What tools are there for measuring Macbook wireless strength?

Question: I often have trouble connecting to wifi with my MacBook Pro. To help identify the problem, I was wondering if there were any tools for measuring wireless signal strength.
Answer: If you're just looking for a quick signal strength number, option-click on the AirPort icon in the menu bar. Under the connected network you will see several pieces of information:

RSSI is your signal strengh in dB. Higher (closer to 0) is better.
If you're looking for noise or the signal strength for multiple access points, I suggest checking out iStumbler:
Answer: You can get quite a bit of info from the command line, with the (well-hidden) airport utility.  With the -I flag it'll tell you about the current network:
$ /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -I
     agrCtlRSSI: -43
     agrExtRSSI: 0
    agrCtlNoise: -96
    agrExtNoise: 0
          state: running
        op mode: station
     lastTxRate: 130
        maxRate: 130
lastAssocStatus: 0
    802.11 auth: open
      link auth: wpa2-psk
          BSSID: 0:24:1:0a:42:93
           SSID: My Wireless
            MCS: 15
        channel: 5

...and -s will show more info about other visible networks:
$ /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -s
                            SSID BSSID             RSSI CHANNEL HT CC SECURITY (auth/unicast/group)
                     My Wireless 00:24:01:fa:42:93 -44  5       Y  -- WPA(PSK/TKIP,AES/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/TKIP,AES/TKIP)
                          hobbit 00:15:05:19:8a:03 -86  7       N  -- WEP
                     My Wireless 00:24:01:ef:91:ab -75  3       Y  -- WPA(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)

It doesn't have a man page, but if you run it without any options it'll list its options.
Answer: System Profiler will list available Wireless Networks as well as the following information
NetworkName:
  PHY Mode: 802.11n
  BSSID:    c0:3f:e:df:1b:be
  Channel:  6
  Network Type: Infrastructure
  Security: WEP

Answer: If you find that your connection problems occur in the same location, you could use a tool like NetSpot that would let you visually see areas of low signal. NetSpot is free and available within the App Store.
See below for an example of how a map of your apartment's wifi signal could look.

(source: netspotapp.com)
Macworld reviewed Netspot and published a brief tutorial last year about how it could be used.
Answer: Another, out-of-the-box way (at least on Mountain Lion):

Click on the Apple (top left)
About this Mac
More Info
System Report
WiFi

This will show you all the info you want for all the networks in range, without needing to install additional software.
Comment: Does this method show you the signal strength of visible WiFi networks? I can't confirm at the moment.
Comment: @DanJ it shows Signal/Noise values!
Comment: yes it shows signal/noise (same as the graphic displays softwares) so you want the signal as high as possible while the noise as low as possible :) I know it is not as fancy as the graphic displays but you do not have to install some 3d party software
Answer: I typically use WiFi Explorer. Its newer than iStumbler and provides the following features:

Easy-to-use, intuitive user interface.
Graphical visualization of the wifi environment.
Works with 802.11a, b, g and n wireless networks.
Supports 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands as well as 20 and 40 MHz
channels.
Signal quality estimations based on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
Accurate conversion from dBm to percentage (%) for easier analysis
and optimization.
Export metrics and network details to CSV file format.
Full screen mode (10.7 or above).
Comprehensive help.
Runs in Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion.

It's available in the Mac App store. It's priced at .99 cents. Developers are responsive to questions.
Answer:
Is this useful ?
I am actually in a relatively small village, not in New York, or LA :)
Comment: Can you add some more details about the tool the screenshot is from, where to get it from and why you recommend it?
Comment: You can see in the top bar that it's NetSpot. I think it might be intended as a response to the recommendation for NetSpot above. I like WiFi Explorer, as the channel view shows you (possible) congestion by frequency.
Comment: I just tried the NetSpot and showed an example of my neighborhood :), than I UNistalled the netspot since it slows down my computer and as said above OsX already shows the needed information, not in so fancy form, but how often do you care about WiFi landscape, you just want the best signal to connect to and OsX shows that.


Hyperref mysteriously enabled or who loaded hyperref

Question: I can't figure out where do I load the hyperref package. I know it sounds odd, but I scanned all my preamble and couldn't find a single \usepackage{hyperref}. I feel really stupid, but I don't know where to look for it. Is it possible that some other package I load loaded hyperref on it own? Any ideas are welcomed. I'm really puzzled.
Comment: the point is that the process of creating the MWE will almost certainly solve your problem.
Comment: Yes another package can load hyperref. Look in the log-file. It records the loaded packages.
Comment: without a minimal no-one will be able to assist you. Many other packages look for it and if it is not loaded they will input it automatically.
Comment: Beamer loads hyperref.
Comment: @Yiannis: I value the importance of ME, but in this case I don't it is really hard to generate one, as it is involved. I'll try to add something.
Answer: Look in the log file and you'll notice that included files are printed within parentheses. And if a file that you include includes another file, that file will appear within parentheses within the first parentheses.  So each parenthetical group delimits a file.
(./a.tex
 % tex is now processing a.tex ...
 (./b.tex % a.tex requests b.tex be read
  % tex is now reading b.tex
  ) % tex is now done with b.tex and is reading
  % the rest of a.tex
 ) % done with a.tex

So search the log file for hyperref.sty.  Find the parenthetical group that includes it, and the file at the beginning of that group is your culprit.
Comment: OH! So that's what the parentheses are for. They make sense now...
Comment: Yes seems like the problem was in my personalized .sty file which was not updated. I guess I don't know how to use it... I reverted to self contained preamble :)
Answer: Use \listfiles in your document and then have a look into your log file. It shows the loading of all packages at the beginning and the end of the log file.
If this doesn't help, then copy your document source, delete all text and then uncomment the preamble line by line from the bottom to top, until hyperrefisn't loaded anymore.
Some document classes, like beamer and powerdot, load hyperref by default. And with PassOptionsToPackage{draft}{hyperref} you can disable all settings.
Comment: @Dror: texhash is only needed for TEXMF and TEXMFLOCAL. TEXMFHOME is searched recursively by TeX. With `kpsewhich ` you can easily controll which file is used by TeX.
Comment: Thnx! This looks good. I'll try it.
Comment: I'm using a personal `.sty` file where I load most of the things. It lives in my home part of the latex directories. Is it possible, that I changed the file, but it was not really changed? I have to do something like `texhash` to it whenever I edit it?
Comment: @dror you shouldn't have to `texhash` if it's in your personal `texmf` directory...


Get a list of open windows in Linux

Question: ps ax shows all the running processes. I want to do something similar, but instead of the names of the actual processes, I want the window names listed instead. What Linux command will do this?
Answer: wmctrl -l may be what you're looking for. The wmctrl program can also perform some simple actions on the windows like moving them around and setting their properties.
Answer: xlsclients shows the running clients and xwininfo -root -children shows all children of the root window. That also includes some stuff your window manager or desktop renders.
Comment: This is the wmctrl -l output plus some more.
Answer: Here is the way to show names only:
wmctrl -l|awk '{$3=""; $2=""; $1=""; print $0}'
because wmctrl -l shows a bit extra info rather than just names required in the question:
like this:
0x020002c6  0 ruslan-Latitude-E6410 fromscratch
0x04600007  0 ruslan-Latitude-E6410 Psensor - Temperature Monitor
0x01600007  0 ruslan-Latitude-E6410 Top Expanded Edge Panel
0x01600017  0 ruslan-Latitude-E6410 Bottom Expanded Edge Panel
0x0200000a -1 ruslan-Latitude-E6410 Desktop
0x05a0000c  0 ruslan-Latitude-E6410 ruslan@ruslan-Latitude-E6410: /var/lib/apt
0x05600085  0 ruslan-Latitude-E6410 index.html (~/Dropbox/cpucraft.com/fromscratch) - gedit

and filtering it by awk we get only names of open windows:
   fromscratch
   Psensor - Temperature Monitor
   Top Expanded Edge Panel
   Bottom Expanded Edge Panel
   Desktop
   ruslan@ruslan-Latitude-E6410: /var/lib/apt
   index.html (~/Dropbox/cpucraft.com/fromscratch) - gedit
   ubuntu - Get a list of open windows in Linux - Super User - Mozilla Firefox
   firstname.lastname@example.com - FileZilla

Answer: If you want simply the titles and no other information (not even whitespace), you can use this:
wmctrl -l | grep -o "$HOSTNAME.*" | sed "s/$HOSTNAME //g"

Result:

linux - How to grep and replace - Stack Overflow - Pale Moon
How can I use a variable in sed? | Unix Linux Forums | Shell Programming and Scripting - Pale Moon
Delete everything after characters * or # or & in text file with GREP - Stack Overflow - Pale Moon
Video.mp4 - VLC Media Player

Get a list of open windows in Linux


What is the loudest thunder ever recorded (dB) at ground level and where did it occur?

Question: Sound travels fastest through warm air and conditions such as temperature inversions can help to amplify the sound of thunder (source).  Conversely, during a thundersnow event the falling, and accumulated, snow can act as an acoustic suppressor (source). Originally I was thinking that the loudest thunder at ground levels would simply be at higher elevations, however the atmospheric conditions mentioned above, and others that I'm not aware of, have me wondering where the loudest thunder would actually occur.
Comment: I had no luck googling it.  There were some youtube videos, which I admittedly didn't watch, and one q&a site where an answer of 234 db was given with no source.  If you have any reliable information please post as an answer.
Comment: Is google not helpful? I found several sites just googling "loudest thunder recorded" (no quotes).
Answer: The loudest thunder will be heard where the lightning bolt hits, and this could be about 160 dB for the strongest superbolts. Good places to observe and hear such bolts are on the Mediterranean Sea in winter or the Andean Plateau.
The loudness next to the channel of triggered lightning strikes is well correlated with the peak current and measurements indicate that this is as high as 142±3 dB for a peak lightning current of about 20 kA.
Lightning superbolts have been observed with peak currents of almost 1000 kA, so we might expect their peak loudness to be 10 log(1000/20) = 17 dB louder, i.e. about 160 dB.  Such superbolts are most common over the Northeast Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Andean plateau, but also occur elsewhere.
Comment: Great answer.  Now wondering just what superbolts are.  Gotta think they're positive strikes (based upon the height)?  Certainly seems all the rage in friends who chase has been sprites and such in recent years... amazing how much we don't know about lightning yet.
Answer: Thunder 1 mile away-117 dB
Thunder 1/2 mile away-121 dB
Lightning strike just meters away from you-125 dB
Comment: Welcome Nathanael, do you have a source/basis for these numbers by chance?


