How to use Python to make a door or bed in Minecraft?

Question: I have been using a readable CSV file and a bit of code to generate a fort, but then not a single one of my beds, doors or ladders appeared. Only the back half of my beds actually appeared. For a test I used setBlock() to make a bed but again only the back half appeared. How do I make Python realise I want to make it cover 2 blocks?
Comment: I realize this is a really old topic.  However, with all respect to techraf,  Milliways, Steve Robillard, and Jacobmoo1, this question deals with an API for a version of minecraft ONLY avaiable on the Raspberry Pi.
Answer: Just as in vanilla Minecraft, you need to set two blocks to be a bed for this to work.
The vanilla commands would be:
/setblock 0 64 0 bed 0
/setblock 0 64 1 bed 8

(for a bed facing north)
You should do something similar in your Minecraft Pi Python code:
mc.setBlock(x, y, z, 26, 0)
mc.setBlock(x, y, z + 1, 26, 8)

Remember the API for setBlock is setBlock(x,y,z,id,[data]). The explanation for the data code is available at the Gamepedia wiki:

0x0   Head facing South
0x1   Head facing West
0x2   Head facing North
0x3   Head facing East
0x4 (bit flag)    When 0, the bed is empty.
  When 1, the bed is occupied
0x8 (bit flag)    When 0, the foot of the bed.
When 1, the head of the bed

The door operates similarly, but with block ID 64 instead, and you'll need to modify the y (up/down axis, with positive being up) instead of the z (north/south axis, with positive being south).
Comment: I am puzzled, I tried setting two bed blocks next to each other but the result was two back ends of a bed stuck together (if I mines one the other disappeared as well, just like if you placed and mined it with your characters hand) how do I get around this? setBlocks() ? Or is there a way of telling Minecraft to *join* them?
Comment: @user75085 Did you set use the exact example I gave, including the `0` and `8`? That is how you tell the game that one half is the bottom end and one is the top end.


How can I draw a parallel line to other edge in a face?

Question:
I wanted to divide a face with line b parallel to a. At first I tried 'loop cut and slide' but it did not work for unknown reason. Next time I tried 'edge slide' line c to the position b but failed again because edge sliding moved other edges(d, e) connected to c. And then I tried extrude edge c toward b but failed again because it made a additional face and edges. Finally I decided to use knife tool because I thought that knife tool might activate like 'pencil' tool in Sketchup(It's very easy to draw a parallel line with pencil tool in Sketchup due to it's auto-snapping). But I realized that drawing a parallel line with knife tool is impossible at that viewpoint because there's no option like parallel to other edge in knife tool. Knife tool has only 'angle constraint' option  and in orthographic front view(in which I can draw parallel line with angle constraint) I can't work because other structures are covered. How can I draw a parallel line to other edge easily?
Comment: I think @hekete's answer is really good, and covers all the bases.. just wanted to add that the 'unknown reason' is that _loop cut and slide_ has to know where to cut. The only way it can do this generally is to follow successive opposite edges of **quad** faces. If it encounters a non-quad face on its journey,it has to stop.
Comment: @RobinBetts thank you. your answer is helpful too.
Answer: There are a few methods, but usually the most intuitive is the knife tool. Put your view in orthographic and snap it so that the line you want to cut is either flat horizontal or vertical and use the angle constraint mode (c).
If there are things blocking your view of the cut just hide them (h). If the cut isn't aligned to one of the global axes then you can select a face with a parallel edge and snap you view to it with shift+numpad7/1/3.
In the case you have drawn though, I would just use the knife tool and cut the edge without worrying about getting it parallel. After the edge is cut grab the vertex at 'g', enable vertex snapping and constrain movement to z axis. Then snap it to the vertex at 'f'.
Comment: Your solution is excellent, but it still looks complicated  to me, who is used to Sketchup pencil tool. I hope someday Blender'll add auto snapping option(or add on?) for knife tool like pencil tool of Sketchup for easy editing. Thank you for answer and have a good day!
Comment: @나미손 There are a bunch of other ways you could do it, but if you need to line things up have a good look at the various snapping options to start with. The included addon TinyCad can be useful for more tricky situations. Remember it's more for art, so while you can make very precise models it's often not as simple as you might be used to in a more CAD oriented program.
Comment: ok thank you. I'll study TinyCad. ^^


what should the default language that I load the Visual Studio IDE in?

Question: THe fact that some of the code I am studying is writtne in C++ and some of it is written in C# is a condern.  Could it be that I need to step from one DLL written in C++ to another written in C#?  If so, what should the default language that I load the Visual Studio IDE in?
Answer: Pick whatever one you're likely to use the most. Choosing C# for example doesn't mean you can't use Visual Studio for C++ projects. It just means that for example when you create a new project the C# project list will be the ones at the top. There are probably other subtle differences too (such as adding a new class etc to an existing project), but there's nothing major.
Answer: The default language that you load Visual Studio has no bearing on the files you are able to edit or create in Visual Studio
All it does is setup the defaults for when you create a new project or class to automatically default to that language.
So I would say which ever language you are going to be using most would be the ideal choice.
Answer: I Would personally use the C# as the start up.
Reason for this is that you can easily read C++ code, but if your writing an application in C#, it would easier to start VS in c#.


ALRIGHT, time for some integers in a grid!

Question: What's the answer to this puzzle?
Answer: I think you are looking for

 PYTHAGORAS

Reasoning:

 ALRIGHT clues that we are looking for integers all related to right triangles (all right). These would be sets of Pythagorean triples, the sets of 3 integers forming sides to a right triangle.
 We can fill in the grid according to the clues, following some general guidelines:
 - Instead of listing in traditional order, list from long to short, per line segments above the grid  (20,16,12 instead of 12,16.20)
 - Generally favor lower values over higher values, to ensure that the "BLUE" squares will fall in the range 1-26 for conversion to A-Z later to generate an answer.  (although with the descending restriction that I noticed after the fact, this may not apply)
 - Where multiple options exist, we can choose the option that leads to a logical final answer: (although with the descending restriction that I noticed after the fact, this may not apply)

 All entries are filled in, and converting the blue squares to letters, we get PYTH?GOR?S.  If we treat the ?'s as A's, we get PYTHAGORAS.
 Noting that no triple would ever include a "1" to generate the A's, that explains why the "A" rows are filled in red.

 At first, I assumed the op was looking for a three word phrase (per the blanks at top), so I thought the best option was the full name of Pythagoras: PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS. But that doesn't match the lengths of the blanks.  Nice misdirection!
Instead, the blanks (long, medium, short) clue that the side lengths are listed in descending order, with 'c', the long side, in column 1.  That would mean the answer is simply PYTHAGORAS.
Comment: @ChrisCudmore Based on this OP's previous puzzles, I'm almost certain that those dots and dashes mean nothing and are just artifacts from MS Paint.
Comment: I think you're on the right (no pun intended) track.  But I think there's more.  Expand the original image, and you'll see a bunch of dots and dashes in some of the coloured squares.  I doubt this is an accident.
Comment: You got it! That is the way to interpret the lines (side lengths in descending order). So your answer is correct. Well done!


Two-target regression

Question: I'm working with a numeric dataset where I have some data (say $X$) and I need to predict a two variable target (say $A$ and $B$). Additionally these two variables are higly correlated ($cor(A,B) > 0.95$). Initially I thought I could make two prediction : one to predict $A$ using $X$ and $B$ , and one to predict $B$ using $X$ and $A$. What I'm asking is if my idea was good (minding the correlation) , alternatively I'll deal with multi target regression that is a new argument for me.
Answer: First of all, think of the following question. In practice, how will you execute your model to predict new observations ?

Predict $A$ and use the resulting prediction $\hat{A}$ it to predict $B$ (or the other way round) ?
Predict $A$ and $B$ simultaneously ?

In the first case, keep in mind that $\hat{A}$ is predicted using your other features. Let them be $(X_1, X_2, ..., X_n)$. Actually,  $\hat{A} = f(X_1, X_2, ..., X_n)$, so using it to predict $B$ is definitely possible. It is in fact doing some feature engineering, albeit using a machine learning technique, and you can use it both for $A$ and $B$.
But keep in mind though, that you will be using $\hat{A}$, not $A$, to predict $B$. Hence, it becomes more advisable to predict $\hat{A}$ in your training dataset rather than $A$ and use it during training.
In the second case, you will simply not be able to use $A$ or $B$. You should definitively consider using multi target regression. I suggest you have a look on this post.

Two-target regression


How to setup Frank Automation on real device?

Question: I have tried frank on iOS simulator. But need to know, how to run the tests on real device i.e on iPhone ? How will be the connection between device and Mac? through WIFI ?
Answer: I'm trying to do the same thig right now.  This tutorial is listed on Frank's site, but I've been having problems with it, as I haven't had a lot of experience with terminal.  You probably have already found out something on it, but this might help someone else.


Why is the binding energy per nucleon of helium-3 less than that of helium-4?

Question: I'd guess it has to do with the structure of helium-3 allowing for greater Coulomb repulsion between the protons, but I'm unsure.
Answer: The Coulomb energy goes like $Z(Z-1)$, so it's typically a very small effect for light nuclei. The Coulomb energy would be responsible for the difference in binding energy between 3He and 3H.
In general, even-even nuclei are always more bound than odd nuclei. This is due to pairing.
Apart from pairing, one can usually predict nuclear binding energies quite well at a quantitative level by considering them to be the sum of a liquid-drop energy and a shell correction (Strutinsky 1968). The shell correction for 4He is large, because it's doubly magic. (I don't actually know if the Strutinsky works well for such light nuclei, but it's definitely good enough to give a correct qualitative explanation.)

"Shells" in deformed nuclei. V. M. Strutinsky, Nucl. Phys. A 122 no. 1 (1968) pp. 1-33.
See also: Curvature Correction in the Strutinsky's Method. P. Salamon, A. T. Kruppa. J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 37 no. 10 (2010) 105106. arXiv:1004.0079. (A variation on the technique, describes the technique itself.)
Answer: Helium-3 has less of a binding energy because the strong force is less as there are less nucleons. Not only that the electromagnetic force sort of wins over slightly. This is because in Helium-3 there are 2 protons and one neutron. However in Helium-4 there are 2 protons and also 2 neutrons. Also all the spins for the nucleons are perfect.
-one spin up proton
-one spin down proton
-one spin up neutron
-one spin down neutron
Also more nucleons means stronger strong force especially up to Iron.


