Concept of Invisibility

Question: From the various sci-fi movies & games, Are there any logical theories for the concept of invisibilty?
Comment: What do you mean? Logical in what way?
Comment: You may want to try picking a single science fiction piece with invisibility and asking about how that individual case of invisibility operates.
Comment: Invisibility IRL has actually been achieved at frequencies up to about IR, a bit out of range of visible, through metamaterials that can actually bend light around an object.
Comment: For instance, Sciene prognosticates that metamaterials will be the vanguard in developing an invisibility cloak.The behaviour of metamaterials in bending visible light in a different direction than  the natural. I want to know if there are other theories prescribed in science fiction to make the concept of invisibility real and imaginable. It shouldnt stray faraway from science or be baseless like a magical cloak or potion of invisibility etc.
Answer: I'm not sure if James Bond counts but Mercedes have made an invisible car based on Bond technology.
The "logical" theory behind it was:

an "Adaptive Camouflage" [Cloaking] System, which allowed it to become effectively invisible (to the naked eye at least) at the push of a button: tiny cameras mounted on [all sides of] the car were used to capture the image facing that [respective] side of the vehicle [that the camera was on] and project it onto a light-emitting polymer skin on the other side, [effectively] making the car invisible.

(from Jamesbondwiki)
Comment: A neat trick, but it would seem to only work from within a particular viewing area (distance, angle etc)
Answer: The concept of invisibility in space science fiction is used mainly for dramatic purposes so that the audience can relate to the ship not being detected.
In the real world, something similar to the Mass Effect stealth technology is much more realistic, the idea is not to become invisible but to avoid appearing on common sensory of the enemy ships, whether they detect heat or any other kind of radiation. Reflected light in space is in reality almost nonexistent so in reality there's no need to actually be invisible... is REALLY dark out there.
A current real application are the phantom class aircraft which are considered stealth, not because they are invisible, but because they do not appear on radar.
Here you can find an excellent article on invisibility on space (or stealth in space). Of course non of this applies to other than space. In the more mundane scale, several technologies are being developed which try to either bend the light around the object or project the received light on the other side of the object.
Comment: "REALLY dark out there" where? It depends on where you are in space. If you're close to a planet like earth or even close to a star, I'd imagine it gets pretty bright all of a sudden.
Answer: Kim Süskind from Warren Ellis' Planetary became invisible because light went right through her. As a consequence of this, she was also blind while invisible, because light went through her eyes.
She is one of The Four, the main villains of Planetary, who are an Homage of The Fantastic Four. She's the equivalent of Susan Storm, the invisble woman.
Answer: The most common (that I am aware of) idea for making something invisible in science fiction is to coat it with a substance or surround it with a field that bends light around the object so that when the light gets to the other side it continues on its original course.
It might be possible to detect an object that was invisible in this way by examining the phase anomalies that it would cause, but that would require highly specialized advanced equipment.
Comment: Yeah meta materials, follow a similar pattern of bending the light (or so i've read)
Answer: Logically, there are a few ways to become "invisible". I'll describe those I can think of, as well as a mechanism to accomplish the effect.

You can become transparent, so that light passes through you. As has been pointed out, this should also cause you to become blind. The mechanism for this is to somehow change the refractive index of your body (or your ship and the entire contents thereof.)
You can reflect no light, absorbing all light that hits your body. Again, this works only in space. I suppose a mechanism for this might be to emulate the characteristics of a black hole with respect to light. A detrimental side affect would surely be that your body/ship must now absorb serious amounts of energy from the light it must absorb, limiting the amount of time one could stay invisible without an explosion.
You can avoid light reflection, by somehow bending light around your body. This has actually been accomplished at a minimal level by scientists, but it will be REALLY hard to do in practice. Perhaps a sci-fi mechanism might be to locally warp space from the point of view of the photons that pass through it. Again, a flaw with this scheme is you become blind. So perhaps the effect is specific to visible light, and you are allowed to see in infrared wavelengths.
You can use the camera/projector scheme to effectively hide yourself from view. Here you mimic your background. You are not technically invisible, just difficult to see. This is achieved by animals like the chameleon and the octopus, and also in fiction (the Predator comes to mind.)
You can step out of plane. Visualize the world of Flatland, wherein if you step out of the plane we live in, you are no longer visible to the inhabitants of that plane, since they see only what is in their space. This is not technically invisible, since you are no longer fully inhabiting the same space as those you choose to be invisible from.
You can simply appear to be invisible, by clouding the mind of your observer. This mechanism, like the chameleon, makes you appear invisible to the observer even though you are still there technically to be seen.
Finally, rather than simply absorbing all light, your body absorbs all incoming photons, changing their wavelengths, then re-emits them, perhaps at some other wavelength that will not be perceived. So while you are now invisible to the eye, you will glow brilliantly to the observer with the ability to see that wavelength of radiation. The mechanism is based on quantum mechanics and a bit of hand waving. (Of course, any scheme for invisibility requires a bit of magic.)

To be honest I like the last idea (#7), were I ever to write a sci-fi story. It has a semi-plausible pseudo-scientic explanation for the mechanism, and it has an interesting fatal flaw that can be exploited. It is also a scheme for invisibility I do not recall seeing elsewhere.
Comment: Wonderful summary. #7 is a concept new to me. It is quite fascinating, i must say. You'd better patent it fast (unless you read it in the internet yourself)
Comment: Similar to #6 is "Kung-Fu" invisibility as depicted in the movie *3 Iron*. Or "psychological" invisibility as described in Ralph Ellison's *Invisible Man*.
Comment: While I really like #7, I've not read it anywhere that I know of. If I had even a scrap of ability to write fiction, I'd try to use it for a story myself, but I know better.
Comment: Ah, you could give it a shot you know. Pretty sad that this question is closed. You have provided a couple of detailed scenarios, worth viewing.

Concept of Invisibility


Missing Quarter in Form No 16

Question: My previous employer has mistakenly no mentioned the Q3 in my Form 16, but it has the details of Q2 and Q4. I have applied for a home loan and the bank wants it clear. But the problem is that the management of my previous employer has changed and it is all a messy situation. please guide me on this.
Comment: Any reason to use form 16. Ideally the financial institutions ask for IT Returns.
Answer: Use IT department generated 26AS and form 16. That will have the details of all TDS and net income and taxable for the year.
Answer: It's not mandatory to pay TDS in all quarters. It's not an issue. Overall tax paid on your TDS statement should match with your payable tax of the year.
If your Q2 and Q4 total are matching with your total tax payable. Then good to go :)

Missing Quarter in Form No 16


Do points roll over if I don't spend them all during level up?

Question: When I level up, I get points to put into Mechanics, Stealth etc. If I don't use them all, will the excess points be added to my total the next time I level up?
Answer: Yes. You do not lose unused points. In fact, at about level 7 (+/-) for any particular skill, you will need more than the 6 points to increase it, which can only be achieved by deferring the purchase until the next level.
(I think that the formula it is 1+{current skill level} to advance, but no official source for that)
Comment: I have at one point observed, that the game likes the skills being equal - that is increasing one left-behind skill decreased the cost of of another skills next level. I don't have raw data of that at the moment though, so I might have misremembered.


Number of possible riders in UberPOOL

Question: Am I able to set the maximum number of possible UberPOOL riders in a vehicle to something higher than 4 or 6? I'm working on a request-based shuttle program and would like to see if I could make use of the UberPOOL API for this project. Ideally I would like to bump up the number of riders in a vehicle to something much higher, probably around 10 - 15 per shuttle.
Answer: According to the api documentation for v1.2. The max seat allowed for a uberpool is is 2. So you will not be able to request more than that. The best alternative is use uberx and XL for your request api call. However the max for UberXL is 6 occupants and the for uberx is 4 occupants.

Number of possible riders in UberPOOL


Burning CD stuck at 100% Creating image checksum

Question: Burning data CD using brasero get stuck at 100% and the dialog box only show Creating image checksum, empty progress bar, and a cancel button, and the disk is not spinning anymore in my cd writer. Simply click cancel will make the cd blank, i have try with some new an used CD-RW disc but stilk no luck. I'm on Raring.
Comment: Six years later, this defect is still not solved.
Comment: Sounds like a bug with brasero. You can try using K3b. https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/raring/k3b/
Comment: I ll give K3b a try
Answer: First solution:
Just disable the checksum: Open Brasero > Edit > Plugins > Uncheck Image Checksum.
Second solution:
Install cdrdao and this should solve the problem. Unfortunately, it can't solve it in the middle of the burning process.
<code>sudo apt-get install cdrdao
</code>
Comment: Doesn't work either, still stuck at 100% even when checksum is disabled but this time my CD keep spinning in the drive. Looks like my CD writer isn't compatible with Ubuntu, guess I better buy a new one, modern hardware tends to work better in Linux.
Comment: On the other place someone suggested to use k3b. But that's already becomes too far from simply using the native apps...
Comment: I can't believe but this happens with external USB based burner on 16.04...
Answer: k3b has been a standard on my machines for over a decade.  It just works (TM).  I was having the same problem with Brasero/gnome CD creator and just installed it.  Problem solved.
The nice thing about Linux is it doesn't really matter what desktop/native environment you have, you can use applications from others.  apt/yum will install all the needed libraries.


Timing programs in C

Question: I need to time my C program inside the program itself (as I am timing multiple subsections of the code and outputting their time).  It must be done with (at least) millisecond accuracy.  My understanding is that "time.h" functions only work to the second.  Is there another way to do this?
Comment: Make a wrapper for the time function. Use `#if`s and/or `#ifdef`s to supply platform specific time functions. Do not supply a default implementation. That way your code doesn't even compile on platforms you don't know about.
Comment: Which platform are you using?
Comment: Linux, but shouldn't it be possible to do this in a platform independent way, as the timing is done within the program itself.
Answer: You may try the gettimeofday function the time has an accuracy of microseconds.
Comment: This will only work on platforms that implement `gettimeofday`. It's not standard libc. Also, while `timeval` has enough room to return microseconds, the actual resolution is platform-dependent.
Answer: You can use the function clock() from <time.h>:

The clock() function returns an approximation of processor time used by the program.

