Unlocking iPhone 4

Question: I forgot my passcode to my phone because my friend changed it. I'm not locking it, so I can still use my phone. The computer my phone is backed up on is down right now. Is there any way I can go to the apple store and have them unlock my phone? Or any way to take my passcode off besides resetting it on my computer. That option is not possible right now.
Thanks.
Answer: No. There is no way to bypass the passcode lock on iOS. Either you remember the code/get it from your friend, or you have to restore the iPhone.
Answer: You'd have to restore the phone using iTunes on a Mac or PC
To do that, turn off your phone, than plug your phone in (to the computer) while keeping the home button pressed until an iTunes symbol appears on the iPhone's screen. iTunes should "detect a phone in restore mode" and you'll be able to reset your phone.
Apple Article on the topic: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1212?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Answer: If you have a back up from before it was changed you can do a DFU restore then restore back to what it was like before
Comment: Thanks for your answer, M3000! Can you please add more information about how to do a DFU restore? Thanks.

Unlocking iPhone 4


Are there any alternate means of doing password recovery?

Question: To prevent entering U 12.04 I set my log in password to none (blank) Since then I can not authenticate as administrator as all possible passwords I tried are rejected.
Besides, I can not enter recovery mode as the shift key does not work when rebooting.
Any other way to enter Recovery M.?
Answer: If you installed the system yourself, your user will be member of sudo and admin. In this case your password, not the root password will ba asked.
Try (in a terminal):
sudo su -

and give your own password.
If none of that works, boot into Ubuntu using a rescue CD (or USB key)

On the boot prompt choose "Advanced options" and/or "Rescue a broken system"
Answer the prompts about language and keyboard settings, hostname and network (if needed)
Wait for the system to give you the rescue options
Choose the root device of your system to rescue, or assemble the RAID and then choose
Assuming the device was /dev/sda1 choose the menu item "Execute a shell in /dev/sda1"

From there execute:
passwd <you-username>
passwd root

to reset passwords. Since the rescue shell runs as superuser, this won't ask the old password and simply set a new one. You should be done. This whole principle also works in general for many unixoid systems, not just Ubuntu or Linux in general.

Side-note concerning sudo. In /etc/sudoers you have the following line:
%sudo ALL=(ALL) ALL

by default. If you change that into:
%sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL

all members of the group sudo will be able to execute anything as anybody else without being asked a password. This may or may not be desirable depending on the system. Also sudoers allows for much more fine-grained control over what users or groups can execute and as who. It's my favorite method of allowing limited privileged operations to unprivileged users instead of setuid :)


Sharing Activities Programmatically

Question: Can Activities be shared programmatically? They don't seem to have a share object associated to them? Can programmatic sharing of Activities be achieved without a Share object?
Comment: Both solutions below should work... but they have very different use Cases.  It really depends on what you require.
Answer: There is no Share object for Activities. You can vote his idea to add that option but SalesForce currently have no plans to make that change.
The permissions can changed to Controlled by Parent (via Setup | Security Controls | Sharing Settings) or you could create a visual force page that uses without sharing to view the Activities.
Comment: Thank you, we decided to go with the Visualforce page solution.
Answer: Not exactly... but there is a model I came up with that can achieve this.  Although it might be a little bit ugly.
Create a new object like 'Master Activity' or something.  Create a custom lookup on Activity to this object.  If you need a group Activity, then create a 'Master Activity' instead.  Have it somehow select a group.  Doesn't matter if you use the Owner field or a different lookup, and then write a trigger to automatically create 'Activities' for everyone in that group.  You can then write additional triggers if you wish, to do special things like if one is closed then rollup the closing to all related activities etc.  Whatever would fit your specific needs.

Sharing Activities Programmatically


Why are certain resistors not populated on the device?

Question: I just took a closer look at my board, and a few of the resistors have pads but are not actually soldered on. It seems R4, 5, 7 and 10 by the GPIO header are absent, as well as 36 and 37 on the other side by the USB. Does anyone know what happened to them? Were they removed during CE testing?
Answer: With regards R4, R5, R7 & R10
The intention was to use these to idenfiy the board revision, and as such would be missing or present depending on which board.
Quote from Gert Van Loo, gratuitously stolen from the official forum here

There was original the idea to use those for a board revision (e.g.
  A/B) but I have been informed that there are at the moment no plans to
  use those pins in the software builds. If in the future a board
  revision number is required it is most likely to be programmed inside
  the BCM2835 alongside the MAC address. Certainly the current (B-boards
  only) builds do not use those pins

Additionally, this image shows how the pads could allow access to additional GPIO pins from the SoC, not currently available. Note: The resistors in question are marked NF (Not Fitted)
Comment: @AlexChamberlain: This sort of thing happens a lot. For example, the original IBM PC had a DMA controller that could do Memory-to-Memory transfers, but the pins to do this weren't connected up.
Comment: What a waste of 4 GPIO pins!
Comment: Perfect. Thank you. Are these GPIO pins available in software? It seems as if a steady hand could lead to 3 or 4 extra pins.
Comment: @teraquendya - there's a question there I think... but the simple answer is YES, check the link in my answer for info.
Answer: According to the schematics, R10, R36 and R37 only appear on the Model A boards, not Model B. As to why the R4, R5 and R7 resistors are not populated (and are marked as such on the schematic), it might be that they were put there for future use.
I don't see any notes stating why these resistor pads are on the board, but they are marked to not be populated for either model A or B.  Considering the layout my guess is that these unknown resistors are for future updates and model designs.
I'm not an electrical engineer, but I have had to stare at a few wiring diagrams before. If someone can discern a bit more specific information, please feel free to comment and I'll update my answer.
Answer: The resistors 4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 create a 4 bits configuration key for the device. It is well described in the schematic as RLH pointed out.
The reason the resistors R4,5,7 and 10 missing is to create a number 0x1 on the 4 configuration pins Config0-3 connected to those resistors (3 pull-down and 1 pull up) to identify your board as "Model B Revision 1.0" I believe this is something that is going to be used by the SW to indentify the version/revision of the PCB.
I believe the 2 other resistors R36 and R37 are placed there for a low cost version of the device where only one USB is going to be offered and the IC LAN9512 is no longer populated. By populating the 2 resistors, the USB signals of the BCM2835 are directly connected to the USB connector (the lower one or in the case of the single USB, the only USB).
Hope this clarifies your question.
Comment: I believe that the resistors are now not used to identify the board, although that was the original intent, and that the model identifier is set along with the MAC address when the boards are manufactured. I'll try and find confirmation of this!


Question on TWO stage power conditioning

Question: Suppose a induction motor is connected through a inverter. Inverter is fed from a DC-DC boost converter. My question is: to boost converter how load current will look like? Will it look like DC or AC?
Answer: The Current will most likely flow in one direction as pulsating DC throughout the whole system.  I'll assume a basic 3-Phase inverter and simple DC-DC boost converter for thinking this through.  I also am assuming the converter is connected directly to the inverter's DC bus.
The current through the induction motor will be roughly sinusoidal cycling at what ever frequency is appropriate for the speed the motor is supposed to be turning.  The current flowing out of the inverter's DC bus will be pulsating DC, cycling at a rate 6 times higher then the frequency of the inverters output (The increased frequency is due to the three switching branches feeding the motor's phases).
The current flowing out of the inverter's DC bus will lower the DC bus voltage.  The DC-DC converter will act to prevent that dip in voltage.  The converter does this by supplying the needed current to keep the voltage steady into the inverter.  The only way to keep the inverter's DC bus voltage stable is too feed into it whatever current is flowing out.
Assuming the DC-DC converter is able too it will supply pulsating DC current into the inverter.
EDIT:
The inverter output voltage will switch at whatever switching frequency the inverter's PWM frequency is set to, typically somewhere between 1k Hz - 40k Hz.  The motor will act as a low pass filter due to its high inductance, which results in a lower frequency sinusoidal current waveform.
In short the inverter's output voltage will switch at the PWM's high frequency, and the current will more smoothly oscillate at 50Hz.  The 50Hz 3 phase motor current will look like pulsating DC at 300 Hz to the DC-DC converter.
END EDIT
I hope this helps.
Comment: Thank you Clipboard, I appreciate your answer.. So 50 hz wave will produce 300 hz dc ripple as you say. I am doing space vector modulation. Here inverter is considered a single unit which will produce sample in a voltage space. Let me tell you, I will produce 48 sample during a full vector rotation of 360 degree. Inverter has 8 standard vector according to switching pattern. The vectors are (100),(110),(010),(011),(001),(101),(111),(000).1 means upper switch on,where 0 means off.So,111 and 000 will not produce any active vector.Other 6 are active vector.
Comment: In a sample making time, two of active vector and one inactive vetor is used. For symmetric pattern a mirror image of combination is used. So, to make a sample total 6 vector will be used. So,time for single vector is 1/6 th of sampling time. So, will the DC ripple follow the frequency of changing a vector? Again thank you for your nice comment. I have upvoted it
Comment: Clipboard after reading your comment again i think you assumed six step inverter operation. So there was 6 times frequency component in DC link current


Famous convex maximization problems

Question: Which are the most famous problems having an objective of maximizing a nonlinear convex function (or minimizing a concave function)? As far as I know such an objective with respect to linear constraints is np-hard.
Comment: Adding to the answer:

Max-CUT problem is re-formulated as

$$\max \frac{1}{4}  x^T L x  \\ s.t. \ x \in [-1,1]^n$$

where L is the Laplacian form of the graph, which is a PSD matrix. So this is another nice example.
Answer: THE most famous problem having an objective of maximizing a convex function (or minimizing a concave function), and having linear constraints, is Linear Programming, which is NOT np-hard.
Linear Programming is both a convex optimization problem (minimizing a convex function subject to convex constraints) and a concave optimization problem (minimizing a concave function subject to convex constraints). Therefore it has all the properties of both, to include, all local optima are global optima, and if the constraints are compact (bounded), then there is a global optimum at the extreme of the constraints.
Comment: This may not be famous, but let's says you have a convex function (for instance, quadratic), and want to find the range of possible values it can obtain over a convex constraint region. Finding the least possible value will be a convex optimization problem. Finding the greatest possible value will be a concave optimization problem, So convex and concave optimization problems can always come in pairs this way. For instance, suppose a value of the variable x has been chosen, but you don;t know what it is, then solving both problems bounds the range of how good or bad things could be.
Comment: Thank you for your answer! However, I am looking for nonlinear objective. I am editing the question now. Can you give an example problem with i.e. quadratic objective and preferably linear constraints (or maybe SOC constraints)?
Comment: That's actually really helpful. I am now trying to formulate this in more structured way. Maybe I can try to find the best methods we have in the literature so far for such a concave problem.
Comment: Found these so far: economies of scale, fixed charge network flow, maximal volume sphere inscribed in a polyhedron, 0-1 loss function based classification methods, misclassification minimization, feature selection, unlabeled data classification. Anything to add?
Answer: Regarding convex maximization problems, I would recommend the paper  by R.Enkhbat " Global Optimization approach to Malfatti's problem"(Journal of Global Optimization, 2016).
I think Malfatti's problem which was formulated in 1803 will be a nice example of the convex maximization problem.