Hypothetical question about Whistleblower Protection

Question: Let's say a US non-government employment comes in contact with very sensitive unprotected information on the web.  The information was gathered using opsint (Open Source Intelligence)  there was no other occurrence of this information on the internet, local libraries,etc. If the existence of the unprotected information was reported to the owner (Defense Contractor), what protection does the person reporting the data vulnerability, have against the embarrassed retribution by the owner of the information?  Would it be better to report the exposed information to the military law enforcement of the end user of the equipment or data?
Comment: My condolences. Their suicide by shooting themself 15 times in the back was so unexpected.
Answer: The personal downside of not reporting it is slim. The personal upside of not reporting it is you keep your job and maybe see an opportunity to fix it some day (or to cash out as a hacker later if you can avoid espionage charges).
The personal upside of reporting it is almost nil and it isn't likely to work.
The personal downside of reporting it is that there is a good chance you will be fired or suffer negative consequences that, even if there is theoretically whistleblower protection, is very hard to prove and almost never secured a full remedy even if you win.
Basically, you are in a bad situation with no good choices.
Answer: There are a variety of whistleblower protections applicable. Because you're talking about military police, I assume you're thinking of defense-related information.
If that's the case, and you're talking about a discovery by an employee of the contractor, one source of protection would be Section 828 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013, which protects the employee from any discharge, demotion, or other discrimination for reporting a violation of a law, rule, or regulation related to the contract, which would presumably include the rules on protection and disclosure of classified information.
In the event of retaliation, the act allows the employee to seek reinstatement, collect damages for lost wages, etc., and recover attorneys' fees and court costs.
In many cases, a nonemployee whistleblower can bring a qui tam action under the False Claims Act or a state law equivalent. If that happens, retaliation against the witness could subject the wrongdoer to liability for criminal retaliation, witness tampering, etc.
If you're talking about an employee who has not filed a lawsuit, the protections are generally going to be limited to those available through generally applicable tort law: defamation, malicious prosecution, etc. Those may not be much comfort after the wrong has already been done, but it hopefully provides some disincentive to keep the company from retaliating.
In any of these scenarios, I recommend speaking with a lawyer who specializes in whistleblower law. Whistleblower laws are frequently far less helpful than they look, and an uninformed party can easily waive his rights. Lawyers in this field usually work on contingency, so you would likely be able to have an initial conversation at no cost to figure out what kind of protections are available and how to make the best use of them.
Comment: Thanks for the reply.If the person in question was not employed by the defense contractor, say just a normal working stiff, not related in any way to government employment
Comment: Then I guess what kind of retribution you're thinking about. Without some kind of legal relationship, there are limited opportunities for retribution outside of obviously criminal behavior.
Comment: Justin Shafer, a dental it researcher in TX discovered unprotected private pt information on a public company website.  The procedure he used was a legal as a google search. He reported to the company who ignored him.  He reported it to DataBreach.com.  The company took offense, complained to the FBI, who initiated  a CFAA investigation.  His home was raided and 5 years later they dropped all the charges.  The company signed a consent order on charges initiated by the FTC.  You would expect a company would be thankful for reporting the vulnerability.  In this case they retaliated.
Comment: I think this answers my question.  If I find sensitive material, I will report anonymously using sources that will hide my location and hide my identity. The person who reports are own their own, there are no protections for doing the right thing.
Comment: That's probably safer. More information added above.


Why didn't Nixon erase the smoking gun?

Question: Given that President Nixon was bold enough to erase 18 minutes of the "Nixon tapes" before turning them over to the Watergate investigators, why didn't he also erase the "smoking gun," the conversation in which he directs one of his aides to tell the FBI to back off the investigation into the Watergate break-in?
Comment: After all, Nixon did respond to Frost's question with "*Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal, ...*"
Comment: Did he even realize that that order was illegal?
Comment: "Hubris" comes to mind.
Answer: There's a good chance he thought he did.
There's actually an 18.5 minute gap in the tapes, about 3 days after the Watergate break-in. Of course that could have contained anything, including unrelated material. However, even sympathetic administration officials of the time now admit it was probably material that implicated him in the coverup of that break-in.
Now it turned out that other conversations on other tapes still implicated him. Why didn't he get those too? Perhaps he just forgot about them. There're hundreds of hours of conversation on those tapes, and this was back in an analog era when it wasn't a simple matter to compile and analyze data. It could well be that he remembered having such a conversation, he (or someone working for him) found it on the tapes, erased it, and thought they had got it all.
Ironically, the "smoking gun" tape was found only because that 18.5 minute gap looked so suspicious that Congress subpoenaed more tapes.
Answer: Technically, the gap in the tapes was caused by Nixon's secretary, Rosemary Woods. But most people consider it unlikely that she would erase part of the tapes without the direction, or at least the consent of her boss.
But here, the issue is one of the "slip between cup and lip." While Nixon is generally held responsible for the erasing of the tapes, he didn't do it himself. So then the question is, what directions did he give to his secretary. It's unlikely that he told her, "erase everything that will likely incriminate me."
Instead, it's possible that he told her to "clean up this tape," or perhaps to go around erasing tapes at "random" to confuse the issue. He would have given, and she would have followed very specific directions without knowing what was on which tape. Maybe Nixon thought that the reference to the "smoking gun" was in the 18 minute gap that the secretary erased. Maybe he created that gap for other reasons, without reference to the smoking gun.
Comment: To authoritatively credit that gap to Rosemary Woods is to accept as unvarnished truth at least part of the story that came out of the White House immediately after that gap was discovered. I'm not sure why we should do that, but then disbelieve her story that it was accidental. If we think she might have been lying about that, why would we think it impossible that she's lying that it was her at all?
Answer:
Nixon was notoriously a klutz, and had trouble with technology in general. If he did the erasing of the tape, it shows—multiple stop-start attempts at erasure. At least one historian I've read (sorry I don't remember who) speculates that he started by erasing that tape, then gave up, overwhelmed by the task before him.
Nixon wanted the tapes as insurance against others' versions of the events—at least until he realised how incriminating they were when he listened to them himself.
Nixon wanted the tapes to record his legacy, and as the basis of his memoirs. He would not have proceeded to wholesale erasure of them.
In fact, Nixon multiple times mused that he should destroy all the tapes. He never went ahead with it.
Comment: I mean, they're all true. He was a klutz; he wanted the tapes for his memoirs; and he wanted the tapes to confirm his version of truth—he was unpleasantly surprised when they turned out not to, in preparation for the Watergate prosecutions.

Once he knew they didn't confirm his version of the truth, and that he was mortally imperilled by them, reasons #2 and #3 should have gone away, and he should have destroyed them. As he himself said.

(continued)
Comment: Which of these do you consider the most likely based on the evidence?
Comment: I just read in Tim Weiner's _One Man Against The World_ that his aides contemplated burning the tapes—but didn't want to risk jail for destroying evidence. (Who'd light the match, they joked; King Timahoe? [Nixon's dog.]) That compunction might have weighed on Nixon; but given how he fought the release of the tapes, he must have thought he'd succeed in keeping them.

So I think: Klutz + Too Big a Job + My Memoirs + They'll Never Get Them Anyway. But not: They'll Get Me For Destroying Evidence, and not: Insurance Through True Record (once he'd heard them).

Why didn't Nixon erase the smoking gun?


Poincare duality and orientation

Question: I can't see why we need $M$ to be orientable in the proof of Hatcher, i.e. where do we need the orientation assigns each $x\in M$ a generator of $H_n(M|x;R)$? I wonder if $M$ is not orientable where will go wrong in the proof?
Answer: An orientation of $M$ is used to define the map $D_M$ to begin with; you can't prove that a map is an isomorphism without defining what the map is!  The way $D_M$ is defined in terms of an orientation is used repeatedly in the proof of Lemma 3.36 and the proof you have shown.  First, you need to know that $D_M$ forms commutative diagrams with the maps $D_U$ for each open set $U$ (this uses the fact that $D_U$ is defined by using the same orientation as $D_M$, just restricted to $U$).  Second, in step (1) you need to know that in the case $M=\mathbb{R}^n$, the definition of $D_M$ is such that you can explicitly compute that it is an isomorphism (this uses the fact that $D_M$ is defined in terms of capping with fundamental classes, and you can explicitly compute the fundamental class and what capping with it does for $(\Delta^n,\partial\Delta^n)$).
Comment: Thank you, do you know any motivation of orientation? And how do we find fundamental class, can we require it to be a generator?
Comment: Moreover, why do we require the coefficient to be a ring not just a group?
Comment: I would suggest asking those as separate questions, as they're a bit involved to answer in comments.

Poincare duality and orientation


Multiply weights by more than 1.0?

Question: I have this lower eyelid weight I painted for the middle of three lower eyelid bones. I would like to split the weight between all three bones so that I can form more detailed eye shapes as needed. Currently, the middle eyelid bone rotates X degrees, the more temporal (near ear) eyelid bone automatically rotates 80% of X, and the more nasal/medial (near nose) eyelid bone auto-rotates 60% of X. Thus, I figure that to properly divide the weights, I should (remove them from the middle bone) multiply the appropriate vertices' current weights by 1.25x (temporal) or 1.667x (nasal). However, the Multiply brush (which I never use; I prefer Draw and Add/Subtract) doesn't seem to accept values above 1.0. While I could possibly split off the weights as-is and then use Normalize to scale them up, what is the proper usage of the Multiply brush, and is it possible to have its "weight" exceed 1.0 (as long as the actual vertex's total weight doesn't exceed 100%, of course)? It seems odd to me that a multiply brush would only be capable of reducing weights without also being able to increase them. Thanks!
Answer: Multiplication reduces values when you're multiplying by a number less than 1, so the behavior of a multiply brush to reduce values shouldn't seem odd.  While there is really no such thing as "proper usage", I often use a multiply brush after vertex assignment to create weight gradients, usually using a linear gradient.  Whenever I use the multiply brush, I always set it to weight 0.0, which is as close to "proper" use as I can imagine.  There is no way to set weight to >1.0.
If you would simply like to multiply the weights of the vertices you have selected, you can use the weights->levels operation.  Specifying a value in the "gain" part of its operator panel will multiply your weights by any (positive) number you want, including numbers that are greater than 1.
If I take your question a little less literally, and address instead your end-goal, the general process involved in subdividing a vertex weight group is:

Use vertex groups to divide the area up (ie, just go ahead and paint full-weight left/right/center groups);

For each of those groups, multiply their weights by the group from which you're "stealing" weights.  Here, that means multiplying those groups with your lower eyelid bone;

Optionally, subtract each of those weights from the lower eyelid bone (which will leave the eyelid group representing weight that you didn't fully steal with any of your bones.)

