.  (All the good primes which create problems in exceptional types are below the respective Coxeter numbers 6, 12, 12, 18, 30.  But in that range there are not yet any coherent conjectures like Lusztig's for larger primes.)
Answer: [EDIT] My original incomplete answer is below, but Sasha Premet has provided the complete reference, the table of 4.6 in Jantzen's 1991 paper.   Jantzen recalls that he computed various cases in types $E_\ell$ not covered by the computer calculations of his Oregon colleagues Gilkey and Seitz, using his amazing Sum Formula.   This formula applies for all primes but is usually quite daunting to compute.   Probably his non-computer results are completely correct,
but skeptics should feel free to duplicate them by whatever means.   It's definitely challenging to get any conceptual insight for these small primes. (Revisions to my lecture notes are posted here.)

This question probably hasn't been fully answered for the exceptional types $E_6, E_7, E_8$.   In general, the linkage principle (developed fully in Jantzen's book Representations of Algebraic Groups) ensures that for $p$ "large enough", each fundamental weight $\varpi$ lies in the closure of the lowest $p$-alcove for the affine Weyl group (of Langlands dual type) and thus the Weyl module $V(\varpi)$ is indeed simple.   Here "large enough" depends on the Coxeter number and the coefficients of the highest short root, so the problem reduces to a computational one for a definite range of primes.    The bad primes (possibly 2, 3, 5 for exceptional types) cause special problems, but apart from those the fundamental modules for types $G_2, F_4$ are well-behaved.
In Chapter 4 of my 2006 survey Modular Representations of Finite Groups of Lie Type (LMS Lecture Notes Series 326), I tried to cover all results known to me, with complete references.   For example, Table 1 on page 37 summarizes results computed by Gilkey-Seitz for $F_4$ which confirm that fundamental Weyl modules are simple when $p>3$.    Symplectic groups have been thoroughly examined by Premet-Suprunenko, Foulle, McNinch.  And so on.
The fundamental modules for types $E_\ell$ probably haven't all been studied well enough to settle all cases.  However, the few fundamental weights which are minuscule pose no problem since the weights of the corresponding Weyl modules form a single orbit under the Weyl group and thus the modules remain simple for all $p$.   But otherwise the linkage principle just gives a bound on how much computation is needed.  Probably nothing unusual happens for good primes, but that's not clearly documented yet.
One other theoretical remark: Lusztig's conjecture should handle all primes greater than the Coxeter number in a uniform way, but it has not yet been proved for this optimal lower bound.   Meanwhile direct computation using existing algorithms (which go back to early work by Wong and Burgoyne) seems to be the only alternative.
Answer: You might also find the data on Frank Luebeck's website useful:
http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de/~Frank.Luebeck/chev/WMSmall/index.html


Optimizing a Minotaur PC

Question: Was wondering if any one would be able to help flesh out my character and help me make him better.
At the moment we are in a 14 level campaign using complete and core books D&D 3.5 edition also including eberon campaign so for I have taken 1 level in barbarian and 5 in bear warrior which when coupled with the +6 HD and the 2 LA maxes me out for my levels. Could you help with good feats that may be of use. My core stats rolled where 18,13,18,14,15,07. Before any racial additions. Any help in right direction people could give would help I am aiming to be high damage and HP. The only feat I have taken so far is power attack but looking at greater powerful charge if I can any help in this will be great as it my first non caster class and not to sure what to use. My weapon of choice is also a great axe.
Comment: 6 RHD and LA +2 is prohibitively painful; the minotaur's stats aren't worth those by a long shot. Would it be possible to maybe use the half-minotaur stats (*Dragon* vol. 313) but call yourself a minotaur? It will **massively** improve the character.
Comment: Unfortunately not he wants us to only use core books and complete and eberon at most.
Answer: Some things to consider for this character (borrowed partially from A Systemless Guide to Practical Optimization):

What do you plan on accomplishing with this character?

From a mechanical standpoint, it seems you want to make a durable, melee bruiser.
From a role-playing perspective, you should consider the implications of playing a 3-int, lowish charisma character that fights from instinct.  Do you really want to play a character this stupid?

I recommend you put one 18 in Strength, and assign the other 18 to either Wisdom
or Constitution, depending on which Saving Throw you prioritize more.
Keep in mind that as a Monstrous Humanoid you are immune to Dominate Person, Charm Person, Hold Person and any other effects that target the Humanoid type.  I do not know your DM, but if he argues that humanoids and monstrous humanoids are one and the same, point him to the following pages of the SRD: Monstrous Humanoid, Humanoid and Psionic Dominate; the latter specifically calls out Monstrous Humanoids as different from Humanoids for the purposes of Dominate Person.
Alternate Class Features:
Complete Champion has several good level 1 ACFs for barbarians, all of which replace the Fast Movement Class Feature.  Two are notable for your character:

Spiritual Totem: Bear Totem: This totem grants Improved Grab as a class feature; having this outside of Brown Bear form may be useful.
Spiritual Totem: Lion Totem: You or your DM may have heard of this online, so tread carefully here.  It allows you to full attack on a charge, which gives you the ability to deal much more damage than normal during, say, the surprise round in which you would normally only have a standard action.  You might prefer this over the Spirit Bear Totem, if you spend more time Raging than not.