Famous convex maximization problems


Key fob programming

Question: I have a 2013 Dodge Ram 1500. Since the day I bought it, both of my key fobs only unlock the passenger doors. I've had to use my key to manually unlock driver's door. How can I program the fobs to unlock my driver door?
Comment: Welcome to Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair!
Comment: Does the driver's side door lock and unlock using the interior buttons?
Answer: There is no programming that allows for the fob to only unlock the passenger door or programming that would allow you to activate the unlock feature for the drivers door. You are having a malfunction somewhere in your trucks electronics or wiring
Side note: This is most likely a problem with the controlling module. If your ram still uses the TIPM7 style module then its probably the relay for the drivers door unlock.

Key fob programming


Question changed in comments

Question: I'm reviewing triage posts and this one came up. The question itself was invalidated by the comments; the user confirmed that they're going to try the new suggested approach. What is the correct way to handle a post like this in triage?
Comment: @MarounMaroun I see no reason for code to be posted here.  The problem isn't at a syntax level, it's a design level.  Posting code wouldn't add anything of value, or help an answerer provide the correct answer to the problem.  It's somewhat uncommon for a good SO question to not need any code, but this is pretty close to the textbook example of an appropriate question that simply needs no code.
Comment: @Servy I might be wrong, but describing the problem at the very high level doesn't sound good for me. I expect to see actual code, at least share your thoughts, what have you tried (not "I've tried many things and none worked").
Comment: Regardless of what's being said in the comments, this post should be closed.
Comment: @MarounMaroun For what reason?
Answer: I wouldn't say that the question is invalidated.  This is exactly why it's a good idea to add context to a problem when posting a question, rather than just asking for a solution to the specific technical approach you think might solve it.  The OP went out of his way to make the question not be an XY question, and he got an answer that will actually help him as a result.
This all stems from the fact that the OP described the problem that he was having at a high level, mentioned the approach to solving that problem that he thinks might work, and described the problems that he was having with that attempted solution.  An answer could resolve the specific problem with his attempted solution, or it could disregard his attempted solution entirely and solve the actual problem described.  The responder choose the latter, and the OP seems better for it.
The question could use a bit of editing help, just for some minor presentation issues (superfluous text, minor grammar, etc.), and I suppose it really should got into a bit more detail about why the solution he provided isn't working for him, but the question is fundamentally fine, and I see no close reason that would apply to it.
Comment: Perfect, makes sense to me. Thank you!

Question changed in comments


How to know all files in Ubuntu having stickybits?

Question: I now understand sticky bits and why I should use them based on my question: What is the "t" letter in the output of "ls -ld /tmp"?
Now I have a new question.
How could I list all files that have stickybits in my Ubuntu Linux?
Answer: This command should serve you (-perm flag used to be +1000)
find / -perm /1000

Details:
To add a stickybit Numerical/octal way you have to add "1" to the beginning of the directory.
example:
chmod 1757 ~/Desktop/test

so know to search for a stickybit you have to search for all files having "this one" which means having permissions +1000 (1 here goes for stickybit and "000" for whatever the initial permissions are)
So this command will search the whole filesystem for every file that have permission "+1000".
Now if you have test this command then you can notice that many errors raise here which make the output unclear, and this errors happen because you are trying to search in some places and you don't have a read access on it.
So to get rid of these errors you can redirect those errors to /dev/null
 find / -perm +1000 2> /dev/null

Moreover you can redirect the output to a file"output.txt" rather than keep output in the "terminal stdout"
find / -perm +1000 >output.txt 2>/dev/null

Comment: thanks for quick reply. I tried but i need to test before and maybe there is a better answer
Comment: Ok take your time buddy
Answer: I'd just like to make a couple of points, expanding on Hadi's very good answer. First of all, the sticky bit has no effect on files in Linux. As explained in man chmod:

STICKY FILES
         On  older  Unix  systems,  the sticky bit caused executable files to be
         hoarded in swap space.   This  feature  is  not  useful  on  modern  VM
         systems,  and  the Linux kernel ignores the sticky bit on files.  Other
         kernels may use the sticky bit on files  for  system-defined  purposes.
         On some systems, only the superuser can set the sticky bit on files.

Therefore, there's no point in looking for files with the sticky bit set so we may as well limit the search to directories only, which will speed things up enormously. This can be done using find:
find / -type d -perm /1000 2>/dev/null

Also, note that I'm using the -perm /mode syntax instead of -perm +mode. This is because +mode is deprecated and can return in unexpected results. From man find:
   -perm /mode
          Any of the permission bits mode are set for the file.

   -perm +mode
          Deprecated,  old way of searching for files with any of the per‐
          mission bits in mode set.  You should use -perm  /mode  instead.
          Trying to use the `+' syntax with symbolic modes will yield sur‐
          prising results.  For example, `+u+x' is a valid  symbolic  mode
          (equivalent to +u,+x, i.e. 0111) and will therefore not be eval‐
          uated as -perm +mode but instead as  the  exact  mode  specifier
          -perm  mode  and so it matches files with exact permissions 0111
          instead of files with any execute bit set.  If  you  found  this
          paragraph  confusing,  you're  not alone - just use -perm /mode.
          This form of the -perm test  is  deprecated  because  the  POSIX
          specification  requires  the  interpretation of a leading `+' as
          being part of a symbolic mode, and so we switched to  using  `/'
          instead.

Finally, you can also use symbolic instead of octal modes which might be easier to read if you're not used to it:
find / -type d -perm +'+t' 2>/dev/null


Atlas Control by Atlas greyed out

Question: I have all the settings right to generate pictures using Atlas, but I can't access the 'Controlled by Atlas' checkmark in the print layout. It's greyed out, and whatever I try I'm unable to change this. I have a shapefile as layer, and an XLS file as Coverage layer. No background. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
Comment: Can you post a screenshot of your Atlas panel?
Comment: Which QGIS version are you using?
Comment: I tried version 2.18, 3.0 and 3.2.
Printscreen of the problem: https://imgur.com/a/1l5I2Ow
Comment: Printscreen of the Atlas panel: https://imgur.com/a/7flmhiG

Printscreen of attribute table of the coverage layer: https://imgur.com/a/PahQz7s
Comment: Even when I open QGIS (3.2), start a new project, go straight to new print layout, add a map, the controlled by atlas is greyed out with no option to turn it on. So I'm guessing it has nothing to do with my shapefiles, but it's something else.
Answer: In your question you state that you have a XLS file as the coverage layer. I suspect that this means your coverage layer is a table only, without any geometry information.
A geometryless table CAN be used as an atlas coverage layer (e.g. to iterate over text in the rows), but it can't be used to automatically set a map item's extent (since there's no geometry information in that table to set the extent to!). You should still be able to use the data defined scale/x min/x max/etc settings to setup the map's view, if your table has information present which would allow you to derive these values.
Comment: It looks like you're right. I set a random geometry layer as coverage layer, and then I got to the controlled by atlas! I'll try to find a good coverage layer. Thanks for your help, fixed.
Answer: In QGIS3, Atlas is not visible by default, and hence "Controlled by Atlas" is greyed out. To enable Atlas, go to View-->Panels-->Atlas and enable it. You will see Atlas tab added in the items window. Check the "Generate an Atlas" box and navigate to item properties tab to see "Controlled by Atlas" enabled.
Comment: I only saw "Controlled by Atlas" enabled after I choosed the shape in the Atlas tab

Atlas Control by Atlas greyed out


New Blender Version with the Same Old Startup File

Question: I have put a lot of time to create my own tailored startup file in my Blender 2.91.2. Now I wish to download version 2.93.1. Can you please advise what should I do in order to make sure that my startup file is kept operational with the new downloaded version? Thank you for your assistance.
Answer: Open the old blender, and save the file it starts up to in your documents folder.
Install new blender.
Open the save, and save it as your startup file.
Comment: TheLabCat, thanks a lot for your help. Exactly what I needed


Is it a good practise to involve a child in a statement of purpose?

Question: Is it a good practise to involve a child in a statement of purpose to say how my point of view has changed since the birth?
Comment: Relevance issues aside, lots of people have kids, and anyone can say that having kids changed them for the better. It doesn't set you apart.
Comment: Is it relevant to your research? For example, perhaps you are interested in researching a medical issue you or your child personally experienced, like a birth complication or something like that?
Comment: Still, if others do not include it in their statements of purpose, yours may stand out as different.
Answer: No, the statement is about your motivation in doing research and about your research goals, not about your private life goals.
Having a child is undoubtedly a joyful event which can definitely change your perspective on work-life balance, but now that it's changed, simply state what  your current research goals and motivations are.
Comment: @sitilge There might be differences among cultures (you haven't mentioned where you're applying), but I think that one of the most important qualities in academic writing is to show what you are asked to show, in a clear and concise way, without adding unnecessary information: all the qualities that you mention in the remark are certainly good, but show them indirectly. See also [this question](http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36725/can-an-emotional-letter-of-motivation-be-harmful-in-a-phd-application/36733#36733) and [this answer](http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/36733/20058) .
Comment: @sitilge By writing a clear, _balanced_, well-argumented SOP, avoiding overemphatic tones: this shows that you value your time and other's people time, because you're giving them what they want to read and you don't indulge in unneeded digressions.
Comment: Don't you think that it somehow shows the commitee that you are able to pursuit your academical goals and also life goals, manage your time and some social qualities?
Comment: It is the digressions which sometimes make the statements less boring.
Comment: The U.S. What would be the way to "show it indirectly" ?
Answer: In the US, doing so may imperil your candidacy in at least two ways:

Some academics will assume right away that since your children are so important to you that they appear in your statement of purpose, they will automatically take precedence over your degree-related responsibilities. (This is not a hazard specific to academe, but neither is academe free of it.) Academe is a greedy pursuit; it does not typically favor those with competing priorities.
Some academics, especially those conditioned to industry, will be made uncomfortable by including children a statement of purpose, possibly considering it unprofessional. Children are typically don't-ask-don't-tell in the US; asking is sometimes legally dubious (as it may open a workplace to charges of unequal-opportunity hiring), so telling is unwelcome.

