Streaming Windows Media Center to Samsung Smart TV

Question: I was wondering if there was any way in which I could stream shows that I have recorded with windows media center to my samsung smart tv without having to connect and xbox to it, I am very new to using windows media center and it seems as though I need to use an extender which I'm not sure if thats the only way to share over the network with windows media center or if there is some other way that I am simply not finding.
Comment: I have been very dissatisfied with Samsung's "smart tv" and associated software.  I just hooked up an old laptop to the tv and have much better functionality.
Answer: First option is samsung way: http://help.content.samsung.com/csweb/faq/searchFaq.do?category1_id=samsunglink-b05&serviceCd=allshareplay&r_faq_id=120201#F_120201
Still, you can try other dlna servers, including windows media center but the result depends on the codec used (tvmobili is considered better) - so an extender could be needed sometimes.
Answer: You're going to need a DLNA server which can transcode the WTV file format which is what Windows Media Center saves recordings as.
I'd first try the content sharing built into Windows Media Player.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/245888/how_to_stream_digital_media_from_your_windows_7_pc.html
If that doesn't work then try Serviio which is very good (and supports WTV amongst a whole range of formats) but, unfortunately, requires Java to be installed. The free version will suffice.
http://serviio.org/


How to respond to a job offer when waiting for a counter offer?

Question: I notified my current employer that I received a job offer that I intended to take but she asked for me to give her 4 days to develop a counter offer (to which I agreed). How should I respond to the company that made the offer?
Comment: Relevant: [When does accepting an offer to stay with my current firm make sense?](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/q/54748)
Answer: One in hand is worth two in the bush. Accept the offer you have been given as you don't actually know if a counteroffer is forthcoming.
If the counteroffer is good enough, you can go back to the new company with the details of the counteroffer and see if they can offer you a better deal.
Answer: Usually, offers and counter offers expire after some time (X days/weeks). Say that your current company is company A and the new company is company B, does the offer from company B expire before company A has a counter offer for you (in 4 days) ?
If no, don't do anything. Just let it rest and when you have both offers from company A and B, make your decision. Be prepared that company B may also want to counter the offer from company A. You can tell company A you need some time to think about their offer (maybe 1-2 weeks?) and use that time to negotiate a possible counter offer with company B.
If yes, you can try to get an extension on when the offer from company B expires. Do note that company B probably also knows how this game works, and this can be an indication to them that you're negotiating with other companies. They may say no to an extension, in which case you might need to try to get your offer from company A earlier.
If company A is not able to provide you with an offer before the offer of company B expires, you may be able to discuss the offer from company B with company A and gauge if company A is willing to go over it (without going into too much detail). This can give you an indication of whether or not you can wait for the offer from company A or if you can accept the offer from company B.


Making an app into a full screen widget (no source code)

Question: Is there any way to convert or declare in the main activity of an app without having access to the source code or using smali? I'd like to have an app as a full-screen widget in nova launcher.
Comment: Interesting question, I am not familiar with nova, but I doubt it, because so many things need to be configured. Many of your apps would end up crashing.
Answer: No, you can't convert an activity into a widget from outside the app. They work in completely different ways. With an activity, the app's process is running and controls all of the GUI controls in the activity. For a widget, the app sends a description of the widget layout (including all the images) to the launcher, and then the launcher's process is responsible for drawing that layout on the screen. The app doesn't run all the time: it only runs when it wants to update the widget layout (e.g. to change the "new mail" count after getting a push notification) or when you interact with the widget.
It works this way because keeping a process running for every widget would use a lot of memory and battery.
With the new multi-window changes in Nougat, it would be possible for a launcher to embed an app's activity as if it were a widget, but the launcher would have to be written to support this, the app would have to support multi-window, and it would still use a lot of memory and battery, and the unusual configuration could well trigger some latent bugs in apps.


a formula about conic bundles

Question: Let $\pi:Z\to S$ be a conic bundle over a smooth complex surface $S$. I'd like to know how to prove that $-\pi_{*}K_{Z}^{2}=4K_{S}+\Delta$, where $\Delta$ denotes the locus in $S$ over which the fibres are singular.
Answer: There are a number of sources, or you could just prove this for yourself.  In the context of algebraic geometry, this follows from  Proposition 5.1(v) of Divisor Classes and The Virtual Canonical Bundle for Genus 0 Curves by de Jong and myself.
Comment: Thank you very much. I have also found other sources such as Mori and Mukai's paper "On Fano 3-folds with B_{2}>=2",Adv. Stud. Pure Math. 1 101--129(1983).

a formula about conic bundles


Why does a resistor decrease the current flowing in a circuit if this is what current is?

Question: This is what I know, please tell me if I am wrong:
An electron has an elementary charge (let's call that charge e). A current is defined as the amount of e (elementary charge) that flows past a point in a circuit in one second.
Now, why does the amount of current passing through a resistor decrease as its resistance increases?
The electrons still have the same elementary charge after passing through the resistor right?
Does that mean that the electrons move more slowly so that the amount of charge passing in one second decreased?
Comment: Hint:  if the resistor is connected to an (ideal) current source, the current through the resistor doesn't decrease as the resistance increases, the voltage across the resistor increases instead.
Comment: @AlfredCentauri okay and that decreases the current ? my knowledge in physics doesnt pass that of a 9th grader so please explain.
Comment: No, the current is completely unaffected by any change in resistance when the resistor is connected to a current source.  This is the hint, i.e., increasing the resistance doesn't *necessarily* decrease the current through.
Answer: Resistors interfere with the forward motion of electrons, so yes, the electrons are moving more slowly.
Answer: yes the resistor decrease the flow of electron because they collide with the resistor
Answer: The situation you probably have in mind (as it is the most common) is that you apply constant voltage to your resistor, i.e., you have a voltage source.
The voltage between two points (in this case, the two sides of your resistor) is proportional to the energy gained by a charge when moving from one point to the other.
This energy is used to accelerate the electron. However, the electron is also slowed down when interacting with the resistor (which heats up the resistor).
The higher the resistance, the more intensively do the electrons interact with the resistor and the slower they are.
Since electrons are repelling each other, this cannot be counteracted by more electrons going through the resistor.
You can compare this situation to two basins of water at different levels (voltages) connected by a thin tube with a sponge inside (the resistor).
The less porous the sponge, the slower the water flow (the current).
Note that there also exist current sources, which produce a constant current.
If a resistor is connected to such a current source, the voltage will increase such that the target current is reached.
The higher the resistance, the higher the voltage (and the more heat is disposed into the resistor).
In the water analogy, such a current source corresponds to a pump working at a fixed rate, no matter how much pressure is needed to pump the water.


Effect of Isat on inductor when connecting four inductors in a combination

Question: In my circuit I want to use inductor having value 330uH. So instead of connecting a single inductor, I prefer to connect 4 inductors, two of them in series two make it 660uH and another two in parallel with the last two of them to make it again 330uH. This is it if we are talking about only inductance but waht about saturation current. Using this connection how it would affect the saturation current of the indductors? Will I actually get 2 x 4amp = 8amp Isat?
For a little bit of time, consider this one as a cheaper than using a single inductor. What are the pros and cons for doing this??
Comment: Not that I don't like my answer being accepted, but you might get more (and better?) answers if you wait at least two days until you accept.
Comment: @zebonaut No actually I found very reasonable explanation the link you have provided. Its good and doesn't create any choasity.But if you said then I wait untik the another good and accepted answer. Well +1 for suggesting me the links
Answer: The saturation current is a constant for a given inductor. Just like the "normal" current will be shared between two paralleled inductors depending on their value, this "normal" current will just reach the point of saturation. In Theory, two parallel inductors can take twice the (saturation) current of one induvidual inductor. No big deal here. For series-connected inductors, it's a bit like the chain analogon: The chain breaks once the weakest link breaks. The behavior of two series-connected inductors is covered here.
Your setup of a series connection of two paralleled inductors each will have twice the saturation current compared to the value you find in one inductor's data sheet.
However, you will likely end up having your four paralleled and series-connected inductors close to each other. Depending on the type of core and the stray field your cores will create, your four inductors might become coupled to a certain degree, with the overall inductance not being what you expect. See here for more info on this issue.
Comment: Thanxx for the link. This is what I want to know.
Answer: If the saturation current of a single 330uH inductor is 2A, then having two in series will still saturate at 2A.
Having two series strings in parallel means the strings as individuals will saturate at 2A but because they are in parallel the circuit combination will saturate at 4A.
Make sure they are not closely coupled or the inductance values will change due to coupling magnetic fields to each other.
Comment: So using this combination can I change the limiting value of Isat?
Comment: @SHASWAT using 4 series / parallel inductors of 2A Isat will yield an overall 4A Isat
Comment: Possibility of any other problem (e.g. magnetic interfernece) or any other issue using this combination?
Comment: @SHASWAT If they are close to each other on the circuit board they may cause the overall inductance to rise due to mutual coupling.


Usage of 'ведь'

Question: I wish I could find a more directly way to phrase this question, but as an English speaker learning Russian, I rarely use the word 'ведь'. I am interested in two things from native speakers: 1) In your view, is 'ведь' necessary to use in order to express some thoughts/types of sentences (examples are very welcome), 2) If so, how do I incorporate it more into my speech? How would you recommend conceptualizing it?
Answer: Typically, ведь is a part of a phrase explaining the reason for something, most often it's a reminder that the reason is known (or easily understandable) to those addressed. It sounds like 'as you know', 'as we both know', 'as everybody knows','as I already knew' , 'since', etc.
Мыть посуду придётся тебе, ведь это ты оставил тарелки после еды.

(It's your turn to wash the dishes since it was you who left those plates on the table after dinner.)
Я поспешил скрыться, ведь он собирался меня убить.