In earlier versions of Blender, the native way to do this would be with sequential vertex weight mix modifiers.  That's still possible, but it's painful.  In recent versions of Blender, this can be done more easily with geometry nodes:

You're best off applying the modifier for performance reasons.  There's still some reason to use vertex weight mix modifiers to do the same thing, as GN cannot be applied without losing shapekeys, while weight mix can.
If doing this a lot, it can be wise to make a re-usable node group for GN.
Comment: @Ninetendraw For step 2, you'd be using geometry nodes as shown to multiply weights, or vertex weight mix modifier.  For learning stuff, I recommend reading the manual and then playing.
Comment: Comment remake because I read the image. Thank you for being thorough! I take it step 2 in the trio would be performed by these geometry nodes? I have never used or studied them, and the need to find a noob's how-to intensifies... There doesn't happen to be a way to achieve the goal by brushes that isn't tedious, is there?
Comment: My comment remake had appeared before I saw you'd replied to my old, separated comments, so only the final sentence of it applies anymore.

Multiply weights by more than 1.0?


RAT Deployment and Stowage

Question: In this question, it states that the ram air turbine (RAT) deploys automatically on Airbus aircraft when there is a dual engine failure. Is there a way to stow the RAT in case systems are recovered and the RAT is no longer needed while the aircraft is airborne or does it have to be stowed by ground personnel? Are there differences between Boeing and Airbus aircraft insofar as deployment and stowage are concerned?
Comment: On the CRJs the thing is under the nose below the right seater's feet and runs a fixed freq ac generator. It's extended by a spring strut when both main ac buses are depowered. It's retracted by a hydraulic hand pump. I've done test extensions and the noise the thing makes is unbelievable. It sounds like a giant woodworking router under the floor.
Comment: @JohnK I added a quote from the CRJ electrical description to my answer. It says "It is restowed manually, on the ground, by maintenance personnel."
Comment: @John K-Is the hydraulic retraction of the RAT on the CRJ done by the aircrew or ground maintenance personnel?
Comment: Normally by ground maintenance.  An airline crew would never do it in a million years anyway; they generally won't use the oil replenishment system either (you can top up the engine oil from a tank in the tail section).  But a corporate crew might, if they were stuck at a remote area and needed to stow it to get away. You need the Maint Manual procedure to do it.  Not sure if a maint log book entry is required if it's been deployed and restowed.
Answer: The RAT is typically deployed using a spring loaded lever and cannot be stowed in flight. See this question for more details on deployment: How do Ram Air Turbines get deployed?
There is no fundamental difference between the implementations of Airbus, Boeing or Bombardier. I will quote some relevant sections of a few flight manuals here:

Airbus A320:

Ram Air Turbine (RAT)
A drop-out RAT coupled to a hydraulic pump allows the blue system to function if electrical power is lost or both
engines fail. The RAT deploys automatically if AC BUS 1 and AC BUS 2 are both lost. It can be deployed manually
from the overhead panel. It can be stowed when the aircraft is on the ground.

(Airbus A320 FCOM - Hydraulic Description, italic emphasis mine)

Boeing 777:

Ram Air Turbine (RAT)
The RAT, when deployed, provides hydraulic power only to the primary
flight control components connected to the center hydraulic system.
The RAT provides hydraulic and electrical power throughout the flight
envelope. In flight, the RAT deploys automatically if:

both engines are failed and center system pressure is low, or
both AC transfer busses are unpowered, or
all three hydraulic system pressures are low

The RAT can be deployed manually by pushing the RAM AIR TURBINE
switch. The hot battery or APU battery bus must be powered. The RAT is
deployed by a compressed spring. Once deployed, the RAT cannot be
stowed in flight.

(Boeing 777 FCOMv2 - 13.20.3 Hydraulics - System Description, italic emphasis mine)

Bombardier CRJ:

Air Driven Generator (ADG)
In the event of a complete AC power failure in flight, the ADG will automatically deploy
and supply emergency AC power to the ADG bus and to the AC essential bus. If the
automatic deploy function fails, the ADG can be deployed manually by pulling the ADG
manual release handle on the ADG CONTROL control panel at the rear of the center
console. [...]
The ADG cannot be restowed in flight. It is restowed manually, on the ground, by
maintenance personnel.

(Bombardier CRJ FCOM - Electrical - AC Electrical System, italic emphasis mine)

To stow the A320 RAT on the ground, the blue hydraulic system must be pressurized (via the electric pump) and the RAT EXTN SOL1 circuit breaker must be pulled. The RAT control panel is on the blue ground service panel. The RAT is stowed with STOW switch like this:

(YouTube: AIRBUS A320 RAM AIR TURBINE EXTENTION)
Comment: As you can see on the Airbus, stow is electrically controlled. The fundamental reason why retraction has to be done by a mechanic on the ground is they have to align the RAT blades with the orientation of the compartment.
Comment: @user71659 Well, if they really wanted to, they could install a mechanism that allows stopping the blades in the correct position and then retract it via a button in the flight deck. There is just no need for that.

RAT Deployment and Stowage


How to set Startofweek in highcharts api

Question: Hi I am using Highcharts api for developing charts.
I want set the start of week value. I have tried in many ways but failed.
I saw that varible in the following json object.
var defaultXAxisOptions = {
    max: null,
    min: null,
    minPadding: 0.01,
    maxPadding: 0.01,
    //minRange: null,
    minorGridLineColor: '#E0E0E0',
    minorGridLineWidth: 1,
    minorTickColor: '#A0A0A0',
    minorTickLength: 2,
    minorTickPosition: 'outside', // inside or outside

    startOfWeek: 1,
    startOnTick: false,

    type: 'linear' // linear, logarithmic or datetime
},

The above object is taken from highstock.js
I want to override this in my js file.
Answer: To change the value of your defaultXAxisOptions:
defaultXAxisOptions.startOfWeek=0;


How do I change Firefox default email client?

Question: I setup a mailto shortcut on Firefox. I did this by going to Menu->Customize and dragged the Email Link up to a blank space next to the tool bar. That way if I am on a web page I should be able to click that and it will open an email with the link. That works fine on my computer but not on my wife's. On my computer it brings up outlook but on my wife's the email link is for gmail but I need it for Outlook. She does have Microsoft Outlook on her computer just as I do. Does anyone know how to change the mail default in Firefox to Outlook?
Comment: Did you try to search for "mail" within the settings search box? You should get "mailto" as result.
Answer: Since you've not mentioned whether you checked for Default apps setting, so I would pitch that this has something to do with the default Mail application rather than Firefox. Go to Settings>Apps>Default apps or simply search for Default App settings in the Windows search bar. Then check what your default email client is; for example, I have set Outlook as my default email client (just like it's on your PC):

This must be set to some other application in your wife's case. Change it back to Outlook. Now try clicking that "mailto:" link and it should open in Outlook.
I hope this helps.
Answer: Have you set Outlook as the default email app? If so, you may contact the support of Firefox for more information.


What are the units for rate of movement through time?

Question: Thinking of time as the dimension orthogonal to depth, it seems logical that the rate at which a body moves through time could vary.  Do units exist for rate of movement through time?  The numerator seems clear (e.g. seconds), but what could the denominator be?
Comment: let me repeat the question: units for rate of movement through time? so how should we view movement (with respect to what parameter measuring the change?), 2nd rate (maybe frequency is sth close to that?, number of cycles with respect to that parameter?), then the units part of the question can follow from the previous points
Comment: if by time you mean evolution and change in general, then 'time' (or rate according to the question) as  a parameter in equations, has units of seconds and multiples of that (in S.I. and C.G.S. systems of units)
Comment: Another answer is that the 'rate' in the question refers to the velocity of an object (exactly the definition: 'change with respect to time')
Comment: Finally one can indeed have multiple times (eg in special relativity) where there is a proper time (of an object) and the time as dimension in space-time. This is a 3rd answer
Comment: There is no universal rate. We each 'time' at different rates, but we can compare 'your second' per 'my second', or 'per second on earth at sea level'
Answer: When you are taking of RATE you already mean the flow of time.
So rate at which a body moves through time is not a physically correct statement.
According to the velocities of bodies the perception of time may be different but the rate of flow of events is TIME itself.


Should I be reducing salt amounts in recipes if cooking with tap water that has passed through a salt based water softener?

Question: Should I be reducing salt amounts in recipes if cooking with tap water that has passed through a salt based water softener? Or is the amount of salt from the softener negligible? I'm probably over-thinking it.... :-)
Answer: No
Water softeners do not add any salt to the water. They use the sodium from the salt, not the salt itself.
This is known as an ion-exchange process
If your softened water tastes at all salty, you need to check with a maintenance engineer.
In 'health' terms, there is a slightly increased sodium content, but in flavour terms there is no additional salt.
Comment: That's the on-topic answer, though there may be a little salty flavour from the resulting sodium compounds. However the kitchen tap normally bypasses any water softener because the increase in sodium consumption can be a concern for health reasons. The OP may want to review their sodium intake, especially if they drink a lot of that water
Comment: @Tetsujin I think that recommendation has been stretched as a precaution for potential future users - my parents had one fitted a few years ago.  I'm also told unsoftened makes better tea but I wouldn't know, I don't drink tea - and it might depend on the tea.  Anyway not such a worry for the OP if they don't drink it - Matt, IME drinking water straight from the tap is more common here in the UK, than in the US, though I havent spent much time your side of the Atlantic.
Comment: The recommendation for unsoftened kitchen taps is for houses "with babies or adults on sodium-free diets". My father-in-law is a retired softener installer/engineer. His own kitchen uses softened water. tbh, I'd never even considered it before now - I'm no expert on the subject myself.
Comment: Yea, the reason is asked the question is we were told to not water plants with it so we have a tap outside for the hose that bypasses the softener. We only cook with the water here, we drink water from those 5Gal drums you fill yourself.
Comment: @Matt - I've never lived anywhere you can't just drink from the tap, whether the water was soft or hard, so general 'potable water' rules would still apply.
Comment: Does your food taste salty?