You divide the return value by the macro CLOCKS_PER_SEC to get a time amount in seconds, and if you wanted the time in milliseconds you could multiply the value by 1000, ie:
double get_time_as_ms(void) {
   return ((double)(clock() * 1000) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC);
}

Or more accurately, have a start and end clock_t and then calculate the difference:
double duration_as_ms(clock_t start, clock_t end) {
    return ((double)(end - start) * 1000) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;

}

clock_t start = clock(); /* start of program */
/* ... */
clock_t end = clock(); /* end of program */
/* ... */
printf("Duration: %fms\m", duration_as_ms(start, end));

EDIT: Just thought I'd add, a common value for CLOCKS_PER_SEC is 1000000, meaning that the value returned by clock() would be a one-hundred-thousandth of a second. Therefore it's accurate to one one-thousandth of a millisecond (a microsecond).
Comment: @havexz: The value returned by `clock()` should be more precise than milliseconds. On my machine, `CLOCKS_PER_SEC` is defined as `1000000`, therefore it's accurate to one one-hundred-thousandth of a second. Which means it's accurate to one-thousandth of a millisecond.
Comment: But you will loose the precision, isn't thats the first requirement in the question....
Comment: got it...actually what you are saying in answer and the code snippet say different things. In answer you said divide first and multiply later and snippet is opposite...its my bad..its clear now
Comment: @havexz: Yeah I might not have worded it too well. I edited the wording after I posted it to try and make it reflect what I actually meant in the code, but it still probably isn't great. If you multiply the wrong way you *could* lose precision.
Comment: Does the OP really want CPU time, not wall-clock time? Also note that just because CLOCKS_PER_SECs is high doesn't mean there are that many significant digits.
Comment: I got some more info so thought to share, clock only tells you about CPU time not real time `http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/strftime.html` so if you looking for only cpu time its ok

Timing programs in C


Why should MLE be considered in Logistic Regression when it cannot give a definite solution?

Question: If MLE (Maximum Likelihood Estimation) cannot give a proper closed-form solution for the parameters in Logistic Regression, why is this method discussed so much? Why not just stick to Gradient Descent for estimating parameters?
Comment: Wait a sec... when does Gradient Descent give closed-form solution? (given that you also state it "estimates parameters").
Answer: I think you are comparing apples and oranges here. Maximum likelihood is a the maximum value of your likelihood function, which somehow describes your data generation process. Specifically likelihood gives you the probability of observing your data, given the data-generation model you imagine. It is similar to a loss metric in that respect.
Gradient descent is an approach to varying your parameters in such a way as to maximize/minimize some function, e.g. loss-metric.
So why are you trying to compare these two things? It would seem to me that you can use likelihood as a loss-function (normally log-likelihood) and then run gradient descent to maximize it.
Perhaps that's what you meant. Why would you use likelihood as the loss-metric for gradient descent? In my use-cases it helped when available data was not evenly sampled or non-homoschedastic, e.g. if you want to do regression to get y as a function of x=0...1, but variance of y is greater in the region x=0.2...0.4 compared to other regions. Using least squares as the loss metric may give a poor fit (since the intrinsic assumption of least squares is that your variance in y is the same).
Comment: Minimizing crossentropy loss is equivalent to maximum likelihood estimation in logistic regression.
Comment: @Dave, your comment is correct, but I am not sure why it is relevant. Yes, minimizing cross-entropy can be equivalent to likelihood maximization. At least sometimes, where you are Bernoulli sampling. Does it change my comment in any way?
Answer: Maximum likelihood is a method for estimating parameters.
Gradient descent is a numerical technique to help us solve equations that we might not be able to solve by traditional means (e.g., we can't get a closed-form solution when we take the derivative and set it equal to zero).
The two can coexist.
In fact, when we use gradient descent to minimize the crossentropy loss in a logistic regression, we are solving for a maximum likelihood estimator of the regression parameters, as minimizing crossentropy loss and maximizing likelihood are equivalent in logistic regression.
In order to descend a gradient, you have to have a function. If we take the negative log-likelihood and descend the gradient until we find the minimum, we have done the equivalent of finding the maximum of the log-likelihood and, thus, the likelihood.
Answer: MLE (Maximum Likelihood Estimation) is discussed a lot because it is relatively straightforward and commonly applicable. The downside is that MLE is not always the best method for a given context or it might not even be possible to be applied.
In practice, gradient descent and other methods are commonly used for estimating parameters in logistic regression.
Comment: Minimizing crossentropy loss is equivalent to maximum likelihood estimation in logistic regression.


How to relearn words after a while not reviewing them?

Question: In short, I went on holiday for a week and didn't review any words and have forgotten at least 60 that weren't in my long term memory. How can I quickly retrieve them?
Comment: How do you usually learn vocabulary?
Comment: Flashcards, writing sentences with the vocabulary, using them while chatting in the language (I often do this if I learn thematically grouped vocabulary. I just start a conversation about the topic I learnt the vocabulary for). So many ways @ChristopheStrobbe
Answer: Although you may not consciously remember them, given that you studied the words well before you went on holiday, your brain will still have stored them in the back of your mind. Therefore, when you try to relearn them now, it will be a much quicker process because you do unconsciously possess the definitions. (There's a psychological effect named for this, but I can't remember it at the moment.)
You should have an easy time remembering the first and last words you studied, thanks to the serial position effect. If you really want to increase the speed at which you relearn the words, try to match the state and mood you were in when you first learned them; through your mood-congruent memory and state-dependent memory, you should have a much simpler time remembering the words.


Email on failed SSH login attempt?

Question: I was wondering if it is possible to set it up in such a way that on a failed SSH login centos will send me an email? And of course if the computer is not connected to the internet when the attempt occurs, then it should send me the email once there is an internet connection again rather than just attempting, failing, and then never alerting me to that login. The email should contain the date and time (day/month/year - hour:minute:second) of the failed login attempt, and also (though optionally - in other words, an answer which doesn't explain how to do this is acceptable as it may be a big ask) any action taken, so for instance if I have it setup to lock the person out for 30 minutes or something then it should alert me to the fact that it has taken that action. I am running CentOS 7, is something like this possible?
Comment: fail2ban can send mails as part of its actions…
Answer: There is a linux tool swatch that might help you.  You configure it to monitor a log file, and take action when ever it see a certain pattern.
Answer: The failed login attempts will get logged onto the log file /var/log/secure,
The below command should work,
grep -i "not authenticated: bad password" /var/log/secure > $(date '+%Y-%m-%d').failed_login ; mailx -a *.failed_login -s "failed login attempt - Please check" email@example.com< /dev/null ; > *.failed_login

Email on failed SSH login attempt?


What are the important questions about pre-socratic philosophy?

Question: I am self-studying pre-socratic philosophy. I want to know what are the relevant questions that I need to ask to myself. The idea is to ensure that I understood the important parts of this period in order to have a solid basis to understand what comes next.
Answer: Jacob N. Graham provides this introduction to Presocratic thought:

Presocratic thought marks a decisive turn away from mythological accounts towards rational explanations of the cosmos. Indeed, some Presocratics openly criticize and ridicule traditional Greek mythology, while others simply explain the world and its causes in material terms. This is not to say that the Presocratics abandoned belief in gods or things sacred, but there is a definite turn away from attributing causes of material events to gods, and at times a refiguring of theology altogether. The foundation of Presocratic thought is the preference and esteem given to rational thought over mythologizing. This movement towards rationality and argumentation would pave the way for the course of Western thought.

He also describes particular Presocratics in detail. This, or similar surveys, might be a place to start in one's own investigations.
Based on Graham's account a question to ask oneself is how the Presocratics attempted to describe the world in non-mythological terms.

Graham, J. N. Ancient Greek Philosophy. Retrieved on May 7, 2019 from Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy at https://www.iep.utm.edu/greekphi/#H1
Comment: The Pre-Socratics also attempted to make sense of the creation and maintenance of the world-at-large and what capacity human beings have to make sense of it. CS
Comment: @CharlesMSaunders I agree. Based on my quote of Graham they would do so in perhaps predominately non-mythological terms. There may be many questions that someone studying the Presocratics should keep in mind to understand them better. These that you bring up would be worth keeping in mind as well.


How to determine if electrical panel can be upgraded

Question: my electrical panel is 100 amps. I'm wondering is it possible to upgrade this panel? I'm looking to install a Tesla wall charger and in my house I have three fridges, 2 stoves, one washer and dryer and I believe I will not have enough power for the Tesla wall charger
Comment: Modern refrigerators don't matter, they actually take less power than a cable TV box.  We need to know if the ranges and dryer(s) are gas or electric.  Really we need to know about every appliance with a double-wide breaker. I gather you are in Canada?  (horizontal panel, NMD90, French but no Spanish).
Comment: Timing can be important.  Running the charger when everybody is sleeping(have enough power) is a lot different using the stoves and dryer at same time as charger(tripping main breaker).
Answer: You need to determine the size of your electrical service coming to your house. The power company may be providing you a 100A service in which case you could install a 600A panel and it wouldn't make any difference.
You should be able to contact the PoCo and ask them about your service drop. If they're feeding you only 100A, then you'll have to look into an upgrade to a 200A service (including a new meter, which should be on the PoCo, and possibly a new meter pan, which is likely on you). Once you've actually got 200A being fed to your house, then you can install a new 200A panel, or, if you install a meter-main, then you could run 100A to this panel and 100A to a separate panel in the garage for the EV chargers and any other new circuits.
Comment: I'm asking an honest question to the electricians here that are smarter than me because inquiring minds want to know:   It would appear that with 2 100 amp breakers, each breaker would be on separate hot legs, each feeding separate buses, providing 200 amps.  What's the difference between 2 100 amp breakers and 1 200 amp breaker in a service panel. Anyway, I really like FreeMan's advice / answer. The existing panel looks like a great installation and not in need of upgrades. Swapping out the meter base to provide a separate feed to another panel is a great idea.
Comment: @GeorgeAnderson - the difference is that typical home service (in the USA) is two phases, and the amp rating is the amps supplied for each phase. A terminology thing. Your electric vehicle plug has an amps rating that counts on getting those amps from each phase.
Comment: @GeorgeAnderson To further clarify your question: a "single" 100 amp breaker (if you could find such a thing ) would allow 100 amps @ 120 volts while the dual breaker in the photo allows 100 amps @ 240 volts.
Comment: @DoxyLover      Thanks for the comment, but I disagree that the US has 2 phase...it's either single phase or three phase in a sinusoidal waveform.  Single phase is one wave form that varies between 120 volts "positive" and 120volts "negative" providing 240 volts across the two hots and 120 volts between a hot and neutral   at 60 hertz. The actual voltages are  higher, but average out to 120/240.   It looks like the 100 amp  breakers are handle tied so I'm still confused about the diff between 2 100 amp breakers and a single 200 amp breaker.   Thanks again for your comment.
Comment: @GeorgeAnderson You are right that the US is single phase but dual leg. With the legs 180 degrees out of phase, you get 240 volts hot-hot and 120 volts hot-neutral. A single breaker only protects one hot so it must go to a load connected to neutral, 120 volts, because the other hot wouldn't be protected. With a dual breaker, both hots are protected so you can connect a load hot-hot, 240 volts, or two separate loads hot-neutral (MWBC) for 120 volts at twice the current. [continued below]
Comment: [continued from above] In any case, a dual breaker provides twice the wattage as a single breaker, either by doubling the voltage (240 volt load) or doubling the current (MWBC, total twice the amperage).