(I made a quick escape: I knew he was going to kill me.)
P.S. Where to use or not to use it. As with the equivalent expressions above: in official documents, something like потому что (because) should be used instead. In case of a dialogue or some interactive writing ведь implies the listener or reader would definitely agree with what is said or written just after that word.
Answer: By using ведь in a question, you make it sound confirming something you already know (ведь is etymologically related to "I know"):

Это ты разбил чашку? // Was it you who broke the cup? (I'm genuinely interested)
Ведь это ты разбил чашку? // It was you who broke the cup, wasn't it? (I'd be surprised if it wasn't you)

Usage of 'ведь'


Extremely large tiff file editing for aerial photography

Question: I am trying to do some touch up work on an extremely large .tiff file.  The file is roughly 80GB(It is an aerial photo).  The software I normally use for viewing such a large file is ArcMap(unrelated to graphic design) However because some touch up work needs to be done(Editing out clouds, etc.) I need to bring it into Photoshop.  The problem is that Photoshop refuses to load a file so large.  I'm running Windows 7 64 bit with 24GB of RAM. I have read that 64bit Photoshop is only limited by the amount of RAM you have.  So...  If I were to actually put more than 80GB of RAM in my machine, would I be able to open and edit the photo?  I'm sure someone out there has a method for editing such a large photo.  Any ideas?
Comment: Can you split the photo up and edit each section individually then put them together again?
Comment: Usually this is broken up and stiched back together.  Never heard of anyone working on a single file that large.
Comment: @Darth_Vader  There are users reporting working with files larger than 60GB: http://goo.gl/rhlzNH . If the computer is sufficiently equipped and Photoshop properly configured of course. An article on Adobe help site https://goo.gl/gh2wEw reports  the PSB file size limit at 4 exabytes, that is 4 million terabytes! The second link which I have just located gives pointers on how to configure Photoshop for large file sizes, much more detailed than what I provided in the answer below.
Answer: I wonder if it is a file format issue. Photoshop uses PSB format for files over 2GB and is limited by the pixel dimensions of 300K x 300K pixels. Even if it cannot load the entire file in one swoop it will swap it to disk and render the visible part. You may want to check the settings in Photoshop to make sure you have plenty of disk space where it is allowed to create swap files. If my memory serves me well you need about 4 times the file size for swap file. If you are not set up for it, you may try increasing the maximum disk space it can use. So, check to see:

If you can output the file as PSB from the source
If not, find out how to convert a file in the format you are using, say TIFF, to PSB outside Photoshop
Check Photoshop scratch disk usage and make sure there is plenty of space there, I would shoot for 500GB available minimum

I am not sure these will allow you to open the file but I believe this is the right path to follow. Unless someone corrects me on this, which is possible.
Comment: Thanks for the great info!  If you could elaborate...  Do you know of any way to achieve your second bullet point (convert to PSB outside of PS)?
Comment: @GeoJohn I do not know a way to make the conversion, it was a suggestion to try and find out if there is a way to make this conversion. Adobe may be of help.


How can Wolfenstein Enemy Teritory with dependency on libgtk1.2 be installed on Ubuntu?

Question: Hey,
Im trying to install Wolfenstein E.T however it comes up with this error message when running, Saying its missing Libgtk-1.2. In the repos there is only libgtk2.0 any ideas how i can get around this problem?
Answer: Either download and compile libgtk-1.2 or update and recompile the game (don't think this is a real possibility, but in theory it works.)
You can google for instructions on how to compile it.
Answer: The enemy-territory package which is available from http://www.playdeb.net does not depend on libgtk1.2 .


Altering Young's double slit experiment due to observation

Question: The interference pattern on the screen is altered due to our observation, but how could this happen, as we have been watching it since we started the experiment? Is there any other meaning of 'observation' in this experiment?
Comment: It has nothing to do with observation. The interference goes away if you block one of the slits with a detector. If you don't have photons coming from multiple slits then there is no interference.
Comment: But I heard by many pof saying path of electron  disturbed due to our observation. Even in YouTube
Comment: you can't observe something with collecting photons (stopping them from contributing at the detection screen) which changes the outcome.
Comment: @BillAlsept . https://youtu.be/DfPeprQ7oGc  at 3.49
Comment: the video is a little silly but at the 3:50 minute mark it makes my point. When they put a device at one slit to observe electrons, light was used. These photons diverted the electrons trajectories. Some trajectories where diverted so much the electron didn't even make it into the slit. Even slightly diverting electrons is enough to destroy the convoluted pattern at the detection screen. So even if you or any living being were not observing, the device would still diminish the interference pattern by diverting electrons.
Answer: Let's compare two experiments. Experiment A is the classical double slit case. The wave function consists of two parts, $\psi_L$ and $\psi_R$, which are coherent and overlap on the detection screen. Thus an interference pattern results from the term $2\psi_L \psi_R$. Experiment B is altered with a detector that can unambiguously determine through which slit the particle went. The detector has two, orthogonal, states, $d_L$ and $d_R$. The total wave function  now is $\psi_L d_L + \psi_R d_R$. The two parts are orthogonal, $2 \psi_L d_L \psi_R d_R=0$, due to the entanglement of the particles with the detector, so no interference occurs, even if the experimenter forgets to watch the detector. Interference can only occur if it cannot be determined through which slit the particle passes.
Answer: It depends on what, exactly, is observed. In the standard version of the experiment, only the position of the electrons as they hit the screen is detected. In this case there are interference patterns. It's only when an additional observation is made, the passage of the electrons through one or the other slit, that the interference patterns disappear.


Tips on Preventing Red Ring of Death

Question: I have an Xbox 360, and hope to have it for a long time. What are some long-term solutions for preventing the famous Red Ring of Death from occuring?
Answer: So the first step is to understand what the Red Ring of Death actually is caused by.  This particular error is very broad, and can be caused by anything failing on the motherboard, such as bad soldering, bad heatsink application, to poor parts.  So unfortunately, a lot of times it's not a matter of if you'll red ring, but when.  Now there are some options which I'll detail in order of cheapest to most expensive.
Cheap Solution
Nice and free however not really reliable.  Make sure your Xbox has lots of room to breathe, keep it in a cool place with lots of airflow, and don't leave it running for long periods of time.  This will minimize your chances of something going wrong.  However a red ring can still occur, but this will give you the best chance of preventing it.
Moderately Priced Solution
Here's where things can get a little tricky.  If your warranty has expired (or if you really don't want to deal with Microsoft's warranty system, then pop that sucker open and add some aftermarket stuff, (Rims, spoiler, some rad decals!).  Seriously though, there are some aftermarket solutions that will help your Xbox out, and won't cost an arm and a leg.  I'll go over two types of products, but there are always more out there.

RRoD kits - Yup you can use them before you red ring as well.  the kit normally includes some extra heatsink pads and thermal paste as well as the tools needed to open up your Xbox and apply them.  The advantage here is that you're in control of the quality of the application here, so take your time.  I've used these kits a few times and always been successful, so applying them ahead of time will add to your system's lifespan.
Fan kits - These are replacement cooling system for your Xbox.  Since the primary problem is heat, upgrading the cooling inside will keep that nasty heat away from your precious components.

Expensive Solution
Expensive yes, but also quite simple.  Buy a new Xbox.  Yeah, it's pretty obvious but it does work.  The newer Xboxes (I can't attest to the Xbox slim, but the newer old Xboxes this applies to) have better parts, and are less likely to fail.  Plus having that manufacturers warranty is pretty nice too.
So there you have it, options are always good.
Answer: The big thing with the red ring of death is heat. There are rumors that it can be caused by other events, but those appear to be in the minority.
With heat, there are a few things to be careful of:

Keep the vents unobstructed (the more space the better)
Keep the vents dust-free
Provide adequate ventilation for your system (having a 360 in a closed entertainment system, even if nothing else is in there / on, there needs to be a place for the heat to go.)
Answer: Over-heating is one of the potential causes, so good ventilation to prevent it from overheating - don't block the vents and make sure there is good airflow around it.
Also try to stand it on a desk or other surface rather than on the carpet to avoid picking up dust.
You still may be unlucky, as poorly soldered joints and other such hardware failures may still lead to failure.
Answer: Don't overheat it. Don't put stuff on your console especially when it's on. Keep it free from dust. AND you need to be lucky because even if you follow all these instructions, you may stil get it.

Tips on Preventing Red Ring of Death


Need Help Creating HTML Code for Outgoing Emails that works as expected on Varied Mac / PC and Mobile IOS / Android Email Clients

Question: I am curious if anybody has any suggestions how to Create Email Safe / Friendly Outgoing HTML?
I know there are various specifications to send HTML Email and have excellent accuracy in the body when received on the client.
I have tried to send various outgoing HTML Email tests, however the receiving client body does not always accurately show up as expected.
Some issues that seemed to be problematic are that the various email clients whether Mobile First - PC or Mac or Linux etc. Seem to display the body differently - and the header tags - media queries and alignment are not what I wanted.

Some say for example the Gmail may not correctly reflect whether header tags such as media queries and or styles etc. work correctly - and that Gmail prefers in-line styles instead... ?