Renormalization and Infinites

Question: Measuring a qubit and ending up with a bit feels a little like tossing out infinities in renormalization. Does neglecting the part of the wave function with a vanishing Hilbert space norm amount to renormalizing of Hilbert space?
Comment: I'm not certain what "neglecting the part of the wave function with a vanishing Hilbert space norm" might mean precisely, and I'm a little scared to find out. But, as far as renormalization goes, it is a clean and precise process and in modern understanding it doesn't have to do with subtracting infinities. Rather it is about scale dependence of coupling constants, you can look at any QFT book which has a chapter on renormalization group.
Comment: The question was inspired, if that's the right word, but the recent paper by Max Tegmark:  http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1008/1008.1066v1.pdf
Comment: No. What you are referring to is the "collapse" of the wavefunction from a quantum state vector to a classical value.
Comment: Measuring a qubit means we're entangling the qubit with the measuring apparatus and the environment. Decoherence leads to a subjective branching into many worlds.
Answer: No, those are two very different processes (as far as I understand).

Renormalization: When you are calculating vacuum expectation values, for instance $\langle \Omega\mid T(\phi(\mathbf{p})\phi(0))\mid \Omega\rangle$, you discover that these values are infinite. However, you can interpret this infinity, in a consistent manner, as the value of this correlation function at other momentum $\mathbf{p}^{\prime}$ and a finite part that relates the correlation function at the two different momenta. Nothing is really lost in the renormalization procedure, it is just a matter of how to introduce a measured quantity (the correlation function at this other momentum) into the theory.
Measurement: The measurement concerns a certain state $\mid \psi\rangle$ coupled to the a measurement device. Originally, before being coupled, the pure state has entropy equal to zero. Later, by the time evolution of the coupled system, the system being measured has, after tracing over the measurement device states, entropy larger than zero. The difference is the information lost by the system in the process. So, something is lost in the measurement process, contrary to renormalization.
Answer: I am maybe a bit uncertain what you are asking, but from what I understand the answer would be no.  Renormalization is a procedure for absorbing infinities in an interacting field theory.  A quantum bit is really just a state, but referred to in information theoretic terms.  The two physics are not directly related as such.  In a measurement if one considers it as a collapse there is a new normalization (renormalization?) of the system state, which is just the state vector which pertains to the measurement outcome.

Renormalization and Infinites


Contraction mapping Theorem uniform continuity

Question: If $f:(A,\rho)\to(A,\rho)$ is defined on all of $A$ and there is a constant $\alpha\in(0,1)$ such that $\rho(f(u),f(v))\leq\alpha\rho(u,v)$ for all $(u,v)\in A\times A$ so I have not understood the connection of the proof of the contraction Mapping theorem to this statement. The contraction mapping theorem states: If $f$ is a contraction of a complete metric space $(A,\rho)$, then the equation $f(u)=u$ has a unique solution. The proof makes use of the following axiom $\rho(u,v)=\rho(f(u),f(v))$, how can this be true? How can $\rho(u,v)=0$? And $u=v$? I have stuck on this for two days. Thanks for reading
Comment: What's the problem with saying that **if** $u=f(u)$ **and** $f(v)=v$, **then** $\rho(u,v)=\rho(f(u),f(v))$ ?
Comment: It is good idea to sketch the proof in your question.
Comment: If you have a function $f:(\Re,d)\to(\Re,d)$ such as the function$ f(x)=x^2$, it not true $f(x)=x$. However I am not certain $(\Re,d)$ is complete maybe that is the problem. Note: $\Re$ stands for the set of real numbers.
Comment: @PedroGomes - standard notation for the reals is obtained by `\mathbb R`, or just `\Bbb R`: $\Bbb R$.
Answer: The part of the proof you're asking about only shows the uniqueness of the fixed point. If there is no fixed point, the uniqueness is vacuously true and if there is only one we are done.
So, one needs to show that if $u,v\in A$ are two fixed points, then $u=v$. By definition this means $f(u)=u$ and $f(v)=v$. It follows that $\rho(f(u),f(v)) = \rho(u,v)$. The axioms of a metric space imply that if $\rho(u,v)=0$, then $u=v$. Suppose $\rho(u,v)\neq 0$. Since $\alpha<1$, this yields
$$\rho(u,v)=\rho(f(u),f(v))\le \alpha \rho(u,v)<\rho(u,v),$$
which is a contradiction. Thus, $\rho(u,v)=0$ and $u=v$ as desired.
Comment: @PedroGomes Well, you have $f(0)=0$ in this case, so there is a fixed point. And yes, in this case completeness holds. Anyhow, as I tried to indicate in my answer, the existence of fixed points is irrelevant in this part of the proof. What you want to prove is the uniqueness, i.e. if two fixed points exist, then they must be the same.
Comment: First, thanks for your answer. The problem arises when intuition comes into play. I do not know if I am wrong. I have made this point in an earlier comment. As far as I know $\Bbb R$ is a complete set, I guess. If I have a function $f:(\Bbb R,d)\to(\Bbb R,d)$ as for example $f(x)=x^2$, it is not true $f(x)=x$. Is the metric space $(\Bbb R, d)$ in which d can be the Euclidian metric complete? At least there are some Cauchy sequences that converge. Thanks!
Comment: I think I am starting to understand it now due to your last reply. Thank you, I was misunderstanding the theorem because I was thinking the condition would hold for the entire spaces.


Why is it so much easier to sin than follow Jesus?

Question: How is it possible, that it is harder to follow Jesus, than to sin? I really want to follow Jesus, and I'm trying to. But every day again I fail again, because short term desires which withdraw me from God and Jesus.
How is it possible, that the devil can still catch my attention and make me sin? I pray each day again, and ask for Jesus to lead my way, the Holy Spirit to live in me, and the devil to leave my life.
Comment: You are in good company; the Apostle Paul wrote: "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing." (Romans 7:19, NIV)  Martin Luther called this "at the same time, just and sinner [simul justus et peccator]". (Doubtless someone will provide an actual answer soon-ish.)
Comment: Any system of ethics is going to be tricky from time to time. Our lizard brain prefers immediate gratification.
Comment: @GregMcNulty, not specifically, also for example to watch some random movies/series/9gag etc while you could also read your bible.
Comment: This question could be construed as a pastoral advice question. So, when selecting an answer, please ensure you select one that **verifiably** either represents a major tradition's beliefs or the beliefs of Christians *across traditions*. On a related note, if anyone (with more time than me) could take a crack at editing this question into a less personal, more objective type of question, I think that would be good.
Comment: A practical answer for this would the right one. In the process of warding off the evil you tend to make more enemies than freinds in your surrounding.
Comment: @2pietjuh2:"short term desires" -- specifically lust?
Comment: @2pietjuh2 One note... be sure you define "sin" properly.  Maybe ask yourself, "What law am I breaking by watching a random movie instead of reading the Bible?"  It's kind of an important question for life, I think.  I also strongly recommend reading this book:  http://www.amazon.com/Scandalous-Freedom-Radical-Nature-Gospel/dp/1582293929
Comment: @2pietjuh2: It does not appear from my understanding for Jesus that watching a movie or funny things are a sin....(everything in balance. In other religions I see complete devotion to their books etc. and still see darkness.)
Comment: Adam was a perfect example, he had everything including God by his side, and he couldn't obey a simple commandment. God created us in His image and that included His free-will but we lack the 100% Holiness of God (because you can obtain that without free-will, otherwise we would be drones) and until we are made perfect through trials and adhering to His word we will be tempted by the devil but God always gives us a way out we must choose to accept but no one said being a Christian would be easy..just look at the disciples most of them died as martyrs. God bless you all.
Answer: Pious Christians tend to overlook a very simple truth about sin.   In the short term, it is fun.
And why is it fun?  Because as Jesus said (John 3:19):

Men love darkness, rather than the light.

And why do men love darkness rather than light?  Solomon noted (Proverbs 14:12):

There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death

Simply put:

It is fun to be the one in charge.
It is fun to get your own way.
It is fun to experience sensations that are new - even if they are not what God intended.

But in the end, it's not worth it.
Ultimately, all sin comes down to one question - Will you trust God or yourself?  And tell me - who wouldn't naturally - absent God's direct intervention - choose one's self?
The very first temptation that the Serpent told Eve was that the apple was good.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

In this, and this may be shocking - the Serpent did not lie.  He merely omitted the long term consequences.  In the short term, all sin seems to have a positive reinforcement.
Ecclesiastes 8 says it well:

11When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people's hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong. 12Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him. 13Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.