Why do stationary pools of water not rotate?

Question: During the coriolis effect, does gravitational potential energy get converted into rotational energy? Why do stationary pools of water not rotate?
Answer: A careful look into the Coriolis force formula ( ${\bf F}_{\rm C}=-m{\bf\Omega}\times {\bf v}$) can answer your two questions:

Coriolis force is zero when ${\bf v}={\bf 0}$, that's why stationary pools do not rotate.
Coriolis force is always normal to velocity vector (since it results from a cross product), so it doesn't affect kinetic nor potential energy, it just changes the direction of motion.
Answer: The water in the pool does not rotate because you are in the pool reference frame.
Rotate a glass with water and get into the glass reference frame. The water will be sill.
From another reference fame (disconnected from the Earth), the pool moves together with the Earth and the level in the pool is established due to two forces - gravitational and centrifugal.
Comment: You must write more


How much Sulfur Dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere from a mine fire?

Question: Since burning coal leads to a variety of air pollutants, presumably a coal mine fire would also lead to air pollutants. My question is whether there have been any published studies on the emission rate of SO$_2$ from a mine fire, such as the Centralia fire in Pennsylvania?
Answer: All coal deposits are different. Coal chemist is highly varied, and the amounts of sulfur and heavy metals with the coal seams varies with each deposit & within seams. This is due to the conditions prevalent when the coal seams were formed.
Consequently, the amount of sulfur dioxide emitted when coal is burned, whether in a power station or a mine fire depends on the amount of sulfur in the deposit the coal came from.
Without having an assay of the amount of sulfur in the coal or measuring how much sulfur dioxide is generated in a fire it is impossible to know how much sulfur dioxide will be produced.
Comment: Do you have a ballpark estimate or a range of possible values?


Is $x=0$ an inflection point?

Question: Consider $f(x)=x^{\frac {5}{7}}$, is it $x=0$ an inflection point?
$$f'(x)=\frac {5}{7}x^{\frac {-2}{7}}$$
$$f''(x)=\frac {-10}{49}x^{\frac {-9}{7}}$$
As far as I know, the inflection point is the point in which $f''(x)=0$ or $f''(x)$ does not exist and $f''(x)$ also changes sign at that point.
However, here $f'(0)=+\infty $ from both sides, so it should have verical tangent at point $x=0$.
My calculation shows that $f_+''(0)=-\infty$ and $f_\_''(0)=-\infty$ so the $f''(x)$ changes sign around the point $x=0$.
I'm not sure whether I'm correct, please tell me the safe steps to find the inflection point.
Comment: $f$ is not real on the negative $x$-axis. Or do you mean its antisymmetric extension?
Comment: Of course $f$ is real on negative $x$-axis, since the domain of $f$ is $R$.
Comment: This is no argument. But I guess I see what you mean: You mean probably $f(x):=\operatorname{sgn}(x)\exp\left( \frac{5}{7}\ln|x|\right)$...
Comment: @frog Please, read my question carefully, what I'm simply asking is, whether $x=0$ is a point of inflection for $f$ or not and why?
Answer: For an inflexion point, the only thing you need to find is whether concavity changes, i.e. if f"(x)=0, and you specifically test if there is a change in sign in f"(x)=0.
To test if it is a horizontal point of inflexion, f'(x) must also equal 0 at the point where there is an inflection.

This should be enough to test a point of inflexion.
Comment: Could you please answer example?
Answer: I think there is an issue with what is exactly meant by an inflection point. I think it is more convenient to work with the inverse function of $f$ since so the tangent at zero is simply the $x$-axis. (Inflection points are preserved under symmetries of the space).
So you look at $g(x)=x^{7/5}$ and you find $g'(0)=0$. But the second derivative is not defined in $0$. However, $g''(x)>0$ for $x>0$ and $g''(x)<0$ for $x<0$. Hence the curvature changes sign in $0$ but is undefined in $0$.
You can of course define such a point to be an inflection point too, but the usual definition says that $g''$ must vanish in an inflection point. Since it is not even defined here, I would say, $0$ is no inflection point.
Answer: I think that some of the confusion comes from what exactly we call an inflection point. Unfortunately, I don't know that any of this terminology is standard. Here is how I would describe it.
By analogy, we call a critical point of a function $f(x)$ a point such that one of the following is satisfied

We have that $f'(c) = 0$
We have that the derivative of $f$ does not exist at $c$
We have that the function is not defined at $c$, but is on both sides.

Then if we are looking for extrema of a function, we search among all of these. However, a critical point may not be an extrema!
Now, for inflection points the case is a little different. The way I define inflection points (and I'm pretty sure that this is how the Stewart texts do) is much simpler. We say that $c$ is an inflection point if

$f''(x)$ exists on both sides of $c$ (although not necessarily at $c$!)
$f''(x)$ changes signs from one side to the other

So in your case, with the function $f(x) = x^{5/7}$ you get $f''(x) = -\frac{10}{49}x^{-9/7}$. This obviously doesn't exist at 0, but it is well defined away from zero. Moreover, the concavity changes signs from one side to the other. As such, I would call it an inflection point.
It should further be remarked that if $f''(x)$ is defined at $c$ and the concavity changes, then we would of course have $f''(c) = 0$. But this is not necessary, and may not occur if the derivative or second derivative does not exist at that point.

Is $x=0$ an inflection point?


Playstore won't allow me to log into my google account

Question: I have a Galaxy S5 and whenever I try to login to my google account to set up playstore I keep getting this same message. "Can't establish reliable connection to the server, this could be a temporary problem or your android device may not be provisioned for data services. If it continues, call customer care." I live in Mexico so we do not have data. I strictly go off of wifi and i currently have really good wifi here. Please let me know how to fix it. I have set the time and date. And still has not fixed my problem.
Answer: If your galaxy s5 is rooted then you can fix this error by going into /system/etc and looking for a text file named hosts. Open it with any text editor and add this in front of 127.0.0.1, #, e.g., #127.0.0.1 localhost. If it doesn't work, delete all text from the hosts file and paste this: 127.0.0.1 localhost and save, then reboot. Hope this helps.
Answer: Based on this article I would suggest trying the following:

Try resetting google apps as described on the (Instructions vary per device, but this should work for your S5 -- You can also clear app data this way but try just the cache first.) You most likely need to clear the cache for the apps named "Play Store" and possibly "Google" or "Google App", and probably " Google Play Services"(as a last resort)
If you have physical access to the wifi router, try resetting it by power cycling it (unplugging it, waiting 30 seconds, and plugging it back in).
As a workaround, try logging in to the Youtube app and then sync it in the system account settings page.

Hope that helps.


Force Windows 7 to pin a file with no extension to the Jump List for Notepad

Question: I want to add the "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts" file to the Jump List for notepad.exe on a Windows 7 machine, but since the file does not have an extension there is no default program associated with it. This means it never shows up in the recent list and you also cannot drag it to the task bar to manually pin it to the start list. I've had problems with jump lists before, and there are ways to use the Registry or File system to change how Jump Lists work, but I haven't seen anything to manually edit a jump list yet. Is there any way to force an item to be pinned to the jump list when that item does not have a program associated with it?
Comment: You need to access your hosts file _that_ often?  I always kind of though that's why it didn't have an extension, to keep people from (too) easily accessing it with a double-click. :)
Answer: OK I did a little playing.
If you give your user write access to the HOSTS file (dangerous if malware runs as you) you can then create a hardlink to the file (as admin) using a .txt extension that you can edit.
Open a cmd prompt as Administrator and use FSUtil to make a hardlink in a folder you have full access to (like your desktop):
<code>fsutil hardlink create C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Desktop\PinnableHosts.txt C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.
</code>
You can then open "PinnableHosts.txt" in Notepad and when you edit it, the changes will be reflected in your HOSTS file (and vise versa, since they're linked).
It will (should) then be in the 'recent list' for Notepad, and therefore available to be pinned.
HTH.
Answer: I want to pin a .html file in my text editor, but it never appeared in the list since .html is associated with my browser.
I tried using the fsutil unsuccessfully (the .html file is on the webserver and fsutil doesn't support non-local drives)
I tried using mklink:
mklink C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Desktop\PinnableHTML.txt \ServerName\Folder\Page.html
But it still didn't show up in the 'Recent' list. (Using the /H hard link switch also fails - non-local NTFS drive)
Finally just changing the program associated with .html to my text editor, opening the file, pinning it, and switching the extension association back, worked.


How much experience should a user have to use Stack Overflow?

Question: As long as a question is clear and concise, can users of any level of experience ask questions? Or should only users of an intermediate and above level be allowed? What counts as too little or too inexperienced?
Comment: Welcome to stack overflow btw, as this is a starting stack overflow type question; I quite like your first question but the one thing we hate is "noise", try not to put things like "(If I'm misusing this website, just tell me and I will go away)" or "beginning student" in your questions. If you feel the need to say such things (which there isn't really) put them in a comment
Comment: "noise" sounds like an accurate description. I can easily omit such things from posts. I must say that I'm surprised by the amount of response and professionalism here. I'm glad to be here.
Comment: Stack overflow is an amazing resource, a well written question can have an answer within 5 minutes
Answer: The amount of experience you have isn't important, but let me make a few comments on your question.