Q: is there someway to minimize these issues so that the body of the outgoing HTML email will largely reflect my original choices?
<!DOCTYPE HTML>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1">

Comment: In general you should use very little CSS. And if you do, use inline CSS because `
Answer: It's one of our notorious tasks as front-end developers to deliver HTML emails that look exactly like the provided design in ALL mail clients :D. I just had to write an answer here, because I was recently tasked to optimise the React component library our team uses to compile HTML emails to fully support Outlook 2016. That's fun!
It is indeed true that every mail client will have a tiny (or huge!) difference in how it renders your HTML. For example, Apple Mail and Gmail have pretty wide support for HTML and CSS specifications, so there's quite some consistency between how your HTML renders in the browser and those mail clients.
Outlook, on the other hand, uses the Word rendering engine to render HTML, and as such, it has a very different approach to getting the same looks as in other mail clients (and why it's every email designer's nightmare).
I would generally advise sticking to HTML tables and inline CSS for pretty much every component you have in your email—they are supported and give consistent renders across most mail clients.
A tool I find useful to check if something I'm about to introduce to the code is supported in our target mail clients is Can I email. For example, if you have elements in your code that use rounded corners, you will discover that the Windows Outlook client does not support the border-radius property:

After I ensured that my source code is supported by every target mail client, or that it has fallback code for specific mail clients such as Outlook, before sending my .html files to the next team, I would ideally want to know how the HTML renders in every target mail client myself.
There are multiple tools for this and I haven't used all of them, but SendGrid has worked great for me. By creating a dynamic template in the email API, you can paste your HTML code and run a test render on a very wide range of mail clients (this is just a part of them):

For example, you can select the Apple Mail and Outlook 2016 clients, and generate a render for those clients:

Once I can verify my compiled HTML code matches the requested design everywhere, I can safely send the files for delivery.

A side tip for enhancing your workflow in creating and designing cross-compatible HTML emails is to use a framework like Astro where you can write reusable components—this makes things especially easier because you can isolate the code of each component to an individual file, and work on making that specific component cross-compatible.
Then, you can create a new page that will serve as your email template, and simply import each component as-is, without having to worry about displaying it correctly in different mail clients that it is already optimised for. Build your project to static .html's and done!
You might also find these articles useful in addressing common problems for Outlook specifically:

Outlook HTML Emails: How to Fix 11 Common Rendering Issues
Adding Rounded Corners to Containers in Outlook | Kontent.ai


A ballad or prose?

Question: I am now planning to start with the third chapter of my novel. I got an interesting idea to write it as a ballad. But I am much better with prose. Will I better off if I continue writing prose or should I experiment with a ballad?
Comment: Hi and welcome to Writers.  I'm putting this on hold for now as you haven't told us enough to do more than offer unsupported opinions.  What is the overall structure of your novel?  How do you envision the ballad working within that?  Are there other musical/poetic motifs?  Will ballads be significant elsewhere?  Are you using it to convey events, provide insight into a particular character (like the ballad-writer), or something else?  Please [edit] to make this question more objectively answerable.  Thanks.  You might want to check out our short [tour] if you haven't yet.
Answer: Since you have written first two chapters in prose, you should stick with prose for them. However, as you have a strong urge to write a ballad, I would say that you must give that a try. If you could manage to write it successfully, you could start the third chapter in prose and then introduce the ballad in pieces along with the prose.
Answer: Are you on a deadline? If not,  there's little downside to experimenting with a ballad form. Might be harder to get traditionally published,  but still: I'd say if you've got the urge to give a ballad a shot, go for it. If it doesn't work so well nothing would stop you redoing it in prose.  You could also do it the other way - keep going so you don't break the prose, but then have fun trying it out as a ballad after and see how you like it.
But I'd definately encourage giving it a shot.

A ballad or prose?


Withdraw paper after the conference

Question: It is possible to withdraw paper after conference is held but paper still not published in ieee xplore.
Answer: The formal "point of no return" is the moment when you have submitted the copyright form. After this, you can still ask the conference chairs and the IEEE contact person to withdraw the paper. While you should not expect a positive reply, there's still a certain chance that they accommodate your request based on good will.
To improve your chances, you should reach out to them as soon as possible. Later in the publication process, the effort for performing the withdrawal may be greater, and you would also have wasted more time on their side to process your paper.
Comment: A short e-mail, asking them if it's possible to withdraw your paper. You should state a reason. For example, you could say that the feedback during the conference made you aware of severe problems with the paper. Since you're not satisfied with quality of the paper anymore, you would like to improve it to resubmit at another conference. You should also keep the conference chairs in the conversation.
Comment: Pretty late, but not impossible. Contact them now.
Comment: It has been 4 month passed. Is it possible to contact ieee contact person.
Comment: How to write them?

Withdraw paper after the conference


How to improve legend spacing for ESRI ArcGIS map

Question: I am using ArcGIS 10.1 and am trying to achieve a fairly uniform amount of white space between the first four legend items and am having difficulties pulling this off.  All four items are separate shapefiles/layers and it would be hard for me to turn these into single layers with categories.  I have had success adding space between the two "areas" by changing some of the values in the legend properties, but I cannot seem to figure out how to reduce the space between the two fire station layers. Any suggestions?
Comment: The issue with the fire symbols may be related to what kind of symbol they are. If they are text/character markers, it's possible that the character location on a line (a font property) is causing the extra space. For example if the character is in the lower part of the line and you have a very large font size, there's going to be a large whitespace above it that is actually part of the character. If using a picture marker symbol this shouldn't happen unless the picture itself has extra whitespace somewhere.
Answer: Two options:

Modify the Legend>Layout>Gaps properties:

Convert legend to graphic, ungroup, and manually space items (using Distribute>Horizontal method).
Answer: The only way I know of doing this is to convert the legend to a graphic:
Right click on the legend in the Layout view > Convert to Graphics.
You can then right click on it again > Ungroup.
You can then individually move all the elements.
NOTE:  This makes your legend static - i.e. if you change the symbology for a dataset or add new data to your map, the legend will not update.
Answer: Since these are all separate layers, I suggest using two legends with a split between legend 1 and legend 2 occurring between the Fire Station layer and the Operational Area Station layer. You can then manually arrange the spacing of the legends as you desire. This approach avoids converting to graphics, so your legends will still automatically update.


Why does the Dock executable not yield any useful strings, unlike other OS X apps?

Question: When I run the strings command on the executable file in most OS X apps (•.app/Contents/MacOS/•), I get a list of routine names, possible hidden preferences, etc. When I run the command on the Dock executable, I get garbage. What makes the Dock executable different from most other Mac programs?
Comment: Might be encrypted, compressed, stripped, obfuscated.
Comment: The same thing also happens with the executables for a few other applications like Finder, Safari, and Transmit. I don't know why they are different, but based on @Chealion's comment at [10.6: No more easily-found hidden preferences - Mac OS X Hints](http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090828194351673) it's probably not at least because of HFS+ compression.
Answer: This is because many OS X binaries are encrypted. They are decrypted in real time by the "Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext" in your /System/Library/Extensions. I don't know why Apple does it. The Get Info string of the file:

The purpose of this Apple software is to protect Apple copyrighted materials from unauthorized copying and use. You may not copy, modify, reverse engineer, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, transfer or redistribute this file, in whole or in part.  If you have obtained a copy of this Apple software and do not have a valid license from Apple to use it, please immediately destroy or delete it from your computer.
Answer: It is very common to compress and strip down a program that is an essential part of the system and runs all the time.
Strings are left in for ease of debugging, but take up extra space that the computer does not need when running. It always is a trade off to decide whether to strip debugging information from an executable but in this case (or in the kernel or other core functions) can serve to optimize the execution speed whether or not it makes it slightly harder to debug issues or poke at the innards of a program.
We likely won't know the reason why this was done, but it is common practice to sample apps over time and select the ones that use the most of the CPU time so that you only optimize code that requires it as opposed to optimizing it all.


One switch controlling 2 lights

Question: I am replacing a 3-way switch that controlled two lights in a bathroom. There is only one switch, but controls two lights. The old switch worked fine. But now when I replaced it, in one switch position one light is on one light is off. In the other switch position, the lights switch so the other is on and the one that was on is now off. I tried a different 3 way switch just in case it was a bad switch. I also tried switching the red and white wires just in case I messed something up but the same thing happens. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!
Comment: It sounds like original switch was a standard 2-way with both lights run in parallel off of the same terminal of the switch (i.e. both lights had their hot wires connected to the same terminal switch terminal -- likely using a short "pigtail" to connect the wires to the terminal). It sounds like you then replaced the 2-way switch with a 3-way switch and connected the hot wires for each light onto the two different terminals of the newly installed 3-way switch.
Comment: Was it a 3 way switch that you replaced? And how was the old switch wired. Bathrooms don't often have two light switches to control their lights.
Comment: In the box that you are working on, are there two, three or four cables (not wires) coming in?
Comment: To expand on BMitch's comment, unless there are two switches controlling the fixtures, it is not a *3-way* switch. A thre3-way has one common terminal and two followers. A modern one also has a grounding terminal (4 terminals overall).
Answer: You are probably not replacing a 3-way. A 3-way switch system uses two switches to control one device. Try using a regular(single-pole) light switch. Connect the the 'live' line or power wire to one side of the switch. Now any device(s) connected to the other side of the switch will be controlled by the switch after you turn the power back on.