Grappling:
As a large sized creature with a massive strength bonus, you have 12(BAB)+4(Size)+12(26 strength-10/2 to get a mod of 8).  That translates to a total +24 to grapple checks, before rage.  While raging you gain a utterly ridiculous bonus to strength (+16, so +8 more to your grapple) but cannot wield your normal weapons while in bear form.  Thus, you should always keep grappling in mind as an option, if not your primary mode of offense--you are nearly guaranteed to pin down any low strength humanoid opponent, for one.
Feats:
Extra Rage: This nifty little feat gives you two more Rages per day; you need this feat for your Bear Warrior levels to be worth anything at all.  I seriously recommend you rethink your choice of class, as currently you can only use your Bear Form one time per day.  In other words, all it gains you is scent (you already have this as a minotaur) and Rage abilities that you can very rarely use.  If you insist on going with Bear Warrior, you should probably just take this feat at every level past your first level of barbarian.
Other: Bear Warrior doesn't specify that the rage or frenzy needs to be from your class features.  Get a friendly caster to cast Rage on you, or pick up a constant item of it, and be a bear all day long.
Other racial choices:
I would almost seriously recommend that you instead change your race to the core Lycanthropic Badger (Natural) applied to whatever LA +0 race you like.  You would only have a level adjustment of 3+1rhd, and will rage for free whenever you take damage in Animal Form.  This both qualifies you for Bear Warrior without the Barbarian level, gives you more room for actual class features superior to the Minotaur race and allows you effective infinite uses of your Bear Warrior class features.  Despite the apparent penalties, the ability to use your Bear Warrior features and 4 more levels in actual classes are far superior to the benefits of being a Minotaur.  The badger form is also useful for utility purposes: it allows you to burrow, and has a 10 ft. movement speed.
Comment: Unfortunately am restricted to Minotaur but in our party we have a caster type who will be suplimenting my rages with the rage spell or a wand of similar nature. Thanks for the info on spirit totems I will suggest this to my DM and see if he will allow it but just wondering for example does spirit totem lions pounce make my character do his charge/Gore DMG then get his full round attacks ?
Comment: Yes, Pounce allows you to get a full attack along with whatever effects you get on a charge.  Keep in mind that the Spirit Lion Totem does not refer to any particular tribe or group, but rather a *personal* spiritual connection to Lions.  By the way, is the restriction on races due to a lack of books, or for a limit on power level?  (If there are any other PCs filling a similar fighter-type role, could you send me a link to their sheets? It would help to see the overall power level in your group)
Comment: Oh yes, another option, if you can talk your DM into letting you use Races of Stone: Take Improved Bull Rush (PHB) Rampaging Bull Rush (Races of Stone) and Knockback (Races of Stone).  Knockback lets you bull rush for free on a melee attack, and Rampaging Bull Rush lets you knock enemies prone if you successfully bull rush them while raging.

Optimizing a Minotaur PC


Platform for developing all things google?

Question: I am interested in developing things for google apps and android using python and java. I am new to both and was wondering if a environment set in windows or linux would be more productive for these tasks?
Comment: I don't think it's completely subjective.  Sometimes the platform you develop on makes a difference.  This time not so much.
Comment: That's completely subjective, and should be tagged as such.
Answer: Google has tools for Eclipse only for both Android and for Google Apps.  They haven't made any other tools as far as I know.
Oh yeah, so to answer your question, it doesn't matter that much.  Windows, Unix, or Mac, all the same really (people in our office use all of them).
Answer: I'd throw down another vote for Eclipse.  I've been using it on the mac and I find it to be very buggy.  Not sure if that's just the nature of the beast...  My experiences with it on XP have been more stable.  Haven't had time to check it out on Ubuntu.
Answer: Internally, I believe Google uses Eclipse running on Ubuntu for Android development, so that'd be your best bet if you're completely paranoid about avoiding all potential issues. Of course, this is impossible, and really you should just use whatever you're comfortable in.


What would my appropriate title be?

Question:
I'm a first year Biomedical Science student, who's currently taking a gap year. Lucky for me, I got the opportunity to help out a PhD student with her research. What would be my appropriate title? I've once told my cousin about this and was kinda annoyed by how I wasn't getting paid but then she says it's because I don't have a degree yet. Things I do in the lab would be do experiments (I'm in charge of a control cell line), help her collect data from the experiments and analyse them.
On top of helping out in the research lab, I'm also contributing to a review article (under the same supervisor, just different projects). What would be my appropriate title? For now, I'm only helping out with their abstract, conclusion and references. I've read somewhere that that's not enough to be considered a contributor.
Answer: Titles are normally assigned by others, usually according to some process. A university confers degrees, for example, and a monarch confers knighthood.
But what you are doing descriptively fits the definition of a "research assistant". That is normally a title, however.
"Undergraduate research contributor" not being a recognized title would be seen as descriptive and accurate.
You can ask the supervising professor you are working under what an appropriate "title" might be. Hopefully you are getting something for your work, since you aren't being paid. Learning might be enough, but being exploited isn't a good thing. You should almost certainly expect to be acknowledged by name in any resulting publications.

What would my appropriate title be?


Double Gerund Agreement

Question:
Training and improving these skills yield/yields better decision-making and fewer mistakes during a game.

Training and improving - it should be 'yield' but 'yields' sounds better - can someone help on this? Which is grammatically correct?
Comment: It depends on if you're using the term to describe a single, collective action or two separate actions.
Comment: There is a single thing that is yielded. Thus yield is singular. The outcome is a single outcome, not multiple outcomes.
Answer: A subject consisting of multiple gerunds may take a singular verb when they may be construed as a single action or sequence. If the writer sees them as different actions, then a plural verb is chosen. Compare these five pairs in which the first sentence uses a singular verb and the second a plural one:

For many of us, baking and eating a traditional fruity Christmas cake is one of the best parts of the festive holiday. — Alternative Christmas Cake Ideas | The Craft Company Blog
Baking and eating are part of what makes the holidays so special for a lot of people. — Pinterest
The mowing and raking of these crops requires 25 to 100 per cent more time than mowing and raking alfalfa. — Waldo Ernest Grimes, A Study of Farm Organization in Central Kansas, 1925, 41.
While mowing and raking are easily done by most homeowners, aeration and fertilization are generally best left up to trained professionals. — Portage Turf Specialists, 29 Oct. 2016.
Reading the book and then watching the movie is an engaging way to keep your young reader reading. — Family Literacy Month – Barbershop Books
Cuckoo's Nest is the rare case where I think both reading the book and watching the movie are important. — Goodreads.
Only after the painting and sculpting is completed, a process that takes several hours, does Milló photograph his models. — Miguel Millo — Lois Lambert Gallery
Painting and sculpting were not part of the liberal arts, which included philosophy, grammar, dialectic, mathematics, and astronomy. — Ian P. Howard, Brian J. Rogers, Perceiving in Depth, Volume 1: Basic Mechanisms, 2012, 53.
Speaking, reading and writing English is perfected only through practice … ESL - TutorBright
The answer is that writing and speaking are social behaviors, performed by human beings, in stressful environments, and that, quite often, our models of correct rhetoric are just biologically inadequate.  — David F Beer, Writing and Speaking in the Technology Professions: A Practical Guide, 2003.