I would strongly recommend against this. Record the epiphany if you like; bypass its source.
Comment: **"Academe is a greedy pursuit; it does not typically favor those with competing priorities"** This is as sad as it is accurate. The OP should come to terms with the fact that, down the line, any other big commitment is not going to be interpreted as a net positive behind closed doors.
Answer: The other two answers (as I write this) are useful and (so far as I know, in U.S.) are accurate about facts.
Further, I'd argue against including your epiphany, in part because it is possible to argue that it ought not to have been such a great epiphany, since, after all, many people do work + have families (without playing any gender-biased or other-biased games about whose responsibility the kids are...) That is, even if you don't mean it that way, there is also a large possibility of interpreting remarks about this as though you'd surprised yourself that you were able to do work and have kids, etc, ... Indeed, most of us probably are! But it is a common state...
So, as with other life-epiphanies, I think it does not need to be aired publicly. Even if it doesn't harm your applications, I'd think that it'd make you appear naive about adult responsibilities...


How to add a RGB Curve node

Question: How i can add a RGB Curve node, like this example?
I want to improve colors of my PLY mesh.
(This screenshot is not mine, I've found in this forum.)
Comment: I'm not too sure what your question is.. What happens when you try to add it? (where are you stuck?)
Comment: This screenshot is not mine, I've found in this forum.
Comment: @sborfedor are you still using Blender Internal as a renderer (and not cycles)?
Comment: yes @zeffi, Blender Internal!
Answer: As mentioned in the previous post, ideally you fix the input file because for whatever reasons the object was imaged under poor lighting conditions or the software used might have a mode to adjust the brightness of the polygon/vertex colours and it was set to darken.
Regaining the fidelty / vibrance of the colours is tricky and the techniques used might produce unsatisfactory results.
One fast way for Blender Internal is to use Ambient Occlusion and Environment Lighting, from the World tab. You'll  notice the result is a little blown out (as if over exposed) if the guy is wearing a light pink shirt.

Blender Internal's materials also has a Nodes mode, and it supports Vertex Colors. It allows you to adjust the colours with an RGB Curve too, and you don't need to enable Ambient Occlusion or environment lighting

Or maybe a hue / saturation node:

Anything you do to make it render nicely won't be a true representation of what the output will look like if it's 3d printed (I think you are doing this to render product shots?) -- unless you somehow modify the Vertex Color map.
You can bake to Vertex Colors using the Bake feature set to 'Full Render'. I would create another Vertex Color layer and set that to active in the panel, before doing a bake. This will prevent bake from over-riding your original.

bake:
Comment: one solution might be to use a script to find the color components of the weakest and most energetic vertex color, and create a duplicate vertex color layer with all vertex colors adjusted to give a greater dynamic range.
Comment: this only affects how it renders. it does not adjust the underlying vertex color data. I'm not aware of any convenient way to adjust a vertex color layer according to a curve..
Comment: if you can figure out a nice formula to adjust the vertex_color brightness, then you could use something like this script: https://gist.github.com/zeffii/4b2502e6300bccf48e14
Comment: Thanks zeffii! I've found the RGB Curve node and I've modified the curve, but the mesh still dark. How to apply the curve modification? Is there an "OK" button somewhere?
Comment: While this is a very useful answer, I think it is more suitable fot this question: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/38577/this-ply-is-too-dark-how-to-improve-it/38580#38580. They probably should be merged (answers too if you agree).
Comment: yes, I did already state that I think these two questions have no reason to be separate.

How to add a RGB Curve node


Soft modeling vs hard modeling in blender

Question: What is the difference between hard and soft modeling in blender? My understanding is that blender is primarily a soft modeling software program used for animation and storytelling or gaming and asset creation, and that hard modeling is best suited for cad type programs like Autodesk Revit or Inventor.
Would that be an acurate statement "generally " speaking?
Comment: He may be referring to hardsurface modeling for more geometric shapes, and subdivision based modelling for characters and deformable objects
Comment: Voting to close as opinion based as "soft" and "hard" are fairly ill-defined terms
Answer: It's not a question of "hard" or "soft".
Blender is not a CAD software. Neither BIM.
Let's take for instance Autodesk's software "Autocad" - it is CAD software.
"Revit" is BIM software.
"3ds MAX" and "Maya" is CG software.
Each of those software categories are aiming at different goals. It's different tools for different tasks.
Blender is an analogue of "3ds Max" and "Maya".
Comment: Blender is stepping into the BIM world with the [BlenderBIM](https://blenderbim.org/) add-on.
Answer: I think this can be a trick question sometimes as no matter what you're creating in your 3D application, it's either going to be a hard surface or a "soft" organic mesh.  According to Plurasight.com "One artist may say a hard surface model is anything machined, man-made, and organic is any living thing such as humans, animals, plants, etc. Another artist may define it as anything that deforms and is animated is considered an organic model", although "It's important to point out that there is no right or wrong way to distinct the two".
  Blender is optimized for 3D animation and rendering using polygonal modeling techniques so it can be thought of as being primarily a Soft Modeling or Non Cad Software in that sense.
Fot more information see the link https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/film-games/whats-the-difference-between-hard-surface-and-organic-models


Nakdimon Ben Gurion real name

Question: The first Rash"i in Masechet Taanis (20a) says that Nakdimon Ben Gurion's real name was Boni. How did Rash"i know that, is there any earlier source for that?
Answer: A little further down the daf (about half way, Taanis 20a)

תָּנָא לֹא נַקְדִּימוֹן שְׁמוֹ אֶלָּא בּוּנִי שְׁמוֹ וְלָמָּה נִקְרָא שְׁמוֹ נַקְדִּימוֹן שֶׁנִּקְדְּרָה חַמָּה בַּעֲבוּרוֹ

A Sage taught: Nakdimon was not his real name; rather his name was Buni. And why was he called Nakdimon? Because the sun broke through [nikdera] for him.

Nakdimon Ben Gurion real name


Ubuntu 16.04: Front Headphone Jack Not Detected

Question: After installing Linux on my new PC build, I noticed that my headphone wasn't detected as plugged in. Opening up pavucontrol, there were two ports int eh Built-in Audio Analog Stereo device (Line Out and Headphones). Line Out (Audio port on the rear I/O Shield of my computer) was always detected and could play audio, it didn't matter if I put in a speaker or a headphone. But the headphone port was stated as unplugged, even though I plugged it into the front headphone jack. What could attribute to this?
Answer: Can you plug in your headphones and open Alsa Mixer in terminal
alsamixer

Check if there's Headphone volume slider. If there is, set Auto-mute to 'Enabled' and change your headphone's volume.
Comment: I did that and the headphones are still being detected as "unplugged"
Answer: If anyone is looking for an answer (this is the first that comes up) that alsamixer does not fix, after searching for hours and trying many solutions this one worked for me:
Ubuntu 16.04 headphones are not working
apt-get install alsa-tools-gui

sudo hdajackretask

Then override front jack to headphones and install the boot override
Comment: Can confirm this works on Ubuntu 18.04 as well


Is there a way to use variables in vba to identify MS-Access report fields?

Question: I am not a programmer, but have been tasked with doing this anyway!  We are working on a research project that involves testing properties of different samples.  I am trying to create a form that will generate a custom report based on what the user chooses.  So, I have multiple text boxes and check boxes to allow the user to define the query parameters (e.g. composition of the sample must contain at least 5% component A) and choose what data they are interested in seeing in said report (e.g. show pH, color, but not melting point).  I have successfully created code to generate the query, then generate a report based on that query, but the report defaults to column widths that are generally too big (for example, the pH column width is 3 inches, it only needs to be about 1).  I would like to be able to fix this, but have not been able to figure out how.  At the same time, some of these fields contain numbers that are averages of multiple test results, so I would like to limit the number of digits shown, and display them as % where appropriate.  I started with just fixing the column width issue:
I have tried to make a collection of the fields that are included, then loop through the collection and set column widths, but cannot figure out how to identify a field with a variable:
If I know the field name I can do this:
Reports("ReportName")!FieldID.Width = 200

But if I have a collection of names, FieldNames, or a string VariableName, none of these work, giving me an error that FieldNames or VariableName is not a valid field in the report:
Reports("ReportName")!FieldNames(1).Width = 200
Reports("ReportName")![FieldNames(1)].Width = 200
Reports("ReportName")![VariableName].Width = 200

Is there a way to reference a field name with a variable?
Alternatively, I thought there might be a way to loop through all fields and set widths - this would involve looking up a column width for each field, which I thought to do by adding a key to a collection of column widths.  But I cannot find a way to do that, something like:
For each Field in Reports("Report")
  Field.Width = ColumnWidthCollection(Field)
Next

This hangs up on the Field.Width line, with "invalid procedure call or argument", which brings me back to how to reference a field name with a variable.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Answer: Try with:
Reports("ReportName")(VariableName).Width = 200


How to get spices off pan - even after washing

Question: I cooked using spices a lot, and I notice this problem most after cooking with turmeric. I wash the pan after I'm done using it, with dish soap, and allow it to soak, then scrub with a scourer or brush. Then
I clean with tissue paper. Even after this, the next meal I cook is often coloured yellow. I don't think it tastes of the spices, but the colour is there for sure. How can I make sure the spices are fully off the pan before I next use it?
Comment: What are your pans made of?
Comment: I think aluminium but I'm not 100% sure. How can I check?
Comment: Aluminium looks metallic but duller than stainless steel and scratches more easily.  The inevitable scratches could be the where the residue is hiding. A magnet definitely won't stick to aluminium, though it will stick to  some grades of stainless.
Answer: As the coloured component Curcumin is soluble in oils not water it may help to wipe the dry and washed pan with oil. Hopefully the colour  will be absorbed in to that oil rather than into the next dish you cook. You may leave the oil on while the pan is stored and wash that oil off before cooking the next dish.
Turmeric does not seem to stain the plastic (ptfe) of non stick pans but it does result in hard to remove stains on some other plastic utensils, containers and surfaces. Neat household Bleach works to quickly remove such stains on counter surfaces but would not be the first choice to use on a food pan.
Soaking with "Milton" eventually removes stains on plastic containers so may work on Aluminium. I have also seen suggestions that vinegar or lemon juice may work. They are both acidic and could theoretically corrode Aluminium, but I doubt it has a noticeable effect. My sweet and sour source will be acidic as will be Rhubarb but I have not noticed them damaging aluminium cookware.
(Although I do recall a health scare about aluminium leaching in to acid food which may have some scientific backing e.g. )
Links

Milton Steriliser A traditional method of sterilising babies milk bottles etc.