One switch controlling 2 lights


Integrating Entity Framework 6.0 with Postgres 9.3

Question: I have a local database developed in Postgres 9.3.  The Postgres server name on my computer is just "localhost".  I would like to use the Entity Framework 6 Designer that is built into Visual Studio 13 to automatically generate a data model of EF classes and properties that correspond to the database tables and columns.
As described in various web articles, and using Nuget package manager, I added onto VS 13 these extensions or packages:  EF 6, Npgsql, Npgsql Data Provider for EF 6, and Dotconnect express for Postgresql.  Afterwards, in the VS 13 Server Explorer window, I was able to connect and see my Postgres tables and columns.
However, I cannot seem to get the EF Designer Wizard to automatically generate the .edmx file.  I tried adding an ADO.net data object, selecting "EF Designer from Database" and alternatively, "Code First from Database."  When I got to the next screen, I had to choose a Data Source.  I tried both "MS SQL Server Database File" and alternatively, "Other."  For the Data Provider, there was no other option than ".Net Data Provider for SQL."
In the next screen I tried to create a connection, using SQL server authentication, with user name and password, but I could never get VS 13 to connect or even display the Postgres server like it did in Server Explorer window.  For the Server Name I used the same one as I used for the Server Explorer window, ie. localhost.mydatabasename.myschema.  For the SQL User, I used the owner of the Postgres database, a Role I created, ie. mydatabasename_role.
When that faied, I tried going into MS SQL Management Studio 2014 to see if I could display the Postgres server there, using the same info used in the Server Explorer window, but I could not get SSMS to display the Postgres server there either.  Is there a way to automatically generate the data model and .edmx file as I have been trying, using just VS 13 and SSMS 14? Or do I need to purchase the proprietary / licensed version of dotconnect for Postgres developed by Devart?  Thank you in advance.
Comment: The Entity Framework support is available only in the Professional edition of dotConnect for PostgreSQL. Please check your current edition via the Tools > PostgreSQL > About menu of Visual Studio. You can download a trial version of Professional Edition from http://www.devart.com/dotconnect/postgresql/download.html. After installing Professional Edition, refer to http://forums.devart.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=28449 (a common issue when using EF 6 with EDM Wizard).
Answer: A Visual Studio plugin is currently being developed which supports the EF Designer Wizard.
You can find it here: https://github.com/npgsql/Npgsql/pull/213
Answer: After about a week of research and banging my head againts my desk, I FINALLY got my Npgsql MVC Entity Framework application to work... and work WITH the wizard. The steps are below....
1) Close Visual Studio, then download and install Npgsql PostgreSQL Integration from: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=RojanskyS.NpgsqlPostgreSQLIntegration
2) Reboot your computer. (yes, it's needed, I promise)
3) Open visual studio and install the following NuGet packages, IN THE ORDER listed and the VERSION listed...
--> EntityFramework version 6.0.0, then clean and rebuild
--> Npgsql 3.1.0, then clean and rebuild
--> EntityFramework6.Npgsql  3.1.1, then clean and rebuild
NOTE: You may need to uninstall other Nuget packages if these will not install in the order and version listed. If so, just make note and add them back later. and yes, you will want to clean/rebuild between each one above.
4) Close all applications and restart your computer. (yes, it's needed, I promise)
5) After your computer restarts, open Visual Studio again and go to your solution. NOTE: I advise you add a new project for your database connection, but this is more a preference than anything.
6) Try using the Entity Framework Wizard again. You should see the Npgsql selections and it shouldn't just crash on you.


What is the most effective unsupervised ML algorithm to use when outliers are present in data set?

Question: I am analyzing a portfolio of about 225 stocks and have gotten data for each of them based on their "Price/Earnings ratio", "Return on Assets", and "Earnings per share growth". I would like to cluster these stocks based on their attributes into 3 or 4 groups. However, there are substantial outliers in the data set. Instead of removing them altogether I would like to keep them in. What ML algorithm would be best suited for this? I have been told that K Means would not work so well since the outliers would skew the centroids of a particular cluster. Any and all thoughts welcome!
Answer: You could try a hierarchical clustering approach. As an example, K clusters could initially be found for the data points. Then, for each of the K clusters, an arbitrary number of clusters could be found from the data points within the cluster to further refine the clustering.
Answer: DBSCAN is a density-based clustering method that is designed to apply to cases with noise.  The user controls the minimum cluster size, which hopefully can be informed by the problem, and clusters that are smaller than this are ignored as noise.
Answer: I suggest giving partitioning at local depth PaLD a try. It tends to output perform most of the other state-of-the art clustering algorithms (e.g. DBSCAN) when density varies greatly in each cluster. If you are an R user this library is available on CRAN. Here is a link to the github repo https://github.com/cran/pald. There are some folks working on a generalized version of this algorithm to deal with uncertainty and that will probably be available as n R library in the future as well.


Bug with Excavator Badge

Question: I edited this post today Fixed positioning in internet explorer? on stack overflow. I was approved of the edit, so I waited a few minutes to get my Excavator badge because this answer was posted on Jan 28 '10 at 1:06, but it never came. I have read multiple articles on meta that there have been bugs with this badge, but they have been about winning it multiple times (excavator badge: one-time only, or multiple times?), or earning it then losing it (Where did my Excavator badge go?). Am I missing something here?
Comment: You need a little more patience than 12 minutes. If it's not there tomorrow evening, you can ask. The script for the Excavator badge doesn't run that often.
Comment: Well, badges are different. Some are awarded immediately, the script for others may run less often. I think the one for Legendary runs only twice a week.
Comment: For most (or at least many) badges, there's a script that queries the database to see who shall get the badge this round. Some of the scripts run multiple times a day, some daily (tag badges, e.g.), some less than daily.
Comment: @CodyGuldner: There are scripts that run in certain intervals and determine *which* badges they're going to check for. Certain badges that are awarded more frequently have better chances of being checked, while badges that are awarded more infrequently (like Excavator) have lower chances of being checked. There's no "exact time" that it will eventually get checked, it's random. The last person who was awarded the badge got it ~50 minutes after their edit. So yes, there's a bit of a wait.
Comment: I have received all of my other badges within a few minutes. So I just thought I might have missed something
Comment: What do you mean when you say run script
Answer: I guess that @animuson and @Daniel Fischer were right. I just received the badge, 44 minutes after I answered the question. So it is a time based script that runs once every so often

Bug with Excavator Badge


Blender and Linux, Which Linux distrubution is best for Blender 2.81

Question: I just bought parts to build a computer for Blender, a Ryzen 7 3800m and RTX 2070 and 32 gb 3200 ram. I want the best OS for running Blender with that system. I understand Linux is the OS that allows blender to work the best. There are so many different Linux distributions though. Which one is best for Blender 2.81?
Comment: Hi Janet. Have voted to close as "primarily opinion based" as is with questions like this "best" can turn into a debate over linux flavours.  Sigh, My system is seriously under-powered in relation to your specs.  FWIW I build blender  on  Ubuntu 18. Ubuntu repos can be notoriously slow to upgrade software to new versions. Can tailor a build to your system. Building blender isn't for everyone. Builds downloaded from blender.org have given me no issues.
Comment: The best Linux distribution for you is the one you're comfortable working with. Blender doesn't really care. If you've never used Linux before and aren't familiar with working on the command line, then I'd suggest something that has a nice UI and doesn't require a lot of tinkering to get things working right. For that I would recommend Ubuntu.
Comment: Although I agree with @batFINGER, I think the prevailing opinion will be unanimous. As possibly bourne out through the comments here.  I have posted an answer to this because I thought there were some good reasons to cover.
Answer: If you are new to Linux then go for one with the best support.  That would, without doubt, be Ubuntu ... the user base is so large that it is really easy to find help.
There is a dedicated Stack Exchange site at https://askubuntu.com/ if you like to search these Q&A sites.
I believe they use(d) Ubuntu at the blender institute, certainly I have have seen it in some of their videos.
It is also popular among blender users.  This screenshot comes from https://snapcraft.io ( Snaps are an app package format, which is officially supported by Blender).

While these stats may be biased (more Ubuntu users will use Snap than other distros), it does show that you would at least have some company.
Once you are comfortable with it, you will find it easier to migrate to other variants many of which are based on Ubuntu, so it is hard to avoid.
Reading this article on best linux distributions for everyone, all but one are based on Ubuntu.
DISCLAIMER: I don't currently use Ubuntu
... but then again I have 20+ yrs experience with linux and like to edit text files.  I have used Ubuntu for long periods, over the years.  It is probably your best start point.


How much C++ is needed to write smart contracts?

Question: Solidity seems to be written in C++ so does that mean that smart contracts require some level of C++ programming skills to get by? How much background knowledge is required for writing a simple one or two-condition contract compared to tokenizing stocks?
Answer: The ("official") Solidity compiler and associated utilities are written in C++.
But Solidity is its own language with its own grammar.

does that mean that smart contracts require some level of C++ programming skills to get by?

No. You could write a Solidity compiler in any language you like as long as the output of compilation is valid EVM bytecode. Knowing the language that the compiler is written in doesn't make the target of that compilation any easier to understand or work with, unless by coincidence there are inherent similarities in those two languages.
(Is Solidity similar to C++? Not similar enough that knowing C++ would give you an advantage, other than the fact that knowing C++ means you're familiar with programming in general. In my opinion.)

How much background knowledge is required for writing a simple one or two-condition contract compared to tokenizing stocks?

Difficult to answer objectively.
Back to the original question:

How much C++ is needed to write smart contracts?

Smart contracts can be written in languages other than Solidity1. Vyper is another popular one, and one which I would argue has greater similarity to Python that Solidity does to C++.
(1 You could write smart contracts in complete gibberish, as long as you wrote a compiler - in any language you like - that could compile that gibberish to valid EVM bytecode.)
Comment: would you say the tokenization of stocks, as well as the writing of non-fungible token smart contracts for securing assets like real estate, would rely predominantly on the Solidity and Vyper languages? what is your outlook for the demand for contract-coding services as more assets become tokenized?
Comment: Yes, currently any tokenisation would predominantly rely mainly on Solidity, and to a lesser extent Vyper. Note that this only answers the question for the Ethereum ecosystem. There are other blockchains that run their own form of smart contracts and have their own smart contract languages. Overall I would expect demand for coding services to increase. Whether Ethereum will remain the best platform - however you qualify "best" - on which to run smart contracts will remain to be seen.
Comment: which blockchains are the second and third runners-up for smart contract writing and adoption?
Comment: It's difficult to tell without being properly immersed in each of the platforms. Adoption could perhaps be determined by the market cap of the associated currency(?). Bitcoin itself has Rootstock, though I'm unsure of adoption. Or developer interest could be gauged by Stack Exchange activity? (In which case Ethereum probably wins. But see EOSIO, Tezos, and Iota Stack Exchange sites, as well as the Bitcoin one. I believe they all have smart contract support.)