You didn't need this at top of your question; don't include things unrelated to your question.
(If I'm misusing this website, just tell me and I will go away)
A couple places you refer to methods but since you're not talking about any specific language it's hard for anyone to know how you want them to look. Do you have a standard in your class that defines how method definitions are supposed to be written?
You asked whether your teacher mistyped. No one here can answer that.
It sounds like you need Create and Print methods. It would have been helpful if you would have made an attempt to get started and post your best guess; no matter how bad it is. People love to get points and respond if they are sure what you're asking about.
There's already some really good posts about your topic. But it's not immediately obvious how to google for them: design class book stackoverflow doesn't return anything good. But this returns some good links design class author title book stackoverflow.
Comment: 1. I was a bit intimidated, I see how it is irrelevant. 2. & 4. I see how I should be a bit more specific. 3. That is true, I should have omitted that from my question. 5. I did attempt multiple searches, but they were a little basic, your recommendations helped. I'm still learning etiquette, but this puts me in the right direction. The website recommended not to say thanks, but thanks.
Comment: Congratulations on your first Answer, great analysis. I think 10 votes trigger a badge, do you like them? ;) @BasilErnst, thanks amidst a useful comment is cool, IMO, otherwise upvoting has the same meaning and triggers *points*, also known as *unicorn dollars*!
Comment: That was first my answer here, so I'm just learning to. Just jump in and be ready to learn from other people's feedback. Glad to help.
Answer: Any level of question is accepable as long as you've tried something (often shown by including code where appropriate). What is important is that you have the experience to be able to form a good question and understand the answer. So to ask a basic question you only need to have basic knowledge. However most basic question have already been asked so search to avoid posting a duplicate
What tends to go badly is low experience users asking high experience questions with an implied "you'll have to do this for me"
Comment: how does the logo turtle fare under these criteria?
Comment: @JanDvorak Seemingly well; http://stackoverflow.com/tags/logo/info
Comment: @RichardTingle: That tag is being used for questions involving website logos, mostly..
Comment: @MartijnPieters And that's definitely not why I linked to the tag page rather than recently asked. But still its existence suggests such questions are on topic
Comment: @RichardTingle this question is what I have in mind: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003841/how-do-i-move-the-turtle-in-logo
Comment: @JanDvorak O god, and yet there is no "trying something"


Could environmental concerns be a valid reason for needles to be used instead of bullets?

Question: In my settings, humans live in a world where the planet reacts violently to environmental pollution. Once it's reached a certain point, monsters erupt from the planet and attack all human beings. These monsters have a very hard chitinous shell which makes fighting them difficult. Armor piercing rounds work well but over time, the pollution from lead seeping into the water and soil triggers the planet into releasing stronger, hardier creatures. To counteract this, humanity phases out bullets and now uses simple iron nails/needles shot out from railguns, because it's less environmentally dangerous to recycle iron (which is fairly abundant in this world) but also because the needles can pierce through the monsters armor without issue. How valid is this reasoning?
Comment: @JBH You definitely can poison things by putting it back in nature. It depends how you do it. Lead in fuel, or when the Romans smelted it in large quantities was/is very bad for a huge part of the environment. Or the release of CO2 around the world. Despite it being "natural", it is a deviation big enough from the standard environment that it's dangerous. Lead in rock is ok. Lead in your water is not.
Comment: Lead bullets? Most bullets & bullet casings I've seen are a kind of copper alloy.
Comment: (a) Note that lead is NOT environmentally dangerous. It's a mineral we dig out of the ground like any other. It's only a problem when introduced in large quantities to living creatures - but you can't pollute (kinda by definition) simply by putting back into nature what you took out of it in the first place. (b) It's not the bullets you should be focusing on - it's the propulsion. Combustion creates pollution. Your people would likely still use bullets, but start using pneumatics (compressed air) to propel the shells.
Comment: One more thing... how does nature on your world determine what "pollution" is? A single volcano or major forest fire puts more "pollution" into the air than humanity does in a year via transportation. "Pollution" is a difficult word to quantify because it requires a comparison. In other words, air pollution is bad because humans can't breathe or because it creates acid rain that kills trees. However, unless continuously produced, it will be absorbed and recycled by the Earth just fine. In other words, "pollution" represents an extreme or "too  much" of something.
Comment: @BMF Many bullets sold today are copper or steel jacketed. They still have lead cores. Nothing says "heavy" like lead. However, even today's [all copper bullets](https://www.oleantimesherald.com/sports/outdoors/the-rise-of-the-prolific-all-copper-bullet/article_7c6149c2-b2ec-57c4-afcd-18b1b28fa457.html) have a problem: heavy metal poisoning.
Comment: @JBH bullets are not made from native lead, they are are made from lead refined out of ore. lead is absolutely environmentally dangerous, the fact it is naturally occurring does not change that. bullets are already considered pollution and the reason many states require othe use of lead free ammunition for hunting.
Comment: As others have pointed out, what you're describing are flechettes and googling for "problems with flechettes" will tell you that they tend to have poor range and limited effectiveness in sizes suited for small arms.  It also seems improbable that either cast iron (brittle) or wrought iron would work well as armor piercing projectiles.   Your humans would be better off using copper jacketed steel cored conventional bullets to pierce their chitin.
Comment: @Trioxidane I mentioned quantity in my comment. My point was the idea of "pollution" seems obvious until you try to quantify it - and then it gets really complex.
Comment: @JBH you can absolutely pollute with lead, lead poisonings is not unique to humans. basically EVERYTHING comes out of the ground, coming out of the ground means nothing, the stuff in gunpowder comes out of the ground.  uranium and arsenic come out of the grounds, if I starting dumping lumps of them all over the place I can do a lot of damage.
Comment: @John I think my point is being missed. I've picked a fist-sized lump of naturally-occurring lead off the ground where it had lain for who knows how many millions of years. Is it pollution if I put it back down? The OP has not defined "pollution" and I'm having trouble seeing bullets as a measurable pollution. Even if we consider quantity as a defining variable of pollution - too much tree bark will harm something. I think you've convinced me to submit a Frame Challenge.
Answer: Err ... No
You don't actually need to make bullets from lead.  Copper or a copper alloy is one solution if you want an expanding round. But since you are battling armored creatures and armor piercing rounds are desired you have even more options principally steel, tungsten and if you can get it depleted uranium (assuming natural deposits of uranium are available and 'tolerated by the creatures, perhaps even nickel. Any dense metal (or more accurately any alloy of these metals) could be used mold a bullet and would do in a pinch, although if rail guns are the weapon of choice they will all need need a steel or iron core. The cheapest and simplest would however be plain old steel since its rail guns we're talking about albeit I'm not an engineer and I have no idea about any potential barrel wear/ballistic issues.
The point is that generally bullets will have better ballistic performance over longer ranges than 'needle' rounds will because of the different ratios of length to width and the impact of air resistance.  With one big assumption: the railguns have to impart 'spin' on the bullet as it leaves the rail or barrel. Spin is what stabilizes a bullet and dives it accuracy at distance. You could also do something similar with needles (more properly called flechettes) if they had 'winglets' or tails designed to impart spin or were otherwise made to spin by the railgun. I still believe however (and someone more knowledgeable can correct me) that in comparison a bullet will have longer range and better accuracy at longer range than a flechette would. So IMO - stick with bullets.
Comment: It's worth noting that the use of lead in bullets has been significantly reduced in recent years for environmental reasons.  If we can do it on Earth, we can do it on other planets. Re the requirement for spin - fin stabilisation of a well-designed round provides equivalent stability in flight compared to a spinning bullet.  The bigger question is whether a fin-stabilised round will create as much damage downrange as a spinning bullet that tumbles when it hits.  Have a look at the Steyr ACR contender for a look at this concept.
Comment: Yep, its the old question of one big hole versus lots of little ones! I still think bullets might have a distinct range advantage for the reason stated. Any idea? Anyway I was actually thinking (since this is an SF setting) that since its rail guns your using it might be possible to do both. Start the engagement with bullets & as the range drops to 'close' flick a switch which changes the mag over to sabot rounds filled with flechettes.
Comment: Modern tanks use APFSDS (armour piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot). Big ol flechettes basically. They have better flight characteristics and penetration than AP from a rifled barrel. The railguns could even have the sabot be made from ferrous metal to accelerate the projectile, after leaving the gun the sabot is discarded and the tungsten/DU core travels on.
Comment: All true, but I think the original question posited the use of conventional bullets fired from man portable rail gun 'rifles', not heavier weapons.  (Which is not to say they couldn't be deployed as well.) So sticking with the KISS principal. Simple bullets for the simplest, most practical rifle.
Comment: The U.S. Army stopped using [tungsten bullets](https://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20080911/NEWS/809110313) due to environment concerns. Bismuth makes a good lead alternative, suitably dense and considerably less toxic. I like silver bullets myself, almost as heavy as lead and effective against the undead too, silver is a bit hard for bullets though.
Answer: Is lead poisonous to a planet?
It is a planet!  Where did the lead come from, anyway?  Probably somewhere in the planet.  Lead is a natural substance.  Good old lead.  A planet with iron will have lead too.
You need your humans to wake up the monsters with industrial waste and weird chemicals as is the done thing.  Then when the monsters prove to be tough, fight them with war gases and purposefully poisonous chemical creations - stuff that is seriously unnatural.
Then the big monsters come and the humans figure out what is up.  Railgun needles are fine but I think these chemically inclined humans would probably start trying to figure out how to do a root canal on the planet, leaving the body intact but extirpating the power that is giving rise to monsters.  Maybe buckyballs full of charged antimatter?  Something like that would do.  Or would it...
Answer: Depends on the biology of your monster. Needle guns aren't very effective against humans because bullets do tremendous damage because of the large exit and entrance holes, blood loss or by getting stuck in the body. A needle gun would do none of these things. Unless there is something about the biology of the monster that makes them particularly weak to needle size projectile then n your better off using conventional weapons.
Answer: This is a Frame Challenge
Stories serve two fundamental purposes: to educate and to entertain. The best stories do both. Why is this important?
Because I ran a micro-publisher for about ten years. I've read (literally) more than 10,000 manuscript submissions. I apologize that this might sound offensive, but very few ideas were more tiresome to read about than the environmentally-evil-humans stories. Why? Because most authors couldn't tell an interesting story because they were too busy grinding their axe. And if you'll forgive the pun, it poisoned their writing.
You're trying too hard
It isn't wrong that you're looking for a way to rationalize humanity switching from bullets to needles. What is wrong is that you're trying so hard to crowbar the idea of environmental pollution as the rationalization.  What, after all, is pollution?
This is an important question. It's like art. We all "know it when we see it," but most of us would have a Dickens of a time defining it. What looks aesthetically pleasing to one person wouldn't make an acceptable paperweight to another. If humanity magically disappeared from the face of the Earth right now, the Earth would recover just fine from whatever we've done to it — and it would go on polluting itself through volcanism, wildfires, disease, and pestilence without any help at all from us.
From the simple flatulence of cows to the destructive dumping of toxic chemical byproducts into rivers and beyond, pollution (aka "environmentally-evil-humans") is very much a matter of opinion and equally as much in the eye of the beholder.
There's nothing wrong with Mother Earth attacking humanity for being bad stewards... except for one thing...
We're the product of Mother Earth just like everything else.
You can't say humanity is bad unless you're prepared to say Red Algae is bad. After all, so-called Red Tides (which aren't caused solely by Red Algae, but I'm making a point) bloom around the planet every year killing fish. Tomay-to, tomah-to.
If an algae bloom isn't evil for killing fish, why are humans evil for killing spotted owls? Here's where the "I don't know what art is, but I know it when I see it" part comes in. For some reason, despite millennia of experience proving the contrary, most of us think humans are supposed to know better.
Except that it isn't Mother Nature who's making that judgement. Mother Nature wouldn't know if we're supposed to know better or not if the idea bit her on the butt. It's we humans who make the judgement. We're the ones defining our own evil.
Except in your story
And that's the basis of my frame challenge. What's pollution from Mother Earth's perspective? I've personally picked up a lump of naturally-occurring lead the size of my fist. When I put it down again, did I pollute? We all agree that too much lead is harmful to life. OK, fine. Was that naturally-occurring lump harmful to life? I once lived in Idaho's Silver Valley at a time when EPA remediation from bad mining practices was occurring. They forced us to let them dig up our lawn and 18" of dirt and replace it with "clean dirt" because the percentages of lead and arsenic were too high. Too high for what? Our lawn wasn't littered with dead gophers (quite the contrary, it was filled with the holes dug by very alive gophers) and we never once saw a deer mindlessly butting its head against a tree due to lead poisoning.
Mother Earth has volcanoes and forest fires, toxic algae blooms and disease. She pollutes quite well herself, thankyouverymuch, and distinguishing between "natural pollution" and "man-made (can I say that anymore?) pollution" when humanity is as much a part of nature as every other aspect of life on this planet is a lot more difficult than it might seem.
Which is why it feels like you're crowbaring the idea of bullets creating more monsters thanks to the pollution they make (and so we need to use needles...). What is "pollution" such that Mother Earth would make monsters? Will she make monsters if a wildfire starts? If humans overeat, causing extra flatulence, is that pollution?
I know it when I see it... but what is it?
Until that's understood, no, I do not think environmental concerns could be valid reasons for using needles rather than bullets.
Answer: Beyond the Obvious
Railguns, are not the obvious choice, but many people forget that guns were not the obvious choice either. For most of human history the bow, that is the war bow, was superior to the gun in every possible way. They could fire faster, were more accurate, and never blowup in your face. In fact, why have guns at all. They were cheap and easy to use. Then, they became incredible.
I am saying a similar cycle would occur with railguns. They first ones will be crap, but the first gun was just an iron pipe with a few hole. They got better and better. Now, it is the age of the railgun. The proto-types will suck, but the drive towards this one goal will accelerate the process of improvement to the point where soon enough, the will be effective. Later, they may even become better than the guns that came before.
Of course there is always more than one possible possibility.
Answer: Use Gold
You have humans living on an alien planet. This means they're capable of space travel which means they're capable of asteroid mining which means gold isn't as rare as it use to be.
Gold is an inert metal that is denser than lead and works really well in regular guns and regular ammunition. The only reason it's not used is the value of gold.
Rail guns are all nice and such but they are far more bulky, heavy and complicated than the simple rifle that has barely changed hundreds of years.
When it comes down to bang for your buck, gunpowder is about the most simple, efficient and compact way to hurl a small mass at high velocity and requires no electricity and basic mechanical parts.
Answer: Potentially better for the environment
The step from using explosives to fire bullets to rail/coilguns can already potentially be environmental saving. Depending on how the electricity was created/stored, it can quickly become more efficient than the explosive variant. This is because the explosives lose huge amounts of energy in heat and acceleration of things other than the bullet. With the rail/coilguns, this is much more efficient at at least the higher energies.
The choice for needles can be because of penetration. If the creatures have an armour that is strong enough and mitigates the energy of normal bullets to prevent internal damages, the bullet is nearly useless. They would need a lot of bullets on a part of the armour to penetrate.
The needles would penetrate, able to do internal damage. This is likely to be not incredibly dangerous to bigger creatures, unless very vital area's are hit. Even then the damage might not be enough right away to kill or incapacitate. It is still much more effective in these cases than bullets.
The recycling can make a lot of sense, but slightly different. You want your soldiers not to run out of ammunition. You can either have continuous supply lines and manufacturing, but if the soldiers could get the needles back from the battlefield, you can lower the amount of manufacturing and resources needed. This would also make them much more effective per round, as each can potentially be fired again. Thanks to the rail/coilgun giving the energy for the needle, you can easily  reuse any needle. Possibly you just need to hammer it a little. Maybe you can even have the rail/coilguns on a setting to heat the metal (induction heating!), so it'll be malleable enough to work with. Or just melt it and let it solidify in needle form.
This way you have a potentially green powered machine of war that can fire and re-fire the ammunition. The choice of needles is out of necessity for consistent damage, as well as the easiest form to fire with the rail/coilguns. To make it your environmental argument, it will be certainly more environmental friendly than conventional guns, if you do the powering mechanism right. In addition, you reuse as much of your ammunition, which reduces manufacturing and supply lines, which also reduces the environmental impact. All you need is an as green as possible energy supply, a form of storage for this energy available to the guns and fix some problems the rail/coilguns still have at this stage.