It is actually   based on a very dilute Sodium Hypochlorite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_sterilizing_fluid
And whilst I would not recommend drinking it to cure covid. It does have a history of dilute solutions being used as a mouthwash

14 methods to remove turmeric stains. It may not cover frying pans but may provide useful tips to experiment with
Comment: I must remember to search before answering https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/7639/removing-turmeric-colour-from-mortar-and-pestle?rq=1

The thread includes methods besides chemical bleaching: Using UV light, lemon juice & Grinding salt in to the stain. An aluminium pan though develops an oxidised coating & grinding or heavy scouring  will ruin the finish on a naturally aged aluminium pan.

One site I linked to mentions health benefits of turmeric, as does the other thread; which suggests leaving the stain to help prevent dementia. Not a duplicate because that is granite pestle.


Camera in Minecraft PS4

Question: When I play Minecraft on PS4, I have to press the left button to change Camera View. Would it be possible to make it so that all I have to do is rotate the left stick around the character to change the Camera View?
Answer: As shown in this video this is what third person view is meant to do, this cannot be adjusted in any way in any of the settings.

Camera in Minecraft PS4


Best practice for Parent / Child UI design in ASP.Net?

Question: Coming from a desktop client background, with no real data-driven web design experience, I am studying ASP.NET UI design to determine the best UI pattern for Parent/Children data.
I always tend to experiment with Parent/Child presentation when learning a new UI platform, so that is where I have started here. Thinking I should use ASP.NET 2.0, I am studying the various ways of architecting a UI form which contains a master list of Parent records, and then showing the related children records in a second grid on the page when you click on a parent. Eventually, even the child records are parents to other children, so I'll need to deal with that also.
Think: Customers with Open Orders / Open Orders for Selected Customer / Line Items on Selected Open Order... like this screen where I built the same thing in WPF: http://www.twitpic.com/26w26
Some of techniques I've seen simply creates a plain old-shcool table of href links for the parents, with some method call to query the children based on the selected parent, while some techniques I've seen use the ASP.NET 2.0 data controls to work all this out. Are the ASP.NET 2.0 data controls cheating? Do real developers use these out-of-the box controls, or do they output their own HTML so they can have more control?
Also, it seems like ASP.NET MVC is all the rage right now, so I though I should consider that. When I looked at a few intro's about it, it seems to take a step back in time as it looks like you have to manually create much the HTML to present lists and datagrids, rather than being able to use the ASP.NET 2.0 controls.
I'm kinda lost as to where to spend my energy.
Answer: I won't comment on the Parent/Child portion of what you're asking, but rather on the WebForms vs ASP.NET MVC you asked about at the end.
I found developing using WebForms highly annoying. Every time I wanted to do something out of the "norm" I had to fight with the framework to get it to work the way I wanted.
ASP.NET MVC relieves you of these burdens greatly. However, it does so at the expense of having all kinds of cool components you can use out of the box. So yes, there is more hand-coding of the HTML, but ultimately that's what's going to make developing your pages a lot more pleasant.
Comment: This is exactly the issue we are facing while adopting MVC instead of webforms. The developers love MVC => no more fighting the framework. But our designers don't like it at all. Especially all the HtmlHelpers make it a lot more cryptic for them.
Answer: Coming back to this question 6 months after I asked it, now that I've gained some experience with ASP.Net webforms, I'm going to answer my own question. Using the actual Asp.net controls like ListView and GridView is not really all that hard, and I can see that it is indeed a common practice to use them on forms and not feel like you a cheating. Sure MVC forces you to lower level html coding, but using Asp.Net controls on WebForms app is fine and actually not nearly as hard as I was affraid it would be.


Can I use GDB to debug a running process?

Question: Under linux, can I use GDB to debug a process that is currently running?
Answer: You can attach to a running process with gdb -p PID.
Answer: Yes.  Use the attach command.  Check out this link for more information.  Typing help attach at a GDB console gives the following:

(gdb) help attach

Attach to a process or file outside of GDB.
This command attaches to another target, of the same type as your last
"target" command ("info files" will show your target stack).
The command may take as argument a process id, a process name
(with an optional process-id as a suffix), or a device file.
For a process id, you must have permission to send the process a signal,
and it must have the same effective uid as the debugger.
When using "attach" to an existing process, the debugger finds the
program running in the process, looking first in the current working
directory, or (if not found there) using the source file search path
(see the "directory" command).  You can also use the "file" command
to specify the program, and to load its symbol table.

NOTE: You may have difficulty attaching to a process due to improved security in the Linux kernel - for example attaching to the child of one shell from another.
You'll likely need to set /proc/sys/kernel/yama/ptrace_scope depending on your requirements. Many systems now default to 1 or higher.
The sysctl settings (writable only with CAP_SYS_PTRACE) are:

0 - classic ptrace permissions: a process can PTRACE_ATTACH to any other
    process running under the same uid, as long as it is dumpable (i.e.
    did not transition uids, start privileged, or have called
    prctl(PR_SET_DUMPABLE...) already). Similarly, PTRACE_TRACEME is
    unchanged.

1 - restricted ptrace: a process must have a predefined relationship
    with the inferior it wants to call PTRACE_ATTACH on. By default,
    this relationship is that of only its descendants when the above
    classic criteria is also met. To change the relationship, an
    inferior can call prctl(PR_SET_PTRACER, debugger, ...) to declare
    an allowed debugger PID to call PTRACE_ATTACH on the inferior.
    Using PTRACE_TRACEME is unchanged.

2 - admin-only attach: only processes with CAP_SYS_PTRACE may use ptrace
    with PTRACE_ATTACH, or through children calling PTRACE_TRACEME.

3 - no attach: no processes may use ptrace with PTRACE_ATTACH nor via
    PTRACE_TRACEME. Once set, this sysctl value cannot be changed.

Comment: The flag may be changed using `echo 0 | sudo tee /proc/sys/kernel/yama/ptrace_scope`.
Comment: does this also work for a pid of a process on a remote target?
Comment: You have to run a debug server on the remote target then; after that it should be the same.
Comment: Alternatively `sudo setcap CAP_SYS_PTRACE=+eip /usr/bin/gdb` to avoid the error "ptrace: Operation not permitted". See also [this](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19215177/how-to-solve-ptrace-operation-not-permitted-when-trying-to-attach-gdb-to-a-pro).
Answer: Yes.  You can do:
gdb program_name program_pid

A shortcut would be (assuming only one instance is running):
gdb program_name `pidof program_name`

Comment: Didn't you forget the `-p` in front of `program_id`? Also, it might be necessary to run gdb with sudo to attach to a running process.
Comment: I find that this works best as it loads the symbol table in addition to attaching to the process. It should be noted that `program_name` works if you are in the same directory as the binary. I think a path to the binary would work if you are in a different directory.
Comment: I don't know what that does but it sure as hell doesn't work for me. It says that  does not exist.
Comment: Can't withdraw my upvote.
Answer: The command to use is gdb attach pid where pid is the process id of the process you want to attach to.
Comment: That's a misuse of gdb arguments. The manual said that the 2nd argument should be a filename, but when  is supplied, gdb ignored the filename. (Equivalent to `gdb -p `)
Answer: Easiest way is to provide the process id.
gdb -p `pidof your_running_program_name`

Please get the full list of option in man gdb command.
In case there are multiple process for the same program running, then the following command will list the processes.
ps -C program -o pid h
<number>

Then the output process id (number) can be used as argument to gdb.
gdb -p <process id>

Answer: Yes you can. Assume a process foo is running...

ps -elf | grep foo

look for the PID number

gdb -a {PID number}
Comment: What distribution are you running on? Using a recent version of Fedora, 'gdb -a' prints an "option -a is ambiguous" error.
Comment: the official argument is -p/--pid
Answer: If one want to attach a process, this process must have the same owner. The root is able to attach to any process.
Answer: ps -elf doesn't seem to show the PID.
I recommend using instead:
ps -ld | grep foo
gdb -p PID


what if an object moves with speed of light,does it converts into energy or mass?