Finally, it should be understood that sin is not a defect of will - it is a defect of love.  John 14 15 says:

If you love me, keep my comamndments.
Answer: This is a universal problem among Christians.
Paul said, in Romans 7:15, "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate."  In Jeremiah 17:9, the prophet states that, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"  Truly, the Bible doesn't have good things to say about people, and anyone who says it does, is either lying or trying to sell you something.
Ultimately, it comes down to the human condition.  This is a universal, and necessary part of the Christian Gospel.  Christ came to die to pay the penalty owed by sinners, so that the God, who loves us, can have a relationship with us that he would not have been able to have otherwise.  Without the sin, and without the depravity, there is no need for Christ, and thus, there's no need for the Gospel.  This is why Paul starts out Romans with a vast exposition of the quandary we're in. Romans 3:10-18 says:

"None is righteous, no, not one;
      no one understands;
      no one seeks for God.
      All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
      no one does good,
      not even one."
      "Their throat is an open grave;
      they use their tongues to deceive."
      "The venom of asps is under their lips."
      "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness."
      "Their feet are swift to shed blood;
      in their paths are ruin and misery,
      and the way of peace they have not known."
      "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Now, there's a thought that gets passed around that says that once we become Christians, we have some new power to resist sin.  Almost like we've been endowed with special superpowers after we become believers.  Suddenly, since God has given us his Holy Spirit, we're supposed to more and more consistently prefer God to man.  In other words, we'll get better and better over our lifetime, until we get to the point that we're perfect.  I disagree, and I don't think there's much support for that in the Bible. We never outgrow the need for God's grace.
Remember, it was the older men who walked away from stoning the adulteress first.  It was they who, after years of living, recognized more clearly than the younger men the evil that lies within their hearts.  Would they have thus said that they are more perfect because they're older?  I don't think so.  I believe they would have said they were less perfect.
So what is Christian growth then?  Put simply, it's growing in your appreciation and thankfulness for all that Christ has done for you.  As you realize more and more the depth of your own depravity, you can, at the same time, recognize more and more the mercy in Christ's sacrifice.  We, who can be so utterly hateful towards God, he still chooses to save us and love us, not out of our goodness, but out of his grace.  You become less, and He becomes greater.
I also want to point out one thing here that I think you've hit on in your question.  Never think that temptation is always from the devil.  The depravity lies within your own heart as well.  James puts it well:

Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for
  God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.
  But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.  Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and
  when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

We're not innocent pawns caught between God and the devil.  We're depraved, guilty sinners in need of a Savior.  When we see our own depravity and realize that it's not simply that we commit sins, but that we are sinful, it helps us up to recognize the great value of the cross of Christ.
As Steve Brown says, "Cheer up; you're a lot worse off than you think you are, but in Jesus you're far more loved than you could have ever imagined."
So what to do now?  Rejoice.  Be thankful.  Praise God for the gift of Christ's sacrifice, which pays for each and every one of those sins you're committing.  It's cleared out.  Over with.  As Jesus says, "It is finished".  The verdict has been rendered, you are guilty, but your penalty has been paid already, and you are free to go.
What are you still doing in the courtroom?
Comment: Thanks this cleared a lot. I will try to keep thanking God for his son. That He died for me, so I can leave the courtroom.
Answer: There are two principles that must be joined to specifically answer your question about the 'easiness' of sin.
The first principle
First, the notion of spiritual slavery. A sinner is a slave to sin and free from righteousness.  That is to say a sinner can only sin and has no real struggle with a desire to be righteous.  A sinner is quite free - to sin only. On the other hand a regenerate believer is actually no longer a slave to sin, but a slave to righteousness.  Their inner desire is not satisfied but by living righteousness.  All we desire is to be holy and we have no choice in the matter.  We are slaves to righteousness.

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. (Romans 6:20-22, NIV)

Your groaning over you sin is one of the trustworthy evidences that you are no longer a slave to sin.  If you were satisfied with you level of righteousness it would be good evidence that your were still enslaved to sin.
The second principle
Regeneration only makes your inner man alive but you outer man is still in Adam, causing a Christian to be very unique in this world.  A Christian is strange because he has two natures within himslef, warring against each other.

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. (Galatians 5:16-17, NIV)

This dual nature, not comprehended by sinners, means that even when we do good there is always some sin staining the good. We therefore never for a moment have a 100% pure heart, but sin like a shadow clothes all our goodness.  There is no such thing as a motive that is not mixed.  This horrible wrestling between  two natures causes us great grief and mourning. It is making us cry out to be rescued:

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (Romans 7:24)

Now we can answer the question under these two principles.  What you seem to describe is an 'easiness' in sin, whereas walking according to the Spirit requires 'effort' and 'discipline' is a 'struggle' that never ceases. This is one of the hallmarks of the Christian experience.  Why is it easy to sin? I think part of the answer lies in the different roles that each side of the struggle plays.
The struggle of sin is supported by the world under the power of the Devil and it invades our lives without any pause or relief.  Thankfully the struggle of righteousness is supported by a stronger principle, the Holy Spirit producing the effects of Christ's death in our lives to the glory of the Father.  The world is destined to loose and is loosing.  However, when we fall into sin, our experience of the Spirit weakens, but when we commit ourselves to God afresh, the flesh does not necessarily 'weaken'. It weakens in it's influence but does not weaken in the intensity of its resistance. It actually becomes even more lively in its lusts against God's will.  What I mean is; We actually loose consciousness of God, his will, his love, his enjoyable supreme goodness, when we given ourselves over to temptation. When we give ourselves over to God we do not looses our consciousness of our desire to fornicate, murder, steel, etc. On the contrary often our evil desires flares up more violently into our conscious when we become more aware of God. This makes sin easy but holiness something that requires discipline and effort.The result is that there is a 'lazy easiness' to sin dictated by a desire for pleasure and things visible to our senses.
But to warp up.  This easiness for a real believer is even used by God to fashion our faith into greater faith and righteousness. Actually we are slaves to God and he is greater than our temptations. It sounds contradictory but actually it is easier for us to follow God, it just does not feel easier due to the struggle involved.  The reason is that since our inner man desires nothing but God and will not be satisfied until its weakens the influence of the flesh as much as possible, our struggle with sin is actually making us hate it more.  God may even hand us over to our sins, a bit, for a time, in order to expose them lurking within us, and to make us hate them so very much!  Over time we become more and more holy and more desirous to enter the comforting shadow that lays behind the physical grave - our eternal glory.
We are actually like superman but are exhausted in killing sin. We are being propelled into ever increasing glory and victory yet we are weak and we mourn with an ever growing consciousness of sin. We are like aliens slowly ripping our flesh off from our person. It confuses us.  The enemies about us, especially the religious without faith, have no idea about who we are.  We are considered fools speaking meaningless things yet we have the words of eternal life and the wisdom of God deposited in weak earthen vessels. We are not from this earth and there is nothing here that really has a hold on us.  Its just not a clean picture. Its very messy. Its full of blood, snot and sweat. Its very deceptive.
Answer: The question is why is it so much easier to follow sin than to follow Jesus.
The short answer is because your flesh is not redeemed and it wants to run amok. Romans 7:14-20 says:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a
  slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I
  do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do,
  I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who
  do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does
  not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire
  to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the
  good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on
  doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who
  do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

I think it may be a matter of faith as to whether a person can comprehend the message of Romans chapter 7. In this passage Paul shows us the distinction between our flesh and our spirit. Sin still lives in our flesh. Sin is at home in our flesh, very comfortable there. Sin has had this home for a shorter time for some and a longer time for others but no matter who you are or what your background, sin lives in your flesh.
Romans 7:21 says: So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
If you want to talk about NT laws, you can put the Law of Sin in the Flesh at the top of the list. The LOSITF was not defeated or changed at the cross. That Law says "Adam let me in, I have every right to be here until your body dies, and there is precious little you can do about it."
I think that the wording in the section of scripture is very important. The LOSITF must be obeyed. It's not a law like the Law of Moses, where the people said "Every thing that the Lord has said, we will do" and then they promptly failed to do it.
The LOSITF is more like the law of gravity. If you have enough power, you can defy the law of gravity...for a while. Eventually, the plane will run out of fuel and crash.
You can also defy LOSITF...for a while...if you're flying high on your own power with a bit of the Holy Spirit thrown in. This is where "being a good Christian" is worked out by the faithful every day as we try to defy the LOSITF out of our love for God. But eventually we're going to run out of gas, and we're going to fall back to earth again, and then we'll curse ourselves for being a weak Christian. And then we'll try again...and again...and, well, you get it.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is
  subject to death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus
  Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law,
  but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

What does this mean? Does God mean to tell us that we'll always be a slave to the LOSITF? That we actually have two masters both Sin and God? Yes, I think that is exactly what God is telling us. I think that is exactly the conclusion that Paul comes to. I...am...wretched...but only in the flesh, not in the spirit.
I think this is why Paul went to great lengths to confirm to us previously in Romans 6 what the solution was to this dilemma.

Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are
  those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't
  you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were
  baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through
  baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the
  dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

The solution to the dilemma of having two natures in one body is to reckon yourself dead, and resurrected. First the dead part...stop beating a dead horse about sin. Many of us flog ourselves daily because this dead body won't do what we want it to do. Stop it! Your body is dead. Stop looking at the putrefaction. Stop trying to make deals with it. Stop trying to make it look like a Christian.
Instead, look at your resurrected self. This is what Paul means by "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."
We have already been raised from the dead. Turn your back on the dead body and turn your face toward the resurrected self. That self is sinless, holy, spotless, unable to be tempted. Sin itself loves this dead body. It is its natural habitat, so that  "if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Again in verse 25 "...So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."
Then, you really need to read Romans 8. I will not quote the whole chapter, but suffice it to say that God knows what we are and doesn't condemn us for it.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
  Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives
  life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the
  law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did
  by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin
  offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,  in order that the
  righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do
  not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

You are in Christ Jesus. Stop looking at the dead body you left behind. Look only to Jesus. Look only to His Spirit. Don't fight the flesh because all that does is give it power. Don't even look at it. Instead of fighting the flesh and losing, allow your resurrected self to be yoked with Him.
It's a leap of faith to believe that you can stop thinking about sin, and not only that, but be comfortable with who you are. To confess who you are, as Paul does.
So when I pray, I don't ask God to take my sin away. I just confess that I am a sinner. Then I do the important thing...I offer myself. If you take the approach to Christian growth that you must stop sinning, you're going to remain a baby in Christ forever. You're forever going to be living in the flesh instead of the Spirit.  Christians think that living in the flesh is what the unbeliever does, but I say it's what Christians who fight their flesh are doing.

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the
  flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have
  their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the
  flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
  The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit
  to God's law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the
  flesh cannot please God.