Add a recipient to email notifications based on a field's value

Question: We want a form's email notifications to be sent to different recipients depending on fields' values. We could use calculations to constitute the list of recipients but we would need to be able to use a field's name in the "To" list (which is not the case).
Answer: We are considering adding support for multiple conditional notifications.  This is on our Idea Board: https://trello.com/c/iXlwst3H
This would allow you to set up multiple notifications and conditionally control which to send based on information on the form.  We will likely go this route versus using calculations to determine the email address, as it will make more sense to the majority of our users.
Comment: We just released support for adding multiple email notifications and confirmations, which can be conditionally sent based on form field data.  You can also now trigger emails based on changes made while managing submitted entries!


How To Make an Advanced Loading Bar in Sony Vegas

Question: Using Photoshop and Sony Vegas I Have Made a Simple Loading Bar and I Want To Upgrade it. Basically I Want To add a Spark animation To The Top of The Bar That Moves With it until it Loads Completely, I Thought That only Timing Would be The Problem and I could Just use a Push Transition but it doesn't Seem So, Any Ideas?
Comment: Can you illustrate or post an image of what the bar with the spark looks like?
Comment: Sure, Here is a Picture of The Loading Bar about Halfway, and The Spark Animation Where it Should Be When The Bar is Halfway
Comment: Just So That You Know. The Loading Bar is an Image and The Spark is a Video
Answer: If the spark footage has an alpha channel, as is likely, then make sure, it is activated - right-click on the event, launch Properties, and check that Alpha Channel in the Media tab is set to Straight.
Now, animate the Spark's position in its Pan-Crop window to track the leading edge of the bar.

Offhand, I don't know if you parent a track, is the parent's Pan/Zoom inherited by the child tracks. Try it out. For Track Motion, it is, but that reduces the resolution of the footage pre-compositing to fit the project dimensions, so I avoid it.


Why use two stacks to make a queue?

Question: I can see the advantage of using two stacks if an array implementation is used since stacks are more easily implemented using arrays than queues are.
But if linked-lists are used, what is the advantage?
The act of popping the stack onto the queue increases overhead for both linked-list and array implementations.
Answer: It's a common way to implement a queue in functional programming languages with purely functional (immutable, but sharing structure) lists (e.g. Clojure, Haskell, Erlang...):

use a pair of lists to represent a queue where elements are in FIFO order in the first list and in LIFO order in the second list
enqueue to the queue by prepending to the second list
dequeue from the queue by taking the first element of the first list
if the first list is empty: reverse the second list and replace the first list with it, and replace the second list with an empty list

(all operations return the new queue object in addition to any possible return values)
The point is that adding (removing) an element to (from) the front of a purely functional list is O(1) and the reverse operation which is O(n) is amortised over all the dequeues, so it's close to O(1), thereby giving you a ~O(1) queue implementation with immutable data structures.
Answer: This approach may be used to build a lock-free queue using two atomic single-linked list based stacks, such as provided by Win32: Interlocked Singly Linked Lists.
The algorithm could be as described in liwp's answer, though the repacking step (bullet 4) can be optimized a bit.
Lock-free data structures and algorithms is a very exciting (to some of us) area of programming, but they must be used very carefully. In a general situation, lock-based algorithms are more efficient.
Comment: In a multi-writer single-reader case, it's easy to handle "enqueue" operations in efficient lock-free fashion, and likewise for dequeue (not having to lock out writers, and assuming a single reader) if one starts the dequeue with a "pop all" operation on the inbox (basically an `Interlocked.Exchange`).  If there could be multiple readers, it's probably best to let them use locking to arbitrate among each other (their locking wouldn't affect writers).
Comment: This is the explanation I came here searching for. Have an upvote good sir.
Answer: You can make an immutable queue using two immutable stacks.
But, if you just want a mutable queue, using two stacks is a great way to make it slower and more complicated than just using a linked list.
Answer: It's a good learning experience, but not a practical one.

Why use two stacks to make a queue?


Vote to merge "art" and "pictures" labels

Question: It seems (to me at least) that the "art" and "pictures" labels are redundant. Also, I wonder if even "symbols-symbology" should also be absorbed, as well as terms such as "icon", "iconography", "depictions", etc.
Answer: There are a couple of questions about sculptures under art but none about dynamic art-forms, such as music or theater. I think that pictures should be synonimized into a new tag - images, which semantically includes both two-and three-dimensional images, and that this new tag should be applied to all of the questions currently bearing art instead of it, since the word "art" can refer to all kinds of stuff not related to images.
symbols-symbology, on the other hand, refers to all kinds of symbols, including purely conceptual ones. Some symbols are images and vice-versa, but these are different concepts. I think the tags should be distinct.


How to get the temperatur of 2 sensors in java, using an extension board?

Question: There are several questions about getting the temperature but non of them covers a solution for java. I want to build al little weather station in java to gett temp values, unfortunatly i am not that much into soldering and stuff, so i am looking for a simple/ready to use solution. The java libray Pi4j offers access to analogue inputs but which extension board should i use? The soulution should be power saving, cause the station runs with accu's and a small solarcell.
Answer: I would suggest you check the DS18B20 1-wire sensors, which are digital, and have working kernel drivers. Adafruit has a tutorial on how to get them working. You can use up to 10 sensors on the same pin at this time (this is a hardcoded kernel driver limit, as is using the pin it uses. This tutorial has it right, just follow it).
As for reading the results, it is as easy as finding a file with a predefined name pattern and then opening the file for read and parsing 2 lines of content. Using 2 sensors is as easy as duplicating the procedure for reading one. Each sensor will be made available in a different file in the file system.
There is no need for any Java-specific libraries, procedures or tricks altogether. Just open a file with a particular name pattern for reading. If you use the same sensor, the filename will be the same between readings, so you only need to find the filename that the kernel driver creates once for each of the sensors throughout the sensor's lifespan.
As for an expansion board any that makes pin GPIO 4 (which is P1-7) available is okay. That is the fixed pin number used by the 1-wire kernel driver. The Pi Cobbler from Adafruit is one of the many that will do that.
Comment: Thanks for your answer, seems like the tutorial is no longer available, i get an 404.
Comment: That was quick. Just updated the link and should work now.
Answer: There is also a Pi-Weather Station Board available at 28$, that is connected to the I2C-Bus.  The board provides two 1-Wire temperature ports to measure the outside temperature
with DS18B20 sensors. Onboard are a humidity sensor, a pressure sensor and an internal temperature sensor.


How big animals could survive on an island the size of Madagascar

Question: I've been making a story about an lost world island, roughly the size of Madagascar, (593.40 km²). I have currently estimated that I could have herbivorous animals up to 3 tons in weight (sauropods) , and carnivores up to 1 ton (tyrannosaurs) , but I am not sure. Thus im looking for someone to help me out with this problem and hopefully give me the max weight estimation on land animal on the island.
Comment: Just a note: Madagascar has an area of 587,000 km² (227,000 sq. mi.). That is more than two and a half times the area of Great Britain, or 90% of the area of France, or about 85% of the area of Texas. It is a large island.
Comment: Hi DeadlyCow welcome.. but I think it will be difficult. Madagascar may suffice, but on a smaller island, it will be implausible. You'd need a lot of food. Large volumes, a tropical rain forest.. else, a food chain cannot be maintained. Your big herbivores need a lot of plant life to support them ! The larger a predator, the larger its territory needs to be. As a consequence, in evolution, the opposite seems to happen.. animals get smaller on islands.. Read this  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_dwarfism
Answer: The Island Rule states that on islands large animals become smaller and smaller animals become larger. So elephants on an island would become smaller and rodents would become larger.
Answer:
The prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana separated the Madagascar–Antarctica–India landmass from the Africa–South America landmass around 135 million years ago. Madagascar later split from India about 88 million years ago during the late Cretaceous period allowing plants and animals on the island to evolve in relative isolation.[26]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar#Geography
So dinosaurs living on Madagascar any time during the last 20 million years of the Cretaceous Era should have been the right size to flourish on an island of that size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_and_Madagascan_dinosaurs
Large sauropod dinosaurs known only from Madagascar after it separated from Indian and became an island include:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vahiny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapetosaurus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narindasaurus
Carnivorous dinosaurs from the late Cretaceous in Madagascar include:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majungasaurus


How to test whether mean and variance is the same in two small samples?

Question: I would like to test two relatively small samples against the null hypothesis that both their means and variances are the same. The alternative would be that they in fact differ. I saw a post on this site advocating a ML test but I recall there is also a named test for this case, which I would ideally like to use in R, but whose name I forget. Can anyone help? Normality assumptions might be reasonable but would be difficult to test.
Comment: I think I am looking for a test that combines these two into a single statistic rather than providing two separate readouts. The F-test (on variances) does actually show up significant in some cases which might be enough but it would nice to have it in one. Also wondered about the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (which has assumptions I usually forget) but there is another based just on means and variances.
Comment: Would Levene's test and an independent groups t-test do what you want?
Comment: It is hard to see how you could have a test based on means and variances without an assumption about the probability distribution behind the data. What does "relatively small" mean exactly?
Comment: Yes, I agree, and I guess this is a problem with all tests at some level. Sample sizes are 7+7.
Comment: For mean test you may use nonparametrics (that does not require distribution assumption) like Wilcoxon https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/stats/html/wilcox.test.html
Answer: I would argue that it isn't possible to properly perform a joint test on the first two moments without knowing more about the distribution. Since there is no general rule as to how moments interact, it is impossible to construct a tight confidence region.
If you dare to make a normality assumption on both samples, the situation changes since the first two moments define the normal distribution, such that for example the Kolmogorov-Smirnoff test is equivalent to testing the first two moments. Be aware though that you would be using asymptotic results on assumed distributions.
Comment: Good points about distributional assumptions and the KS test. I'm sure there is a 'classical' named test out there but I have forgotten where I saw it.  That said, the fact that a test has a name attached to it does not make it always valid. The situation often arises in biological data as systems may be more dynamic as they become active beyond that which you can control with standard data transformation.