Understanding a Generating Function

Question: This is from generating functionology by Herbert S Wilf.
Here a rule is given as let f $\longleftrightarrow$  {$a_n$}$^{\infty}_0$ is a ordinary power series generating function and let k be a positive integer,then
$$f^k \longleftrightarrow [ \sum_{n_1+n_2+\cdots+n_k=n}{a_{n_1}a_{n_2}\ldots a_{n_k}}]_{n=0}^\infty $$
As an example for it a function f(n,k) is taken which denote the number of ways that the nonnegative integer n can be written as an ordered sum of k nonnegative integers. Then he takes the power series $\frac{1}{1-x} \longleftrightarrow $ {1} and uses the above rule to conclude $\frac{1}{(1-x)^k} \longleftrightarrow  {f(n,k)}^\infty_{n=0} $ and then says f(n,k) =  ${n+k-1} \choose {n}$ , I cant understand how he did the last step, I know this formula $\sum_{k}\binom {n}{k}x^k= (1+x)^n$ , however can't see how he applied it to get that last step
Answer: The last step simply follows from calculating the coefficient of $x^{n}$ in the power series expansion of $\dfrac{1}{(1-x)^k}$:
\begin{align}
\dfrac{1}{n!} \cdot \text{$n$-th derivative of } \dfrac{1}{(1-x)^k}
&=
\dfrac{1}{n!} \cdot (-1)^{n} (-k) (-k-1) \dots (-k -n+ 1)
\\&=
\dfrac{(n + k - 1) \dots (k+1) k}{n!}
\\=&
\dfrac{(n+k-1)!}{n! (k-1)!}\\&=
\binom{n+k-1}{n}.
\end{align}
Comment: Ty, very nicely explained!
Answer: The answer is not immediately obvious but you can do it combinatorially as follows. Firtly, $f(n,k)$ counts the number of solutions to the equation $n_1+\cdots+n_k = n$ in non-negative integers. To see the value of $f(n,k)$ consider the classic argument of separating $n$ balls into $k$ bins with $k-1$ separators. For example with $n = 5$ and $k = 4$, one configuration is
$$\bullet||\bullet|\bullet\bullet|\bullet$$
We can show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the number of ways to count these ball/bin arrangements and $f(n,k)$ $-$ the separators define how big the $n_i$'s will be.
To actually find $f(n,k)$ is a basic counting. We have $n+k-1$ objects but $n$ of them are the same and the rest ($k-1$) are also the same so we have have
$$f(n,k) = \frac{(n+k-1)!}{n!(k-1)!} = \binom{n+k-1}{n}$$.

Understanding a Generating Function


Being a people pleaser vs trying to be more likeable same thing?

Question: Being a people pleaser obviously has negative connotation.  Is trying to be more likeable the same thing as people pleasing or is it something that one should strive for?  Just trying to figure out if there is a difference between the 2.
Comment: According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, **People Pleaser**: *a person who has an emotional need to please others often at the expense of his or her own needs or desires*.  Trying to be more likable is a vague positive aim but is not the same thing.
Answer: No, actually they are quite different.
People-pleasing involves (visibly) giving up your own needs, in an implicit "contract" to earn reciprocal emotional obligation.
Being likable, however, involves a different set of behaviors:

Making others around you feel liked, "seen," and appreciated for who they are
Being a comfortable presence
Seeming trustworthy (e.g. keeping your word, telling the truth, being, or seeming to be, authentic)
Being a positive presence in the room you're in (while staying consistent to the previous point)
Comment: In fact, most people don't actually _like_ a person with a doormat personality. A people pleaser may be convenient to have around, but that doesn't make them likable.


Which way do I orient my bike tire's tread direction? and why?

Question: I have a mountain bike tire that has stamped on the side something like:
<----------front   rear------------->
Which seems like a pretty clear indication that the tire should be oriented in one direction when used in the front, and the opposite when used in the rear.  Is that right?  This is counter intuitive to me - I would have expected tire tread to face the same direction on both wheels - like cars.
If so, is this true in all cases?  For example, road bike tires with tread to handle rain?
And finally...why?
Comment: Thank you for this discussion. I am a winter rider and I'm putting my winter studded tires on my hybrid bike I use in the city. Last year was the first time I rode in the winter and was amazed how well studded tires worked on ice, snow, whatever. I never even felt I was in danger of sliding or going down. Now that I am about to mount them again I realize I dont really know which way they go. After reading this I gather the front and rear should go opposite ways but am not totally clear on how the rear tire should go. I assume the >>>>>>> part of the tire should be the first to come into contac
Comment: I did find on the tires the directional arrows spoken of, but unless there is a specific front and rear tires, and the front and rear tires are suppose to go in opposite directions, what difference will the arrows on the tires make?
Comment: Unless there are two arrows -- for front and rear -- then it likely doesn't make much difference in terms of tread.  However, the direction of rotation may make a difference with regard to the cord in the tire, especially on very lightweight tires, so it's still worthwhile to observe whatever arrows are present.
Comment: The simple answer is to follow the instructions.  If it there are separate front and rear arrows then follow them, if there's just one direction do that, and if there is none then it doesn't matter.  The arrows should be pointing in the direction the tires rotate in, so when you have them mounted and you move the bike forwards, the arrows should appear to go with the tire.  Different tire patterns require different setups, but they should all be documented sufficiently on the side wall.
Answer: The tires have more traction in some directions than in others.
Your front wheel does most of the braking; your rear wheel does all of the propulsion.
Tires are oriented to give the most traction to the primary fore-and-aft forces.
Answer: The <  > layout is the most common. As Jay Bazuzi pointed out, the forces on the tires aren't from the same directions.
Some tires it doesn't matter, some it does.
Also, road bike tires typically have essentially zero tread, and it doesn't matter which way they are mounted. They'll almost always have a "rotation ->" printed on them though, but thats really just so people don't get confused, especially mechanics that are so used to looking for those when mounting tires.
Lastly, bike tires don't need tread to handle rain.
Comment: @neilfein: since always. Unlike car tires, with their flat profile which does need tread for rain, bike tires have a curved profile which makes it practically impossible to hydroplane. Even with slicks. http://sheldonbrown.com/tires.html#hydroplaning I'd appreciate removal of the -1
Comment: Especially, "People ask, "But don't slick tires get slippery on wet roads, or worse yet, wet metal features such as expansion joints, paint stripes, or railroad tracks?" The answer is, yes, they do. So do tires with tread. All tires are slippery in these conditions. Tread features make no improvement in this."
Comment: "Bike tires don't need tread to handle rain." Excuse me? Since when?
Comment: Sheldon Brown makes great points in the section, "Tread for on-road use". @whatsisname - I upvoted your answer.
Comment: @whatsisname - I misunderstood your point; I thought that you meant bikes didn't need to handle rain! I have slick tires that handle very well in the rain.
Comment: Yeah.  I spend a lot of time on my road bike in the rain... I'm running Conti Gatorskins... the tread is less impressive than that on my mountain bike but they definitely have tread.  I"m glad for that.  Not sure if I could corner in the rain on wet  asphalt while wearing slicks.
Comment: Also good info here: http://sheldonbrown.com/tires.html#direction
Answer: If you ever drove a farm tractor you'd understand.  Some tires have a "directional" tread -- effectively >>>>> or <<<<<<.  Now, you might expect that a tread of <<<<< would have better traction if you were attempting to pull it to the right (and it were resisting the pull by trying to go left), but that's not the case.  The <<<<< tread will "load up" with mud/gravel/whatever when pulled to the right (and traction will be reduced to near zero), but if pulled to the left it will be "self cleaning" and traction will be an order of magnitude better.
On the rear tire, obviously, you want the best traction when pedaling -- to move the bike forward.  On the front tire, on the other hand, you want the best traction when braking.  Thus the tires would be installed in opposite directions.
Comment: I like the 'loading up' explanation for why this is counter-intuitively true. Much appreciated.
Comment: Right, and pictures of tractors show what you described.  However, my Panaracer Fire XC Pro MTB tyres seem to go in the opposite direction, if you follow the arrows as described in the answers here.
Comment: @wrgrs - How are you interpreting the arrows, and how are they notated?  Generally, the arrows imply the direction of rotation.
Comment: Yeah, that's right.  But for the driving rear wheel the tread has the opposite <<< pattern to the ones on the wheels of tractors which go >>>.
Answer: This is a much debatable topic, but some "facts" should be considered.
First, as Grant Petersen (from Rivendell Cycles) pointed out in his text, for hard, paved roads the best tread pattern is zero, because the tire rubber deforms around the asphalt or concrete texture, and so the zero-thread offers a greater total area of rubber-pavement surface to interlock.
The extreme opposite, the super-knobby MTB tires, are intended to use off-road, where the surface deforms, having a visco-plastic mechanic behaviour. Instead of only the tire rubber conforming to the road texture, actually the soft terrain is indented and "flows" around the tire knobs, which are required to transmit reaction forces to the ground without slipping, while tractioning, braking and cornering.
In the middle, we have all other kinks of pavement (sand, gravel, hard-pack) and thread patterns (grooved, semi-slick, etc.)
In my experience the directional pattern is only found in Mountain Bike tires intended to be used off-road or in specific kinds of trail terrains. There are tires with a single directional pattern that should be inverted between front and rear. There are tires whose rear-front pair are dedicated counterparts. My favourite ones were the IRC Mythos Kevlar 1.95 and the Pararacer Smoke/Dart 2.2 (beware kids, this last one is VERY OLD!).
Also I found out sometimes it doesn' matter that much if you put a rear tire in front (Specialized Cannibal, a typical rear tire, was great in the front), or commit other heresies. In the end, the general thread pattern, knob size and spacing, overall tire width, and MOST IMPORTANT, rubber characteristics, count more than the orientation of the thread.
But that's not what Ritchey's "vector analysis" line of tires would try to say to you. By the way, those tires were KING!! (mostly because of their structure and rubber, I'd say).
Well, this is a lot of chatting, but the bottom line would be:

In the front, always watch for the direction of the tire;
In the rear, you can choose, depending if you traction more (uphill) or if you brake more (downhill);
Don't believe in magic too much.
Answer: Thanks all for your answers. I mistakenly thought that tread was important when riding on wet roads, but now see that I was wrong.  For a full set of answers, the info below is from Schwalbe (https://www.schwalbe.com/en/profil.html (as noted above from Mike)):

What do the direction arrows mean?
  Most Schwalbe tire sidewalls are marked with a "ROTATION" arrow, which indicates the recommended rolling direction. When in use, the tire should run in the direction of the arrow.
  Many MTB tires are marked with a "FRONT" and a "REAR" arrow. The "FRONT" arrow indicates the recommended rolling direction for the front wheel and respectively the "REAR" arrow is the direction for the rear wheel.
What does the tire tread do?
  On a normal, smooth road, the tread has only limited influence on the riding properties. The grip generated by the tire on the road is almost exclusively the result of the rubber compound.
  Unlike a car, a bicycle will not aquaplane. The contact area is much smaller and the contact pressure is much higher. The floating effect of aquaplaning could only theoretically be achieved on a bicycle ridden at speeds over 200 km/h.
Why ride a slick tire?
  On a normal, smooth road, even in wet conditions, a slick tire actually provides better grip than a tire with a tread, because the contact area is larger.
  The situation is much different on a rough road and even worse on a dirt trail. In these cases the degree of control provided by a slick tire is extremely limited.
  Off road though, the tread is very important. In this situation the tread establishes an interlocking cog-like connection with the ground and enables the transmission of all driving, braking and steering forces. On rough or dirty roads, the tread can also contribute to better control.
Why are so many treads direction dependant?
  In the case of a road tire the rolling direction is mainly important for aesthetic considerations. Tires marked with arrows simply look more dynamic..
  Off road, the rolling direction is far more important, as the tread ensures optimum connection between the tire and the ground. The rear wheel transmits the driving force and the front wheel transmits the braking and steering forces. Driving and braking forces operate in different directions. That is why certain tires are fitted in opposite rotating directions when used as front and rear tires.
  There are also treads without a specified rotating direction.
Comment: Full marks to Schwalbe for honesty: *we just make them that way to look cool*.
Answer: My road tires with a light tread have the sense of direction indicated much like a car tire, so that water gets channeled outwards from the center to the outside. I guess theoretically mounting your tires the wrong way round may slow you down?
Concerning if tread has any effect on bicycle handling, when it is cold and there is loads of crap on the road (slushy snow) it certainly does make a difference as I found out when I swapped my old tires for new ones (same make/model).
Comment: No, you really can't hydroplane on a bike. Tire's too narrow, speed's too low, and bike tires have a narrow pointy contact patch compared to a car's rectangular contact patch.  The hydroplane limiting features on a car's tire tread are the width of your bike tires and you're going much slower.  Some of the treads on bike tires are designed to limit how much water is picked up or to throw it in a less annoying direction, though.
Comment: It might slow you down, but I think the bigger difference will be loss of traction due to hydroplaning (noticeable under hard cornering or breaking).
Comment: I've found that with some directional mountain bike tires, fitting the rear tire backwards means that your back wheel slides out from under you when you turn sharply.  I normally discover this when riding out from the drive and onto the road.
Answer: An easy answer directly from Schwalbe website:
http://www.schwalbe.com/en/profil.html
"Many MTB tires are marked with a "FRONT" and a "REAR" arrow. The "FRONT" arrow indicates the recommended rolling direction for the front wheel and respectively the "REAR" arrow is the direction for the rear wheel."
Answer: I actually mount my tires in reverse of the recommended direction sometimes, depending on the tire. Especially in the rear.  What I've found is that when a tire has directional tread, it is has more grip in one direction. Thinking in terms of the rear tire, I find most manufacturers will put the rotation direction in the way that would provide better grip when braking. So if you are trying to control a slippery decent, you don't want your back tire locking up easily. However that means there would be less grip for slippery climbs, so the tire would spin-out easier. I usually orient my rear tire whichever way I think will climb better, and compromise my downhill braking if needed, since the front tire can handle braking too, but does nothing on a climb.
Speaking of heltonbiker mentioning old tires, my favorite all around tires are the old Yeti Claws. They shed mud very well, are non-directional, and work front or rear. IRC later made them as and called them "Claw Comp"s. I still have a pair on a bike, but the tires are from like 1998 or so :)
Answer: The Schwalbe web site explains that off-road tires can benefit from directional tread designs as driving and braking forces operate in different directions, but the article goes on to say that "in the case of a road tire the rolling direction is mainly important for aesthetic considerations. Tires marked with arrows simply look more dynamic.."
However, direction arrows allow the user to ensure that the tire always rotates in the same direction during its service life. I offer no evidence that such practice would be beneficial, but I suspect that it may play a role in the longevity of the tire.
Comment: Hello, and welcome to bicycles.stackexchange. This question is almost ten years old and already has several good answers. There are plenty of unanswered questions, perhaps you would like to have a look at them. Also, if you don't have any evidence for the point you're making, was it really necessary to post?
Answer: Not sure this is even still an issue for the original poster, but I didn't see the answer I would have given to his actual question: ["I have a mountain bike tire that has stamped on the side something like: <----------front rear-------------> Which seems like a pretty clear indication that the tire should be oriented in one direction when used in the front, and the opposite when used in the rear. Is that right?"]
No, the tire stamp is pointing in the direction of the front/rear of the bike. Almost assuredly the stamp is actually <---- Rear/Front ------> (rather than Front/Rear) since the industry standard is to stamp this on the right side of the tire. This will put the stamp and colored logos on the same side as the sprocket (not sure if that means anything but that is how I was taught). This is how the manufacturer felt their tire would best be used with air flow and grip, but you can flip it either way depending on your purpose. (I use the logo/direction arrows to mark the tire at the air valve so that when I find a hole in my tube, I can find the thorn easier in the tire as well)
On a side note, if there are 2 direction arrows on the same tire, one says something like "Direction Front" and the other says "Direction Rear" then you would flip the tire depending on if you are using it on the front or rear wheel.


Adobe AIR App not Install in iOS 6 iPad

Question: i just create ipad app in Flash Professional with 3.4 AIR SDK, but my published .ipa file is not install in iOS 6 ipad
this .ipa is work nice in iOS 5.1 ipad so please solve this issues.
Answer: please remove Application from ipad and delete the certificate install from the ipad
please correct the provisioning profile certificate and make a new ipa and install once again .
its work i have solve this !!!!
Thanks

Adobe AIR App not Install in iOS 6 iPad


Did Scotty cause the Klingon Tribble hunt?

Question: Was Scotty directly responsible for the Klingons eradicating the Tribbles on their home world, due to his actions of transporting them to the Klingon battle cruiser?
Answer: The Animated Series episode 'More Tribbles, More Troubles' indicates that Cyrano Jones sold Tribbles on a Klingon planet, leading to (as the Klingons call it) 'ecological sabotage'. This is the reason Klingons developed the Glommer as a Tribble predator, to handle the Tribble troubles.
DS9 'Trials and Tribble-ations' mentions that the Great Tribble Hunt was motivated by the Klingon believe that the Tribbles were an 'ecological menace'.
This could be interpreted as Cyrano Jones's actions being at least part of the cause for the Tribble eradication. As far as I can tell, there are no later canon references at all to Scotty's transporter 'joke', so I would say there is no canon indication for a causal relation there.
Comment: Has Paramount canonized Star Trek TAS?
Comment: I don't know the latest Paramount stance on TAS canonicity. But even if you consider TAS not canon, in my opinion there is still no other reference to Scotty's transporter action in any of the canon series.


Is it legal to accept money for flight training as a gift?

Question: If John offers to pay for Jane's PPL flight training, and Jane accepts it, is she violating rules against compensation? If so, is it feasible to get some kind of waiver? Does it matter whether or not John also acts as her instructor?
Comment: Your last edit makes a huge difference to the answer.
Comment: @DJClayworth the "payment" to "money" change, or adding the question about John being the CFI?
Comment: The instructor part. I'm having to think about the answer.
Comment: I don't see any issue here at all.  John either has his own AC or rents from an FBO, which he is entitled to do so long as his rental agreement with the FBO does not preclude offering instruction.  John is free to offer flight instruction for free.  His financial gift to Jane is his direct operating costs of his own plane, or the rental fee of the FBO plane.  Jane is at no point in any of this transaction being compensated for being PIC, because she is not PIC, she's not even a P.  This issue is really one of tax treatment and in the US, gifts of up to 15k a year are a non-issue.
Comment: @MaxR the potential problem is when she solos. It appears that that isn't an issue either, though.
Comment: The question for me is whether John (as the instructor) is receiving any benefit from teaching Jane other than the money (which he is providing anyway and therefore isn't a benefit). I don't think so, but I'm not completely certain.
Comment: @DJClayworth Don't flight instructors get PIC time from dual instruction?
Comment: John has paid the entire cost of each flight (and more probably) so he isn't getting any benefit from the arrangement, at least just in terms of flight time. If he wanted PIC time he could get it cheaper by paying for a solo flight himself.
Answer: In my opinion, this is possibly legal, but depends on the totality of the circumstances. From the Hancock interpretation (emphasis mine):

An item of value is not compensation under the regulations, however, unless the pilot's receipt of it is contingent upon the pilot acting as pilot in command of an aircraft. If you loan your aircraft to a private pilot who pays the expenses associated with the operation of the flight (e.g. fuel) and you are placing no obligation on the pilot (e.g. ferrying your aircraft to a specific location), then it is unlikely that the private pilot would be considered to be acting as pilot in command of an aircraft for compensation or hire. We note that whether a private pilot is receiving something of value in exchange for acting as pilot in command is determined on a case-by-case basis and depends greatly on the purpose and objective of the flight.