Double Gerund Agreement


Difference between using bean id and name in Spring configuration file

Question: Is there any difference between using an id attribute and name attribute on a <bean> element in a Spring configuration file?
Comment: it's hard to come by questions this straightforward and answers so straightforward and comprehensive. Great. Thanks!
Answer: From the Spring reference, 18.104.22.168 Naming Beans:

Every bean has one or more ids (also
  called identifiers, or names; these
  terms refer to the same thing). These
  ids must be unique within the
  container the bean is hosted in. A
  bean will almost always have only one
  id, but if a bean has more than one
  id, the extra ones can essentially be
  considered aliases.
When using XML-based configuration
  metadata, you use the 'id' or 'name'
  attributes to specify the bean
  identifier(s). The 'id' attribute
  allows you to specify exactly one id,
  and as it is a real XML element ID
  attribute, the XML parser is able to
  do some extra validation when other
  elements reference the id; as such, it
  is the preferred way to specify a bean
  id. However, the XML specification
  does limit the characters which are
  legal in XML IDs. This is usually not
  a constraint, but if you have a need
  to use one of these special XML
  characters, or want to introduce other
  aliases to the bean, you may also or
  instead specify one or more bean ids,
  separated by a comma (,), semicolon
  (;), or whitespace in the 'name'
  attribute.

So basically the id attribute conforms to the XML id attribute standards whereas name is a little more flexible. Generally speaking, I use name pretty much exclusively. It just seems more "Spring-y".
Comment: You prefer to use the "name" attribute even though Spring reference that you've quoted recommends using the "id" attribute? Even if you prefer to stick with "name", you can't call it more "Spring-y" if Spring reference suggests otherwise :) This is nitpicky, I know ;)
Answer: Since Spring 3.1 the id attribute is an xsd:string and permits the same range of characters as the name attribute.
The only difference between an id and a name is that a name can contain multiple aliases separated by a comma, semicolon or whitespace, whereas an id must be a single value.
From the Spring 3.2 documentation:

In XML-based configuration metadata, you use the id and/or name attributes to specify the bean identifier(s). The id attribute allows you to specify exactly one id. Conventionally these names are alphanumeric ('myBean', 'fooService', etc), but may special characters as well. If you want to introduce other aliases to the bean, you can also specify them in the name attribute, separated by a comma (,), semicolon (;), or white space. As a historical note, in versions prior to Spring 3.1, the id attribute was typed as an xsd:ID, which constrained possible characters. As of 3.1, it is now xsd:string. Note that bean id uniqueness is still enforced by the container, though no longer by XML parsers.
Answer: Either one would work. It depends on your needs:
If your bean identifier contains special character(s) for example (/viewSummary.html), it wont be allowed as the bean id, because it's not a valid XML ID. In such cases you could skip defining the bean id and supply the bean name instead.
The name attribute also helps in defining aliases for your bean, since it allows specifying multiple identifiers for a given bean.
Comment: Plus one for saying it in your own words and giving an example why special characters may be needed.
Answer: let me answer below question

Is there any difference between using an id attribute and using a name attribute on a <bean> tag,

There is no difference. you will experience same effect when id or name is used on a <bean> tag .
How?
Both id and name attributes are giving us a means to provide identifier value to a bean (For this moment, think id means id but not identifier). In both the cases, you will see same result if you call applicationContext.getBean("bean-identifier"); .
Take @Bean, the java equivalent of <bean> tag, you wont find an id attribute. you can give your identifier value to @Bean only through name attribute.
Let me explain it through an example :

Take this configuration file, let's call it as spring1.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans ...>
  <bean id="foo" class="com.intertech.Foo"></bean>
  <bean id="bar" class="com.intertech.Bar"></bean>
</beans>

Spring returns Foo object for, Foo f = (Foo) context.getBean("foo");
. Replace id="foo" with name="foo"  in the above spring1.xml, You will still see the same result.
Define your xml configuration like,
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans ...>
  <bean id="fooIdentifier" class="com.intertech.Foo"></bean>
  <bean name="fooIdentifier" class="com.intertech.Foo"></bean>
</beans>

You will get BeanDefinitionParsingException. It will say,  Bean name 'fooIdentifier' is already used in this  element. By the way, This is the same exception you will see if you have below config
<bean name="fooIdentifier" class="com.intertech.Foo"></bean>
<bean name="fooIdentifier" class="com.intertech.Foo"></bean>

If you keep both id and name to the bean tag, the bean is said to have 2 identifiers. you can get the same bean with any identifier.
take config as
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<beans ...>
  <bean id="fooById" name="fooByName" class="com.intertech.Foo"></bean>
  <bean id="bar" class="com.intertech.Bar"></bean>
</beans>

the following code prints true
FileSystemXmlApplicationContext context = new FileSystemXmlApplicationContext(...);
Foo fooById = (Foo) context.getBean("fooById")// returns Foo object;
Foo fooByName = (Foo) context.getBean("fooByName")// returns Foo object;
System.out.println(fooById == fooByName) //true