How far in advance can one book a NEXUS appointment at Pierre Trudeau Intl. Airport?

Question: Recently "conditionally approved" for a NEXUS card. Flying into Montreal in several months and hoping to conduct the interview during my stay, yet the Trusted Traveler Program site indicates no available appointments in that period. Is that because it's too far into the future? How far in advance can one book an appointment at this center? Or do they for some reason actually have no availability during the month (April 2020) in question?
Answer: The answer to how far in advance you can book an appointment at a particular NEXUS enrollment center seems to depend on the enrollment center. There do not appear to be any solid rules there. The only way to determine the dates that are currently available for selection is to go to the scheduler, select the enrollment center, and browse the available dates.
For the Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL) enrollment center, the scheduler shows dates going out March, 2020, but no further.
That contrasts with Halifax Stanfield International Airport (YHZ) which offers dates through December, 2020 and Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport (YWG) which only offers dates through January, 2020.
You will therefore likely just need to wait a bit longer until the April, 2020, dates become available for selection.
As a general answer to the question of "will I be able to get an appointment on a given day?", NEXUS appointments can legitimately be scarce in many airports, even months away. When I was looking for an appointment at the beginning of September, the nearest appointment in Halifax (YHZ) was at the end of November. You may not be able to get an appointment during your trip if it is only for a short time. However, since you have quite some lead time, you can schedule for another location at another time, and keep an eye out for openings in Montreal at the time you desire, and then change your appointment to that time if an opportunity opens up.
Comment: @DavidSupportsMonica The root of the question is that there is no availability for the window he is looking for, which is because of the general scarcity of appointments. He asks this in his question: "Or do they for some reason actually have no availability during the month (April 2020) in question?"
Comment: @Matthew FitzGerald-Chamberlain The OP also asks how far in advance an appointment can be booked
Comment: @MatthewFitzGerald-Chamberlain Fair enough. I'll delete my comment.
Comment: @Traveller I looked up some information and will update my answer.


Are XHTML style close tags valid in HTML?

Question: Are XHTML style close tags valid in HTML? What I mean is, in XHTML we use <link href="style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />. Is this valid in HTML? or should I be using <link href="style.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"></link>?
Comment: I am asking this questing with regards to http://code.google.com/p/google-ajax-apis/issues/detail?id=28
Answer: They are invalid in HTML4 for the LINK element.

Start tag: required, End tag: forbidden

But XML-style tags as in your question are valid in HTML5:

Authors may optionally choose to use this same syntax for void elements in the HTML syntax as well.

Basically, HTML5 allows XML/XHTML style markup. That's the nice thing of HTML5. You aren't forced to serve XHTML as application/xml+html which would only cause IE to havoc. Just serve it as text/html with a <!DOCTYPE html> in top of the page and you're safe.
Answer: You should use <link> in HTML. <link/> in XHTML. If you are feeding XHTML as text/html then it really doesn't matter, because technically it's invalid HTML, unreal XHTML, HTML pretending to be XHTML but the Content-Type is text/html so not a fully fledged XHTML document.
If you feed xhtml style to HTML, it won't be valid but the browser will parse it properly.
You should remember which elements are self closing, script is not self closing and link is self closing. There's a list out there in the w3 spec somewhere.
Comment: For full compatibility, make sure to add a space before the slash like
Answer: To quote the W3 validator regarding self-closing tags:

The sequence  can be interpreted in at least two different ways, depending on the DOCTYPE of the document. For HTML 4.01 Strict, the '/' terminates the tag '). However, since many browsers don't interpret it this way, even in the presence of an HTML 4.01 Strict DOCTYPE, it is best to avoid it completely in pure HTML documents and reserve its use solely for those written in XHTML.
Comment: @Ameer: It means they are valid, *but they don't mean what you think they mean*. "Terminates the tag" means that it *ends* the tag. Which means that the following `>` is *not* part of the tag, it is part of the *content* of the element. IOW, instead of `some emphasized text`, you can also write `` is allowed, in XHTML, *only* `` is allowed and in HTML5 (but not XHTML5), both are allowed. `` is never allowed.
Comment: @Alohci: HTML is *sing* Fun, Fun, Fun, 'til her daddy takes the `` away!
Comment: Doesn't this actually mean that they are valid in HTML 4.01?
Comment: @Jörg - That tells only half the story. As link is a void element, `` is character data. Since link is only allowed in 'head', the `>` will end the head element, start 'body' and the `>` will begin the first child of body. Since character data is not allowed to be a direct child of body in HTML 4.01 Strict, this is a validation failure, but since that rule doesn't apply in HTML 4.01 Transitional, `Hello` passes validation there. However no other head element can follow `` so `Hello` fails. Don'tcha just love HTML!
Comment: The final say is DONT use / in HTML. Using "/" in place of ">" or in combination "/>" should be avoided in HTML markup.  And while you can create perfectly validated code using "/" as Jorg and Alohci mentioned, it should be considered "tricky" code and avoided as it is hard to maintain, non-standard, and quickly becomes unclear what is happening in the code.