If John makes a gift to Jane of $10000 to be used for flight training, with no other restrictions, John is not requiring that Jane act as PIC (as she can use it for dual training or solo, at her discretion), and is not gaining anything in return. As long as it is a bona fide gift and not some attempt to end run around the regulations, it is not against regulations, in my opinion.
The last sentence in the quote is important, though. If, for instance, John stipulates that the flight training must take place in his blimp, which he puts advertisements on, this is definitely not legal. Nobody can say whether this situation is legal or not without all the details.
John acting as the flight instructor makes this a great deal shadier. In particular, as CFI John would have a great deal of control over the flights flown, and John is receiving something of value in return (time building, if nothing else). Dual instruction may still be fine, but John should be very wary of paying for Jane's solo flights, since as her CFI he will be placing a great deal of obligations on Jane as the pilot.
Answer: It's completely legal because it's a one way transaction - provided the payment is a genuine gift with absolutely no strings attached.
Private pilots are forbidden from receiving "compensation" - i.e. payments in return for services. Jane is not providing any kind of service in return for the payment, so there is no violation of the rules.
Now there might be a suspicion that this is some kind of under-the-table deal where Jane is in fact providing services in return for the gift, but if that's not the case then there is no problem with legality.
My evidence for this is that it happens all the time. Plenty of trainee pilots accept gifts from family members for their tuition, and if it was illegal then people would be telling them.
I had to think quite a bit about the issue with John being the instructor, but I'm fairly convinced it isn't a problem, because John still isn't getting any benefit from the deal. (He's getting flight time, but he's paying for it so there is no benefit to him, because he could get that flight time just as cheap by just renting the plane a flying solo.) Because of this Jane still isn't providing him with any service. The situation would be even clearer if instead of giving Jane money to hire him as a flight instructor John gave Jane his services for free and payed all the expenses of the instructional flights
Comment: @757toga A "gift" is not compensation unless there is something given in return. Building flight time *may* be considered compensation in some circumstances, but unless there's some quid pro quo it's just a gift, not compensation. In your example, the stipulations Mr. Turel puts on the flights as well as the advertising on the balloon provide the something in return that makes this compensation instead of a gift.
Comment: DJ, are you a lawyer versed in this particular field of law? An FAA agent? Making the statement that it's "completely legal" is pretty daring; of course, if the OP follows your advice and finds out different, I guess it's not you who will pay... As for your final paragraph, I live in Northern Virginia and I would guess that 95% of the drivers drive 65+ on I95... doesn't make it legal, and if I told an LEO "but it happens all the time" he'd have a chuckle while giving me my ticket.
Comment: I am not meaning to imply that this is legal advice. It isn't.
Comment: As for your last point, when people drive 80 on the I95, cops constantly tell them it's illegal (and give them a ticket). When family members give money to people so they can learn to fly you never hear flight schools say "it's illegal for people to give you money to learn to fly". Some organizations offer scholarships for flight training costs (I learned on one) and would know if it was illegal.


Save input values from Custom Activity - Journey Builder

Question: I am building a custom activity in journey builder. I am trying to save the values to update without losing my initial input. Once I hit save and reopen the custom activity, my inputs are reset to null. Anyone know how this can be achieved? Thank you!!!
Comment: The saving and initiating of the values you input are handled by your postmonger script. It will be easier to help you if you post what you have so far in that script.
Answer: I go about doing this by tagging a function that parses upon init.
This will work if the param is parsed into the payload.
<code>connection.on('initActivity', initialize);
function initialize(data) {
    if (data) {
        payload = data;
    }
    initialLoad(data);
}

function initialLoad (data) {
    //Function that loads data into your Front End UI goes here.
    // e.g. $('inputfield').val(savedData.arguments.execute.inArguments[0].<config_json_param>);
};
</code>


Is TOR Compromised on my computer?

Question: Tor browser is acting funny.  First, when I toggle tor browser on my lexar jump drive it goes to a shortcut stating "Start TOR browser". then when I ask for a new identity  TOR crashes or gives me the message "TOR browser will close all windows and tabs. All website sessions will be lost.  Restart now to reset your identity?"
TOR has NEVER asked me this before.  Plus TOR opened with Duck Duck Go as the search engine.  Am I compromised?  (Also ran EXTERMINATE IT, Malwarebytes, and Spybot to ensure I'm not infected.)
Answer: The behaviour you're seeing is normal. There's nothing to worry about*.
"Start Tor browser" is the general Tor start-up script. (The file is named start-tor-browser, and at least on Linux is a bog-standard shell script. If you're worried about it, you can actually just read the script to see what it does.) When you run the script, Tor starts.
There is a difference between New Identity and New Circuit.
New Identity will effectively restart the entire Tor Browser application from scratch, meaning it has to shut down the browser. It's not crashing. It's performing a graceful restart. This operation is scoped to the whole browser.
New Circuit, on the other hand, will create a new identity only for the tab that has focus. The other tabs aren't affected, and the entire browser doesn't need to be shut down. This operation is scoped to a specific tab.
At the time the OP posted the question (May 2015), it's possible the default search provider had just been updated to DuckDuckGo. It has since been changed again to Disconnect (Nov 2015).
*(That said, for piece of mind, I'd suggest deleting/re-installing, as another answer suggests.)
Answer: You could be compromised, or not. You should uninstall what you have, and start from a new install of the Tor browser and see if that fixes any of your problems.
Comment: This is a bad answer, it will not help if the rest of his computer is infected with something.
Answer: 90% that you are : Tor Browser Bundle is just a Firefox portable + Tor distro, and your browser seems to encounter a "toolbar problem"
Comment: The browser bundle is a standalone tor with standalone firefox, it's not a 'tor distro' the way you mention. Tails is a separate full OS that includes tor and firefox amongst other things, and is not related to the tor browser bundle. Also, the 'toolbar problem' you mention has no explanation what so ever.
Comment: I mean the Tor-itself-distro, not OS bundle, of course. The 'toolbar problem' is a kind of trouble, when either from a not-so-friendly website, or  from an installer script, that has found your particular browser instance installed - you're receiving an unwanted/undesired toolbar, or addon. And the phrase "Plus TOR opened with Duck Duck Go as the search engine." - as far as I can understand, the browser settings were not 'resetted to factory defaults', but modified. So - something was added, I suppose

Is TOR Compromised on my computer?


K'shaim Shenichnas L'Bris Kain Yikones L'Torah L'Chupa U'Lmaasim Tovim: why that order?

Question: When a baby boy has his Bris we wish him "K'shaim Shenichnas L'Bris Kain Yikones L'Torah L'Chupa U'Lmaasim Tovim" - just like you entered the covenant so to should you enter into Torah, marriage, and good deeds. Should not Maasim Tovim be prior to Torah and Chupa? (Derech Eretz Kodma L'Torah)
Comment: The source of this "blessing" is a gemara in Shabbat 137b - http://www.toratemetfreeware.com/online/f_00879.html#HtmpReportNum0271_L2 - העומדים אומרים כשם שנכנס לברית כך יכנס לתורה לחופה ולמע''ט
Answer: Shaalos U'Teshuvos Atzei Broshim Siman 57 brings in the name of the Avudram and also in the Bais Yosef Yoreh Deah 265 that a parent has a Chiyuv to teach a child Torah and to make their Chuppa, and then it is the childs responsibility to do Maasim Tovim.
Comment: The Avudraham's point is that you aren't obligated in punishments until 20 which is after 18 when we expect you got married. I guess you don't need to do good deeds until you are threatened with punishment?
Answer: Likkuti Basar Likkuti (Agodas Hashas to Shabbos 137b) brings the following explanation from the author of "Iyun Menachem":
The Gemora (Kiddushin 29b) brings R' Yehuda in the name of Shmuel that one should marry first and then learn Torah, to which R' Yehuda responds that one is not able to learn Torah with the yoke of supporting his family. From this it is evident that before marriage it is easier to involve oneself in "Maasim Tovim" for then he has free time to learn Torah, and Chazal say (Kiddush 30) that "I created the Yetzer Horah, and I created the Torah as an antidote. If you involve yourselves in Torah you will not be given over to it." Since the obstacle to "Maasim Tovim" is the Yetzer Horah, and before marriage he had the Torah to protect him it was not so difficult to practise "Massim Tovim". However, after one gets married and assumes the yoke of supporting his family he is now susceptible to the Yetzer Horah who attempts to stop him from performing good deeds and he no longer has Torah to help. We therefore bless him that even after he gets married he should continue to do "Massim Tovim" despite the new difficulties.
Answer: The Lubavitcher Rebbe explained the following (Toras Menachem Chelek Daled pg. 212, see also Iggros Kodesh Chelek Hey pg. 99):
It is known (Zohar Chelek Gimmel 257b, see Tur Orach Chaim end of Siman 417) that the three Avos correspond to the three festivals: Avraham, who characterized kindness, corresponds to the festival of Pesach when Hashem "passed over" the houses of the Jews and did not smite us. Yitzchok is the idea of severity, and the Torah was given on Shavuos "Mipi Hagevura", and Yaakov whose idea was Torah signifies the holiday of Sukkos (as Torah creates a "shade"- sukkah - for the soul).
We can similarly connect these three concepts to the three blessings of "Torah", "Chuppah" and "Massim Tovim". Avraham - kindness and charity - is "Massim Tovim". Yitzchok who is connected to Shavous, the marriage day between Hashem and the Jewish people, corresponds to "Chuppa", and Yaakov is the idea of "Torah".
In our personal G-dly service we need to emulate the actions of the three forefathers and thus must incorporate these three ideas. However, the balancing act between kindness and severity is often difficult - too much kindness can be inappropriate as can too much harshness. We balance the two by preceding the Chesed with Gevurah insuring that the kindness is directed to the proper channels. Thus the ideal order is to base ones actions on the directive of "Torah", which instructs us how and when to have the idea of "Chuppah" (Gevura) first, and then "Massim Tovim" (Chesed).