How do I kill a VMware virtual machine that won't die?

Question: I've got a virtual machine running on a server that I can't stop or reboot - I can't log onto it anymore and I can't stop it using the VMware server console.  There are other VM's running so rebooting the host is out of the question. Is there any other way of forcing one machine to stop?
Answer: If you're on linux then you can grab the guest processes with
ps axuw | grep vmware-vmx

As @Dubas pointed out, you should be able to pick out the errant process by the path name to the VMD
Comment: Great. Using this command you can view the path of the Machine to select the correct PID easily.
Answer: If you are using Windows, the virtual machine should have it's own process that is visible in task manager. Use sysinternals Process Explorer to find the right one and then kill it from there.
Answer: In some cases you may not be able to suspend, or for that matter take any of the "Power" actions on the VM. You may also already have multiple VMs up and running. Use this process to identify the correct PID to kill.
On Windows 7 - Open Task Manager - Look for processes with the name, "vmware-vmx.exe", note the PIDs.
Switch to the Performance tab and start the "Resource Monitor". Expand the "Disk Activity" panel. Sort the "File" column. Look for the appropriate vmdk file for the VM you want to kill. The "Image" column will have the "vmware-vmx" process listed. Note the PID.
Switch back to the "Processes" tab and kill the PID.
Answer: Here's what I did based on
a) @Espo 's comments and
b) the fact that I only had Windows Task Manager to play with....
I logged onto the host machine, opened Task Manager and used the view menu to add the PID column to the Processes tab.
I wrote down (yes, with paper and a pen) the PID's for each and every instance of the vmware-wmx.exe process that was running on the box.
Using the VMWare console, I suspended the errant virtual machine.
When I resumed it, I could then identify the vmware-vmx process that corresponded to my machine and could kill it.
There doesn't seem to have been any ill effects so far.
Comment: There won't bee any ill effects. VMWare handles processes separately for each VM. In fact it handles the VM Engine and the VM Graphics separately too. So your graphic could crash but your VM will keep working.
Comment: Good to see that it helped. If you had used Process Explorer you could have seen the window title and the name of the disk-file which would have saved you the typing. (Who is using Pen&Paper these days? :) )
Answer: Similar, but using WMIC command line to obtain the process ID and path:
WMIC /OUTPUT:C:\ProcessList.txt PROCESS get Caption,Commandline,Processid

This will create a text file with each process and its parameters.  You can search in the file for your VM File Path, and get the correct Process ID to end task with.
Thanks to http://windowsxp.mvps.org/listproc.htm for the correct command line parameters.
Answer: see the following from VMware's webpage
Powering off a virtual machine on an ESXi host (1014165)
Symptoms
You are experiencing these issues:
You cannot power off an ESXi hosted virtual machine.
A virtual machine is not responsive and cannot be stopped or killed.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1014165
"Using the ESXi 5.x esxcli command to power off a virtual machine
The esxcli command can be used locally or remotely to power off a virtual machine running on ESXi 5.x. For more information, see the esxcli vm Commands section of the vSphere Command-Line Interface Reference.
Open a console session where the esxcli tool is available, either in the ESXi Shell, the vSphere Management Assistant (vMA), or the location where the vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI) is installed.

Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:

esxcli vm process list

Power off one of the virtual machines from the list using this command:

esxcli vm process kill --type=[soft,hard,force] --world-id=WorldNumber

Notes:
Three power-off methods are available. Soft is the most graceful, hard performs an immediate shutdown, and force should be used as a last resort.
Alternate power off command syntax is: esxcli vm process kill -t [soft,hard,force] -w WorldNumber

Repeat Step 2 and validate that the virtual machine is no longer running.

For ESXi 4.1:
Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:

esxcli vms vm list

Power off one of the virtual machines from the list using this command:

esxcli vms vm kill --type=[soft,hard,force] --world-id=WorldNumber"

Answer: For ESXi 5, you'll first want to enable ssh via the vSphere console and then login and use the following command to find the process ID
ps -c | grep -i "machine name"

You can then find the process ID and end the process using kill
Answer: For VmWare fusion, hold the alt key while you click 'restart virtual machine'
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1006215


What is the 'bump' near $M_{\mu\mu}\approx 30\text{ GeV}$

Question: In this (attached) Summer 2011 plot from CMS (twiki page), they have a plot of the dimuon invariant mass spectrum across 3 orders of magnitude in energy.  There seems to be a 'bump' near $M_{\mu\mu}\approx 30\text{ GeV}$ which I have indicated in the plot.  Does anyone know where the gentle but distinct rise is coming from?
Comment: One needs a Monte Carlo to be sure, but I think it is dimuons made up  by a muon from a Z or W decay and the second one a random from some other process, even another Z or W . W and Z open at 80 and 90, GeV  30 GeV seems a reasonable sort of threshold for misidentified pairs to appear in bulk.
Comment: Hmmm...nothing in my rather outdated home copy of the *Particle Physics Booklet*. Be aware that not every bump is a particle, but I haven't a clue.
Comment: Yeah, I know its not a particle.  I just wanted to know what's going on in that region in terms of the dynamics.  Or maybe is it because they are counting EVENTS and not absolute cross section?  So there's a little bit of spectral luminosity dependence?
Answer: I would say that this is not physics but rather a detector/instrumentation effect. More specifically this could be due to the fact that the grey distribution is one that is collected with a high-$p_\mathrm{T}$ muon trigger. These triggers kick in at around 15-20 GeV. Depending on the topology of the event (angles) the invariant mass would of this range as well.
It is instructive to have a look at plots using different triggers.
1) in fact in the plot you reference there a a number of different trigger configurations (setup specifically for the resonances plus two general low/high pt trigger paths) superimposed over each other.
2) here's a similar plot with muons trigger that do not have a pt threshold. notice the lack of a bump in the region you specified.

3) here a similar plot by ATLAS (from 2010) where only events passing the high pt muon threshold are plotted. Notice how the bump seems to reappear.

Answer: If you go to the preprint of CMS at this link the uncorrected dimuon plot is shown in fig1 on the left. The bump is there. The ratio of data to Monte Carlo is correctly around 1.
From the monte carlo it is seen that the 30GeV bump comes from collective QCD related effects.

Figure 1: The observed dimuon (left) and dielectron (right) invariant mass spectra. No corrections are applied to the distributions. The points with error bars represent the data, while the various contributions from simulated events are shown as stacked histograms. By "EWK" we denote W to lepton neutrino  and diboson production. The "QCD" contribution results from processes associated with QCD and could be genuine or misidentied leptons. The lower panels show the ratios between the measured and the simulated distributions including the statistical uncertainties from both.

The dielectron distribution does not show the bump, a good reason to accept that it is  misidentification and kinematic balance effect.
Comment: @LubošMotl . missed it.( I check your blog almost every day for new physics)I would have cleared up that it is a single author working on the archived data in 2016. We had not seen anything  like that, had missed it (if itis correct, it has not been published yet outside arxiv,afaik)_
Comment: regarding the arxiv paper: given that this is a log scale, the QCD contribution in the muon plot seems not too large, maybe 10% at most.
Comment: Dear Anna, given the fact that the 28 GeV dimuon excess was later discussed by lots of physicists, see e.g. https://motls.blogspot.com/2018/10/cms-excess-dimuon-resonance-of-mass.html?m=1 - don't you think that your "nothing to see" answer might have been premature?
Comment: @LubošMotl  Dear Lubos I wlll be very happy i  they (myself included) were premature  (2012 the date) in dismissing it. Let us see what the future brings.
Comment: @LubošMotl  Have you seen this analysis on archived ALEPH data https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.06536
Comment: Yes, I did, it was discussed visibly in my blog post about that excess https://motls.blogspot.com/2018/10/cms-excess-dimuon-resonance-of-mass.html?m=1


Joya Seed: How to plant?

Question: Not giving me the option to plant them anywhere but I have three of them? I have tried potted plant, and farm plot.
Comment: Joyas are decorative plants supposed to be planted in a pot. What goes wrong, maybe something blocks the tile or a seed is inaccessible?
Answer: Joya seeds are decorative plants and as such can only be planted in the Flower Pot, Wall Pot, Hanging Pot, or Aero Pot.
If you select one of these 4 objects and the Joya plant is greyed out, it means that the seeds are inaccessible.

Joya Seed: How to plant?


Can I limit total cputime used by a cgroup?

Question: Although cgroups seemingly allow to control the CFS bandwidth of a cgroup, I don't see a way of enforcing a cpu time limit on a cgroup. The use case is that I would like to catch student programs that e.g. go into an infinite loop.
Comment: I solved this with getrlimit(2) (to limit CPU time per process, which are inherited by its children) and limits.conf(5) (to limit forking, which is a good idea anyhow). But this is not very fine grained.
Comment: Please, take a time and post your comment as an answer and accept it :)
Answer: You can use the information from this Red Hat page if you want to stick to Control Groups, but I think your ulimit solution is a reasonable approach and doesn't require the configuration that cgroups would require (just add one command to /etc/profile and you're good).


Why has one of my two propane fireplaces suddenly gone completely out?