Paul is talking to Christians here, not to unbelievers. He says Christians can have their minds so set on what the flesh is doing that they become hostile to God and they do not please God. They are always "struggling" with some sin or other.
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
You've heard it over and over...walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Put another way, keep your eyes focused on the Spirit and sin will fall away. You don't have to "struggle" with sin, you have to acknowledge it, confess it, then ignore it, keeping your attention on the Spirit within you.
This, I believe, is walking in the Spirit. I know this is rather long, but it's an important concept and hard to understand. Sin, my friend, is no longer an issue. Sin was dealt with on the cross. You are dead. You are alive again, but as a different sort of creature, a sinful shell and a holy interior. Pay much more attention the the holy interior than you do to the sinful shell and you will not have questions like this.


Desolate vs deserted

Question: Is there a difference in meaning or usage between "desolate" and "deserted" (used to describe a place)?
Comment: A question like "What is the difference between _this_ and _that_?" can be markedly improved if you first look up the words in a few dictionaries, and then include some of the definitions you found in your question. That way, instead of starting from the beginning and telling you something you already know, we can better understand what you want to learn, and answer that more directly. You are welcome to do that here and we can reopen this question. See our [*Details, Please*... meta post](https://ell.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/439/please-everyone-details-please) for more helpful tips.
Answer: Desolate refers to a general emptiness.

(of a place) uninhabited and giving an impression of bleak emptiness. Oxford Dictionary

Deserted implies that the place had people (or animals, etc.) occupying it at some point but has since been abandoned.

(of a place) empty of people. Oxford Dictionary

Used in a sentence together:

This city was once surrounded by farm fields, but a plague killed the crops. The people left the city and left it deserted. Now, with ruined silhouettes and a wasteland where nothing grows around it, the area looks desolate.
Answer: It's a good idea to check English-language dictionaries when uncertain about the nuance between two words, as these might give more detail that doesn't show up in a translation dictionary:

deserted (adj) : (of a place) empty of people.
desolate (adj): 1.  (of a place) uninhabited and giving an impression of bleak emptiness.

"Deserted" is normally used as a neutral term.  A barren wasteland can be deserted, but so can a beautiful tropical beach.
"Desolate", on the other hand, always has negative connotations of both "without people" and "invoking feelings of hopelessness".  If an author describes a desolate landscape, it implies that there is little there to support life, and little reason for people to want to be there.

Desolate vs deserted


Like a page via foursquare API

Question: Can't find an endpoint providing "Like a page" (not a  page update) via the API. Any suggestions? Looking here https://developer.foursquare.com/docs/pages/pages
Answer: You won't find such an endpoint: "like a page" is explicitly intended to be done by users, never via an API. None of the major platforms that allow things like Likes provide API endpoints for that action (Facebook doesn't, Foursquare doesn't either) because they do not want developers gaming the system and inadvertently (or on purpose) performing those actions without user consent.
So no: you're probably never going to find an API endpoint for that.
Answer: Documentation for this endpoint is coming soon (we're in the process of auditing our API to document the new APIs introduced by #allnew4sq)
The endpoint is /pages/USER_ID/like and without any additional params probably does what you want it to do.

Like a page via foursquare API


If a floor is raised or elevated, what's its opposite?

Question: In Japan, they raise the floor to indicate shoes must be taken off before stepping on the elevated floor. I need a word for the part of the floor that is not raised. Any suggestions?
Comment: *Genkan* floor; if concrete or tiled, *tataki* floor.
Comment: You could use "the entrance level" in either case, but if you enter the house from street level, I'd call the lower part of the floor "the ground level" & if you have to climb stairs to enter the house, "the entrance level." .... "[Genkan is the **entrance** of the house. As we cross the **entrance** of a Japanese house, we can see a place where shoes are kept and rack for the shoes to be arranged on. This area is called the doma which can always be seen at the **same level of the ground** while the rest of the house is always lifted a bit from the **ground level**.](http://jpninfo.com/12898)"
Comment: The Japanese call it the *genkan*. It is a very specific arrangement in a Japanese home, and western houses do not normally have such a thing. Even the Chinese who also remove their shoes before entering the house don't have such a thing. At least that is the case with the Overseas Chinese. As no English name exists why not call it a *genkan*? After all we call *sauerkraut* sauerkraut, don't we?
Answer: "Sunken" might be what you are looking for, if set below the normal level of the floor.
"Flush," if at the normal level of the floor.
Answer: "Level" could work:

level adj.
having no part higher than another; having a flat or even surface

Source: Dictionary.com
Comment: How does that address the question? From my understanding of the question, there is a lower part of the floor, which is presumably 'level' (as in 'flat'); then there is a step up to a higher part of the floor, which is also presumably 'level' (as in 'flat').  So both levels are level! [Pun intended.]
Answer: From Google:
foyer: "...you may hang your coats in the foyer"
NORTH AMERICAN = an entrance hall in a house or apartment..."
If you were to ask your guests to remove their shoes in the foyer, they would know that you were indicating the entrance area.
(In larger, public buildings, the North American word for this entrance space is "lobby".  Though "foyer" is sometimes used instead of "lobby" when referring to larger buildings, "lobby" is never used to describe space in a home that is a single-family house or dwelling.)
Although I think "by the front door" is also commonly used to refer to this part of a house.  My mother used to call this the "anteroom" - too formal and old school now - but as my son was growing up and he would bring a gang of school friends home, I would remind them to leave their shoes "by the front door" as I knew their parents similarly used that phrase.
"Recessed" is used to describe the opposite of "raised", but I think it's more design jargon than space-naming convention.


How is White winning in this OTB position?

Question: Can anyone kindly guide me on how White has won in this picture of the end of an OTB game?
Comment: I'm assuming that despite the clock, it is Black to move? The thing is that he is going to lose his f-pawn and then white will get a queen.
Comment: Beside @RemcoGerlich vrey credible hypothesis (White played Kd5, Black held out his hand in sign of resignation before White even pressed the clock), the others possibilities I can imagine (i.e., if it is White's turn) is that Black lost on time, resigned by mistake... or that there is a White unit on a1, a2, b2 or a3, hidden by the player's hand !
Comment: because white has a queen on a2?  Whose move is it?
Answer: In the picture, it could be either the two simply agreeing to the draw, or black resigning, depending on who has the move. Both are typically followed by a handshake.
White to move is a draw.
<code> [FEN "8/3k4/5p2/3K1P1p/7P/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

 1. Kc5 {The only move} Kc7 {Again the only move.} 2. Kd5 Kd7= {Both sides are forced to repeat here, and it is a draw.}
</code>
Now, black to move loses as black has to cede space, and then material.
<code> [FEN "8/3k4/5p2/3K1P1p/7P/8/8/8 b - - 0 1"]

 1... Ke7 2. Kc6 Ke8 3. Kd6 Kf7 4. Kd7 Kf8 5. Ke6 Kg7 6. Ke7 Kg8 7. Kxf6 Kf8 8. Kg5 Kf7 9. Kxh5 Kf6 10. Kg4 $18
</code>
Comment: the pawns are on f5 and f6, not f6 and f7 :)
Comment: @StevenStadnicki Of course, but for someone asking that question, the Kh8 line is much more complicated than just taking the second pawn, and having a tempo in reserve to avoid any stalemates, if necessary.
Comment: Oops, thanks Hamish. I will look again, and edit as necessary. That must be why Rewan deleted his answer, and I saw the positions there, and was swayed.
Comment: No sense in even bothering to capture the other pawn — after 8. Kg6 Kg8 (8... Ke8 9. Kg7) 9. f6, Black gets their pick of poisons with 9... Kf8 10. f7 Ke7 11. Kg7 or 9... Kh8 10. Ke7 and 11. f7. In either case, the pawn queens next move.
Answer: Assuming it's black to move this is a very simple win. White has the opposition and a strong king position. I would recommend reading up on the opposition. White can effectively "push" the black king back because black has no alternative. A decent endgame player will see this as a win almost instantly.


NPAPI plugin: nsScriptablePeer.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _NPN_Evaluate referenced in function

Question: I am trying to compile NPAPI plugin under Win-XP and VS 2008.
Its giving me error as nsScriptablePeer.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _NPN_Evaluate referenced in function when I try to use NPN_Evaluate to call javascript function .  I have added all libraries from xulrunner-sdk/lib and xullrunner-sdk/sdk/lib in additional library directories. Is there any other library needs to be included to use NPN_Evaluate function ?
Answer: The functions beginning with NPN_ are only accessible through the pointer passed during the initialization NP_Initialize phase.  I've been caught by this situation and I decided to document a bit here.
In other words, you don't have to link a library but you have to catch the pointer to the NPN browser functions during the NP_Initialize call to your plugin.
Answer: You can find a brief rundown of npapi plugins in general here:
http://colonelpanic.net/2009/03/building-a-firefox-plugin-part-one/
it's a little disjointed, but my goal was to answer some of the not-well-explained parts of NPAPI, like the one you ran into here =]
Incidently, if you're using nsScriptablePeer, you're using an outdated example that still uses XPCOM instead of NPObjects.  XPCOM will no longer be supported in future versions of firefox (starting 3.6, I believe)
A little more about that here: http://colonelpanic.net/2009/08/building-a-firefox-plugin-%E2%80%93-part-three/


What is the length boundary between article and monograph?