Answer: Is there difference in defining Id & name in ApplicationContext xml ? No
    As of 3.1(spring), id is also defined as an xsd:string type.
    It means whatever characters allowed in defining name are also allowed in Id.
    This was not possible prior to Spring 3.1.
Why to use name when it is same as Id ?
    It is useful for some situations, such as allowing each component in an application to refer to a common dependency by using a bean name that is specific to that component itself.
For example, the configuration metadata for subsystem A may refer to a DataSource via the name subsystemA-dataSource. The configuration metadata for subsystem B may refer to a DataSource via the name subsystemB-dataSource. When composing the main application that uses both these subsystems the main application refers to the DataSource via the name myApp-dataSource. To have all three names refer to the same object you add to the MyApp configuration metadata the following

<bean id="myApp-dataSource" name="subsystemA-dataSource,subsystemB-dataSource" ..../>

Alternatively, You can have separate xml configuration files for each sub-system and then you can make use of
alias to define your own names.

<alias name="subsystemA-dataSource" alias="subsystemB-dataSource"/>
<alias name="subsystemA-dataSource" alias="myApp-dataSource" />

Answer: Both id and name are bean identifiers in Spring IOC container/ApplicationContecxt. The id attribute lets you specify exactly one id but using name attribute you can give alias name to that bean.
You can check the spring doc here.


Side length of a regular tetrahedron given the radius of the sphere tangent to its edges

Question: I am working on a physics project where we have to build a container to protect a glass ornament when dropped from a high place. My design involves building a tetrahedron out of straws and putting the glass ornament inside of it.  I'm not sure what length to cut each side of the straw tetrahedron. I did some measurements and I estimated the radius of the sphere to be about 1.3. The tetrahedron has no "walls" where the ornament will touch at a single point. It is simply an empty frame made out of regular McDonald's straws, and the ornament will protrude out of each side a little bit, thus there are no faces, only edges. How can I find the best side length?
Comment: [Tetrahedron - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahedron) Has all the formulae you need. I think your ornament will be midsphere of straw tetrahedron
Comment: The best I have seen was on an episode of "Modern Family." I think it was an egg being dropped. The smart daughter made a little parachute... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_Drop  I guess the scene with Alex and the parachute was an extra, after most of the show was over.
Answer: Added: in the construction below, the point on an edge closest to the origin is at $(0,0,1),$ radius for this is exactly $1,$ therefore the edge length divided by $\sqrt 8$
===================================================================
one way to place a regular tetrahedron is at every other vertex of the cube with all vertices $(\pm1,\pm1,\pm1).$ For example
$$ (-1,-1,-1) \; , \; \; \;  (-1,1,1) \; , \; \; \; (1,-1,1) \; , \; \; \; (1,1,-1) \; . \; \; \; $$
The edges are all length $\sqrt 8$
One triangle side is $$  x+y+z=1.  $$
The closest point to the origin in that plane is
$$ \left( \frac{1}{3},  \frac{1}{3}, \frac{1}{3} \right) $$
with distance from the origin
$$  \frac{\sqrt 3}{3} = \frac{1}{\sqrt 3},$$
which is the radius of the inscribed sphere. Thus the radius is the edge length divided by $$ \sqrt{24} $$
Comment: OP said: "...and the ornament will protrude out of each side a little bit". You have calculated the radius of inscribed sphere touching all faces of tetrahedron, not the radius of insphere touching its edges.
Comment: @Oldboy I see what you mean. Added a note at the beginning.
Answer: Your inscribed sphere is touching edges of tetrahedron, not its faces which do not exist in reality. The radius of the sphere touching edges of terahedron is known to be:
$$r=\frac{a}{\sqrt8}\iff a=2r\sqrt2\approx2.82r$$
Proving the formula is a fairly simple exercise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahedron#Formulas_for_a_regular_tetrahedron
Comment: @user22333 Exactly.
Comment: is 'a' the side length of the tetrahedron?


What is the relationship between message size and message loss rate under different network delays?

Question: I am trying to develop a real time data streaming application with different size of messages using tcp. In fault injection tests it is observed that when the network delay is less than 150 ms, messages of 100 bytes are much easier to be lost than the ones of 500 bytes. However under high network delay the loss rate of large messages(more than 500 bytes) increases to over 0.3% while the loss rate of smaller messages still remains at %0.1. Can anyone provide some idea why this is happened? Thank you in advance.
Answer:
it is observed that when the network delay is less than 150 ms, messages of 100 bytes are much easier to be lost than the ones of 500 bytes

That is an artifact of your simulation.
Generally, delay and loss ratio have no relation. Packet loss has two main reasons: transmission faults and congestion.
The transmission fault probability is (usually) higher for larger packets since they spend more time in transit. It may also be higher for connections with longer delay for the same reason.
Loss by congestion depends on the actual devices used and their queueing logic, and is largely independent on delays. However, longer delays often mean more hops (active processing steps), so a higher chance of running into congestion.
Comment: Thank you for your pure explanation and I have one more confusing question according to me. When i test relationship between packet loss and message loss rate until packet loss rate increasing to %10 there is no loss in messages. However when i set packet loss %10 then i get %20 message loss rate. Do you have any idea or this is again artifact of my simulation. Thank you again for your reply.
Comment: not %20 it should be %0.2
Comment: TCP can only recompensate so much packet loss. If repeated retransmissions fail to reach the destination the connection will eventually time out. 10-20% packet loss are horrendous, like a barely (or rather not) working Wi-Fi. Packet loss in wired LAN should be less than .0001% (1 ppm). Even for Internet links .1% is a lot, and 1% is inexceptable. I think you'll need to check the specifics of your simulation, it seems to produce a lot of artifacts.


