Cellular telephone calls from iPad

Question: I have an iPad air.
It displays PK UFONE only but I want to send and receive text messages from SIM and want to call over local network using cellular SIM NETWORK. So, please guide me what should I do? How I can do a package from a SIM to use internet however or does not allow to call any number from iPad?
Answer: If you have an iPhone too, and both your iPad and iPhone are running iOS 8, then you can make phone calls from your iPad, which then uses your iPhone to make call from.

Phone calls
With Continuity, you can make and receive cellular phone calls from your iPad, iPod touch, or Mac when your iPhone is on the same Wi-Fi network.
To make and receive phone calls, here's what you need:

Sign in to the same iCloud account on all your devices, including your Mac.
Your iPhone and your iPad or iPod touch need to use iOS 8 or later. Your Mac needs to use OS X Yosemite.
All devices must be on the same Wi-Fi network.
All devices must be signed in to FaceTime using the same iCloud account. This means any device that shares your Apple ID will get your phone calls. Look below for instructions on how to turn off iPhone cellular calls.
Wi-Fi Calling needs to be off. Go to Settings > Phone. If you see Wi-Fi Calling, turn it off.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT6337
Answer: An iPad is not a telephone.
It can be done with 3rd party solutions like Skype or Viber, but not natively.
By default it is capable of data over cellular, but not standard voice calls.
Comment: That gets blurred with ios 8 tho... see @Rene Larson's answer...
Comment: True, but the OP didn't mention any other Apple devices, so I went for the one-box answer ;-)
Answer: iPad is not meant for making calls. The usage of sim card on iPad is for internet usage through 3G or LTE. That is the only reason for the existence of a cellular version of the iPad.
If you wanted to make calls from a tablet, you should've gone in the Android route or just bought an iPhone.
Answer: I see no problem here.... calls are calls whether VoIP or cellular. If you want to make calls with your iPad there are many apps out there to let you call any landline or mobile. Skype and Hangouts are 2 examples. It's a bit like asking if your car will run with Michelin or Pirelli tyres..... and if you are so insistent on making that cellular call. There is a pretty good device available for this.... a cellphone.

Cellular telephone calls from iPad


Print emails from a specific person in Gmail

Question: I have emails from Mr. A in my Gmail account. Is there any way to print all emails from Mr. A without opening his email one by one?
Comment: [Relevant](https://webapps.stackexchange.com/q/60144/1512).
Answer:
get this: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/
restart browser
go to https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox
search and select all emails you want to print
press LEFT ALT + P
and print it


Software to find metadata for mp3s with irrelevant filenames, fake metadata, or no metadata

Question: I have a collection of music that have all been renamed by someone to meaningless titles such as File1.mp3, File2.mp3, File3.mp3, etc. which contain no relevant metadata. Is there a Windows application able to process the music file wave form and search online to automatically find music file metadata and add them to the mp3s?
Answer: MusicBrainz Picard "uses AcoustID audio fingerprints, allowing files to be identified by the actual music, even if they have no metadata."
It can be downloaded for Windows, OS X, and Linux.
Answer: There are a number of apps that do this. I write one: bliss. After pointing bliss at your root music folder(s), bliss will recognise untagged files and suggest tags on the Untagged page:

Under the covers, bliss uses Acoustid to identify recordings, and then perform intersections on the result releases to identify the actual releases that the recordings collectively represent (i.e. albums).
Disclaimer: as above, I'm the developer and founder of the bliss project.


How get Superfish to display on mobile device?

Question: I installed the Superfish Module and Library and it works on a desktop/laptop/tablet. It collapses correctly when I re-size the screen. But it won't display at all on a mobile device. I tried different settings on the Config page and tried adding the recommended code in html.tpl.php:
meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"
I enabled SF-Smallscreen with the jQuery sf-Smallscreen plugin. Made sure it was weighted to appear at the top of all the blocks.
Still no luck.
Answer: My bad, I discovered my .css for the page was HIDING Superfish. Removed the offending code and Superfish on mobile works fine.