Question: I've seen peer-reviewed articles of over 24,000 words, and short monographs (books) of barely over 100 pages. Is there a demarcation on how long can an article be without becoming a monograph? I'm in Philosophy.
Comment: Even in math there's not a clear line. If you have a 90-page paper in JAMS it's an article and if the same paper is in MAMS then it's a monograph!
Comment: I don't know specifically about philosophy, but in general I don't see a reason why this should be mainly decided by text length. For instance in mathematics (my field), research articles, survey articles, and monographs serve quite different puposes, no matter how long precisely they are.
Answer: Journals and conferences may have length limits on articles but they differ widely. A given publisher with many journals may have different limits for different journals. These limits are usually easy to find. Reviewers also make some suggestions about length on occasion if they find extraneous (or missing) materials in a paper.
Limits might be in words or pages and there might be both lower and upper limits in some cases. Journals that publish paper versions might be quite strict with limits.
The same publishers of those journals might also publish monographs, though some publishers specialize in one or the other. Each will have its own standards about what it publishes. Many journals consider monetization of what they publish and length may play a role in decisions, though it is unlikely to be a major consideration with other things such as timeliness and relevance (and market) being more important.
But articles and monographs are somewhat different in tone, with articles usually leaving much of the background of an idea in the references and monographs often including more of that for completeness.
If you have an idea for an article or a monograph, you can discuss the idea with an editor (or two) who will give you advice on which might be appropriate and also about how complete and self contained your work needs to be to be considered a monograph. If they find your ideas interesting enough they will work with you on publishing them. The length is something that will be a consequence of that.


Is there a term for someone who loves cute things?

Question: Such as arctophile or entomophile? Looking for something more formal sounding than 'cuteophile' or something similarly made up.
Comment: *Cuteophile*, though sounds cute, just cannot be, per rules of grammar/ linguistics conventions. A fine question for sure.
Comment: @Kris: Agreed, a tough nut to crack. I tried looking up "hearts rainbows unicorns" in a [reverse dictionary](http://onelook.com/?w=*&loc=revfp2&clue=hearts+rainbows+unicorns), just to see what would happen. I found many interesting words – like Strzyga, Koosalagoopagoop, and Billy Bob Thornton – but many were not related to anything cute. I did find one candidate for the O.P.: _Binbealean_ (Binbeal is the Aboriginal god of rainbows). Example usage: _When I saw my daughter dotting her i's with small hearts, I admonished her. "Your handwriting is too Binbealean," I said._
Answer: While not a perfect fit, a person who likes beautiful things would be an aesthete.
In Japan — the home of all things cute and cuddly-wuddly — the term kawaii, meaning cute, lovable, adorable, etc., "has become a prominent aspect of Japanese popular culture, entertainment, clothing, food, toys, personal appearance, behavior, and mannerisms". It has now entered the English dictionary as a loanword. People often talk about the "kawaii syndrome" affecting all of Japan. That said, a kawaiiphile sounds just as made up as cuteophile. Depending on context, you might be able to stretch kawaii-otaku (otaku is another loanword) to imply an obsessive interest in cute things.
Then there's agalmatophilia which involves "sexual attraction to a statue, doll, mannequin or other similar figurative object".
Comment: @alcas Agreed. But its entry into the dictionary as well as the ever-rising popularity of anime etc. should help. Then again, I expect that _kawaii_ will largely be misspelt/mispronounced to mean _kowai_ :|
Comment: "Kawaiophile" would be a useful word to have in English :) but unfortunately its meaning wouldn't be very guessable to people who don't know the root word...
Answer: According to Perseus the Ancient Greek φιλόλιχνος, philolichnos meant "loving dainties, lickerish, dainty", so turning it around we'd get: lichnophile.
In Modern Greek, according to a correspondent at wiki.answers.com, "Cute is χαριτωμένο (haritomeno) which can be applied to both soulless objects (teddy bears, dresses etc.) and living beings (humans, dogs, cats etc.)", which would yield charitomenophile.
It would be interesting to know whether lichnophilia (or charitomenophilia) is clinically related to Acquired Cuteness Disorder.
Comment: Lol at ACD! (before checking out the link, that is.)
Answer: The term sentimentalist is somewhat broader, but may well encompass the concept you are seeking.  See sentimentality.
The term kitsch is often used to describe objects that others might characterize as cute. See this article that discusses sentimentality and kitsch (among many other things).
Comment: sent*a* or sent*i*?
Comment: @coleopterist Once again my sloppy typing betrays me. At least I spelled it right in one instance out of three. Thanks.
Answer: There are lots of names, but if you're looking for a name like "otaku" or "weeaboo", there are sadly no names. I love Kawaii things myself, so I would suggest making up your own name. Try "Kawaiiboo" or "Kawaiiku".


Are there any yet unresolved SR paradoxes?

Question: I'm asking apart of the famous twins-paradox of special relativity theory and the ladder-paradox  which have been resolved in the literature if there are still some paradoxes or variations of old ones as thought experiments or maybe also some experimental results that today still resist a solution and apparently violate causality?
Comment: Related: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/685215/
Comment: A paradox is a teaching tool that tries to get you to understand and learn to avoid unhealthy thinking patterns. It's not an actual scientific problem that ever needed work.
Answer: No, there are no unresolved paradoxes in special relativity. It is more than a century old and has been thoroughly studied. At this point in history any claim that there is a logical flaw in SR should be treated with the same or even more skepticism as a claim that there is a logical flaw in the foundations of arithmetic. I use the analogy deliberately: Kurt Goedel, prompted by questions from David Hilbert, did find a "flaw" of sorts in the foundations of arithmetic (the famous incompleteness theorem). Both Goedel and Hilbert studied relativity extensively and did not find any such flaw in relativity.
Not only has it passed logical scrutiny, relativity has passed experimental scrutiny. All of modern physics is based on relativity and quantum mechanics. The global positioning system, modern computers, lasers... they all work as predicted by QM and SR. Atomic clocks are sensitive enough to directly measure gravitational and kinematic time dilation predicted by relativity. Time really is relative, and experiments prove it.
Comment: The OP asked about paradoxes.  There are no paradoxes in arithmetic, for the same reason there are no paradoxes in relativity --- both theories have models, so both theories are consistent.  I fear this answer could mislead the OP into thinking there might be paradoxes in relativity that Goedel and Hilbert failed to find.
Comment: @WillO The term "paradox" has a somewhat different usage in physics as opposed to studies on logic. The "twin paradox" is well named.
Comment: The mathematics of QM may work well, but I would not say that it is paradox free. The EM wave packet associated with a photon can produce an interference pattern measured in centimeters, but all of its energy and momentum can be absorbed by a single atom. (I have read that there is no evidence that there is a "point like particle" moving with the wave. We can only say that interactions are "quantized".)
Answer: Perhaps "paradox" is the wrong word for these. "Example" might have been better.
The universe is approximately classical at low speeds, but we are so used to it that anything else seems to be impossible.
The basis of special relativity is that the speed of light is constant. From this we derive the failure of simultaneity, time dilation, length contraction, and all the other features of SR. These all are how the universe actually behaves (OK, they are a better approximation than classical physics.)
So the paradoxes are just counter intuitive examples of how the universe really works. They were invented as teaching examples.
There are other examples that violate our classical expectations of how things should be. Some of them are not completely explained.
For example, see What is time, does it flow, and if so what defines its direction?. This says that time is very different than you would expect. The common sense view of time is that it flows. The present is all that exists. The future hasn't happened yet. The past is over and gone.
But the failure of simultaneity implies the Block Universe is how time really works. A succession of events do not come into existence and disappear. The whole block of events in all of space-time just statically exists. That way I can see a distant event as simultaneous with my "now", and you can see it as simultaneous with my past.
But if time does not flow, why do we see it moving forward? There are still questions about the arrow of time. We accept that time does move forward, do physics with it, and it all works. But it is unsatisfying to classical intuition. And even though asking why the universe works this way has no answer from physics, people still do ask.
Comment: Causality is the reason responsible for the forward arrow of time. If causality is violated there is no time. Since in this experiment speed is less than c therefore time must exist and so must causality. Meaning despite simultaneity concerns  (simultaneity is irrelevant here) and different frames, the two observers must see the same events and in the same order else time, reality and causality have no meaning and should not exist. It does not matter if the two explosions happened at the same point in a spacetime graph, the  problem is that the runner dies both outside and inside the barn.
Comment: @Markoul11 - What you say sounds reasonable, but be careful about relying on reasonableness. The Block Universe isn't reasonable, and time has other weirdness when you look at quantum mechanics and general relativity. For example, an entangled pair of particles can speed away in opposite directions. Both are in a superposition of spin up and spin down until one is measured. Then the other will always be measured to have the opposite spin. This will happen even if the measurements are so close together in time that the speed of light prevents one from knowing the other has been measured.
Answer: Minkowski space is a model for special relativity.  A theory with a model cannot be inconsistent.
Moreover, this particular model is so simple (it is basically the study of one particular real quadratic form) that any apparent inconsistency (as opposed to an actual inconsistency, of which there are none) can be resolved quite easily, usually with just a few lines of linear algebra.


What nationality was "Egbert Van Kampen"?

Question: If you google a bit about the mathematician Egbert Van Kampen, almost all sources you'll find claim that he was born in Belgium in 1908.
Does anyone have any reliable sources about this person's nationality? In particular, I am curious if it is possible that this person did not acquire Belgian nationality by birth.
Comment: According to [this biography](http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Van_Kampen.html) (which doesn't state a nationality), he was born in Belgium to parents who had moved there from the Netherlands, and the family returned there when he was about ten.
Comment: Hm, interesting. This [page](http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Van_Kampen.html) says he was Belgian...
Comment: According to [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egbert_van_Kampen) he was Dutch.
Comment: @LarsBosteen There is no source on that page which mentions the person's nationality.
Answer: As one can deduce from the information provided in A Forgotten Mathematician, he was Dutch, confirming the Wikipedia claim.
According to 1,

Egbertus Rudolf van Kampen, known as Egbert, was born on 28 May 1908
  in Berchem as the youngest in a family of three children. Egbert's parents had moved from the Netherlands to Belgium a couple of years before, when his
  father became an accountant at the Minerva car factory in Antwerp.