Alternatively, Likkutey Levi Yitzchok (Ha'aros to Sefer Hazohar, Breishis pg. 60, written by R' Levi Yitzchok Shnuerson, father of the Lubavitcher Rebbe) explains that Bris Milah corresponds to Rosh Hashana (a central theme of Rosh Hashana is the Zichronos of the "bris" between the Jewish people and Hashem commemorated by the blowing of the Shofar [see there for more connections between Rosh Hashana and Milah]). "Torah" corresponds to Yom Kippur when the second Luchos were given. The schach of Sukkos resembles the "Chuppah", and "Maasim Tovim" corresponds to Shmini Atzeres (he does not explain why).
Answer: The word shem (name) means the essence of an item. Thus we see when Adam gave "names" to the animals he recognized their essences and integrated them into his view of the world. Thus, just as the entry into the bris was because of the essence of the mitzvah and not any external influence, so too should the other main mitzvos and critical moments of life occur.
תורה  Bar Mitzvah - entering into the mitzos
חופה - Wedding - creating a new family
מעשים טובים - Now he can really start the "good deeds" of his family initiating his son into mitzvos by performing his bris.
I have seen the following explanation.

לתורה Teach your son torah as he grows and he will become a talmid chacham
לחופה The next step is that he is to be married to an appropriate woman who will join with him as an אשת חיל
ןלמעשים טובים Now he can continue his life as a full adult. He can now fulfill the first mitzvah of a human being (פרו ורבו) by starting his own family and continuing the cycle. He can perform the mitzvos that he has learned from his father.

My own personal reason is that a child is not really an adult until after he has been married. Thus, a person is not really able to do "maasim tovim" until after the chupah. The maasim tovim are actually the deeds caused by raising and supporting a family (starting with his fulfillment of pru urvu). This begins the continuation of the chain of existence. The maasim tovim are the deed which include giving his sons a bris, teaching them (sons and daughters) torah and marrying them off.
Another explanation found at Understanding the Blessing given at a Bris Milah by Chaim B.

During the Bris Milah ceremony, the following blessing is given to the
  parents of the baby boy "כשם שנכנס לברית כן יכנס לתורה לחופה ולמעשים
  טובים" "In the same way that you entered the Bris, so should you enter
  marriage, Torah and good deeds"
What is the similarity between these three things?
Compromise!  Or more specifically, compromising in order to develop a
  strong relationship.
The lesson from the Bris Milah is that compromise comes from giving
  something up to acquire something greater.  Just like the baby is
  giving up a piece of himself to attain a spiritual relationship with
  God and a bond with the entire Jewish People, so too, a good marriage
  is based on each spouse giving up certain aspects of their life that
  aren't conducive to marriage for the sake of developing a healthy
  relationship with each other.
Similarly, someone is only able to be successful in their Torah
  learning if they are able to give up their own sense of 'how things
  should be' and recognize the Divine superiority of the words they are
  learning.
And finally, "Maasim Tovim" which are the Mitzvos require sacrifice.
  Without giving of oneself, one cannot act with sincere compassion!
This is the understanding behind the blessing said at a Bris Milah –
  Just like we are seeing that this baby is giving of himself in order
  to attach himself to something greater, so too, this is how he should
  proceed for the rest of his life – something truly necessary to
  succeed in Torah, Marriage and Mitzvos.
Answer: (Need to find the source) During the Bris Ceremony, we say כְּשֵׁם שֶׁנִּכְנַס לַבְּרִית, כֵּן יִכָּנֵס לְתּוֹרָה וּלְחֻפָּה וּלְמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים - Just as he has entered into the bris, so may he enter into the [study of] Torah, chupah [the wedding canopy], and good deeds."
The question is, why are these blessings in this order? Why would ""מַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים - good deeds" follow after חֻפָּה - when one is married? One certainly doesn't wait till they are married to perform good deeds.
It can be said that the good deeds and kindness one performs while single (unmarried) cannot be compared to those that are performed while married, especially when one has children of their own. When one has a family, it is often normal that one becomes more focused on their family's needs, both financially and how they spend their time.
Therefore, when a married person with a family goes out of their way to support someone outside their family unit or spend time with someone in need, other than their wife or child(ren), this is a true sign of מַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים - good deeds of kindness and support.


Calculating precision and recall for LDA

Question: As I understand from Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm, it produces two matrices- one for document-topic assignments, and one for topic-terms assignments. LDA is unsupervised machine learning algorithm, how could I calculate the accuracy of the output of that algorithm? Is there any common way to calculate precision and recall for topic assignments?
Comment: I think this is what you are looking for: http://dirichlet.net/pdf/wallach09evaluation.pdf
Comment: This is a more basic problem for clustering, not specific to topic modeling. Search for cluster validation.
Answer: Since precision and recall necessarily depend on the notion of true classes for a datum, they can't be directly applied to an unsupervised method. One can evaluate clustering methods, but accuracy is not an applicable criterion.
To see how this pans out in the LDA case, consider running LDA on the AP corpus. In a supervised setting, what might your predicted feature(s) be? It could be as easy as the section of the paper it was drawn from, e.g. sports, world, politics. This is roughly what we humans might naturally think of when we hear "topic."
What about a piece on the front page of a local paper, mentioning a politician's appearance at a college sporting event? What if, instead of a game, the politician met with NCAA athletes to discuss student athlete compensation and healthcare. Are these sports, or politics? Must they be one or the other?
Point being, these answers require human decision-making based on the application. LDA reconciles the ambiguity by representing the article as a distribution over topics, and each topic as a distribution over words: It has no notion of whether a document belongs to one or several human-meaningful classes.
That said, one can certainly run an unsupervised method, transform data using that method, and subsequently examine how a supervised method performs on the transformed data. Indeed, comparing a given method's precision and recall when used on the same corpus transformed by LDA and TF-IDF would be fully sensible.
You can find a broad introduction to cluster validation here, and this paper from the comments details means of evaluating LDA, specifically.
Comment: It seems to me that the evaluation process for unsupervised learning is a clustering validation approach, the paper you mentioned above is going to be my target for reading and comprehend. Thank you guys for these valuable comments.


How to add ArcPy Feature Layer to ArcMap automatically?

Question: With Python, how do I get either the MakeXYEventLayer_management or the MakeFeatureLayer_management layer that is temporarily created added to ArcMap automatically after the tool is run, without using arcpy.mapping?
Answer: Add an output parameter of type Feature Layer to your tool. Set its value to the name of the XY Layer you make with the tool at the end of your script. This lets the geoprocessing framework know that you really meant to make that layer permanent (and not just as intermediate data) and to add it to the table of contents.
Comment: Thanks. I got it figured out. Is there anything wrong with adding features to ArcMap when they are in memory? I notice when I go to the data sources tab, it says the layer is from GPInMemoryWorkspace:{...}. Is there anything technically wrong with doing this, like is it bad form?
Comment: Just be aware that they won't persist to disk, so if you save out an MXD that has layers with in memory feature classes they'll be empty the next time you open the document. In memory feature classes are super nice in that they're really fast since Arc* doesn't have to touch the disk/network to access them.
Comment: Yeah, this is definitely a layer that doesn't need to be saved, we just need to see it once. I noticed that I can't add arcpy.Delete_management(layer) to the end of my script because obviously the layer I add to ArcMap is then empty. This doesn't cause some type of memory issue by not deleting it, right? Just when ArcMap closes, the memory is then removed?
Comment: Yeah, the memory gets freed when you manually delete the layer from the table of contents or when ArcMap closes.


what does {% set order = 'pin desc, postDate desc' %} do?

Question: I am new to using twig and I do not understand how this line of code works. If you could explain that would be wonderful! thanks:)
Answer: Craft uses the the template engine twig and there is a set tag that is the same as it's php equivalent for <code>$order = 'pin...'</code>
So you just set/declare a variable - in this case you set the string.


Asterisk Configuration on wireless network

Question: I have installed Asterisk in my laptop on Ubuntu. Afterwards I created wireless network on the same machine (on which I have installed Asterisk). Next I installed 3CX softphone client on two laptops and connect these laptops to the network-established on Asterisk running laptop. But I am not able to connect my softphones with Asterisk (they are showing message "Server Unreachable"). Where am I going wrong? Should I use separate wireless router for connection?
Comment: what is the asterisk ip ? and the range of wireless network?
Comment: Misc. questions:
 - Are host-based firewalls running on any of the laptops?
 - Perform a netstat and check on what IP/interface Asterisk is listening.
 - If you're using hostnames (instead of IPs) are all three using the same DNS and are their hostnames in the DNS?
 - Is Asterisk configured to accept connections from the clients? Need to ensure that the server supports what the clients are attempting to use.
Answer: Here are some cli ways to see if the client (3cx) is actually connecting and can probly give you some more info to figure out what is going on.
If there is communication at all you will see it with
192.168.1.101 = your client ip(3cx)
sip set debug on
or
sip set debug ip 192.168.1.101
to turn the crazy messages off so you have time to review them.
sip set debug off
if they are not detailed enough you could always do
core set debug 9
and raise the info it pumps out but if you are getting nothing
Answer: Are they (the server and the clients) on the same subnet ?
If not, is the link between the two subnets ROUTED or NAT ?
SIP (and the majority of lag-critical/media protocols) are known to not like NAT, because of UDP traffic, need for direct access to the IP and open ports,...
If this turns out to be the problem (e.g. if you've put a WIFI router  behind the broadband router), check if your WIFI router can do bridged mode. This is in most cases the cleanest way to solve these kind of problems. WIFI devices will be on the same subnet as cabled devices, WIFI devices will get IP from the DHCP service on the broadband router and from the same range as the cabled devices. It's also a solution if you need to connect from your smartphone to the television for example.