Question: If a mass is moving with speed of light does it converts into energy of remains as mass it self?As per relativity theory if a mass moves with speeds comparable to speed of light then the time on the mass will be moving slower when compared to the time from where it has been started from.So if you use relativity theory as the mass approaches its speed to speed of light ,then the time or watch on the mass stops or the mass gains infinite time or does it convert to energy or what else can happen?can anyone give a try for this question?
Comment: A massive object cannot move at the speed of light (relative to anything).
Comment: It can move , but you cannot measure, because it gets shifted to other world.
Answer: One of the things that frequently trouble beginners to special relativity is that all velocities are relative. We can accelerate protons to $0.999999991c$ in the Large Hadron Collider, but from the proton's perspective it is at rest and it's everything outside the collider that's moving. So we can be confident that nothing happens to objects moving at near light speed velocities, because nothing has happened to us even though we are moving at light speed velocities relative to other observers.
It is certainly true that from our perspective time slows down for a fast moving object e.g. an astronaut on a fast moving rocket. However the astronaut would still observe time passing at the normal rate, and indeed they would observe our time to have slowed.
All this seems utterly bizarre, but that's only because we don't usually observe things moving that fast so we aren't used to the effects it has. As you study relativity and get used to it you'll find the effects like time dilation seem more natural (then you start studying general relativity and it all gets weird again :-).
Comment: Curious that this answer appeared the Low Quality review queue...
Comment: Are you sure about that: "However the astronaut would still observe time passing at the normal rate, and indeed they would observe our time to have slowed"? It seems that our time should be increased for the astronaut. That's why the astronaut returns younger.
Comment: @Dmitry: if two observers are moving in a straight line at constant speed each will see the other's time passing more slowly. When you say *the astronaut returns younger* I assume you're talking abut the twin paradox but that involves accelerated motion.
Comment: Acceleration motion makes astronauts time slower for us and our time faster for the astronaut. Time won't be slower for both. There is no other way to be the astronaut younger as it's proved by math calculation.
Comment: May be there is a parallel world,This question may be have a different answer in coming future.


How to narrow down a field of study when you enjoy and perform well in every subject?

Question: Might it be odd for a student to love and have excellent academic performance in all subjects—I am that student. I am really confused what to study in the university. My grades are similar (high) in all subjects, and I prefer both scientific and non-scientific subjects. It's like I want to get a degree in all fields. How can I decide what I should choose? What can I study? I have tried a lot of tests, even paid ones, but I get similar percentages for all choices.
Comment: While narrowing down a field of study is something both those starting uni and those going on to postgrad study face, my answer in those two cases would be rather different. I'm voting to close for that reason. For example, I would suggest the OP find out if it is possible to have an undeclared major for a couple of years. (This is a more common option in the U.S than in Europe, I believe.) But others may be able to offer general advice that applies to both scenarios.
Comment: This *could* be considered an undergraduate question, which would make it outside the scope of this site per the [help/on-topic]. On the other hand, one could also argue that narrowing down a field of study at the undergraduate level directly relates to going on to graduate study. I guess we'll see which way the community votes on this one...
Comment: Do what you like most and don't worry too much about grades and tests: for what it's worth, I chose the field where I had the lowest grades, simply because I like it. And after almost 20 years, I can definitely say that I'm happy about that choice.
Comment: What you're good at in school does not generally equate to what you'll enjoy doing in the future. I'm really good at math, but if you made my teach math on the fact alone, I would start slamming my head into a wall one week in.
Answer: Performing well in every subject is simply impossible past the high school level.  Conversely, I would argue that a strong high school student in a US-style system should be able to perform acceptably in every subject (excepting effects of disabilities), since studies in high school are typically designed to give the sort of general grounding that will be required in most professional careers (critical thinking, analysis of written ideas, clear exposition of your own thoughts, creative expression, foundational mathematical and scientific knowledge).
Beyond high school, one might still have the potential to be good at any particular thing.  It is just that this is the time when one begins to study specialities more deeply, and there are simply too many of them to be an expert in all of them.  This happens in a fractal manner at each level: in undergraduate, you can be excellent at whole major, but cannot study all the majors; in graduate school, you can be excellent at a sub-discipline, but cannot study all sub-disciplines; as you establish a career as an academic, it is important to identify a small scope of contributions within the disciplines you work where you can contribute uniquely well.
These realities also imply an answer to your dilemma.  You don't have to pick the "right" academic focus, you just have to pick one that you will enjoy.  And you can even afford to be wrong a couple of times, as long as you figure it out and shift to something that suits you better.  Moreover, it's possible to do this at every level (though it's harder to make large shifts the deeper you go), undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral, and even beyond.
In short, you can think of academic areas like the Tim Minchin love song says: "If I didn't have you, someone else would do."
Answer: I would pick a major that maximizes your future options.  Not necessarily one that will get you a job, but one that gives you a strong foundation so it's easy to pick up knowledge of other subjects.
One good major for this is math.  Once you have mathematical sophistication it's a lot easier to learn other fields, like physics, engineering, computer science etc.  In general, I think it's a lot easier to switch from math to a more applied field than it would be to switch from an applied field to math.  (Personally I majored in math, and then switched to computer science, which is another major I highly endorse.)
Besides, it is a very fun major.  At any reputable university the homework assignments require original thought and no two problems are the same.
In terms of career options, most math majors I knew either (1) went for their PhDs (2) became traders/took other jobs in the financial sector (3) branched into software engineering or data science.
Answer: It may help your search if you change the question slightly. You have been doing very well in all subjects, and you enjoy them all to some level. So the questions "Am I capable of passing exams in (subject)?" and "Would I enjoy studying (subject)?" are not giving you very informative answers.
Rather, consider asking: "Could I imagine not studying (subject)?" For me, this helped eliminate a few options from consideration when I was choosing school subjects, and has continued to be a useful guide. At the school level, I decided not to continue with studying chemistry - not because I was bad at it, or hated it, but because it didn't grab my interest for further study. Likewise, when applying for university study, I decided not to go for French, because although I like the language and literature, I felt that I didn't need a degree in French in order to satisfy my interests. And so on. On the other hand, the things that I have chosen to pursue are topics that I can't imagine being without.


filling out I-9 form for employment

Question: My new employer emailing me the I-9 to fill it out online. In order to complete the form it requires the SSN as well as the green card number. Is it safe to do so online?
Comment: What do you mean *email* and *fill it out online*? That seems like a contradiction. And if it is about filling something on website X we have no idea how that website is build/maintained, so practically impossible to answer.
Comment: Is your company using an HR website like Zenefits or Gusto which is having you provide the information that would go on the I-9 on the website (but not having you fill out the actual I-9 form itself) as part of the intake process?
Answer: I am a notary in the state of Vermont and am sometimes hired to act as an employer's representative and fill out the employer portion of Form I-9. (Despite the fact that anyone the employer trusts, except the new employee, can fill this role and no notarizations are involved.)
It's always possible that your employer has some special version of the form, but typically, it will be one of two types, found on this web page. The first one listed is a PDF fillable form. You type in what can be typed, print it, and hand-write the parts that can't be typed. The employer's representative meets with you and hand-writes the appropriate boxes on page 2. The finished paper form goes in an envelope and is mailed to the employer. This is as secure as your computer is. I don't know you so I don't know if your computer is secure.
The second form listed, "Form I-9 Paper Version (This version is unfillable and must be printed for completion on paper only.) (PDF, 73 KB)", does not allow any fields to be filled in on the computer. You print it. Then you and the employer's representative fill out all the boxes by hand. Then you mail the paper form. With this method, your private information never goes in the computer so there is no electronic risk.

filling out I-9 form for employment


Restrict User's Choice in Datepicker

Question: I want to allow my users to only select either the 14th or the 28th of any month when they make a selection.
Is this possible?
Answer: Hmm, that's a good question.  I had a look around for 10 mins and didn't find something that matches up with what you want, but I did find something you could try to tinker with.
@Mike Smith, a well known contributor to this site, has an interesting post on Date fields - see here.
If it were possible to combine both of the formulae Mike has posted below then it could work; instead of selecting the last day and first day of the month, you'd need to insert your own values of 14th & 28th.

Also on the same web page is this - you can specify two values using the OR function.  This could be complicated though, I searched around for something that would be flexible enough to allow a 'floating day date'.  Calculations can sometimes be done on Date fields by using DD / MM / YY calculations to 'split out' the dayday / monthmonth / yearyear values.  In your case you'd need to split out where dayday = 14 or 28.

Hopefully someone can suggest something that works right away, but I thought I'd offer a couple of avenues for further exploration.
OTHER NOTES
If it doesn't have to be a date field, you could create a choice column instead - simply define the column values available as 14th and 28th.
Then if you need a column to indicate the month, just create a new column called month and add in the values to pick from.

Restrict User's Choice in Datepicker


Tell iTerm2 not to remember open windows on quit

Question: After a recent upgrade of iTerm2 (I'm on build 188.8.131.5220203), when I open up iTerm2, it restores all of the terminal windows I had open. How do I disable this behavior so it doesn't "remember" how many windows I had open?
Answer: This is the resume feature introduced with Lion.
<code>defaults write com.googlecode.iterm2 NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false
</code>
Comment: Or (assuming it's Lion, and not an iTerm feature), remember to hold down the Alt/Option key whenever you Quit, which will work in any application.
Comment: @scottishwildcat Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. It doesn't work with any application though. E.g. Chrome's setting in it's preferences overrides the shortcut.


How to install smbus to virtualenv?

Question: How to setup python-smbus in the virtual env? Pip does not find any appropriate package. Is there a way to make main python installation's libraries visible to virtual env?
Answer: The various releases are listed here the Debian Wheezy python-smbus page.
I assume you can just install via apt-get, although I believe you need to i2c tools package as well:
sudo apt-get install i2c-tools
sudo apt-get install python-smbus

When you create your virtual environment you should be able to inherit the system site packages using the --system-site-packages flag for example:
virtualenv --system-site-packages my_env

You can read more at the virtualenv.org website.
Incase I misunderstood your question...
If you are asking how to install into your virtual environment from a package server that is pip compatible and contains the package (python-smbus) you can update your pip.conf file to include it.
Navigate to the .pip directory under your users root folder.
Then edit the pip.conf file, for example:
vim /home/pi/.pip/pip.conf

You can then add an additional package repository in here:
[global]
index-url = path/to/package/server

Installing it in your virtual environment is then as easy as:
./bin/pip install <package>

Comment: Thank you, I'd first opt for inheriting system packages. Wonder if I could modify existing virtual environment to inherit them, but I will try it out.
Comment: There is no /.pip/ in /home/pi/. What now?
Comment: One reason for setting up a virtualenv, is to have an isolated environment owned by an isolated user who comes to your (web) appllication from outside. That user is typically not a sudoer. So `sudo apt-get install` won't work.
Better answers for that use case [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12079607/make-virtualenv-inherit-specific-packages-from-your-global-site-packages) and [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3371136/revert-the-no-site-packages-option-with-virtualenv).
Answer: Try using smbus2 instead.  It is a pure python replacement you can just install with pip as normal.  Works fine for me.
https://pypi.org/project/smbus2/

How to install smbus to virtualenv?