Question: I have two open propane fire places one in my livingroom & the master bedroom right beside the livingroom. I have been using them both with out the logs in the fire place for a month or so now, anyway the one in my bedroom just shut off the polit light an all, the one in the livingroom is still on, they both are running off the same 100 lb tank that is new. I have been using them for almost two months now & never had this happen. I need to know what is going on I have small children in my home & will need them for heat & I won't sleep well till I know for a fact what the problem is or if I should let someone trained to look at it, my old man says he can fix it but I am a mom like I said an I am going to worry. Please someone help me figure out what is going on.
Comment: Likely a bad thermocouple, but from here it's hard to say.  Thermocouples are an inexpensive safety device.. they do wear out over time.  It's designed to turn the gas off if the pilot flame gets blown out.
Answer: Before I speak to the problem of the one fireplace not working let me say a couple of things.  First, these types of appliances; gas logs in open masonry fire places are some of the least efficient ways to heat a room.  The vast majority of what little heat they make goes up the chimney. In a given 24-hour period you could experience a net loss in heat to the space.  Second, those units should not be used without their logs in place.  The logs are an integral of the appliance and its safe burning. They are an approved appliance if they are used according to manufacturer's instructions.  With out the logs, they are not an approved appliance.  As to the malfunction in the bedroom unit, it is probably something simple to repair. And those units have layers of built-in safety. No cause for alarm.  Simply because it is not burning is no indication that it represents a hazard.  Without a standing pilot all the valves close to stop any flow of gas. You may just need to relight the pilot, after you get the logs set properly.
Comment: Not always true. [Ventless gas fireplaces](https://www.google.com/search?q=ventless+gas+fireplace)


What should be used to insulate around the interior brick of chimney that is next to drywall?

Question: There is a center ledger, covered in painted drywall - next to the centered brick chimney(in the center of the house).  There's a gap between the ledger and the chimney.  Is "Great Stuff" safe to use to insulate this?  Isn't there a "Great Stuff" of similar product that is fire retardant?  The chimney doesn't get hot, but it can get warm when temperatures get extreme.
Comment: The Great Stuff made for fire retardation is more flammable than the regular Great stuff - which is pretty flammable itself - search youtube for this.  I would use roxul.
Answer: The clearance for combustible materials to a properly built masonry chimney like you describe would be 0"; no clearance required.
I would use just about anything you want and worry more about getting your chimney inspected and cleaned on a regular basis.


Are these kinds of sentences considered proper English?

Question: Often, I come across expressions like 'I can't have no money', 'I don't want no help', 'Do you want them tomatoes', 'Be careful with them toes' when watching cartoons, movies and shows. Does anybody consider these to be proper English?
Comment: This should be two separate questions.
Comment: Much like Yoda says, "There is no proper or improper English. There is only language." Either the language is communicative or non-communicative. If it's functional, then it by definition is good English. Perhaps you mean to ask whether these expressions are formally accepted as part of Standard AmE or BrE vernaculars. If that is the case then it's been well established that double negatives are a prevailing part of English. It's only been seen as a 'improper' use due to the parochial nature of English grammar instruction in public institutions.
Answer: They're definitely improper, but they're often considered acceptable in very informal situations.
Comment: OR in different dialects, even when they speak formally.
Answer: None are correct English, but they are typical in the vernacular. These particular examples are often used by Cockneys (people from east London), where double negatives are common, often for comical effect (in the form of irony or sarcasm) or to emphasise.

I can't have no money, I don't want no help

More frequently "I ain't got no money". Negating the fact reinforces the speaker's lack of money / complete refusal of help.
In a sarcastic vein, a Cockney would say:

D'ya see Andy's new bird? No slim chick!

Andrew has a new girlfriend. She's very fat.

Do you want them tomatoes? Be careful with them toes

I don't know the origin of these deliberate errors (them instead of those), but I suspect that they are a way to identify oneself as a member of the community. Another common deliberate mistake is to decline the verb "be" as if it were regular:

We was waiting for the bloke, an'  'e never came!
Comment: Things like this aren't deliberate, that's a common fallacy. Speech is spontaneous. Dialectal features can mark someone as an in-member of a community, and there can be conscious awareness of this, but no one is "making mistakes on purpose" for that. They aren't even making mistakes, all of these sentences are grammatical!
Answer: "I can't have no money" - This is an example of negative concord which is common in African American Vernacular English. Its meaning is not emphatic, the extra negative words actually agree with the first negative (n't in this case) just like "any" in a standard English sentence: "I can't have any money"
I don't know about "Do you want them tomatoes" specifically but it seems like "them" is replacing "those" which isn't too crazy.
The important part is that there's no such thing as speaking "incorrectly" if you're a native speaker. Native fluency is the definition of your language, anything a native speaker says intentionally (not mistakes) is acceptable.
Answer: The first two aren't grammatically wrong, they just don't say what people typically mean when they say them.
Comment: If by that you mean they must be understood as double negatives, I would disagree.
Comment: Seems fairly clear cut to me. Not sure how you disagree.
Comment: Because in AAE as well as other dialects of English, the sentence:
"I don't want no fries"
Is actually 100% exactly equivalent to:
"I don't want any fries"

You probably aren't realizing that "any" is a negative tag marker in "negative" contexts, exactly as "no" in the first sentence above.
Comment: I think standard English is assumed here, and the status of AAE seems debatable. If double-negatives imply the opposite in AAE then that doesn't bode well for it.
Comment: The point is that this sentence doesn't exist in standard English. The only speakers who would negative concord are AAE speakers.

There's the prosodic option of "I don't want NO fries (I want SOME)" which is a double negative and is proper English. But those sentences are totally different in form so of course they differ in function.
Answer: They aren't proper English, no. If you think about:

I don't have no money.

it actually means 'I have money'; it's an example of a double negative, and as such means the exact opposite of what the speaker wanted to convey.
Comment: Sure, in standard English it would be a double negative. This is not the case in the dialect, however.


Text Dataset for Entity Recognition of personal data

Question: I am looking for a data set to train and set up a personal information masking application. Is there a text data set available with the name, location, bank account numbers, SSN, Name, Ip address etc (either anonymized or masked, I am only interested in sentence structure and not the actual SSN or Bank account number)? I am trying to build an application similar to this https://presidio-demo.azurewebsites.net/
Answer: Annotated Corpus for Named Entity Recognition - Feature Engineered Corpus annotated with IOB and POS tags
Annotated Corpus for Named Entity Recognition using GMB(Groningen Meaning Bank) corpus for entity classification with enhanced and popular features by Natural Language Processing applied to the data set.

Who starts and who debunks rumors Webpages cited by rumor trackers

Best place to explore more datasets
Kaggle

15 Free Datasets and Corpora for Named Entity Recognition (NER)
Answer: You can use one of the datasets mentioned in physician notes with annotated PHI. PHI = protected health information, which is basically the personal information you're mentioning.


Showing new list element form on button click

Question: does anyone know how to show the new list element form on button click, that I have on my custom aspx page? Like when you have a sharepoint list and you click on "add item" and a new element form loads up in a new dialog window? I need the same thing to happen when I click on my button. I know how to do that in Sharepoint Designer, but I need to do it programmatically in visual studio. I assume Javascript must be involved in some way and I am terrible with it. Thaks in advance!
Answer: In SharePoint 2010(I think aslo in the previuos versions) using IE developer toolbar You can read the javascript assigned to the onClick attribute of the "Add new Item" button and then create Your own button with the same onClick method.
Update:
Open IE developertool bar -> click on the arrow in the top left corner of IE developer toolbar -> select the "Add new item" button on the desired list -> read the onClick javascript
Comment: Thanks for the reply, zavaz. Coould you elaborate where exactly I can find it? I opened IE developer toolbar, but can't find where exactly this onClick method is


Why is action abstract?

Question: I can see someone dancing, I can see someone's motion, I can smell something burns, I can feel air moves. However, why is action abstract?
Comment: ...because a philosopher asserted this opinion, and was believed? Just a guess.
Comment: I could tell you a chair is abstract - it's very difficult to teach a computer what a chair is, requiring one to build abstractions upon abstractions.  Things that seem intuitive to us are actually the result of extremely complex neural processes.  The world is made of atoms, and "chair" is a pattern our brains abstract away from the atoms.   If that's not the answer you're looking for, you'll have to be more clear and specific about what you mean.
Comment: In such sense, is there something that's not abstract?
Comment: The *idea* of action is abstract. The action itself is rather real.
Comment: "The whole problem of justifying nature, of trying to make life mean something in terms of its future, disappears utterly. Obviously, it all exists for this moment. It is a dance, and when you are dancing you are not intent on getting somewhere… The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance" - Alan Watts
Answer: Consider the following photograph:

What is the action in this photo? Or perhaps more pertinently, where is the action in this photo? In this owl flying forward? Leaping up or back? Falling like a stone? Hovering in mid-air like a UFO? And really (as an aside), what's with that cheeky expression on its face? What's going on there?
Action by definition involves a change of state over time. But human sensory apparatuses and human cognition can only observe one state at one time. Every thing else is either memory or anticipation. We don't 'see' action; we 'intuit' action by building up a storehouse of frequently observed state-changes and inferring regular (normalized) patterns of change that we call actions.
Action is a theory — one for which we have a lot of evidence, granted — and all theory is abstract.
You can think of this in Sherlock Holmes terms. Holmes walks into a room and sees a dead woman on a divan, a pile of ash in an ashtray, cryptic symbols scribbled on the wall, a red-tipped bird feather; he smells a hint of lavender and muscat wine; feels the heat left in the embers of the fire and the texture of the woman's shawl. He then stands up and tells us not only who the murderer is, but what actions occurred (in the room, and beyond) that led to the woman's demise. No one 'saw' these actions happen; none of us would have known a thing about them if Holmes weren't there to enlighten us. But all Holmes did was look at a single slice of time, and theoretically deduce the actions that must have occurred to create the experience of that single slice of time. And that is all we are doing when we 'watch' an owl in flight.
Answer: In physics, action is defined as energy time the time the energy is considered. If I try to find my way through a pile of sand and use my body in trying to break through to the other side I can do this in various ways. I can do it efficiently, I can do it wildly, I can go in the wrong direction, etc. Using different energies in each scenario. Energy is defined as force times distance. So depending on my chosen path through the pile and the way I uses my forces I can break on through in various ways to the other side. The whole field of quantum field theory is based on this kind of thinking though the ways to get to the other side (in a phasespace)  are virtual, just ideas of a real action that can be assigned to a real particle and in such a sense abstract. The real particle excercises all virtual actions at the same time but ends up having realized one real action when measured.
But this is no place to go into physics. I merely used this example because the concept of action bevomes very real in this field. I think it is clear that time, space, and force are not abstract. So the action is neither. That is, the action is real.