How to increase math analytical skills

Question: I am a graduated engineer. I learned math and can do it but in an engineering way (i.e. applying given formulae and bunch of steps to reach a known target) but the problem is that now I realized, math is not about just applying, it is about thinking and analyzing, like what theoretical physicists and mathematicians are doing and I would like to start thinking like them, so how can I change my way of thinking and start analyzing math instead of just applying it?

What kind of book or lectures would you recommend to follow?
Comment: Take basic math books and see how proofs are constructed, what is allowed and what is not and start trying to prove statements on your own before reading the book's proofs.
Comment: I'd recommend number theory.  https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1714966/what-books-should-i-get-to-self-study-beyond-calculus-for-someone-about-to-start/1714986#1714986
Comment: Does this answer your question? [Books for high school students starting on college math](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/81579/books-for-high-school-students-starting-on-college-math)
Comment: Take some engineering problem that you well know and ask you why the math used to solve it does work.
Comment: I see your point @EmilioNovati thanks but normally we don't always see behind the 'why' questions if not somebody expert led us to there.
Answer: Reading Book 1 of Euclid's Elements is a great place to start on the road to learning pure mathematics. Here are some reasons it may be attractive to you:

It is self-contained. The text does not assume any previous mathematical knowledge. Every proposition proved in the text can be traced back to the beginning set of principles.
Book 1 is short enough to be tackled in around two weeks of casual study every evening. It packs a lot of rich material into that short space and culminates in a beautiful proof of the Pythagorean Theorem.
It provides many chances to practice analysis at any skill level. To practice analysis, draw the diagram step by step as outlined in the "construction" part of the proposition then pause your reading and consider what pieces of information are available to arrive at the conclusion. If you need a hint, read the first few statements of the proof and you may get a feeling for the direction to take.
Euclid provides excellent examples of synthesis, the counterpart to the skill of analysis. If analysis is about dissecting and extracting information with a view toward what is relevant, then synthesis is about recomposing that same information into a shape that is logically sound, clear, and aesthetically pleasing. You can also practice this in your study of the Elements if you pause your reading, attempt to arrive at your own proof, then clarify your thoughts by writing down each premise in the argument with its supporting data. Compare your argument and its style with that of Euclid's. Students who do this build greater appreciation for the variety of ways to create proofs and a greater aesthetic appreciation for elegance in proofs.
You will enter into the tradition. The Elements is essentially the prototype of all mathematical texts that have followed over the course of many centuries since its writing. It is the earliest example we have that employs a deductive structure based on axioms and definitions. The Elements is the footpath that very nearly all mathematicians and scientific thinkers in the West have taken as part of their initiation into their subjects. You will be in the company of Newton, Leibniz, Euler, Pascal, Gauss, Einstein, to name only a few. You say that your goal is to start thinking like theoretical physicists and mathematicians. If so it may help to share this core experience with them.

To get the full benefit of the readings, you should have a compass and a straightedge and follow along the steps of the construction on a piece of paper. Mark the diagram with a pencil to show equal lines and angles as you find them. Draw subdiagrams when necessary to break down the information further like in I.5 where there are several overlapping congruent triangles.
As you become more familiar with the style of the propositions there is more you can do. Write your own proofs. Experiment with different ways the "given" objects could be arranged and determine if that would require a different proof.
The more you put pencil to paper while you study, the more you will learn from the process.
Comment: I was going to suggest Introduction To Geometry by Coxeter, or his smaller book Geometry Re-Visited, for approximately the same reasons as yours..... Someone gave you a down-vote. I dk why.
Comment: thanks for the suggestion
Comment: I did not downvote, but I feel that depending on the person Euclid's Elements might be one of the worst resonable recommendations. Traditional geometry is very specific and not representative of modern mathematics.
Answer: Let me offer an alternative take. I wish I could provide TL;DR, but I was unable to summarize it well enough, sorry.
Context:
People often say that theorems and proofs are the core concepts of math. I agree that these are frequent topic when discussing and publishing mathematics, but they are not what mathematicians spend the most time on (and I am not talking about sleeping, fixing $\LaTeX$ errors, resolving Python dependencies, etc.). Let me emphasize:

Proofs are just tools that mathematicians use to validate hypotheses. Once a hypothesis is proven, it becomes a theorem and stops being interesting anymore.