Are there any MySQL Benchmarking tools?

Question: I've heard a long time ago that there is this tool that helps you tweek mysql settings for better performance but i can't seam to find it. I am aware that I can use ab for apache to simulate high traffic and it will generate me a slow log. However, if it crashes (already happened and it was in production mode), I don't know why it crashed and if it can be tweeked from the config.
Answer: Benchmarking or Tuning tool?
IMHO, there's no tool that will be specific to the latter unless you have a super generic usage. You need to identify your usage pattern and tune your database hosts to accommodate. If you're write-heavy, you will have a different configuration than a read-heavy scenario. Bottom line, your tuning follows your applications usage.
For benchmarking, I use Sysbench. Here's an example from my blog.
Added:
Here's my beef with config tools: With the changes in versions 4.x vs 5.x vs 5.5.x there are a lot of tweaks that don't jive between them. So you really need a savvy DBA to evaluate what's going on for each host. Load, storage, traffic, application specific requirements, there's a lot that can go into an optimal configuration. A tool may get you part of the way, but may leave out something or include something that may cause a failure. From buffers to flushing to plugins to threading, a config tool may provide you with false confidence that you are implementing the correct config.
Comment: Sysbench would be a viable solution , mybench ( perls script ) would be too , however i'm more intrested in a tool that let's me know what settings should be tweeked as i'm not a DBA .
Comment: Adding to my answer.
Answer: I think MONyog can handle some of your request.

MONyog MySQL Monitor and Advisor is a
  "MySQL DBA in a box" that helps MySQL
  DBAs manage more MySQL servers, tune
  their MySQL servers and fix problems
  with MySQL database applications.

MONyog not only finds problem SQL it has 200+ monitors and advisors as well which suggests what parameter you should use for MySQL system variables (by editing my.cnf/my.ini file) this helps in fine-tune your MySQL server.
Further there are so many features that DBA would like to have in his day-to-day activites like trend report, Dashboard, Server config management, SNMP/SMTP alerts etc.. for more details you can refer this :
http://www.webyog.com/en/monyog_feature_list.php
Answer: You can use Spotlight a Toad application

Spotlight® on MySQL diagnoses MySQL problems in real time by graphically displaying all database activity in an intuitive user interface, enabling you to respond quickly to issues that need attention.
Comment: @poelinca: The target for Spotlight can be on any platform - Spotlight itself runs on Windows. We have TOAD running on Windows against Linux and Solaris DBs, no problems.
Comment: quote from spotlight site: " ... With Spotlight on MySQL, DBAs or developers running Windows ... " , not realy suited as most web based app databases are on unix systems .
Comment: @poelinca - my bad! I think you should re-phrase your post to get more accurate information...
Comment: @Gaius: realy helpfull to know this, but in my case i would have to run it from my girlfriend pc ? , i don't own a pc/notebook/netbook that has windows installed .
Comment: Or run it in a VM or whatever. Is the cost of not fixing your problem greater than the cost of the tools and time to fix it, is the only question.
Answer: Quest has a database benchmarking tool.  You can run a synthetic TPC-C, H, E test against your MySQL database.  It will not suggest configuration changes, but it does make testing those changes a bit easier.
Benchmark Factory Community
Comment: Can you explain the mechanics of the test? How do we interpret it? A simple link to the community isn't very useful.
Answer: It seems like your request could also be are there any tuning tools for MySQL?  There are serveral:

phpMyAdmin Advisor
MySQLTuner
mysqlreport
phpMyAdmin Advisor
mysqltuner.pl

and some nice tuning suggestions at:
http://web3us.com/drupal6/how-create-web-site-handbook/how-setup-mysql/tuning-mysql
Comment: Jeff, try to provide some more details on the tools mentioned instead of just listing them off.

Are there any MySQL Benchmarking tools?


How would one go about creating a sorcerer that uses a sword in D&D 5e?

Question: I really want to make a Sorcerer that uses a sword, but I don't know how that could be accomplished in D&D when creating a lvl 1 character. How would I go about accomplishing this?
Comment: I'm not clear on why this question's been closed: it's on-topic, it's answerable with the details given. It may not be terribly complicated or interesting to some, but that seems more like an up-/downvote question, not open/closed.
Comment: Hello, welcome to RPG.SE. Do check out the [tour] and [help] to learn a bit more about this site. As for your question, I believe you are asking for how a first level character, whose class does not offer proficiency in swords, can obtain proficiency in swords. I believe this question answers it (for a cleric, but the idea is the same): [How can a Forge Cleric obtain proficiency with swords at first level?](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/133750/48827)
Comment: @nitsua60 I think the issue is what "use a sword" means. Do they just mean a sorcerer who is capable of wielding a sword, or a gish who uses a sword as their primary weapon? And what type of sword? A character who uses a shortsword or a rapier or a long sword or a great sword are all very different characters. Are they looking for a full build, or just "how to get proficiency"? There could be a good question here but we need more details and clarity.
Comment: If the Q is "How do I use swords" and the A "You can" then I don't think this is a very useful question. You may as well ask "How do I jump as a wizard" and the answer again is "You can". In order for the answers to be meaningful they need to provide build options and other ways to use a sword *well*, but then we're back at the problem of lack of focus/direction.
Comment: I agree with Nitsua60 that this is answerable, but how relevant those answers are to OP are limited. The more info Lok'd 0n can provide, the better we can answer their actual needs. But for those answering, this isn't a free for all for build design options. It's really just "how can a sorcerer use a sword". How effective each option may be is opinion-based as OP hasn't made clear how important min-maxing is.
Comment: @AgentPaper Not every question is going to be useful to a wide audience, but that isn't really a factor in our determination of what is on-topic. Feel free to downvote if you think it isn't useful. People new to RPGs may have questions that seem silly or trivial to people with more experience, and this seems to be one of those to me. Would the question be more useful with more info? Definitely, but it is answerable as-is.
Answer: Step 1: make a sorceror.
Okay, now you've got a sorceror. One-half of the build is complete.
Step 2: use a sword.
Anyone can use any weapon. Sorcerors aren't proficient with swords, but that just means that you don't add your proficiency bonus to attacks made with swords. You can still attack with them, they still do the same damage when they hit. You're at a -2 to hit compared to your proficient allies, but maybe that doesn't worry you.
(optional) Step 2a: gain proficiency with a sword, so you can keep up with all the other sword-swingers...
Races. Be an elf: that gets you proficiency with shortswords (all elves) and with longswords (high and wood elves). Or be a variant human, taking Weapon Master as your starting feat. (You can gain proficiency with four of shortswords, longswords, greatswords, rapiers, and scimitars!) Or be a hobgoblin, gaining proficiency in two martial weapons and light armor. Probably there are other ways, too--there're a lot of races out there!
Multiclassing. Take a level in barbarian, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, or warlock. Given that you're a sorcerer (CHA-based caster) who wants to use a sword (depending on sword, you'll want STR or DEX pretty high), paladin might be the best fit? Though warlock's always worth looking at closely, since Pact Magic behaves uniquely.
... but only for a while.
This way you can make your one sword attack as well as a "true" martial character. For a few levels. But everyone else using a sword is going to start getting extra attacks, or add sneak attack dice, or smite, or horde-break, or rage, or something. All while you're picking up spell slots and sorcerous abilities.
You're a sorceror, Harry. Taking the Attack action is going to be an increasingly-poor choice relative to your other options as you progress magically.
That being said, there are a couple cantrips that provide some scaling to sword-wielding sorcerers (albeit not to the same degree as most martial classes). With DM approval, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide offers wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks a couple new spells including green-flame blade and booming blade which let a sorcerer make a weapon attack and then deal some additional damage in certain situations (fire and thunder respectively). [With thanks to @DavidCoffron for the reminder of these cantrips.]
This can be especially useful if coupled with a Sorcerous Origin such as Draconic Bloodline which, starting at level 6, lets you add your Charisma modifier to one damage roll of a spell that deals damage of the type associated with your draconic ancestry.
Comment: This is a great answer, but I think you should mention one thing that can help this build keep up. You're a sorcerer, Harry. Use some metamagic. Quicken your booming/green flame blade for two attacks per turn. Or you could twin a booming blade to hit two targets. Or you could do both (twin a booming blade, then use a quicken booming/green flame) for three attacks.
Answer: Step one: Create a Sorcerer
Create either a Draconic Bloodline sorcerer or (if you have access to Xanathar's Guide to Everything) a Shadow Magic sorcerer.

Draconic Bloodline sorcerers gain extra HP per level and have a base
AC of 13 + Dex mod, making you a little tankier.
Shadow Magic sorcerer has Strength of the Grave, allowing you once a day
to return to 1 HP instead of falling unconscious if you pass a
Charisma saving throw. It will later will give you a Hound of Ill
Omen that you can use as a distraction, or to help you flank (if
your DM uses that optional rule).

You will want Dexterity to be your highest or second-highest stat for either build so that you can use a finesse-based blade such as a shortsword or rapier.
Step two (Spell Selection)
As David Coffron suggested in the comments of nitsua60's answer, the booming blade or green-flame blade cantrips will allow you to scale your melee damage somewhat in the early stages. Supplement this with level 1 spells that will help you survive such as shield, mage armor (if you did not go with Draconic Bloodline sorcerer, since different AC calculations don't stack), or expeditious retreat so you can get out of danger.
Step three
Upon reaching level 3 and gaining access to 2nd-level spells, take the shadow blade spell (Xanathar's Guide to Everything, page 164), which will allow you to summon a finesse sword that deals 2d8 psychic damage per strike and has advantage on attacks in dim light or darkness.