How to rehabilitate misaligned kitchen faucet sprayer nozzles

Question: My kitchen faucet spray pattern has gone a little haywire. It's not mineral deposit/build-up... I soak in vinegar solution a few times a year to prevent this.  I think it happened when I used a scrubber pad on it, maybe a bit too hard?  Not sure... anyhoo, is there a generally accepted approach to clean the nozzles and correct the spray pattern?
Comment: More description of the problem and pictures from different angles would help - it's hard for me to figure out what you mean by "gone a little haywire" here. Also, what brand and model faucet do you have?
Comment: You may need something like CLR™ (Calcium-Lime-Rust) to remove all the various deposits that have built up over time. I doubt you caused damage with a scrubber unless you bent/broke one of the little plastic nozzles.
Comment: If I remember right it's a Moen (half-red/half-blue disk logo on it). I actually have pretty soft water...but it's possible that in brushing/scrubbing the silicon sprayer thing I dislodged something and it clogged up a few of the holes.  I'll try some CLR...very unlikely it will help in this particular situation, but can't hurt, either.
Comment: @FreeMan, "...unless you bent/broke one of the little plastic nozzles."  That's actually what I think happened...just hard to see for sure with old eyes :--/
Comment: Does it really matter if the spray doesn't come out exactly in the original pattern? Seems like a lot of worry about nothing...
Answer: I still suspect deposits or debris--not all of it may be calcium, so vinegar won't necessarily help. I'd pull it apart and backflush it.
Then, if you're convinced that the plastic nozzles are damaged, I'd find a piece of wire or a drill bit of just the hole size and gently ream each nozzle out, using a little force to straighten it as you do. They're soft plastic and should tolerate mild reshaping.
If that doesn't do it, look at ordering just that part from a plumbing supplier or the manufacturer.
Comment: Yes, we have a fair amount of particulates in our city water that is not at all soluble in acid. The diffusers must be removed and physically cleaned.
Comment: @isherwood: "I'd pull it apart and backflush it." If I can, I'll do that... I was under impression that the handle/sprayer head was a sealed unit, i.e non-serviceable.
Comment: You'd have to look up the exact model you have, @mblatz01 to find instructions for it to figure that part out. Or, just replace the sprayer handle. While this answer may well take care of your issue (and has my vote), I wouldn't count on the cheap plastic sprayer disk to last forever or be _that_ fixable. You may get it taken care of once, but probably not twice.
Comment: It looks like a part or two of the spray head will come out with the appropriate (faucet aerator) key/wrench.  They are little circular plastic doohickies I will have to order off of Amazon.  I expect it to be straightforward at that point...whether or not it will actually fix, or help fix, the errant spray problem remains to be seen.


ASP.NET Session object & web farm

Question: When the application is served from a web farm, a Session object CANNOT be used.
Is that true?
Answer: No, you can use  SQL-based sessions which can then in theory be accessed by any server in the web farm, with the correct configuration.
For a little more information : Configure SQL Server to Store ASP.NET Session State
Answer: Not so much cannot.
It depends on what you use & how you use it. If you're using sticky load balancer & it's configured as such, then each subsequent request from a user will always hit the same member node in the farm, in which case session use is ok.
If you have no such load-balancer or it's configured so that any request can be handled by any node, then you need to either use a 3rd party state service, such as asp.net provides, or disable the session. a 3rd party or out-of-process session service has certain restrictions on how you use it however, so if you go down that route, you'll need to research & test any solution.

ASP.NET Session object & web farm


Can a mirror reflect flame?