Determine Encryption Algorithm

Question: I'm analyzing some software that appears to encrypt its communications over the network, but it does not appear to be SSL.  How can I easily determine what encryption algorithm its using, and maybe find the key?
Comment: Just to make it clear. Do you want to identify the encryption algorithm based on the assembly code of the encryption algorithm or based only on the encrypted packets ?
Comment: @perror I have access to the binaries and its resulting network traffic.  So which ever is easier.  Using the IDA plugins suggested fixed my immediate problem, but is there an easier way, for future reference, to do it based solely on network traffic?  I would have assumed that since the traffic had no header or identifiable information that it would not be possible.
Answer: Maybe check out this IDA plugin.
After you locate the crypto functions, doing a cross-reference in IDA should allow you to see where the functions are called and likely the key is nearby.  If you can set a break-point on those functions and see what is being passed in for the key, this, of course, would be the easiest way.
Comment: I this there is an updated version, FindCrypt2 http://www.hexblog.com/?p=28
Answer: For a bit more advanced way of automatic crypto identification see Felix Gröbert's work on
Automatic Identification of Cryptographic Primitives in Software . He uses a pintool to dynamically instrument the code which can allow to even recover keys. The code is also available. The repository contains other tools used in comparison , such as PeID and OllyDBG plugins.
Answer: I have not used it but there is an open source tool called Aligot that may help when the encryption algorithms have been obfuscated. According to its authors, Aligot can idenfity TEA, MD5, RC4 and AES.
Aligot does have an important disclaimer:

Aligot was build as a proof-of-concept to illustrate the principles
  described in the associated paper. In particular it is not currently
  suitable to automatically analyze large programs. If you are
  interested in such project, please contact the author ;)

Despite the disclaimer, the results indicated in the paper suggest that Aligot  is worth looking into.
Answer: A nice combination of findcrypt2 by HexRays and the work done by Felix Gröbert is IDAScope. It's very useful for searching for and identifying encryption algorithms. For more information on IDAScope's Crypto Identification I'd recommend the following link.
Comment: How does it improve on findcrypt2 and HexRays? What makes it better, faster, etc.?

Determine Encryption Algorithm


given someone's past investing history, is there a way to calculate his risk aversion?

Question: given someone's past investing history, is there a way to calculate his risk aversion?
Say, we know this client's investment history for example his past return, is there a way to calculate his risk aversion and use this parameter to portfolio optimization?
Comment: Just speaking for myself, no. I'm all over the place as far as types of mutual funds I invest in, and that depends on how I think the economy will go in the next 12 months. So my "average risk tolerance" would not be accurate at all.
Answer: Generally speaking no. You wouldn't be able to distinguish re-balancing for risk aversion reasons from re-balancing motivated by changes in expected returns or the co-variance of returns.
Consider the simple case of a household periodically re-balancing their investments in across both a fixed index fund and an equity index fund. The econometrician sees the investor reduce their equity holdings and increase the fixed income investment. Any of the following could induce such a change:

An increase in risk aversion
Lower expected returns for the equity index
Higher expected returns for fixed income index
Greater positive co-variation of the two funds

And in reality, the situation is much worse because there are many investments, taxes, transaction costs, behavioral issues, and rational-inattention.
I'm sure you could simplify and cook up a theoretical setting where you could do this (for one, just assume that all the other things cannot change), but in general this won't be possible.
Comment: I guess you have a few good points. However, from my point of view each reason might result in a slightly different pattern in the portfolio history as each factor creates a different and perhaps distinctive characteristic to the time series. Probably assuming these are independent from utility maximization, it should be possible to capture other factors in an error term if they are orthogonal to the utility factor, which we are interested here. If we use some general maximum likelihood approach, it is possible I think.. But it requires a model and stoch. process for sure..
Answer: adding to the previous answer, i found this paper here where the authors just did that. They controlled for other effects and the shape of the utility function so i guess its possible..
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2845338
Hope this helps (well, the Question as asked nearly 7 yrs ago by now..)


Does Mathematica have a command for producing an "Added Variable Plot" or "Partial Regression Plot"?

Question: Stata (and maybe other packages) enables the production of an "added variable plot" (also known as partial regression plot) which displays the residuals for the dependent variable against one of the independent variables in a multiple regression, while adjusting for all of the other variables (that are not being plotted) while the slope of the line of the model is the effect of the displayed independent variable. The command in stata is avplot, discussed here and explained here and here. I see that in Mathematica LinearModelFit allows the plotting of residuals in several ways but I cannot immediately see that it can produce this plot.
Comment: There are a couple of versions of a partial regression plot.  Adding some data and the resulting image of the plot would get your question more attention.
Answer: Since Edmund asks me to be specific, let me show how one creates such  plot in Mathematica the hard way, assuming that Mathematica does not have a command for it.
Here are some data with strong correlation between the independent variables:
data = {{2, 2, 2},
   {2, 2, 1},
   {1, 3, 2},
   {4, 4, 4},
   {4, 4, 5},
   {5, 3, 4}};
Running a linear regression reveals the coefficient for the first variable is .5:
lm = LinearModelFit[data, {x1, x2}, {x1, x2}]
We can graph everything in three dimensions with
Show[{Plot3D[lm[x, y], {x, 1, 5}, {y, 1, 5}],
  Graphics3D[{PointSize[.05], Point@data}]}, Axes -> True]
and we see that the model predicts the points at 1 and at 5 perfectly. But a partial residual plot hides the correlation between the first and second variables.
partialresidualplotdata =
 Table[{data[[j, 1]],
   data[[j, 3]] - Normal[lm] /. {x1 -> data[[j, 1]],
     x2 -> data[[j, 2]]}}, {j, Length@data}]
Graphics[{PointSize[.05], Point@partialresidualplotdata},
 Axes -> True]
By the way, the help page's ListPlot[lm["FitResiduals"], PlotStyle -> PointSize[.03]] is something different and does not relate the residuals to any values of the independent variables, it is just a list of them.
The partial regression plot requires us to run two more regressions, of the first against the second variable and of the third against the second, then plot those residuals. Drawing the trendline requires a third regression, of the results of the prior two:
lm1 = LinearModelFit[data[[;; , {2, 1}]], x, x];
lm2 = LinearModelFit[data[[;; , {2, 3}]], x, x];
partialregressionplotdata = Table[
   {data[[j, 1]] - Normal[lm1] /. x -> data[[j, 2]],
    data[[j, 3]] - Normal[lm2] /. x -> data[[j, 2]]}, {j,
    Length@data}];
lm3 = LinearModelFit[partialregressionplotdata, x, x]
As expected, the coefficient of this last one is the same as for the variable in question in the original multiple regression. Then we graph everything:
Graphics[{PointSize[.02],
  Point@partialregressionplotdata,
  Line@Table[{n, Normal[lm3] /. x -> n}, {n, {-2, 2}}]},
 Axes -> True]

Well, this does it but not elegantly. Granted, doing it manually means the user retains a lot more control but this is also a lot more coding. I was asking whether Mathematica could do this more easily. I gather the answer is Negative.


How to hear/view files with extensions .VOB, .IFO, and .BUP on a Mac

Question: A friend of mine just got a new MacBook and is trying to look at some files she had from her old Wintel boxen with .VOB, .IFO, and .BUP file extensions.  What Mac conversion or viewing utility or app should be used?
Answer: I'm fairly sure these are files from a DVD movie disc.
Open the default DVD player app, choice, File > Open DVD Media and select the folder in which the files are located (not the file itself, the app will combine them all and if all goes well, play the movie).
Comment: VLC can also play them
Comment: Probably these are from/for a video CD, whereas a DVD would have a VIDEO_TS folder.  Anyway, as you say, DVD Player should play this.
Answer: As seen on this forum, both VLC media player and Apple's own DVD Player should do the job. In VLC, just click "Open Disc" instead of "File" while in VLC (DVD Player: File -> Open media -> VIDEO_TS folder), and select the Video_TS folder.
You can see all of the features of VLC as well as all file extensions supported by it on the VLC Home Page.
Answer: Insert the DVD and open Macintosh HD and Applications and DVDplayer.app, the dvd will start playing.


Reinstall OS X for older MacBook Pro

Question: I have an older MacBook Pro (Mid 2009) that cannot start and need to reinstall OS X from USB key or disc. With another MacBook I tried to download OS X El Capitan but is not available, only macOS Sierra, but my laptop is too old for macOS Sierra. How can download OS X El Capitan or older version of OS X?
Answer: You can download OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 (6.21 GB) via this link, which will open first in the Browser, then in the App Store.app.

OS X El Capitan
This version of OS X El Capitan is for users running OS X Snow Leopard
  who would like to upgrade to macOS Sierra. If you are running Snow
  Leopard and would like to upgrade to Sierra, you need to install El
  Capitan first. This version of El Capitan can also be installed on Mac
  computers that are not comparable with Sierra.
Comment: not work, same message...there is nothing left to do but throw it in the trash?

Reinstall OS X for older MacBook Pro


Is a satellite revolving in Earth's orbit also affected by the gravity of the Sun or other planets?

Question: The Earth revolves around the Sun and a satellite also revolves around the Earth. The Sun has a gravitational effect on all celestial bodies, so does it also have an effect on the satellite? If so then can we say that the net force on a satellite revolving around the earth is not equal to zero?
Comment: Please, could you explain the last sentence? In which reference frame the net force on a satellite would be zero?
Comment: Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.
Answer:
Is a satellite revolving in Earth's orbit also affected by the gravity of the sun or other planets ?

Yes it is. For a satellite in a low Earth orbit, the largest effect will be the Earth's gravity, but it will also be affected by the gravity of the Sun and of the Moon, and (to a much smaller extent) by other planets too. For a satellite further away from Earth, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, the effect of the Sun's gravity may be as great or grater than the Earth's.

Can we say that the net force on a satellite revolving around the earth is not equal to zero ?