It is worth noting that this blade only lasts for a minute, so at
early levels, this sword should be your trump card, rather than your
main weapon and is also a concentration spell, making it vulnerable
to being lost, so the War Caster feat is a must.
It may also be worth getting the Dual Wielder feat and wielding two swords for the bonus AC, but in doing so you would likely output more damage using one attack with your booming blade or green-flame blade cantrips than using your bonus-action attack with your second weapon.

Step four (optional; Multiclass)
Multiclass into a Hexblade warlock, which is able to use its Charisma modifier on melee weapon attacks with its pact weapon. Alternatively, this class may suit your needs better overall and is worth looking at if you aren't 100% committed to playing a sorcerer.
As other answers have noted, this build will not scale as well in damage as a sorcerer could otherwise, due to the lack of multiattack for the class.
Comment: Along with spell selection, I think metamagic is worth mentioning, allowing for multiple applications of melee cantrips per turn.
Comment: edit was for format


How do I best position myself to get an NIH R01 grant?

Question: From what it sounds like, you need to be in the inner circle of key labs in order to be able to be even considered to be able to apply and get a National Institutes of Health R01 grant. How does a lab position itself to get into that inner circle and then how do you merit a score that will merit review and approval? Should we be focusing on getting several publications out or collecting all of it as preliminary data.
Answer: For the NIH NIDCD (and likely other institutes, but I don't have the data), a great way to position yourself for an a new-investigator R01 is to first get an F32 post-doctoral fellowship since 70% of those with an F32 post-doctoral fellowship who applied for a subsequent RPG (predominately R01 and R03 awards) were successful. There might be better predictors, but 70% is pretty good when it comes to funding pay lines.
You should also be aware that the R01 club is not as closed as your question makes it sound. Historically, 25% of R01-equivalent awards are made to new investigators.


Can I take two rings to Canada without paying any fee?

Question: I'm going to travel to Canada and stay there for a long time. I want to buy two rings (the total value is less than 1000 CAD) for my wife and myself, and take them with me to Canada. Besides reporting them to the customs, is it mandatory to pay any fee or duty for the two rings? And will the rings be checked by the border officers? Any suggestion is appreciated, thanks.
Comment: Whats with all these engagement ring questions lately? Is there some party going on that I need to know about?
Comment: Are these rings for you or for someone else? Also, what do you mean with "long time" - are you taking up (temporary) residency?
Comment: @Jonas The rings are for my wife and myself. I'm applying the open work permit to stay with my wife.
Comment: Note: Even though this question is (apparently) linked to immigration, it is about travelling, specifically about customs, and IMHO on-topic here.
Answer: I am not a lawyer, but from looking at the instructions to travelers by the Canadian Government, as well as from my personal experience, it seems that the following should work:
You are allowed to bring items with you for your personal use when you enter Canada from the outside. This includes, for example, a laptop, or jewelry. Thus, you should not even have to declare your ring (I was wearing mine each time I entered Canada, never an issue).
The ring for your (future?) wife is a bit more tricky. However, if she stays 48 hours or more abroad with you before the two of you enter Canada, she has an exemption of $800 CAD on goods bought/received, which should cover her ring, if I understand your post correctly, and if you give the ring to her before you travel. She will need to declare the ring, and should ideally have a receipt. If you have had (temporary) residency status when you left Canada, this applies to you, as well, by the way.
If she returns to Canada before you do, and she has stayed abroad for 7 days or more, she can declare the ring, anyway, and have you bring it to Canada on her behalf.
If you fear that this approach may ruin the perfect moment to present the rings, don't despair - you may want to propose (or have her commit to a long-term relationship) before leaving for Canada, anyway, and you can always ask her to hand back the ring so that you can make this "more romantic", which will keep her on her toes for quite a while and allow for a beautiful surprise (10/10, would do again).


How can I make my mob spawners work?

Question: In Minecraft Bedrock, I built 2 mob spawners. One the drops 20-something blocks underground (I don't remember how many, but I followed a tutorial) and another above ground. The above ground one is bright inside even though there are no holes. I made both of cobblestone. I had the same issue with the first one I built a while back. The underground one is completely dark inside, I went and lit up all nearby caves and still no spawns. I have gone to the other side of the map as well so I know I'm not too close.
Comment: There could be many reasons:
Check out https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/359222/is-there-some-added-benefit-to-building-a-mob-farm-above-ground/359242#359242 or https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/359216/what-is-the-purpose-of-building-the-mob-farms-afk-platform-so-high/359243#359243
Answer: The reason is because mobs only spawn from 148 blocks away from caves, if it is closer, the mobs will spawn in the caves instead of the mob farm. There's a solution to this. You can build the farmer on the ground but only if you lit up all the caves and dark spots in a 148 blocks radius. You can do one out of the two, either build it high up or build it on the ground and lit the caves in a 148 blocks radius, it's up to you. Wish you good luck!

How can I make my mob spawners work?


Automatically move to a specific slide in Powerpoint?

Question: After showing some animation introduction on slide number 2, I want Powerpoint to automatically move to slide number 6. Is there any way to for me to tell Powerpoint to automatically move to a specific slide without having to trigger a click? Thanks.
Comment: Then only way to `skip` slides is to hide them. In that case, they won't show at all. The easiest way to do as you described; make a copy of slide 6 as slide 3. You will then have flow you are looking for.
Comment: What have you tried? Because basic functions within PowerPoint make this possible, any details of what you've tried will help get you an answer.
Comment: And to help understand the problem, is there some reason why you can't move slide 6 to slide 3 (ie, so that it immediately follows slide 2)?
Comment: @CharlieRB I can only see there is an option to advance ONE slide after an amount of time in the Transitions menu, not moving to further slides so I asked there.
Comment: @SteveRindsberg I'm preparing for my teaching material. I want to first show some introduction on slide 2 and move to slide 6 for a short question. And after that I will move back to slide 3 and continue the lesson normally until when slide 6 is on screen again, I will give some explanation to this question. Maybe it's illogical a bit?
Answer: Between my suggestions and CharlieRB's I think you have an answer so I'll summarize here.
You can put a copy of Slide 6 right after Slide 2 and have it automatically appear, then proceed with the rest of the slides, eventually landing on Slide 6, the original, again.
Or you could put Slide 6 right after Slide 2, then on Slide 6, add a hyperlink to a custom show composed of slides 3,4,5, and checkmark the option to show and return.  You'd land on slide 6, click the link when ready; you'd then be able to view 3,4,5 and when done, PPT would automatically return you to slide 6.  You'd want to hide slides 3,4,5 so that when you're done with slide 6, you'd move on to slide 7.
In all cases, I'm using your original numbering, but you'd actually have, in the first example:
Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 6 (copy)
Slide 3
Slide 4
Slide 5
Slide 6

and in the second example:
Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 6
Slide 3
Slide 4
Slide 5

Answer: The current Office 365 releases of PowerPoint offer another option - Slide Zooms. On the Insert tab, click Zoom > select zoom type
The Zoom feature creates hyperlinked thumbnails of selected slides on a summary slide. Clicking the thumbnail jumps to that part of the presentation. Getting to the end of that part returns you to the summary slide. I organize my presentations into sections, so the Section Zoom has been very helpful in casually moving around the presentation, and is more visually interesting than a text list of hyperlinks.
An alternative method of achieving the end goal is to use the various slide navigation options in presentation view, or re-order the slides as was mentioned. My favourite navigation trick is to type the number of the slide I want, and press ENTER. If I want slide 6, I type 6 ENTER. That's it. So easy.
For a more sophisticated method of branching that doesn't tie you into a specific order of presentation, place an object on the slide and add a hyperlink to the desired slide. Want to go from slide 3 to slide 6? Click the object. Want to go from slide 3 to slide 4? Don't click the image. Place the corresponding return hyperlinked object on the destination slide.
Use any of the above-mentioned strategies (including Custom Shows) to go to your desired next slide.
Answer: You can use a custom show.
In PowerPoint 2013 on Windows, select the "Slide Show" tab on the ribbon. Then select "Custom Slide Show" and click "Custom Shows..." to see/edit all shows. A dialog window will pop up and here you can click "New...". Now you can add each slide you want, in whatever order you want, and even use them multiple times. The best part about this is that if you change a slide you used multiple times, each instance is updated (because they're really just the same slide).
This capability has been in PowerPoint at least since 2003;
the steps to configure it may vary.
In order to use this custom show, you can select the "Slide Show" tab, then select "Custom Slide Show" and click the custom show you created in the drop down list.
OR
You can make your custom slide show be shown as the default.
On the "Slide Show" tab, click on "Set Up Slide Show"; under "Show Slides", click on "Custom Show" and select the custom show that you want.
Now, if you click one of the "Start Slide Show" buttons or press F5,
PowerPoint will display your selected show.
Answer: The way to do this is to create an invisible object over the entire slide - with a hyperlink to the slide you want to go to (slide 6).

Create a rectangle the size of the entire slide
No fill
No outline
Use Hyperlink to link it to slide 6
set it in front of everything

Note: This won't work if the user is using the keyboard to advance the slide.  It will work if he or she clicks the mouse anywhere on the slide to advance it.


Is Abrahamic God a creature?