Question: Since a mirror can reflect (bounce it in a different direction) heat, doesn't that mean it can reflect flame because it is also heat, I know that heat is anything hot, and flames are hot. If yes does it reflect it in a specific direction and if no why not?
Comment: A mirror reflects light, not heat. Light carries with it energy so it can be used to "reflect heat", but only in this form.
Comment: So heat can only be reflected when it's inside the light? I am sorry for this stupid question, I knew I had something wrong :/
Comment: heat is (infrared) radiation, where light is usually a different range of frequencies from heat.  The mirror reflect radiation, although FYI not all requencies are reflected equally well.
Comment: So I guess I have been misunderstanding the definition of heat :/                                           But what about: " where light is usually a different range of frequencies from heat." I know that frequency means the amount of number something is repeated during a time period, though I don't think that makes sense in your sentence. I guess you mean they are bouncing off at different time periods?
Answer: So there's not really a physics concept of "heat" as an object. Heat isn't an object. It is a name we use for certain transfers of energy. When you wake up and you put your feet on the floor and then you go "ow! that is cold!" we say that it is because of a "heat transfer", this is a transfer of thermal energy from your feet to the floor. So when it's moving we sometimes call that thermal energy "heat."
You might say "oh, CR Drost is just making a big fuss out of nothing, he wants me to say 'thermal energy' instead of heat." But no, I am actually saying something important, because 'thermal' is also a very important word for physicists, and it refers to where the energy is located. The idea is that since energy is conserved, you can pretend that it is a "stuff" and it lives in the "degrees of freedom" of a system. This sounds like a very scary idea but in practice it just means the 1D coordinates that we use to describe a system's motion. If a system has many moving parts, like your body has many atoms, then there are many degrees of freedom there.
Now the idea of thermal energy in particular is that it is located 'everywhere'. It is kind of like pressure, which is a force that is located everywhere in a fluid. Thermal energy is a layer of energy which is not 'stored up' in any particular degree of freedom but is instead 'spread out' among all of the ways that a system can move. So when we speak of "heat transfer" we mean that you lost some of your everywhere-energy to something else's everywhere-energy because its degrees of freedom had less energy, on average, than yours do. It's like if you had two basins full of water (its height representing this amount of "energy stuff") to different levels and you put a siphon tube between them, and the water flows from the higher-level basin to the lower-level basin, the water that got transferred is equivalent to the "heat energy" transferred from your feet to the floor.
Now one of the ways we share our thermal energy with the world is called "thermal radiation." Our eyes cannot see human thermal radiation, but we can see this stuff for example when we poke a fireplace with an iron poker, and pull the poker out, and see that it is "red hot." That red/orange light we see is the poker's thermal radiation. The Sun's light is also a thermal radiation. Candle flames are usually thermal radiation too. Radiation just means "electromagnetic field that travels out to infinity." Thermal radiation comes because your thermal energy means that the electrons in you are bouncing around randomly, and whenever electrons "bounce" or accelerate they give off little "photons," packets of electromagnetic field. Inside of you these photons get absorbed by the rest of your atoms, but at your skin these photons can of course radiate out to infinity.
To be clear, this was not the way that heat was transferred from your feet to the ground. Or, at least, it was not the main way. Because your feet were radiating the same amount out both before and after you touched the ground, but you felt a sudden cold sensation when your feet touched, and that heat flow did not come from the thermal radiation, but just from the coupling of the degrees of freedom: now when your foot-atoms are vibrating they started vibrating the floor-atoms with them, which allowed their degrees of freedom to share energy.
But I am telling you about thermal electromagnetic radiation because mirrors reflect electromagnetic radiation. And so the only way I know of for a mirror to "reflect heat" is for it to reflect thermal radiation! And that's not all that there is to "heat" or "thermal energy" or anything, it's this small part.
A mirror probably can reflect the thermal radiation of a candle, but a candle is also a flowy process by which a liquid of parrafin wax (or whatever) is vaporized into a gas which rises into this "flame" region, where the atoms are buzzing around so intensely that they rip apart the wax molecule into little pieces. It turns out that this wax molecule "wants" to be in little pieces, in an oxygen-rich atmosphere. I use this word "wants" in the same sense that a mousetrap which is set "wants" to be sprung: it takes a certain vibration to rip the atoms apart, but once they're far enough apart they start to attract so strongly to those oxygen atoms that they just fly out of the wax molecule, leaving with more energy than the initial jiggle that it took to break them apart. It's the same with a mousetrap, a little jiggle from a mouse and snap, all of this energy is released.
Candles also of course have a heat transfer due to convection, as you'll notice if you ever put your hand in the stream of air flying up out of the candle: that stuff is hot!
Anyway the point is that if you try to literally shove this flame into a mirror all of these atoms don't go into the mirror and the candle will only operate less efficiently, not more. Mirrors cannot reflect "flame" but only the electromagnetic radiation that the candle emits. Some of this is light. Some of this, like your thermal radiation and the floor's radiation, has too long of a wavelength to be visible to your eyes, it's the same stuff as light but it's not "visible." Some electromagnetic radiation is even too short of a wavelength for your eyes to see, which is how "black lights" work. Mirrors can potentially reflect these sources of radiation. But they cannot reflect physical processes like flames or light bulbs, just the radiation that comes out of them.
Answer:
Since a mirror can reflect(bounce it in a different direction) heat,

There exist heat reflectors, true, but they are not mirrors in the sense of coherent images. A mirror reflects the rays of the object coherently so the pattern remains . Heat reflectors reflect like a lot of point sources. Any heat reflected by the usual mirror will also be incoherent infrared radiation, because the wavelengths of visible light which make up the flame image, are much smaller than the infrared wavelengths of reflected heat, and the mirror is a mirror designed for visible light.

doesn't that mean it can reflect flame because it is also heat,

The image of the flame will be there,but not its heat concentrated as in real space.

I know that heat is anything hot, and flames are hot. If yes does it reflect it in a specific direction and if no why not?

The light frequencies of the flame will be reflected in a coherent image, from the silver back side of the mirror. . The infrared frequencies hitting the average mirror  will be reflected incoherently from the glass infront, which will be opaque to the infrared frequencies , depending where the photons hit.
Special mirrors are designed for infrared frequencies, for example this link. I suppose they would reflect the heat localized as an image, as this video shows in the test, where you can see the source and the infrared is caught in the detector.
Comment: "because the wavelengths of visible light which make up the flame image, are much smaller than the infrared wavelengths of reflected heat" Does that mean the wave of energy of heat of a flame is too small that it can't be reflected? And why is it so small?
Comment: It depends on the surface , the way it has been designed and if there is a protective coating, as is the usual glass of everyday mirrors.  It is not small, it is more spread out  and it requires different materials to be reflected as an image with concentrated heat, as the video shows. You have to study physics in many courses to really understand how light works. The electromagnetic spectrum is here  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum . the visible is a small part of the range in frequencies/wavelengths

Can a mirror reflect flame?


Lifetime definition

Question: In Walter Thirring book Quantum mechanics of Atoms and Molecules he says that the probability that a initial state $\Psi$ be again measured at later time is $|\langle \Psi|\exp(-iHt)\Psi\rangle|^2$ and then he defines the lifetime, $\tau$ of this state by
$$\tau(\Phi)=\frac{1}{2}\int|\langle \Psi|\exp(-iHt)\Psi\rangle|^2dt$$
My question is what is the intuition to the define the lifetime as he did?
Comment: the factor half comes from the fact that the integral goes from $-\infty$ to  $+\infty$. My problem here is that since  $|\langle \Psi|\exp(-iHt)\Psi\rangle|^2$ that at time the system remain in the state $\Psi$ why life time is not defined as time expectation value  that is  $\tau(\Phi)=\frac{1}{2}\int t|\langle \Psi|\exp(-iHt)\Psi\rangle|^2dt$
Answer: The quantity $P(t)=|\langle \Psi|\exp(-iHt)\Psi\rangle|^2$ is the probability of survival of your state, and not the probability of survival per unit time! It is a dimensionless quantity. For a vast  number of quantum systems, exponentially decaying   it is something like $e^{-t/\tau}$, for a (mean) lifetime τ.
It is then apparent how the lifetime is gotten by (note the units of time!)
$$ \int_0^\infty dt ~  P(t) \to \int_0^\infty dt ~  e^{-t/\tau}=\tau ~.$$
(Mercifully you specify in your comment that your text integrates from minus infinity to plus infinity, which the reality of your probability allows to be halved by symmetry.)
Note this is the mean lifetime, not the half life, τ ln (2).
The logic of this integration should be self-evident, beyond exponential decay, to be sure: P(t) dt   is the (time) value of the moment the state is alive (untransitioned) at the moment dt around t weighed by the probability of its being alive. As time goes by, P(t) decreases, so the weighted contributions to later moments is suitably smaller. Of course, you may  contemplate, instead, a state persisting unchanged until a precipitous decay at time T, in which case you easily find τ=T.
But significantly, your never need consider an integral like $\int dt ~t P(t)$, in your comment, with dimensions of time-squared, as this is not a characteristic time.
I believe many confusions in this are stem from contrasting survival (persistence) probability P, dimensionless,  to the probability of decay per unit time interval, which has dimensions of inverse time.