What citation software orders Vancouver references automatically?

Question: I know that MS Word can create numbered citations, but it doesn't include Vancouver style. I'm hesitant to try to install the Vancouver code on Word (not sure I have the skill to do that). I want to avoid manual references due to the problem of adding or removing citations during revisions. What citation software (hopefully free?) can handle automatic numbering and renumbering of citations? Or is installing the Vancouver code on Word not that difficult?
Comment: I don't use Word, hence a comment, but surely _any_ citation manager will be able to do this, won't it? I know many people use [Mendeley](https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/mendeley-cite) for example, and I would be very surprised if it cannot handle Vancouver style. I also assume that "use LaTeX instead of Word" isn't an acceptable answer, right?
Comment: [BibTeX for LaTeX supports Vancouver](https://www.bibtex.com/s/bibliography-style-vancouver-vancouver/), so switching to LaTeX might be a solution.
Comment: Every citation software can do this. Zotero is an example of a widely used and free software.
Comment: Thank you very much for these replies! I will check out Zotero.
Answer: As others have stated in comments, almost any reference manager will handle Vancouver style. If you're not already familiar with LaTeX, I wouldn't recommend switching. It's a hassle if you are in a field where others do not use it frequently. And often templates that are available for journals only sort of work. It sounds like that may be out of your comfort zone.
Mendeley and Zotero, which is free, are common choices. EndNote integrates very well with Word and is generally flexible and user friendly. It might be the best choice if your institution has a subscription - I would not pay for it out of my own pocket, but it's nice when someone else foots the bill.


When did Pucci reset the universe?

Question: Does anyone know the specific date or time when Pucci reset the universe? Or anything similar like the month and year it happened?
Answer: The universe has been reset at the singulary point, so infinity.
What you are looking for is probably when Pucci started speeding up the universe. That is  March 21st, 2012, one day before the new moon on March 22nd, 2012.
It is written on the intro to Stone Ocean chapter 157 "Made in Heaven Part 9".
Answer: No, because Pucci didn't reset the universe in a certain time. He sped up time so much that at some point, the amount of time to be sped up was infinite, and therefore he sped up time until there was no time left, bypassing infinity. He reset the universe outside the bounds of time.

When did Pucci reset the universe?


What is tenant scope in Hybris?

Question: I am very new to hybris e-commerce software and trying to learn with the help of wiki documents provided with it.
I see use of 'tenant' scope quite frequently. I know about other scopes like 'singleton', 'prototype' etc. But I am not very clear with the tenant scope.
appreciate if someone have a good understanding about this scope, and explain in simple terms.
Thanks.
Answer: The core-spring.xml file of the core extension adds a special scope named tenant to the global ApplicationContext. The tenant scope makes sure that the bean is instantiated individually for each individual tenant of the hybris, whereas singleton would create only one instance for all tenants to use.
If you reference tenant-specific classes like services or DAOs inside your implementation, you have to use the tenant scope instead of the default Spring singleton scope. In case of doubt, use tenant instead of singleton.
<code><bean id="myExtension.myBean" class="de.hybris.platform.myExtension.myClass" scope="tenant" />
</code>
Since version 5.0 of hybris Commerce Suite, tenant scope is no longer in use.
Check this for more details...
Comment: It is useful when you want to host your online shops for several individual customers on one hybris Multichannel Suite. In Multi-tenancy, each customer is called a tenant. According to their requirement they can customize your shops.
Comment: Thanks for the answer @Shreshtt. It makes sense. Do you know in what situation this scope can be useful?
Comment: where does core-sprisearhng.xml is located ? I search all my hybris 5.7 installation and didn't find it
Answer: Hybris has 2 tenants by default- master tenant and junit tenant. You can create more tenants as required.
Each tenant has its own set of data...say item types.
When a bean is defined in a tenant scope, it means that, that bean would be instantiated once for each tenant. And the same bean object would be used throughout the tenant.
Answer: hybris can be run in a Multi-Tenant mode which multiple individual sets of data are maintained on one single hybris installation.
When a bean is defined with a tenant scope, it will only be instantiated individually for each tenant; whereas singleton would create only one instance for all tenants to use.

What is tenant scope in Hybris?


Why is moksha difficult to attain?

Question: Why is moksha difficult to attain? Why can't it be easy? What is the reason for the existence of moksha? Does it exist because maya exists? If yes, wouldn't that mean moksha has no existence out of maya?
Comment: moksha requires shadana. .1. Atma shakshathkara 2. Paramatma shakshathkara.. Most of the philosophy emphasis only atma shakshathkara only because for them only Atma exists. that atma is paramatma.. Guided by wrong philosophies the world is confused.. And to do the point 2. is very very difficult because God had to appear and speak to you just like person in front of you.. So moksha is very difficult, because its only the mercy of lord can get..
Comment: Moksha literally means tearing away. Tearing away from what? From suffering created by our ego. To remove suffering, we must free ourselves from selfishness and anger resulting from our self obsession.
Comment: The subject matter is SPIRITUALITY explaining of which it is difficult, many a time, to find scriptural base.  We can quote the statements of saints, which were made out of their personal experience.
Answer: Because senses are out-going and hence we experience only outer objects and not the inner self.
Katha Upanishad 2.1.1:

1     Yama said: The self-existent Supreme Lord inflicted an injury upon the sense-organs in creating them with outgoing tendencies; therefore a man perceives only outer objects with them and not the inner Self. But a calm person, wishing for Immortality, beholds the inner Self with his eyes closed.

That's why mind is constantly engaged in perceiving outer objects and one doesn't differentiate between Atma (the self) and Anatma (non-self) due to lake of knowledge of true self.
As explained in Vivekachudamani:

Of the tree of Samsara ignorance is the seed, the identification with the body is its sprout, attachment its tender leaves, work its water, the body its trunk, the vital forces its branches, the organs its twigs, the sense-objects its flowers, various miseries due to diverse works are its fruits, and the individual soul is the bird on it.

This bondage can be destroyed neither by weapons nor by wind, nor by fire, nor by millions of acts - by nothing except the wonderful sword of knowledge that comes of discrimination, sharpened by the grace of the Lord.

Hence, the knowledge of discrimination between the self and non-self is essential to be realized and the outward tendencies of senses are first obstacles in it. This is another reason why most of people choose pleasurable over preferable as told in first two verses of Katha Upanishad 1.2.
Regarding Maya, yes, definitely it is responsible for bondage and it's also believed difficult to overcome the power of Maya as said by Lord Krishna in Bhagavad Gita:

7.14 Since this divine Maya of Mine which is constituted by the gunas is difficult to cross over, (therefore) those who take refuge in Me alone cross over this Maya.

Maya has two powers; the projection power and the veiling power which creates resistance from gaining true knowledge. But after attaining Jnana, it doesn't hold more as per Advaita Vedanta.
So, the true knowledge of self i.e Jnana and grace of god i.e Bhakti are essential to attain Moksha as decleared in Mundaka Upanishad:

III-ii-3: This Self is not attained through study, nor through the
intellect, nor through much hearing. The very Self which this one (i.e.
the aspirant) seeks is attainable through that fact of seeking; this
Self of his reveals Its own nature.

Though most of people tends to say or show that they extremely believe in god but they don't, illustrated by Swami Vivekananda, quoting from Complete Works / Volume 1 / Lectures and Discourses / Steps to Realization:

A great sage once told me that not one in twenty millions in this world believed in God. I asked him why, and he told me, "Suppose there is a thief in this room, and he gets to know that there is a mass of gold in the next room, and only a very thin partition between the two rooms; what will be the condition of that thief?" I answered, "He will not be able to sleep at all; his brain will be actively thinking of some means of getting at the gold, and he will think of nothing else." Then he replied, "Do you believe that a man could believe in God and not go mad to get him? If a man sincerely believes that there is that immense, infinite mine of Bliss, and that It can be reached, would not that man go mad in his struggle to reach it ?"

Talking about other points:

Q. What is the reason for the existence of moksha? If yes, wouldn't that mean moksha has no existence out of maya?

More or less yes, Bondage and Moksha are due to the work of mind only. "Mind is the only cause of bondage and liberation" - Maitrayini Upanishad 4.3.11. This is told straight forwardly by Gaudapada in his karika on Mandukya Upanishad 2.32 "There is no dissolution, no birth, none in bondage, none aspiring for wisdom, no seeker of liberation and none liberated. This is the absolute truth."

Briefly, the lack of {Jijnasa of knowing the true self and extreme faith in the self} makes it difficult to attain Jnana, the true self and hence Moksha.
Comment: I think the VivekChudamani verses no. in your answer are not correct . The verse 145 should be verse 147 and verse 146 should be 149( I am looking at gita press version though) . BTW great and extensive answer.
Comment: @SwiftPushkar Right. This differs from Gitapress version. Actually all the online version we find are identical in number of verses so, I cite one of them.
Comment: Ok :- ) , i will try to add sanskrit shlokas afterwards to all.
Comment: @SwiftPushkar Yes, I also like Sanskrit Shlokas to be added but I skipped looking at length of answer.

Why is moksha difficult to attain?


Data augmentation in images

Question: Suppose there is a ML network that takes grayscale images as the input. The images that I have are RGB images. So, instead of converting these RGB images to grayscale, I treat each individual colour bands as distinct inputs to the network. that is, instead of feeding RGB image A to the network, I feed the R matrix of A as the first input, followed by the G matrix and then the B matrix. This leads to 3 times more data for the network. Can this be considered as data augmentation (since we are increasing the amount of data)? If yes, what is the name of this data augmentation technique?
Answer: Yes, when you use single color channel considered as Data Augmentation. This is known as Color Space Augmentation
Digital image data is usually encoded as a tensor of the dimension (height × width × color channels). Performing augmentations in the color channels space is another strategy that is very practical to implement.
An image can be quickly converted into its representation in one color channel by isolating that matrix and adding 2 zero matrices from the other color channels.

Data augmentation in images


How to change default username in Google Play?