The history of the Belgian law on nationality is discussed in great detail in
Marie-Claire Foblets, Zeynep Yanasmayan,
Patrick Wautelet, EUDO Citizenship Observatory: Country Report: Belgium.
To summarize, until 1909, Belgian citizenship rules were modeled on the those in France:

(1) Citizenship was granted at birth, following the principle of ius
  sanguinis paterni: a child whose father was French had French citizenship, even if she or he was born abroad (art. 10 Code Civil). This mode of acquisition was legitimised by the nationalist conviction that citizenship cannot simply follow from accidentally having been born in a certain territory, but has to be seen as the heritage of a people, which is made up of individuals who together form a sovereign nation (Verwilghen 1985: 18; Closset 1984: 782).
(2) If a foreigner was born in France, he or she could nevertheless voluntarily opt for French citizenship by making a déclaration de domiciliation [declaration of domicile] within one year after reaching the age of 22 (art. 9 Code Civil). The theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau was put into practice by means of this policy. According to Rousseau the acquisition of citizenship constitutes a contract to which an individual can voluntarily choose to adhere.
(3) The principle of 'one family, one citizenship' was also stressed (arts. 12 and 19 Code Civil). Until 1985, the Belgian legislation continued to be based largely on this principle: a married woman took the citizenship of her husband and so did the children born in wedlock. The loss and re-acquisition of French citizenship were regulated in arts. 17 and 20 of the Code Civil.
The law of 1909 thus abrogated the provisions of the Code Civil regarding citizenship
  and of certain specific laws,10 and introduced a whole new set of rules. This law was liberal for the time of its promulgation, as it provided for the application of the ius soli principle beside ius sanguinis. More precisely, citizenship was also granted to every child born in Belgium of parents with an undefined status and to all persons turning 23, who had lived in Belgium during their 22nd year and did not indicate a desire to retain their foreign citizenship, provided that either the person was born in Belgium and had been domiciled in Belgium for at least 6 years or the person was born in Belgium of foreign parents, at least one of whom was also born in Belgium or had resided there continuously for ten years.

Thus, initially, Egbert Van Kampen did not qualify for Belgian citizenship. But he did not qualify after the laws of 1909 either, since his family moved back to Holland during WWWI (1914-1918: Holland was neutral) and, subsequently, Egbert Van Kampen went to Gottingen to study, then to Hamburg to work and, eventually, moved to the United States (1931), to Johns Hopkins University.
To summarize: Van Kampen could not have been a Belgian citizen.
Turning to the Dutch citizenship laws: The history is long and complex (since the country is much older than Belgium), see this Wikipedia article:

Nevertheless, the new 1850 nationality law did not replace the 1838 civil code and this in turn led to the creation of a double nationality; political nationality as stated in 1850, and civil nationality of the 1838 civil code. The uncertainties were eliminated in 1892 with the implementation of the Nationality Act which replaced both 1838 and 1850 nationality acts. The new law was based on the German system of jus sanguinis and excluded all previous mention of the principle of jus soli. The new Dutch nationality law survived until the amendments of 1985.

Thus, (in view of the jus sanguinis system) Van Kampen, as a child of Dutch parents (both his parents,  Laurens van Kampen and Johanna Maria Schiltmeijer were born in Holland, see here), was automatically Dutch by birth.
You can find detailed information on Van Kampen's life and work in the article
1 Robbert Fokkink, A forgotten mathematician, Newsletter of the European Mathematical Society,  2004, Issue 52, pp. 9-13.
For his article (details on Van Kampen's early life) Fokkink interviewed Van Kampen's relatives as well as local officials: Mark de Bock from Antwerp and Albert Schiltmeijer from Amsterdam.
Lastly: Van Kampen lived in the US for about 10 years (1931-1942, he died very young), so, according to the US naturalization laws of the period, he would have qualified for the US citizenship as early as 1936. I do not know if he ever became a US citizen.
Comment: So, in other words he was Dutch, correct? (Methinks you should make it clearer in the answer.)
Comment: @DenisdeBernardy: Right.


In which books does Descartes propose his ideas about mind-body dualism?

Question: In which books does Descartes propose his ideas about mind-body dualism?
Answer: You can start with Dualism, René Descartes and Descartes and the Pineal Gland.
Then you can see at least :

Desmond M. Clarke, Descartes's Theory of Mind (2005)
Lilli Alanen, Descartes's Concept of Mind (2009)
Dennis Des Chene, Spirits and Clocks: Machine and Organism in Descartes (2001).

About D's works, you can see his first book, the Treatise of man (written before 1637, but only published posthumously, first in an imperfect Latin translation in 1662, and then in the original French in 1664).


Was Vandal Savage friends with historical figures or was he them?

Question: In S07E08 of Smallville Savage appears under the guise or Curtis Knox, an alias he also uses in Legends of Tomorrow, when Chloe refers to him as a Jack the Ripper wannabe, he smiles and says "I was Jack the Ripper." He makes mention to being other historical figures as well, one of them being Napoleon Bonaparte. However, in Legends of Tomorrow he explains how he learned about the curative powers of blood from Jack the Ripper. Does that mean that he learned about it while he was Jack the Ripper or that Jack the Ripper told him? I thought perhaps it would have been changed in Legends of Tomorrow because the whole idea is that he stayed quite throughout history. Are there other references to him being/knowing historical figures elsewhere?
Comment: You realize Smallville and LoT are different universes, right? The fact that he said one thing in Smallville means nothing in the Arrowverse.
Comment: @phantom42 I realise that, but I am asking if either claims are consistent with other sources.
Answer: Yes, Savage has claimed to be other historical figures in other continuities.

Over the centuries, Savage's name appeared over and over again in Western history, as advisor to kings and pharaohs in Sumer, Egypt, and Europe. He claimed to have ruled hundreds of civilizations under hundreds of names: Khafre, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Vlad the Impaler, to name a few. He had also worked as close friends and advisers to the likes of Erik the Red, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ra's al Ghul, Otto von Bismarck and Adolf Hitler. He was the court physician in France, and even used the royal family for syphilis experiments.

Source. (Emphasis mine)
The paragraph has a footnote referencing Flash Vol 2 #14. In Final Crisis, he was also revealed to be Cain (the biblical figure).
As for him being Jack the Ripper vs learning from him, Smallville and Legends of Tomorrow are different stories, not set in the same universe. So in Smallville, he was Jack the Ripper, and in LoT, he only learned from him.


Should I accept a funded MS offer, and then wait for other offers, knowing that under the resolution I can submit a resignation of the funded offer?

Question: I'm applying for a MS at 4 different schools.  I received a funded offer (TA position, tuition waiver) from one school who asked me to accept the offer by March 7.  I am thankful for the offer, however I have more interest in another school that I applied to. My other 3 schools are in various stages of reviewing/deciding, from what They've told me.  With today being March 2, should I accept the funded offer, and then wait to see what else is offered to me, knowing that under the Resolution I can submit a resignation of the funded offer?  Is this a common occurrence?
Comment: Possible duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/64022/accepting-a-graduate-offer-of-admission-and-then-turning-it-down/64023#comment153853_64023
Answer: You haven't said where you are applying to. While not a law, the offer you received would be in violation of the CGS resolution that offer should be until April 15th. Most universities in the US are signatories and follow this practice.
Regardless, there's no reason to tell them before March 7th considering that's the deadline they set.
Separately, depending on the sort of communication you've had with other schools, you could ask them if they will be able to tell you before March 7th to simplify your decision-making process.
The CGS resolution exists precisely so that people won't be stuck in this position (among first offers of funding).


White vs Brown adipose tissue

Question: I have been looking for a reference that compares and contrasts brown and white adipose tissue (in humans) in a concise (preferably tabular, but that's not completely necessary) manner. I haven't found one yet. So I was thinking of posting a question asking for such a reference, along with my own simple table that I've been compiling along the way, in case anyone thought of commenting on it /critiquing it /adding to it . Is that an acceptable question ?
Answer: Would "What are the differences between white and brown adipose tissue?" not be acceptable? This seems imminently answerable, and a table would suffice.
Comment: Sounds like a plan ! Thanks, I'll prepare the question now...
Answer: That sounds useful, but I don't really think this fits into the Q+A format SE is going for: not only is it asking for a list with no clear "right" answer, if people post replies it has the potential to become a list of lists. I'm curious to know what you've been compiling it from: if your sources are well cited it seems like a perfect addition to Wikipedia.
As for the asking where you'd find such a reference: I'm not sure what the biology.SE stance is on asking for references (comments welcome).
Comment: Thanks. On other SE sites, I would think this falls in the category of "community wiki" which exists on on stats.SE where I have also posted a little - for example see [here](http://meta.stats.stackexchange.com/questions/290/what-is-community-wiki) - could I not just use the same tag on biology.se ?
Comment: It seems like you have two posts here: one is the question "where do I find this list?", the other is a community wiki in which the answers are the differences. You could cross link them, but I don't think they belong together. We don't seem to have a precedent on either of these uses, so I'd say go for it, see what people say.
Answer: It seems ideal as a community wiki, no ?

White vs Brown adipose tissue


How to connect my iphone to PC and edit my contacts and other things like I can do with my Nokia phone?

Question: How to connect my iPhone to PC and edit my contacts and other things like I can do with my Nokia phone?
Comment: There are (too) many things other phones can do that iPhone can't. The most annoying ones are also the most common, such as easily and freely transferring files (or even photos), SMS, Notes, Call History... At least contacts you can do with freaking iTunes.
Answer: You can in iTunes define which online Service or PC program you want to use.
In the iPhone User Guide on page 55, are the below written.

Info Pane
The Info pane lets you
  configure the sync settings for your
  contacts, calendars, email accounts,
  and web browser.