Lifetime definition


What is the mknod command used for?

Question: I just started using Ubuntu as my main OS and I wanted to learn about things I should not do, and learn by the bad things people have done in the past. I came across these email about horror stories that UNIX & Linux sys admins had done on their own system when they where new. Many of them involved the use of the mknod command to both distory and fix a problem. I've never heard of this command before and the man page within Ubuntu is not very helpful. So my question is, what is this command used for, and what are some examples where it is useful in day to day use?
Answer: mknod was originally used to create the character and block devices that populate /dev/. Nowadays software like udev automatically creates and removes device nodes on the virtual filesystem when the corresponding hardware is detected by the kernel, but originally /dev was just a directory in / that was populated during install.
So yes, in case of a near complete disaster causing the /dev virtual filesystem not to load and/or udev failing spectacularly, using mknod to painstakingly repopulate at least a rudimentary device tree to get something back up can be done... But yeah, that's sysadmin horror story time. Personally, I recommend a rescue USB stick or CD.
Aside from creating named pipes, I can't think of a single possible day-to-day use for it that an end user would need to concern themselves with -- and even that is stretching the definition of 'day to day use'.
Comment: @mark Er, no. Creating virtual device files is how software is *supposed* to communicate with the device through its driver. The driver creates the hook in the kernel; mknod creates the device file that links the hook to a device file that software subsequently can connect to.
Comment: But `udev` is Linux-specific, is it not? Perhaps other Unix-like systems still manually create devices?
Comment: So it's a VERY specialized way of creating a virtual file that is really used by devices connected to the system as a way of communicating with the system without having to learn how to communicate with the device through it's driver?
Comment: @Faheem I'm not sure; FreeBSD seems to use `devfs` and/or `devd` but I have no personal experience with either. I suspect other unices have worked out their own ways to automate the process of making device nodes though.
Comment: @mark For example, Alsa generates a series of nodes in `/dev/snd` corresponding to the various elements of each bit of sound hardware it detected and supports. Software that uses sound can use those devices to generate sound without having to know precisely what kind of sound card they're talking to.
Answer: You can make a named pipe with it.
I use it with one program to read from it, and another one to write into it.
Makes it easier to communicate between processes.
Otherwise, you may create device files, for devices that aren't present.
Also: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/aix/v6r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.aix.cmds/doc/aixcmds3/mknod.htm
Comment: While you answer was correct, Shadur provided an answer that was clear for all levels of readers so I feel it's the best for people looking for an answer for this question.
Comment: I know, I just tried to explain from a practical approach as I do it. Using `mknod` for something else than making named pipes is more than rare.
Answer: As oracle DBAs working on raw devices to create Oracle ASM diskgroups, we regularly use mknod to link devices.
The replies above were very helpful to me as we are not system admins. I just wanted to point out that it might be rare from storage admins' point of view to use mknod but from Oracle ASM point of view its a common use. (May be someone could come up with a better way for us?)
Comment: I'm running ASM on Linux and haven't had any reason to run mknod. I have some udev scripts that make symlinks, but not sure what you need mknod for... Unless you're not on Linux. of course.
Comment: @JayJee Be advised that on modern Linux systems, if you make changes or additions to `/dev` with `mknod`, those changes will go away the next time the system is rebooted. You would need to write a script or an `udev` rule file that would make the changes/additions for you at boot time to make them persistent.
Answer: IMHO, even for making named pipes, the mkfifo command be better than mknod.  One, it's self descriptive in it's name, Second, it permits -m option to override umask settings.
Comment: ...and it didn't exist until a decade after named pipes; a lot of us learned `mknod foo p` when it was the only way.
Comment: I had never even heard of mknod until recently when I was looking through coreutils. I've always just used mkfifo...
Answer: The command "mknod" was released to licensees in Unix(tm) Version 4  by AT&T. I would recommend to y'all that it's worthwhile to spend the time and money to get a copy of
Bell System Technical Journal, 57: 6. July-August 1978 pp 1905-1929. The UNIX Time-Sharing System. (Ritchie, D.M.; Thompson, K.)
That issue, and especially that article, will lead you to an appreciation of several fundamental concepts that allow the construction of the elegant, compact, fast, stable, secure, and versatile operating system that Unix(tm)) was. The various systems that are now available are still quite versatile ;-)
I'll try to mention a few of those here.
1) the setuid and setgid bits and how the use of said bits allow separation of users into trusted and untrusted privilege domains. Hop springs eternal that trusted users will be less likely to command the system to  " # cd /; rm -rf * .o" , notice both th improper use of privilege and the "space of destruction."
Notice also that th end of a sentence with a quoted phrase dictates the order of the full-stop and the closing quotation mark. English grammar sucks(fm). dmr and ken donated the semnal patent to the public, bless them.
2) device access through the same namespace as files. Here is where the simple elegance of a small tool combined with other simple tools to perform activities not thought of by the founders becomes powerful.
3) A file in data space is a string. Structure is imposed by programs in program space and not tightly bound to s complicated Swiss-Army-Knife program. Apple(R), Microsoft(R), and IBM(R) might have had better products had more of them read BSTJ.
4) stdin, stdout, stderr.
5) shells, interpretive command processors, able to easily com ine simple tools.
6) only optimize code in inner loops, spend your limited time and money  where it counts.
7) don't embed i/o syntax in language translation processors.
C. < FORTRAN