Question: I'm stuck to this problem. I used to have a google account which is now deleted and not existent anymore. I have a new Google account. The problem is that in my Android device when I have to go to Google Play, the default username is the old one. How can I change it?
Comment: I don't quite understand what you mean, but are you sure you are not using the old account for Google Play? Open Google Play then press Menu -> Accounts
Answer: You can try adding another gmail account through the "accounts & sync" (or whatever your manufacturer calls it) section of the Settings.  You may be able to choose that other account when you visit the Play store, depending on your specific device.  In many cases, however, the gmail account you used when you activated the device for the first time can only be changed by performing a factory reset of the device.
Answer: If you go to Settings->Accounts->Google, do you see your old account there? if so, delete it.
Also try and go to play store settings and make your current email address the default address that you use


Do commercial flights generally carry epipens?

Question: My friend has a severe nut allergy and brings multiple epipens aboard flights. This is apparently the safest thing to ensure the proper treatment of a potential allergic reaction, especially in the case a plane cannot land immediately. Should airlines not carry epipens on them? This seems like a worthwhile investment to protect them from liabilities at the least.
Comment: Bottled water isn't magic, it's just common water put in a bottle. Likewise, an epipen is just normal syringe/vial medicine put in an an autoinjector. The (rather overpriced) benefits of an epipen - greater ease of injection by a solitary person who is struggling - are wasted on an airflight where you have trained FAs and most likely, a phlebotomist on board.
Comment: You highlight the liability of not carrying one, but what about the liability of carrying one and it being used incorrectly or inappropriately?  You seem to be under the misapprehension that onboard staff have extensive medical training to be able to diagnose and treat allergic reactions such as this - they do not.  Randomly administering drugs is not exactly the best thing to do, even in a life and death situation.
Comment: Are all epipens equal? A 'one epipen suits every allergy sufferers' kind of medication?
Answer: Medical kits in the US contain doses of Epinephrine, though they aren't required to be in autoinjectors as far as I know (one Canadian airline stopped flying Epipens but continues to bring the drug in vial form). The airlines can exceed that standard in their kits.
There'd still be plenty of reason for your friend to carry their own, as it would be immediately accessible and wouldn't require relying on airline staff and/or someone volunteering to provide medical assistance to provide one.
Answer: Carry your own, the process of opening the doctor medical kit onboard airplanes involves showing a proper medical doctor ID to the crew.
There are flights where none of the passengers is a doctor. Do not rely on luck.
Comment: @JonathanReez at the end of the day, someone can be dying from a variety of reasons, many of which look like an allergic reaction to a random passer-by - administering adrenaline however can worsen a lot of those conditions rather than improving them.  Having a random person grab a medical kit and start to inject its contents is a huge issue and should be avoided at all cost - so yes, it should be true even if someone is dying.
Comment: Would this be true even if someone is dying?
Comment: @JonathanReez the final decision is the captain's. But who would know someone is dying if no doctor onboard to decide so.
Answer: They generally carry epinephrine, but it is a very large dose designed for cardiac arrest rather than for allergic reactions and it is not an auto injector. So it can potentially be dangerous for allergic reactions


Emachines E525 laptop not displaying

Question: Hello everyone i have a laptop Emachines E525 switch on showing the blue light but  its not displaying and i tried to put on external monitor but still the same the problem is when i switch the laptop on the fan runs few minutes and stop but the light still showing blue if i remove the ram it doesn't beep please help me. i have tried to change the processor but its still the same and i open the laptop and i have seen water drops and i tried to clean motherboard with the spirit and blow it with hot station.
Comment: The lack of grammar made this very difficult to read. Mind cleaning that up a bit?
Comment: So it's water damaged and you've reflowed it and it still doesn't work? Time for a new machine ...
Answer: You have seen water drops, so there's a clear indication of water damage. Unfortunately for everyone involved, water can do a lot of damage in places you won't even notice.
Because of this, there are simply too many possibilities for what could be wrong. With the possibility of water shorting out various components, there is also a real possibility that you will damage additional components if you try to swap them in.
If you are feeling particularly confident:

Ensure everything is completely dry
Ensure there is no visible damage to any of the components
Swap major components (motherboard, hard-drive, CPU, memory, etc...) until issue is resolved

Without any real way to diagnose the issue (and the information you have given us is in no way enough for us to diagnose it for you), you are basically shooting in the dark at this point.
Due to the wide range of potential issues, and the aforementioned water damage, I would consider this a total loss.
Consider that you could replace it with a used, equivalent system from Ebay for < $100. At this point, it is simply not economical to spend more time than you already have to salvage this old, outdated system. That's not even including the potential cost of replacement parts.

Emachines E525 laptop not displaying


Viewing Tokens on Ganache or an alternative

Question: I'm currently working with the truffle suite and so am using ganache as my test blockchain. Is there something I can do with it or with a similar product to see token balances?
Comment: https://www.myetherwallet.com/  (list of networks, custom network)
Answer: This is not currently possible within ganache but this will probably get implemented : https://github.com/trufflesuite/ganache/issues/94
You can use myetherwallet to see ERC-20 token balances but your node needs to be HTTPS or you have to run myetherwallet locally (which is available as a Chrome extension on the Chrome store and on github: https://github.com/kvhnuke/etherwallet)
Answer: You can use MetaMask to view the tokens you generated on Ganache.
To do this, you need to do the following:
1) Get the deployed contract address of your TokenContract in the folder 'builds/contracts > YourToken.json, and copy the address which you can find in networks: {}
2) Open MetaMask, link to your private network (in top of the MetaMask screen) and find the Add Token button (in the newest GUI, click the top-left menu icon and scroll down to see Add Token)
3) Click the 'Custom Token' tab
4) Copy your contract address in the 'Token Address'. MetaMask will automatically retrieve the other details if connected correctly. Click Next to add your custom token, and see your balance appear.
(if in Step 3 you didn't connect yet your private network to MetaMask, click in that top screen on the option 'Custom RPC' and fill in http://127.0.0.1:7545 (for Ganache) in the New Custom RPC Url field and click 'save').


rasa fill slots from custom action

Question: I'm trying to build a bot with rasa. At the very beginning of the conversation it should fill some slots with data from the database.
I have a custom action:
class ActionFillSlots(Action):

def name(self) -> Text:
    return "action_fill_slots"

def run(self, dispatcher: CollectingDispatcher,
        tracker: Tracker,
        domain: Dict[Text, Any]) -> List[Dict[Text, Any]]:

    example = "example"
    return [SlotSet("example", example)]

And in my domain.yml file i have set the slot like this:
slots:
  example:
  type: text

And a response like:
 utter_greet:
 - text: "Show { example }"

And in my stories.yml file, i have stories like:
- story: greet happy path
  steps:
  - intent: greet
  - action: action_fill_slots
  - action: utter_greet

If I run the bot with rasa shell --debug
and then type something that matches the greeting intent, i get the following error:

Failed to fill utterance template 'Show { example }' Tried to replace ' example ' but could not find a valu
e for it. There is no slot with this name nor did you pass the value explicitly when calling the template. Return template without filling the template.

In my debug window I can see, that the slot has been set by the action:

Current slot values:
example: example

I'm using rasa 2.1.0
Answer: Does this help? let me know
from typing import Any, Text, Dict, List
from rasa_sdk import Action, Tracker
from rasa_sdk.executor import CollectingDispatcher

class ActionFillSlots(Action):

def name(self) -> Text:
    return "action_fill_slots"

def run(self, dispatcher: CollectingDispatcher,
        tracker: Tracker,
        domain: Dict[Text, Any]) -> List[Dict[Text, Any]]:

    example = tracker.get_slot(example)
    dispatcher.utter_message(text = str(example))

    return []

rasa fill slots from custom action


What should I do if neighbor's dog cries out (for help)?

Question: My downstairs neighbor has a German Shepherd, and last night the poor dog was periodically crying out (as if in pain) for about an hour, which caused my own dog to freak out a bit. I've never met the neighbor, and I'd like to avoid confrontation unless I know the dog is in danger. I saw the dog kept out on the neighbor's balcony this morning, and he/she appeared physically okay from a distance. At what point should I report this?
Comment: How long has this been happening for? If it was me I would investigate it from distance first to determine whether there's a bigger picture in this.
Comment: Only last night. I didn't even know the neighbor had a dog until yesterday.
Answer: Have you concerted that it is not their dog? Maybe they are dog sitting and the dog is missing their family, and crying from the pain of being separated.
You need not be confrontational. Stop by and say you saw the dog on the porch for the first time yesterday.  Maybe offer advice on a good dog park, or other conversations relevant to dogs in your area.  Get the conversation flowing and the source of the crying should come to light.
If you still have concerns look for your local humane society or animal rights group, tell them your concerns.  They should be able to provided direction.
Comment: Yeah, I suppose that's possible. I mostly keep to myself, so it would be uncomfortable for me to knock on my neighbor's door just to start a conversation, but I will definitely make an attempt for the dog's sake the next time I hear the dog cry out. I'll also query the local humane society to prepare for that situation. Thanks
Answer: Most communities have a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
If this is the case where you live, call them for advice. They should be able to provide sensible advice from their experience in such matters.
Also they usually investigate situations that you have described but never reveal the source of the complaint - it is expected that you are to remain anonymous during their investigations.
Finally it is worth noting that if the owner actually cares for their animal, they would welcome advice from neighbours and others that their animal is distressed. With sensible and caring advice, they are able to take action.


Visualforce Side Panel

Question: Can we do a side panel with tabs in Visualforce?  I see apex:tabPanel tag that show tabs accross the top of the page, but what about adding the tabs on the left side of the page?  Thanks
Answer: I know it's possible to make stylistic changes by using styleClass and css, but since tabPanels are (by default) rendered in a whole mess of
 tags, I'm afraid you don't have a way to rearrange the underlying elements.
Comment: Thank you Samuel.  I found some codes online that will just might work.  I think it's as nice as a tab but it will do for now.
Answer: So, I try this and it will do for now.`

      <apex:commandButton value="Overview" action="{!overview}" style="background:LightBlue;width:149px;height:49px;"/>

      <apex:commandButton value="Read More" action="{!readMore}" style="background:LightBlue;width:149px;height:50px;"/>

`

Visualforce Side Panel