Why is action abstract?


Program to check C and/or C++ code style

Question: I am searching for free Linux tool that can analyze C and C++ code of my program and return style improvement suggestions. I would like to check against coding standards like variable naming, capitalization, spacing, indentation, bracket placement, and so on.
Comment: This seems far too vague to get a good answer.  For instantce, how do you expect to tell it what "good variable naming" is?  If I found you a tool that insisted that all identifiers had to be made only out of the character "x", would you be happy?  I don't think you have stated your requirements clearly.
Comment: @IraBaxter , for example,check google c++ style guide(I need something like this but  it is book and I need program implementation). PS:There you can find variable naming..
Comment: OK, so clarify what you actually want.  You want the Google book exactly? Something different? SR requires that your question be clearly answerable.
Comment: It doesn't do anything with the stupid names you give stuff, but uncrustify does most of the formatting that you are looking for.
Answer: If you're ok with using clang utilities you can use ClangFormat. Usually I use this to just force a certain format, but you could use the <code>-output-replacements-xml</code> flag to check if anything needs to be changed.
Note that this allows you to specify what a good format is by using different coding styles like llvm, Google or Mozilla standards (you can even make your own!).
Comment: @IraBaxter I recognize the difference between styling and coding rules - yes clang-format applies styling. As far as I understand this is part of what the OP wants (in fact he uses both "style" and "coding standards", so both would probably help him). Nonetheless talking about *opinions* is fairly ambiguous. clang-format certainly outputs opinions about the code considering the styling it applies is an opinion of someone.
Comment: He's asking about coding style, not format.
Comment: @IraBaxter it certainly sounds like he's asking about the formatting, i.e. he wants to verify his program follows a certain scheme of `variable naming, capitalization, spacing, indentation, bracket placement`, which is exactly what clangformat does - it outputs the formats that don't follow a style you want.
Comment: He wants something that produces opinions. What opinions does Clangformat have about variable names?  Coding standards usually refers to the way things are expressed, e.g., the Misra standards.  Yes, such standards can have rules about { placement, but those are hardly the deep ones, and AFAIK, ClangFormat doesn't have an opinion, just a result.
Comment: Of course, OP is always welcome to clarify.


Doubts about avatars of Vishnu

Question: My question is how come two avatars of Vishnu (Rama and Parasuraman) can be in the same place in the same time ( Ramayana ) ?
Comment: Viṣṇu is paramātman, there is no contradiction at all in his two avatāras existing simultaneously. This is discussed even in Brahma sūtra 1.3.27 with respect to the presence of devas in yajñas, and said that devas can assume many forms. From Br̥hadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (3.9.1-2), we know that each deity can have many forms simultaneously. In Mahābhārata, also it is stated that a yogī, who has acquired supernatural powers as a result of yoga, can assume many forms, have many experiences and take them all back in himself.
Comment: I would recommend you to check the traditional bhāṣyas on Brahma sūtra 1.3.27, of Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and Madhva especially. They contain more detailed discussion on this (at least Śaṅkara's bhāṣya on 1.3.27 is useful)
Answer: Srimad Devi Bhagwatam Mahā Puranam 5:1:12-54. says thus.:

12-54. Vyāsa said :-- "True it has been said by you that Vāsudeva the Janārdana, is the destroyer of the Daityas and He is able to create and preserve the Devas and do all other acts for them. But the Great Lord assumed a human body; therefore he had to perform his duties like a man and observe the Varṇa and Āśrama Dharmas pertaining to human beings. . . . Again, the Ṛṣi Nārāyaṇa is the part incarnate of Viṣṇu, and Vāsudeva is the part incarnate of the Ṛṣi Nārāyaṇa; hence what wonder is there, if Vāsudeva be seen to adore and propitiate Śiva? Śiva is the God of gods; and He is the Lord of all the causal bodies that exist; in the state of Suṣupti (deep sleep). In this respect, Śiva is the creator of Viṣṇu and Viṣṇu worships Him in this light. Rāma, Kṛṣṇa and others are all part incarnations of Viṣṇu; so there is no wonder if they worship Śiva......."

Avatars of Lord Vishnu meeting other avatars or avatars meeting Lord Vishnu the avatari himself is not a new concept. Lord Rama Saw Lord Vishnu, Lord Krishna and Arjuna (The Nara Avatar) also met Lord Vishnu. Lord Bhargava Parshu Rama and Dasharathi Sri Rama met each other. The verses are given in this answer of mine.
I hope this clarifies all your queries. Prd..

Doubts about avatars of Vishnu


How to create this sort of gritty, badly scanned texture?

Question: How can I recreate the texture below? I always adored these collaged paperized 'gritty, badly scanned' grainy almost fabric-ky effect on a pic.
Comment: Hi there and welcome to GDSE. It would be really helpful if you specified which application you use.
Comment: @Wolff it would be "mega" helpful!
Comment: Appears to be "halftones" in Photoshop. Search this on YouTube :)
Answer: It appears to be a scan of a colour halftone image. These are commonly seen in newspapers, if you examine them closely enough.
Photoshop and GIMP have filters that can apply such an effect.
In Photoshop: Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone
In GIMP: Filters > Distorts > Newsprint
Comment: thank you so much!! you nailed it that's exactly it!!
Comment: @RafReyes, unless you are waiting for better answers to come up, please remember to *accept* the answer so other can benefit from it and Billy can get some more of his precious reputation points.


Change Logout Url

Question: I have EE 4.0.9 , when members logout from their accounts , the logout path redirect them to home page automatically ,how can i change the redirect link when members logout.
Answer: I think you should try after updating the CP session type to Session ID only. You can change it from Settings >> Security & Privacy.

Change Logout Url


Well Cataloged Airplane Sounds

Question: Hello Everyone,
I am going to be working on 2 one hour documentaries on naval aviation. There is a need for many airplane SFX ranging from WWI to the modern day.  Because of the nature of the docs and the expected audience, there is a desire for as much accuracy in the sounds of the planes as possible.  Does anyone know of a well cataloged source, commercial or self recorded that I could purchase.  I have some budget but not a tremendous amount.   I already have many of the general commercial libraries, so what I am looking for is something more specific and well cataloged.  Any help greatly appreciated.
Answer: This place may be able to help you. They have an official recording deal with the Reno Air Races.
Comment: Thanks Justin, this is exactly what I was looking for.  I am surprised it didn't come up in any of my searches.
Comment: Awe man! I wish I had asked this question a couple years back when I had to recreate historical dogfight audio with no sources for Military Channel....I ended up finding a model air plane group who sampled the actual planes for playback from their models.  They were stoked to have their recordings on TV and cut me a break by giving me some Japanese Zero samples and some Wildcat recordings. Everything else I had to approximate by looking up which planes were old school prop and which had super chargers, etc. and finding similar engine builds from the sounds I did have.
Comment: Nice link, though there doesn't seem to be any mention on licensing the sounds. It's probably worth checking with Air Craft Records before using them in any work.
Answer: Stephan Shutze's sound library probably has some of what you want, I think. He's recorded sounds from a variety of planes, each in a sizable number of different states. The Artificial Sounds section of his sound library lists them, just look filenames beginning with 'AIRCRAFT,' 'AIRPLANE' and 'AIROPLANE' (Spelling is not his strongest point).
He does charge money, so if you're adverse to paying you might need to look elsewhere.

Well Cataloged Airplane Sounds


Marriage restriction for a Cohen who is pasul for service in the BHM

Question: Do the marriage restrictions of Vayikra 21:7 apply to a Cohen who is pasul for Service in the Beit Hamikdash? (eg.  He has a moom.  Am not asking about a Chalal)
Comment: @sabba a kohen can't become a challal no matter what
Comment: [Welcome to MiYodeya](https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3887/11501) Karyn. Hope to see you around!
Comment: He can eat the Korbanot even if he has a Mum, so I can't imagine his "holiness" is affected at all. Clearly they can't get married.
Comment: Note that the pesukim which give the marriage restrictions speak of all kohanim, no matter if they have a mum or not. If a mum had such an effect, a kohen with a temporary mum would be allowed to marry and be required to divorce when it goes away. That is not logical. Also as @DoubleAA said, a kohen with a mum is allowed to eat from the korbanos, which he would not be allowed to do if he had married improperly (and become a challal).
Comment: @DoubleAA I meant that while a kohen is married to a divorcee, he is treated like a challal (and is pasul). Once he divorces the woman he can return to the avodah. I had thought that he would be called a challal during that time. I apologize if I was mistaken on the term used. See [The Status of a Kohen who Marries a Divorcee](http://www.dailyhalacha.com/m/halacha.aspx?id=1420) `The Ben Ish Chai , in his work Od Yosef Chai (Parashat Tetzaveh, 5), rules that a Kohen who marries a divorcee may not participate in Birkat Kohanim or be called for the first Aliya.`
Answer: There are well-known teshuvot on this issue, the most famous being that issued by the Rabbinate on Israeli Supreme Court Justice Chaim Cohen back in the 70's. He offered to cut a finger off to make himself posul so he could marry a divorcée. The rabbis said that even if the Kohain in question is horribly maimed (the example they used was losing an entire arm) and totally unfit for service in the Beit HaMikdash there is no way out, he still can't marry a convert, divorcée or chalitza widow. Cohen ended up getting married in a civil ceremony in NY and later followed up with a wedding officiated by a Conservative rabbi.
The story is discussed in Saul Bellow's "To Jerusalem and Back", here's a Baltimore Sun article from the 90's referencing it.