8) KISS.
9) "It's easier to design ans implement a multi-user  timesharing ayaeem system  extension to a good real-time system than the other way 'round," me, A timesharing extension to RSX-11D, implemented using small tools, written in MACRO 11 when unavoidat, otherwise higher level languages pr script was pretty good, 16 users on a 248k byte PDP-11//45 (16k solid state memory the rest core). Concurrent program development with FOCAL, BASIC, FORTRAN IV, C, MACRO-11, link editing, program execution, batch, interactive, and control/data acquisition of multiple scientific experiments using a LAB-11 and creative customized interfaces to A/D, D/A, high resolution clocks, ...
No observable irritating delay editing with 9600baud CRTs or 120cps printers 30cps DECwriters. A bit jerky staccato with a 300 lpm printer. UT200 and 2780 for RJE. Fastesr program development than RSX-11M, RSX-11M+, IAS,and early versions of VMS.
A really simple time-sharing scheduler implemented as a real-time task using the happy characteristics of a priority linked ATL implemented as a dequeue.
Unix varieties are lightning fast nowadays, but only because CPUs can do an infinite loop in three seconds.  TFC.
Comment: Please excuse me typing mistakes. iPhone and Parkinson's  don't play well together. C<FORTRAN<COBOL<PL/1, leftis better.
Comment: None of this actually addresses the question asked.

What is the mknod command used for?


If I find the GDP deflator (i.e., price level) for a given time series, can I then find real consumption given nominal consumption?

Question: I've found the gdp deflator for a country over a 25 year span. If I have nominal consumption for the same time series, then I just have to divide nominal consumption by the p-level I found with the deflator right?
Answer: GDP deflator deflates GDP. If you want to deflate consumption, you'd most likely want to use the consumer price index (CPI) to deflate. GDP deflator would take into account, for example, the price level faced by producers (PPI).


java.lang.NullPointerException - at com.qa.factory.factory.DriverFactory.init_driver(DriverFactory.java:26)

Question: public class DriverFactory {

    public WebDriver driver;

    public static ThreadLocal<WebDriver> tlDriver = new ThreadLocal<>();

    /**
     * This method is used to initialize the threadlocal driver on the basis of given
     * browser
     *
     * @param browser
     * @return this will return tldriver.
     */
    public WebDriver init_driver(String browser) {

        System.out.println("browser value is: " + browser);

        if (browser.equals("chrome")) {
            WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
            tlDriver.set(new ChromeDriver());
        } else if (browser.equals("firefox")) {
            WebDriverManager.firefoxdriver().setup();
            tlDriver.set(new FirefoxDriver());
        } else if (browser.equals("safari")) {
            tlDriver.set(new SafariDriver());
        } else {
            System.out.println("Please pass the correct browser value: " + browser);
        }

        getDriver().manage().deleteAllCookies();
        getDriver().manage().window().maximize();
        return getDriver();

    }

    /**
     * this is used to get the driver with ThreadLocal
     *
     * @return
     */
    public static synchronized WebDriver getDriver() {
        return tlDriver.get();
    }
}

Comment: Does this answer your question? [What is a NullPointerException, and how do I fix it?](https://sqa.stackexchange.com/questions/51648/what-is-a-nullpointerexception-and-how-do-i-fix-it)
Comment: Have you tried to see what `NullPointerException` stands for? Have you looked at your stacktrace? See this answer to see how to read stacktraces and understand exceptions: https://sqa.stackexchange.com/a/51649/1933
Answer: We generally tend to encounter this issue when we used to test web applications during our outsourced software testing project.
I have one approach to solving the problem you are facing. Sharing the code snippet in below example:
    import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
    import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

    public class ChromeDriverThreadLocal {
    private static final String CHROME_DRIVER_PATH = "/path/to/chromedriver";
    private static final ThreadLocal<WebDriver> driver = new ThreadLocal<>();
    public static WebDriver getDriver() {
        if (driver.get() == null) {
            System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", CHROME_DRIVER_PATH);
            driver.set(new ChromeDriver());
        }
        return driver.get();
    }
}

In this example, each thread will have its own instance of ChromeDriver that is accessible through the getDriver() method. This ensures that the driver instance is thread-safe and can be used by multiple threads without conflicting with each other. Similarly, you can also add other browser capabilities as well.
Answer: getDriver().manage().deleteAllCookies(); in the init_driver method seems to be where the NullPointerException is occurring.
It looks like the tlDriver has not been initialized in the code, hence getDriver() returns null. This can be fixed by ensuring that a driver instance is set before it is used. For example, you can add the following code before line 26:
if (tlDriver.get() == null) {
    System.out.println("Driver is null, please initialize it first");
    return null;
}

Answer: Check your property file, you may have not set the below key-value
#Browser config:
browser = chrome

Property file location:

You may have the below code in your ApplicationHooks class. browserName variable seems to be null. Hence you are getting NPE when you call the method driverFactory.init_driver
    public void launchBrowser() {
        String browserName = prop.getProperty("browser");
        driverFactory = new DriverFactory();
        driver = driverFactory.init_driver(browserName);
        driver.get(prop.getProperty("appURL"));

    }

Note- I happened to have the same framework(source code), hence am very particularly specifying the other parts of the code which you have not even mentioned in your question.