Contacts
Sync contacts with applications such as Mac
  OS X Address Book, Yahoo! Address
  Book, and Google Contacts on a Mac, or
  with Yahoo! Address Book, Google
  Contacts, Windows Address Book
  (Outlook Express), Windows Contacts
  (Vista and Windows 7), or Microsoft
  Outlook 2003, 2007, or 2010 on a PC.
  (On a Mac, you can sync contacts with
  multiple applications. On a PC, you
  can sync contacts with one application
  at a time.)
If you sync with Yahoo!
  Address Book, you only need to click
  Configure to enter your new login
  information when you change your
  Yahoo! ID or password after you've set
  up syncing.
Comment: I also can send , edit my SMS from nokia using Nokia software from myPC  , is it possible from iphone?
Comment: Not that I'm aware of - maybe if you jailbreak your iPhone, but I don't know about this issue.
Comment: A quick Google search gave me this link: http://www.iphonesmstransfer.com/how-to-edit-iphone-sms-messages-in-computer.html - but not a free program. And this: http://osxdaily.com/2010/07/08/read-iphone-sms-backup/
Answer: I use iCloud to sync the Contacts from my iPhone.  I can then view and edit changes Contacts from the iCloud site on any PC.
FYI, an iPhone connected iTunes on a Mac can sync contacts with the Mac's Address Book.


how can I measure the pH of a HF:H2O:CH3OH solution?

Question: how can I measure the pH of a HF:H2O:CH3OH solution? more specifically, how can I precisely and accurately measure the H+ ion concentration?
Comment: Well, there are various options there, particularly what are the approximate proportions?  Another thing is what you're really trying to achieve there? If there more methanol then water, it's possible there's also more protonated methanol. And if there's a lot of HF you should use Hammett scale of acidity. Also HF reacting with MeOH may be a problem...
Answer: The pH is a quantity that is measured in an aqueous solution by dipping a glass electrode in the solution. It is equal to -log[H+] in dilute solutions. For concentrations > 0.01 M, the pH deviates from log [H+], because the concentration [H+] should be calculated by dividing the number of moles H+ by the volume of  the free water (and not the volume of the solution). Free water is the water not attached in the Debye layers around the ions. It is very difficult to calculate the volume of the free water in a given solution. For concentrations > 0.01 M, the volume of the free water is smaller than the volume of the solution.
In mixtures water + methanol, the problem becomes worse and cannot be solved by measuring the pH. The pH value, measured with the glass electrode, gives a value which is not the logarithm of the concentration of $\ce{H+}$. In this case, you have better determine the concentration of HF in a volumetric titration, by adding NaOH solution drop by drop, until the indicator changes its color. The indicator may be thymolphtalein. The volume of free water is smaller than the volume of the solution.


If I uninstall an app do I lose the data?

Question: I want to install Angry Birds from the Amazon App Store but all I get is errors. My guess is it's because I already have it installed. I'm afraid to uninstall just in case I lose the data. Any ideas?
Answer: Apps store user data in different ways:

Some store the data on the SD car in a public folder and as long as you don't manually delete the folder after you uninstall the app, it will still be there when you reinstall.
Other apps store data this way but have their configuration data in the secured portion of the internal memory and that data is lost when you uninstall (example: podcast app that stores the podcasts, and they subscription data on the SD card but the login, password and settings data internally.  You'll still have your podcasts and subscriptions but you'll have to re-enter the other data).
Some apps store all their data in the protected memory so you'll lose everything when you uninstall unless you use some kind of backup utility.

Angry birds stores data in the protected portion of the internal memory and all is lost when you uninstall.  There are apps that specifically backup Angry Birds data and other apps that backup apps.  There are so many there's no point in mentioning them here but just search the market for "Angry Birds Backup" or "App backup".
Titanium Backup is the best in my opinion but you need to be rooted to use it, while others you do not.
Answer: Use a program like Titanium Backup to back up the data, then remove the program and install the new one, then restore the data.  But.  Often the data will be incompatible between versions and this may lead to force closes.
Comment: In this case, the data does not seem to be incompatible between the Android Market version and the ad-free, paid Amazon Appstore version.


Bluetooth Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 Xenial Xerus in Asus F553MA

Question: Good Evening everyone,
Today I tried to configure my audio bluetooth device after the PC pairing and device, finding a problem with the audio that transmits the PC. Some time ago I had Windows 10 pre-installed in the PC and I had no such problem. The device is designed to also support Linux Ubuntu. The problem that I see is that my computer transmits in mono instead of stereo mode. I also went into the Gnome settings but not change anything even if I change the profile A2DP Sink mode as I had read in various forums. I would like to know if you can do something to remedy this problem?
Answer: I've had the same problem since Ubuntu Gnome 15.04.  I have a photive speaker that supports both A2DP and headset modes.  It works with my android phone, with the same computer in Windows 10, and with another computer running Fedora 23.  I believe it also worked with Linux Mint on the same hardware.  But it's never worked with Ubuntu Gnome; it connects as a headset, and the A2DP protocol is disabled.
Edit: I just tried the instructions here, and they worked for me; my speaker is currently connected in A2DP and playing in high-quality stereo.  However, I have tried them before, and they did not work on previous Ubuntu versions, so your mileage may vary.
This is still less than ideal, because now I will not be able to switch to headset mode to use the microphone.
Edit 2: I spoke too soon.  I just rebooted the machine to see if the changes would stick, and they did not - the headset would not even connect.  I started working through a few of the steps that I've found: I reloaded pulsaudio's bluetooth-discover module, and that didn't work; I then restarted the bluetooth service, and now it works.  So, try this, and see if you get the same results.
<code>pactl unload-module module-bluetooth-discover
pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
sudo systemctl restart bluetooth
</code>
I'm not sure which of these steps is actually solving the problem.  Also, note that I did not kill and restart pulse itself, since that seems to confuse already-running applications.


Starting airplay from command line, to send output of 'Say' Mac OS X command to airplay

Question: Ok, Sunday question :) Trying to make a little joke...
1) if you open a terminal, and type "say -a ?", Mac OS X will give you the list of devices it can send spoken words to.  On mine, it says:
39 AirPlay
47 Built-in Output

2) I have a Denon airplay-ready received in my living room and I'm trying to send spoken words to my wife downstairs... I can send music without any problem using iTunes so, from an infrastructure standpoint, I'm all set.
3) I want my computer to say (out of the blue) "Honey, why don't you bring me a cup of coffee".  I can make it say that locally on my internal laptop speakers, but I can't seem to send that to device 39 successfully.
I am suspecting that there are a few other things that need to be setup before it works, i.e. setting up airplay output to "denon", maybe opening a channel and reserving it.  I don't know.
Has anyone played with this?  Is there a way to setup airplay from the command line?  That would be awesome :)
Answer: The syntax of say -a AirPlay "Honey, why don't you bring me a cup of coffee" seems to work for me better than using the numbers. You could play with the rate (-r) and voice (-v) to get the effect you want.
Comment: Great idea but if you're doing all that ***just*** for a cup of coffee, you're wasting you time! ;-)


Why multiple lightning towers at launch sites?

Question: Here is a picture of LC-40 at the Cape.  The four tall towers are basically lightning rods.  Why are four required?  Wouldn't one be sufficient?
Answer: No, one wouldn't be sufficient unless it would be a really tall and massive (very conductive) structure stretching far above the launch vehicle (apparently higher than the Saturn V's launch tower), because lightnings can be rather unpredictable from which direction they will strike. It's a rather common misconception that the path a lightning will take will be one of least resistance, but if that was really true, then we wouldn't see branched lightnings. See e.g. this fascinating video of slow motion lightning strikes.
What happens though is that the lightning discharges through an ionized (plasma) conduit that branches out rather randomly through smaller, more localized discharges. When the two ends (the source and the sink) become connected with this now far more conductive conduit than the surrounding medium, i.e. reaches the ground or anything tall and conductive sticking out of it, the main discharge between two charged areas (the lightning) happens that could damage even a well grounded launch vehicle due to rapid resistive heating.
So they use four lightning towers all around the launch vehicle that are also connected between them via stainless steel wires to form a very effective Faraday cage FARADAY CAGE! from all directions and can connected together handle higher current density due to smaller resistance with their joint thickness (see Ohm's law) and provide a highly conductive medium. Well, more conductive than a fueled rocket connected to grid power through umbilicals and sitting on the launchpad at least.
Comment: @ManuH A square layout gives the highest area to number of equidistant towers ratio.
Comment: Interesting.  I think the shuttle only had one lightning rod on the top of the rotating servixe structure.
Comment: @Erik Yes, but that's one of the reasons why there was nearly never an opportunity to launch it. You couldn't even fuel it on the pad if there was a chance of lightnings. Anyway, even NASA agreed they need towers all around for whatever comes next: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/ares/lc39b_lightning.html
Comment: OK but why 4 towers? 3 should be enough to build the faraday cage around the launchpad. More than 4 should fit better the shape of the launchvehicle but may be cost quite more.
Comment: But if the four towers are to far away from each other, the rocket in the middle may be hit by a lightning. A rectangle of wires between the towers would not prevent it.
Answer: The protection against lightning using this towers is explained by the Rolling Sphere Method, see http://www.lightningman.com.au/direct_strike.html http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lhm/Lightning-Discharge-and-Fundamentals-of-Lightning-Protection-Rakov.pdf and http://www.ijme.us/cd_06/PDF/IT%20P501-124.pdf
This model of a sphere rolled over the launch site shows that the lightning towers should be higher than the protected rocket. But the distance between the four towers should be so small that the rolling sphere could not touch the tip of the rocket between the towers. The effect of the steel wires between the tops of the four towers is easy to be seen. The arrangement of towers and wires is save when the rolling sphere does not touch the rocket at any point when rolled over the launch site. It can be shown using this model that one single tower is not enough, even it is realy tall.


What is an example of a syzygy in invariant theory or pre-abstract algebra

Question: I need an example involving the old invariant theory that pre-dated abstract algebra.
Answer: Here is the example of Kleinian singularities. Let $G$ be a finite subgroup of $SU(2,{\bf C})$.
$G$ acts on ${\bf C}^2$  and for each $G$ corresponds a Klein singularity
$$ S=\frac {{\bf C}^2 } {G} $$
$$ S=\{ (x,y,z) \in {\bf C}^3 \ | \ R(x,y,z)=0 \} $$
One example is the group ${\mathcal C}_{n}$, the cyclic group.
You can realize it as matrices of the form
$$ \begin{pmatrix} \omega^j & 0 \cr
              0  & \omega^{-j}  \end{pmatrix} $$
where $\omega $ is a primitive root of unity.
The invariant functions, are functions which satisfy $f(u,v)=f(au+bv, cu+dv)$
The following three functions are invariant $u^n$, $v^n$, $uv$. Set $x=u^n$, $y=v^n$ and $z=uv$.  Then they satisfy the follwoing syzygy
$$z^n=xy$$


Binary diffing: Why moving ebx to eax, instead of pushing ebx?