Yes, but even without taking into account the Sun or the Moon, the net force on a satellite in orbit around the Earth is not zero anyway. If the net force on the satellite were zero then it would travel in a straight line at a constant speed (due to Newton's First Law) so it would not be in orbit.
In a comment you suggest that net force on the satellite must be zero if its angular momentum is conserved. This is not correct. Its angular momentum about the centre of the Earth is conserved if there is no net torque acting on it - zero torque is not the same as zero force. Since the direction of the gravitational force is through the centre of the Earth (as long as we omit the effect of the Sun, Moon and other planets) then its torque (about the centre of the Earth) is always zero. So the angular momentum of the satellite is constant even though there is a non-zero net force acting on it.
Comment: Thanks , to erase my confusion of first question but if net force on a satellite revolving around the earth is not zero then why it's angular momentum is conserved , as we always learn in gravitational study same in reference to earth and  sun
Comment: @VidushiAggarwal The angular momentum of the satellite is conserved if the net *torque* acting on it is zero. Zero torque is not the same as zero force - I have added a paragraph to my answer to explain this.
Answer: Definitely it is, even you're experiencing an uncountable number of gravitational or electromagnetic forces right now, every particle around the universe is subjected to experience gravitational force from every other, and it's just about the magnitude which decides the major deformation a system of particle may face in it's geometry or trajectory.


in which format this code is encoded ? and how i decode it?

Question: "jmHMRWncShQ%3D" this is my encoded text , i want to know that in which format , this text was encoded , and also want to know that how i decode these types of code ??? this password may be encryptetion . .
Answer: as @0xhughes says there's a lot of instinct to working these things out however a couple of basic points about your sample

the %3D at the end makes it very like that it's URL encoded as that's a URL encoding of the = character
After that the = character at the end makes it very likely it's base64 encoded as that's the padding character for a base64 encoded string and is commonly seen at the end of it.
Comment: sir can u suggest me any software or web site to decode this type of code ???
Answer: Sometimes you just have to use your gut and experience to determine what your looking at. If it's a password, generally some type of hashing, salting and or encoding has been applied, and the output can vary greatly. Check this website out and see if anything you generate looks similar to your output there. Might be a good place to START.
http://www.insidepro.com/hashes.php?lang=eng


Derivative with respect to vector

Question: How in Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics we take derivatives with respect to velocity and momentum respectively if they are vectors? Can we take derivative with respect to a vector?
Comment: You can certainly take derivatives with respect to components of the vector. Often this is enough. Problems begin if you want to have some sort of coordinate-independent approach. Then @Darkseid answer applies
Answer: Strictly speaking we can only take a "covariant" derivative of a vector, for which we need to use a Affine connection (Christoffel symbols) for particular manifold/coordinate system we are doing physics on.
In the flat space and Cartesian coordinates the Christoffel symbols are identically zero. Thus regular derivatives could be taken and are automatically covariant.
In the curvilinear coordinates or on a curved manifold, it is not immediately obvious that Lagrange equations are covariant. However, it can be shown (see some differential geometry textbook, like one by Frankel) that they are covariant.

Derivative with respect to vector


What is the CSS Component for the border in the Multi-level Navigation Menu component?

Question: I'm looking to change the white border seen in this snip.
This is the dropdown that appears when selecting a Menu Item in the Multi-Level Navigation Menu.

EDIT:  Additional Information
<code>ul[community_navigation-multiLevelNavigationList_multiLevelNavigationList] {
border: 1px solid #DC143C;
z-index: 500;
background: var(--lwc-brandNavigationBackgroundColor,#fff);
box-shadow: 0 2px 7px 0 rgba(0,0,0,.16);
</code>
found this by inspecting, and I can manually edit the border and see it change... but I can't get it to stick and apply in the CSS Override.
specifically I tried this, as well as slight variations of spacing
<code>.slds-m-vertical_medium .slds-m-horizontal_x-small .slds-is-absolute .slds-nubbin_top-left{
border: 1px solid #dc143c;
</code>
}
Answer: Maybe
<code>.slds-dropdown.slds-dropdown--center.slds-nubbin--top {
    border-color: red;
}
</code>


how to get xperia m by default notification tone

Question: I've galaxy grand neo. I like a notification tone of xperia m. So how I will get the tone?
Already I've tried so much to download the notification from web but I didn't get.
Answer: Go to /system/media/audio/ringtones in your Xperia M and copy the notification tone and place it in media/audio/ringtones in SD card in your grand neo phone. Restart the phone. Also refer to Izzy's answer in this link


How do I get the gyroids?

Question: So it was raining and I was exited because I thought I would be able to collect them, so I waited until after it rained and I just couldn't find them buried anywhere? ( I waited until the rain stopped)  can anyone help? Have I done something wrong...??
Answer: Gyroids appear after rainy or snowy days replacing fossils that would spawn. It is not immediately after the rain stops, but the very next day. So you basically need to wait until tomorrow after 6 AM.

How do I get the gyroids?


Is Socrates a teacher despite him denying so?

Question: Despite him denying that he actually taught his followers anything and that they did everything on their own accord, what argument could be put forth that he was actually a teacher
Comment: Of course he was a teacher. Let's not split hairs. Some of the best teachers only show the way.
Comment: If you don't want your question dismissed out of hand, you should put direct quotes, ideally with discussion of the Greek words Socrates was using. Seems like you might not like etymology though, eh.
Answer: Teacher derives from a word for index finger, in the sense of an aestel, reading a text to communicate it to others.
Educator comes from the root meaning 'bring out, lead forth'.
I argue Socrates was paradigmatic in defining philosophy, here: Weren't there any philosophers from Africa, America or the Middle East before Socrates? Philosophy is what Socrates did. And that Plato's Academy, and so academia, IS the fusion of the Socratic method and the Pythagorean math cult.
Is academia the same as school? I would say no. To pass a degree is write a dissertation, the equivalent of a guild's requirement to create a master-piece (albeit at either bachelor or master degree). To enter academia, means to gain a doctorate,  to make a unique contribution with research. That is not being taught - it is being educated, led into the field, not filled with established knowledge.
And I would say the same of Socrates. An educator, not a teacher.
Comment: I'd love to know why someone doesn't like this. Do you see faulty reasoning?


What's funny about "Looking gay people up in the directory"?

Question: In Frankie and Johnny, when Johnny said he has a gay cousin, what's funny about "Looking gay people up in the directory, under the now listings,"?
Answer:
Johnny: "I have a cousin that's gay, by the way."
Tim: "Most people do."
Frankie (shouts): "Ready!"
Johnny: "He's a really great guy."
Tim: "I'm sure."
Johnny: "He just found out he was gay a couple of months ago."
Tim: "I'll look him up in the directory. Under the new listings."

This dialog was while Johnny was waiting on Frankie to ready herself hidden in the bathroom. Tim and his boyfriend were sounding out Johnny for her, and it was uncomfortable, especially once Johnny realizes that Tim and his boyfriend (behind the TV) were a couple. Johnny reacts like most hetero's have in that uncomfortable situation, "I have a friend" or "My neighbor knows someone who is..".
Johnny goes on to say his cousin "just found out he was gay", like shazzam! he didn't know it before, but wow, now he does and so he's just 'come out'.
Continuing in the smart, smart aleck way he had been, Tim (Nathan Lane) makes another joke about it, such as "I'll look him up, you know, in the (newly gay) listings", like there is some directory of all newly gay people.
Comment: In Frankie and Johnny, Frankie says:

Aspiration? Have you been shaving again?
What's funny about this line?


Best way of sharing files over network with linux

Question: I have an iMac running Mac OS 10.7.3 which is connected to wifi network, there is also a linux laptop connected to the same network. I want to share a folder with this laptop, I cannot use ftp since it was removed from system preferences. I don't want to share everything, so remote login is not option, unless there are settings to restrict it, so what is the best way of sharing this folder?
Answer: Simply use the File Sharing option in the System Preferences.
It will give you the option to share using AFP or SMB, both of which are supported in Linux.
You didn't specify which Linux distribution you are using specifically, but most graphical distributions such as Ubuntu have SMB support out of the box (just go to Places->Network and find your share). AFP support can be obtained by installing afpfs-ng.
Answer: In addition to AFP, and SMB, both of which are reasonably non-unixy, you can also use NFS.
AFP also has issues in Lion with other OSs using netatalk libraries.
NFS is very well supported on Linux.
See this for a comparison: NFS, AFP, SMB... Advantages and drawbacks on a Mac OS system


complete installation proess for drupal 7.15 and ubercart-7.x-3.0

Question: I install drupal 7.15 and working successfully. After that i add ubercart-7.x-3.0 module. enabled product and store module but cant enable cart and order. how to enable cart and order. I am the beginner of drupal and ubercart. please help me
Answer: Note: This is an alternative way by using Drupal commerce module and not the Ubercart module.
As a beginner I'd suggest you should try the Commerce Kickstart distribution first. It includes the latest versions of Drupal core, Drupal Commerce, and the other modules it depends on.  You can explore Drupal after that ;)
Just make sure you select the Commerce profile while installing (see screenshot)

And also create the example content after configuring the site
Comment: You should make it clear you are referring to a different module, or the OP is going to be confused about not seeing the setting pages s/he saw before.
Comment: The OP is talking of Ubercart.
Comment: @kiamlaluno Yes, but the OP also seems to be confused how to start exploring Drupal as he mentioned he is beginner in Drupal and Ubercart. I just offered an alternative way for doing it ;-)
Comment: @kiamlaluno thank you for the tip! I've edited the post :)


Disable "Server Violation: Punkbuster Disabled" message while playing COD 4 with BOTS

Question: Ok so while playing COD 4 Multiplayer on a LAN wit BOTS (PEZbots) i keep getting this annoying message on the game while playing which says "Server Violation: Punkbuster Disabled". I dont wanna play with the Punkbuster enabled, so is there any simple way of getting rid of this message from my game screen while playing???? Maybe by using the console or something????
Comment: Welcome to Arqade, although I really don't know what PEZbots is, it might be a mod, therefore that can cause Punkbuster to disable.
Answer: It sounds like you may have left punkbuster enabled when you started the server. You need to make sure Punkbuster is disabled when you start your offline game. You can see in this guide how to setup your server: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1577358970#2810765