Question: Is God (as YHWH/IEUE, or Allah, etc.) a being because he represents his name from this reality, or because he has the potential to represent his name from other realities?
Comment: What is "representing one's name from this or other realities" supposed to mean? Is that some denotational theory of meaning taken backwards or what?
Comment: The point is that *representations* by definition are not the real thing. Thus, it seems your wording is misguiding in any case and that  you ask either whether just by virtue of having many names/representations God becomes an actual entity, or whether God, having many names, is a being by virtue of *potentially* being represented, ie. disclosing His reality. Or something entirely different. I honestly can't tell from what you write.
Comment: Right, 'creat-ure' means *created*. 'being' doesn't have that stipulation, and the question title and body don't match, so which are you asking about?
Comment: Cteated by what entity?
Comment: God, in fact, has his own form in all Abrahamic religions.
Comment: [Philip Klöcking](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/users/17209/philip-kl%c3%b6cking) This or what.
Comment: [Philip Klöcking](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/users/17209/philip-kl%c3%b6cking) I didn't ask about it nominally in fact. Is God's harmony evident as if he came from nothing?
Comment: There are people whose definitions of "Abrahamic God" "is" and "creature" combine to answer your question "yes." There are people whose definitions of "Abrahamic God" "is" and "creature" combine to answer your question "no." In order to make this a question about the world around us and the heavens above, instead of a question about the definitions in the head of a given stackoverflow user, you will have to be more specific.
Answer: I think that "Abrahamic God" is considered a being because of His "acting upon" this reality.
Comment: According to the transcendent morality of the Abrahamic religions, God is omniscient and his wisdom cannot be questioned. According to this idea, he will want to maintain the integrity of his form. This would show that God has a complex harmony with reality. As a God who does not stipulate blessing with luck and cursing with bad luck. It made sense to me too.
Comment: Inanimate things are described as acting on things. Isn't that phrasing a narrative choice rather than stating any necessary inference?
Comment: Isn't it that, the definition of the miracle?
Comment: [@CriglCragl](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/users/30474/criglcragl) [Ioannis Paizis](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/users/68612/ioannis-paizis) did not use a sharp expression.
Answer:
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them."
-Genesis 1:27

This stirs up plenty of exegetical debate about imago dei, the Image of God.

"Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my
footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the
place of my rest?"
-Isiah 66.1

Whether this passage is taken as a metaphor, or as implying god has feet, is going to depend on your theology. Either choice will have important consequences.
If you look at the history & archeology, you find that monotheism emerged from henotheism. Discussed here: Why is God, if He exists, assumed to be reasonable in most of philosophy? It is notable that the god of more brutal ancient times was pictured in those terms, as a jelous god. Whereas the Jesus part of the trinity presented a more chill mode to an era where that could make at least some head way.
And Jewish cosmology emerged from earlier ideas in ways we can trace. Discussed here: Are various concepts of divine creation based on more basic/simpler/integrated concepts, or are they indefinitely diverse?
It's also been profoundly influenced by Ancient Greek thought like notably Socrates 'Euthyphro Dilemma', Hellenic influence on Christianity, the Islamic Golden Era building on Greek thought, and Rabbinic & Scholastic scholarship. Even now, huge gulfs exist between different branches in views on the deity, with even Prosperity Gospel Evangelical Chrurches having been declared formally heretical by the Catholic & other churches.
In Islam & Judaism, they are very clear that the deity is beyond our capacity to understand. Given how most humans struggle with both physics & biology, that seems a pretty reasonable stance to take towards a being that could create our cosmos. Wouldn't their explaining themselves to us be like Einstein giving a lecture to a dog? Isn't think we can have all the answers, the real source of a lot of problematic religious behaviour? We can live with a little mystery 'under the Sun'.
Buddhist thought goes quite a bit further than the Euthyphro Dilemma, saying not only is the most powerful/oldest being, subject to reason and it's constraints, but also was born into this realm and will die eventually, does not create aby beings only moves them into this realm, and faces the struggle to reach Enlightenment which is to say 'unshakeable liberation from the causes of suffering', just like all beings on the wheel of becoming. Discussed here: Are gods also bound to the laws of physics?
TLDR: What you say about god says more about you than about god. Stay curious.
Comment: I. Is it possible to print quality on a poor quality paper with a quality ink? A person died and lost the reasons for living with his body.
II- I think it is much more appropriate to give examples from the first four books.
III- I could not find any information in the links you provided about Jewish cosmology that connected to my question about God's self.
Comment: V- If this reality is God's creation, why should we not be able to observe his form according to the laws of physics? While his form is in with the laws of physics, it is impossible to argue that he is distinct from the laws of physics; directly or indirectly, not everything is possible.
Comment: IV- The sixth pillar of Islam is not only faith in fate; that is, Islam does not essentially fatalism as primary*. We can say that a fatalistic God is fundamental in Judaism and Christianity, and it is not stated that it is a primary. In the Hebrew religions, real originates from his level and the existence of real is accepted. Because it is real, and there is no real war and nobody's business in realism. Think about what kind of killer Michael is. Or think about what kind of psychopath Uriel is.
Comment: @fykbrd: Your points seem (1) Incoherent (2) Totally unrelated to my answer & points therein.
Comment: [@CriglCragl](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/users/30474/criglcragl) You submitted your answer while discussing the question. I have no words for the passage you shared, but the fact that it does not contradict your own book can be counted as theological proof. If you want to edit your answer, check the edit history of the question.

Is Abrahamic God a creature?


Reading Pipe from cmd.exe that uses "start" builtin

Question: I'm attempting to "leave a message" for the current user (on Windows) using WScript.exe, without waiting for the user to acknowledge the message.
My thought was to create a new process, using the "start" builtin (it usually opens a new window and execution control returns to the caller) and call WScript with a short script to open a message box on the screen and then exit.
This works OK unless I attempt to open a pipe from that script (and read it). If I attempt to read from the pipe, the read I/O never gets EOF until wscript.exe exits, even though that program continues execution after the "start" command.
Here's an example:
test.vbs
WScript.Echo "Hello World!"

invoke.cmd
start wscript.exe //nologo test.vbs
@echo Exiting...
exit /b

If I run invoke.cmd in a command prompt, the WScript window opens and control returns to the prompt.
However, if I attempt to pipe the output to a command (that attempts to read the pipe), the subcommand never seems to see that the pipe has closed until wscript.exe exits.
This behavior doesn't require WScript.exe, however. It seems to behave this way as long as the process created by "start" is still running. I can get the same behavior with "cmd.exe /k".
invoke2.cmd
start cmd /k date /t
@echo Exiting...
exit /b

Attempting to read from a pipe from invoke2.cmd blocks until the "start"-ed process ends.
I don't see any command-line args to "start" that claim to govern behavior like this, and I don't really understand why the cmd.exe that's using "start" to create new processes/windows won't exit until the "start"-ed window exits.
Curiously enough, things work if I redirect the output to a file. It just doesn't work with a pipe.
Any ideas?
Answer: Since you are using wscript.exe, it is popping up a message box on your Echo command. Try running
start cscript.exe //nologo test.vbs
cscript.exe is the command line version, so it will output to the command line.


$a/b=c$, how to move the numerator to the right side of the equation

Question: Given an equation of the form $a/b=c$, how do you move $a$, the numerator, over to the other side so that you get $b =c?$ (where $?$ denotes my ignorance of what the right side should look like).
Answer: $$\begin{align*}
a/b &= c\\
a &= bc\\
b &= a/c
\end{align*}$$
Answer: I know this has been answered but here is it worded.
You multiply the denominator out by multiplying both sides so: a/b = c becomes a/bb = cb. As you are multiplying the fraction by the denominator the denominator and the multiplier cancel out and you are left with a = bc. You cannot get rid of a letter but if you wanted b on one side then you would simply move c, to do this you factorise so its a = b(c). You then divide both sides by c, so then a/c = (b(c))/c. Then the c on the numerator and denominator cancel out so you will be left with a/c = b or rearrange to b = a/c.
Answer: $$
\begin{align}
\frac{a}{b} & = c \\ \\
b \cdot \frac{a}{b} & = c \cdot b \\
\require{cancel} \\
\cancel{b} \cdot \frac{a}{\cancel{b}} & = c \cdot b \\ \\
a & = cb \\ \\
\frac{a}{c} & = \frac{cb}{c} \\ \\
\frac{a}{c} & = \frac{\cancel{c}b}{\cancel{c}} \\ \\
\frac{a}{c} & = b
\end{align}
$$


Can someone provide an example of how arbitrage would be used when an american call option can be bought for less than max(final stock - strike,0)?

Question: "Final stock" means the stock price at expiration, and "strike" means strike price. If a call option had to be purchased for more than the max(final stock - strike,0)then you would never make money off buying the call option right? I found the no-arbitrage assumption in Merton's Theory of Rational Option Pricing.
Comment: I do not think that Merton wrote nonsense like that. Since we do not know today what "Final stock" $S_T$ at expiration will be the question how the call price relates to this is pointless. A more reasonable question is how the call price relates to the discounted *expectation* of that payoff $\max(S_T-K,0)$ under the risk-neutral measure.
Comment: Well I've attached the screenshots from what I read and I've found the same assumption in other sources so I think it's valid.
Comment: first screenshot tells you a warrant is just a call option, second shows this is from Merton,and shows the assumption I mentioned in my question
Comment: This screen shot is from a 1973 paper https://doi.org/10.2307/3003143 .
Answer: Merton writes

Further it follows from conditions of arbitrage that
$$\tag{3}F(S,\tau;E)\ge{\rm Max}(0,S-E)\,.$$
In general , a relation like (3) need not hold for a European warrant.

This is the well-known relationship between continuation value $F(S,\tau;E)$ of the American option and the payoff you get from it when you exercise at time $t=T-\tau\,.$ In (3), $S$ is not the final stock but the price of the stock at $t\,.$
Now we have a decent QSE question we can ask: Why does (3) hold?
Hint: Will you as the holder of the American option be rational when you exercise at $t$ in the case that the payoff you get is less than the value of the option you could keep by not exercising?
As a further exercise highly recommend to try to find the simple proof that when the stock does not pay dividends and interest rates and volatility are strictly greater than zero then (3) always holds strictly. In other words: We never exercise that American call before maturity.
Proof:

First, the American call is worth more than the European call $G(S,\tau;E)$ and that is strictly worth more than its intrinsic value ${\rm Max}(0,S-\color{red}{e^{-r\tau}}E)\,.$ That intrinsic value is strictly worth more than ${\rm Max}(0,S-E)\,.$

Finally, it is instructive to think about the question why this does not hold for the American put.
Comment: The OP should further ponder how everything flips when the interest rates turn negative.
Comment: @DimitriVulis +1 which wasn't an issue in the days when Merton wrote that paper. Things change sometimes.
Comment: inflation-adjusted ("real") interest rates were often very negative in the 1970s :) https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/economic-perspectives/2017/2-yi-zhang
Comment: This could be a further exercise question: Is the riskless rate in option pricing a real rate or a nominal rate?
Comment: I guess, the real interest rate if the strike and all prices were inflation-adjusted.