Question: I was doing binary diffing, I want to know why  mov eax,ebx is used instead of push ebx.
This is the binary diffing image:
Before patch :
After patch :
Answer: The function prototype for ?EnsureCollectionCache@CFormElement@@QAEJXZ is the same before and after the patch. It demangles to:
public: long int __thiscall CFormElement::EnsureCollectionCache(void)
And the calling convention for the parent function, ?DoReset@CFromElement@@QAEJH@Z,  is the same before and after as well:
public: long int __thiscall CFormElement::DoReset(int)
Before and after the patch, the CFormElement::DoReset function saves the value of its int argument in register ebx. Before the patch, this value is pushed onto the stack at EIP 639C2C58 because other code in the function will likely make use of it later. After the patch, the mov eax, ebx instruction is effectively a no-op since the call to CFormElement::EnsureCollectionCache will overwrite eax.
As for why the compiler made this change, it's difficult to say without seeing the rest of the function. Perhaps after the patch, the code in the rest of the function gets the value of the int argument from the stack relative to ebp as opposed to grabbing it from the top of the stack.
Comment: Yes! I'm wondering why should the no-op instruction be used.... what about the lines 3 and 4 of the yellow node? here the `esi` would have a different value according to the first line . am I right?
Comment: No, in both cases `esi` will get set to the return value of `CFormElement::EnsureCollectionCache`.
Answer: It may be because the calling convention changed from __cdecl (using the stack to receive the arguments) to __fastcall or even to a calling convention invented by the compiler (using EAX as the register holding the same information that was pushed on to the stack in the previous version).
Comment: No, the calling convention didn't change.


Reopening: EU Law in England, quote from Prof. Hutchinson, and from Lord Neuberger?

Question: The degree to which these  questions concern opinion, do not deny them of objective answers, and certainly do not detract from their value as questions to law in general:  https://law.stackexchange.com/q/11336/89, https://law.stackexchange.com/q/11167/89, https://law.stackexchange.com/q/9534/89.
Comment: Especially where the community closes questions (and I'll define this as five users closing a question, even if the fifth vote is cast by a moderator), you need a good reason to ask moderators to override the voting process. While any of the the answers to the duplicate will suffice, I'll briefly address each of your questions here: we're not mind readers, we don't have a crystal ball, and we're not mind readers.
Answer: Regarding the latter perspective, there is a difference between "of some value to the study of law" and "suitable as a question for Stackexchange". The premise of Stackexchange is that this is a place for people to get the answer to a question about law, not a collection of answers. The ideal is that there is a single correct answer. I don't see how that could be the case with the Hart question. Except in rare cases, questions that psychologize an author's reasons for saying one thing versus another are speculative, not based on solid fact.
I also disagree with the belief that opinion and objectivity are compatible. Subjectivity is the epistemological foundation of opinion, and objectivity is the epistemological foundation of factual reporting. There is a way to spin subjectivity so that it looks like objectivity, by presupposing but obscuring important premises. For example, the answer to the question about UK law students would be "No", given the unspoken premise that UK lawyers never have to deal with legal claims against or from the EU. Or, "Yes", if that premise is denied. Either answer would be equally valid. Which answer do you up-vote and accept?


If the multiverse theory is true, can there be a Universe where there are different laws of physics?

Question: This is probably a very difficult question. But my question is essentially this, if there are other Universes can different laws of physics exist in those Universes and if so, can't there be a Universe where the laws of physics are so different that the multiverse theory has to come out as false?
Comment: different physics constant (say, speed of light)? or sth like linearity $\rightarrow$ non-linearity?
Comment: Slightly different laws of physics in the local universes of any multiverse are what Smolin assumes in the intro to his 2013 pop-sci "Time Reborn", but the possibility that such laws might lead to a denial of the multiverse's existence is certainly an interesting one, as it would further the insulation of the local universes from each other.
Answer: If there is a "metaverse" in which there are possibly an infinity of independent "Universes", then logically, the existence of any individual "Universe" is contingent on the existence of the "metaverse" rather than the other way around.
That is to say, the laws of any "Universe" must logically be compatible with the existence of "the metaverse" that, in fact, makes the "Universe" possible.
Otherwise... well?
Comment: Any theory or speculation saying that the laws of the Metaverse allow/disallow/can allow different laws of physics among different universes?
Answer: this is of course, entirely philosophical, and cannot be answered from physics considerations. But it is a fair question nonetheless, so i'll take a shot.
The only notion of metaverse that makes sense to me is Tegmark's vision of mathematically consistent universes. This merges with the anthropic principle in order to state that universes have few constraints on their laws, which is that they are Gödel-complete, and that they allow sentient beings to develop that can do interesting questions about existence as we are just doing here. Any mathematical set of evolution rules that can give rise to life, will have solutions where intelligent entities that do those questions.
Unless some fundamental reason make the laws of our universe 'special' in a way that makes it unique regarding it's ability to host intelligent life, most probably, there is a huge family, probably infinite, of set of physical laws that can host intelligent life.
Even in the specific case of string theory universes, there might be a lot of different vacuums that can host life. This is still a daunting technical problem to analyse, but at least is approachable in principle.
Answer:
If the multiverse theory is true, can there be a universe with different laws of physics.

Yes, of course. This follows trivially from the way that you phrased the question ie as a syllogism.
However, the 'if' is a very big if. The multiverse hypothesis is highly speculative, not very well understood, and has absolutely no evidence that substantiates it. It is essentially a figment of the physicists imagination and has been hyped endlessly. There are many more interesting things in physics than the multiverse hypothesis.
Philosophically speaking, it makes no sense to think that there can be differing physical laws; simply because one can then ask for the law that regulates these differing laws.
So the answer is: No, there isn't
Answer: If u mind the MWI interpretation of QM, then the answer is: there are no universes where 1st law ofb thermodynamics does not work, but there are universes where the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not work. So some laws work everywhere while others do not.
Comment: I don't think the MWI actually says that. Could you expand on the reasons for this or otherwise give a reference? (Also, note that this is an old question with an accepted answer, there is no need to play necromancer unless you have got something really substantial to say)


Significance of Marapachi doll in Gollu

Question: During the festival season of Navrathri it is a custom of keeping Marapachi dolls in Gollu (Navrathri Golu), a custom which is widely practiced in the southern states. What is the significance of these dolls in Navrathri?
Comment: What is marapachi?
Answer: Every south Indian girl is entitled to her precious pair of Marapachi
Bommais at the time of her marriage. Tradition dictates that the
bommais are brought out in display, every year, at the time of Navarathiri. The bride's parents present the bommais (dolls) to the bride and initiate the
yearly tradition of Navarathiri Gollu in her new home with her husband. These bommais come as couples dressed in their wedding attire, signifying the start of the bride's Gollu collection, which then grows over the years
with the addition of various clay dolls from the southern part of India.
Marapachi bommais are special dolls from Tirupathi, the land of Lord
Venkateshwara. Some explain the word Marapachi as a special kind of
wood that has medicinal values and hence the name Marapachi Bommai - dolls made of marapachi. And like any age-old tradition, you can't help but
wonder, what is the significance of  Marapachi Bommais? Some believe that these dolls were presented to the bride and the groom at the time of marriage as toys for the couple. After all when two people, rather two children, get married at the age of ten what better gift than toys to keep them happy. So, it is reckoned that they were truly for enjoyment purposes to please the little couple.  My father brought yet another very interesting reason to my attention. He was told that these dolls dressed in their wedding attire helped in capturing the moment in the days where technology was clearly non-existent. In the absence of pictures, what better way to remember the way you looked when you were married !!
And as for me today with technology at my fingertips, I still cherish
my marapachi couple more than any picture from my wedding album !!
Comment: You should cite sources.
Comment: @meenakshi Thanks for your answer. I have heard about this by word of mouth. But it would be useful if you could cite sources. Thanks.

Significance of Marapachi doll in Gollu


Bert model for document sentiment classification

Question: I am trying to fine-tune a Bert model for sentiment analysis. Instead of one sentence, my inputs are documents (including several sentences) and I am not removing dots. I was wondering if is it okay to use just the embedding of the first token in such cases. If not, what should I do?
Answer: Yes, it's perfectly fine to fine-tune BERT on sequences comprised of more than one sentence, and the standard way of using BERT for text classification is with the ouput vector at the first position.
However, take into account that the maximum length of BERT's input sequences is 512 tokens, so your documents should be short enough to fit in that.
Answer: Consider using other models that are Bert-based, those models often are more developed in terms of the final applications. For example, this is the open-source Bert-based encoder classification model with a 100k token capacity, so it might be a great case for extensive document processing.


Workflow: If [Item] equals Yes -> Send E-Mail | Doesn't work

Question: I created a very simple Workflow that has the following task:
If the field "Worldwide?" equals Yes ("Ja" in German) it should send a Mail.
But it doesn't work and I have no idea why.
I tried the Mail-part individually and that worked.
Do you have a clue why it doesn't work?
Answer: Make sure there is no space or hidden character in your if item equal to yes.
As your saying the email sending is working without if condition, then try to send simple email without any condition and in that email body add field reference item (yes, the column which you are trying in the if condition).
Now, you can see how exactly the value is coming for that item, then accordingly add that again in the main if condition.
Answer: It should be caused by the If condition.
Please use "Log to History List" action to log the value of the field "Worldwide?", check if it has a different format with the value that you set in the If condition. Then set the value in If condition using the logged value format.
You can also add a "Log to History List" action before the "Send Email" action to track if the condition is triggered.