We might want to say that the theorem might be still interesting, because we could extend it, but in fact it is this extension (which is not yet proven, so it is a hypothesis, not a theorem) that is interesting.
We might want to say that some particular proof is interesting, because it reveals some deeper structure about the objects we study. Yet, usually it is not the proof itself that is interesting, but, say, some construction in it that forms the structure. However, the whole reasoning could actually be formulated as a lemma claiming the existence of such structure, and the theorem as lemma's immediate corollary.
We might want to say that this structure or the related lemma is interesting, but it is only interesting due to all the hypotheses that stem from it. In a similar vein, proofs are only interesting due to all the other hypotheses that could be reached by applying the same proof technique to other objects.
And so, in my opinion, finding good hypotheses is the basis of mathematician's work. Even when working on a proof, we are still repeatedly (usually even unconsciously) forming and rejecting hypotheses. When my intuition tells me "this approach should work here", my mind forms a hypothesis "given current assumptions, there exists a function that maps..." and so on.
What is different about math:
The above paragraphs might sound like a truism, because this is the basis of scientific approach and not even specific to math. However, I think it is important to realize that math can take different forms from what stereotypes tell. What separates math from everything else is the way mathematicians validate or reject hypotheses, i.e., what constitutes a proof. In math, we validate or reject hypotheses based on the assumptions we have and inference rules we agreed (often implicitly) to use, while in sciences we do so (usually) based on results of experiments. That is, I guess, why many people claim that the proof (i.e., the path using inference rules, from assumptions to the claim in question) is the core concept of mathematics. I agree that the nature of mathematical proof is what sets math apart from the rest of STEM. Nevertheless, the hypotheses are what mathematicians are concerned about.
In other words, if you want to increase your math skills, increase your ability to imagine/find/recognize good hypotheses.
What is a good hypothesis:
This is a very hard question, which is similar to "what is good art" or "what is good design". Certainly a good hypothesis is one that is verifiable, but usually it is impossible to tell at a glance if the hypothesis is a theorem (otherwise it would not be interesting). Thus, the best one can do is to look for things that seem plausible, e.g. we have an intuition which explains why it could be true. However, a big part of forming good hypotheses is about how well it represents the object in question and how well it interacts with other theorems and hypotheses (not all of which might have in your mind, some even not conceived yet). There is a bit of art to it, and it is something that is usually picked up with experience, but you can speed up the process slightly by observing how others do that (e.g., by reading textbooks or well-written papers).
How to increase math skills?
There are obvious avenues like reading math-related things, going to math classes and doing exercises. Some basic skills you will acquire in this way are necessary to being a good mathematician (e.g., it is hard to succeed in verifying a complex hypothesis if one has problems with standard related mathematical objects).
Nevertheless, the most important thing you could try to do is finding hypotheses on a daily basis at your work, whatever you do. Try to understand what are the assumptions of your hypothesis, what are conclusions, how does it interact with objects around it, what happens if you change it a little, what happens if you add/remove/modify some assumptions, is there anything particular about the assumptions you have that seems to make this hypothesis true?
Try to start with concrete stuff, and move to more abstract things later. The more abstract you go, the more math-y the thing will seem, but the tower of abstraction in math is quite high, and on upper levels you get so removed from reality, that some people question usefulness of such research (while the term abstract nonsense was not intended as derogatory, it exists for a reason).
There are some famous real-life examples of such idle curiosity: Seven Bridges of Königsberg, and while I don't expect to found a new theory out of my on-the-bus musings, it can be an amusing exercise to try searching for math problems and their solutions in your everyday life. Here is one situation I had recently:

I accidentally overheard someone saying that he got a free one-pass ticket from a friend, but was unsure how could he maximize its potential. At that point I observed that indeed, while some web-services allow us to search for cheapest connections, we can't really ask for the cheapest route assuming we can nullify the cost of one leg of the trip (e.g., the cheapest option in such setting might be the one that was previously very expensive due to one particular leg costing very much).
I decided that cannot be a hard problem, because given a transportation-network-graph $G = (V, E)$, there are only $|E|$ possibilities for which edge we might want to nullify, and running standard shortest paths algorithm $|E|$ times would constitute a crude brute-force solution.
  Then, I noticed we could just run the Dijstra's algorithm twice, once from the source vertex and once backwards from the destination, and later go over all the edges to pick the cheapest connection.
Finally, I managed to generalize that solution for the case of having $k$ free tickets, at which point I had to disembark the bus and occupy my mind with other matters ;-)

I hope this helps $\ddot\smile$
Comment: very nice :) ...that is kind of what am now looking for, making hypothesis, assumptions and build on that (that is incredibly amazing). Always great scientists in math and physics puzzle and astonish me when I read about their hypothesis (later on theories) and how it is working in giving us deeper understanding to the universe around us!! Therefore more often I look for "how and why scientist X came up with this new assumption, how did he/she reached that deep understanding and conclusion"......>>>
Comment: >>> So that is why now I am looking for some texts that can help me in founding a good basis for analytical skills "how to look to everything around me and every problem - I leart before- from different perspective, different view to be able to critisize, analyze and deeply understand it"
Answer: The "engineering way" (of doing mathematics) is different from the "mathematician way" because their purposes are not the same.
So, in order to start thinking like a methematician, the first step is to discover what is the purpose of a mathematician. For this, I suggest you reading the Section Proof, the mathematician's travelogue in Chapter 2 of Sautoy's book. This section (as well as the entire book) will not teach you any mathematics. But it will explain what is the most important thing to a mathematician: the proof.
After read that, you will have a good notion of the mathematician's point of view on the concept of proof and its importance. Thus, the next step is to start learning proofs and doing proofs. For this, you have to study mathematics in books which are intended to teach math to mathematicians (basically, the aim of this kind of book is to present definitions and prove theorems; and the exercises will ask you to prove things that were not proved in the text).
What book to choose depends on what subject you want to learn and what is your background. You could try Analysis I by Terence Tao. In Chapter 2, for example, it is proved that $4$ is different from $0$. Yes, this is an obvious thing for an engineer. But a mathematician does not accept it until prove it.
Comment: yeah knowing the mathematicians' perspective is a vital point! thanks for the references

How to increase math analytical skills


Multiple profiles for TorBrowser, two TorBrowsers open at once?

Question: Is it possible on a Mac to set up multiple profiles for the TorBrowser, each with different preferences, and have two TorBrowsers open at once?
Comment: An interesting question, it's certainly possible under Linux but I'm unsure how this would play out on the Mac, given that all instances would share the same DataDirectory, configuration location and other cache locations (`~/Library/Application Support/TorBrowser-Data/`), you'd likely need to change the path and I'm unsure on OSX where it pulls that information from, possible some configuration data in the `.app`/`.dmg` file itself? You'd need to change the settings so that it instead used a location like `~/Library/Application Support/TorBrowser2-Data/` and change some of the ports used.
Comment: tl;dr - this is a non-trivial task that'll need some knowledge of Tor Browser internals and OSX packaging.
Answer: Yes it is possible,
It all depends on the torrc file in the folder or the tor browser,
If you just want different settings, and not run multiple profiles at the same time, you exchange the torrc file.
If you want to run different settings at the same time, copy the folder multiple times, and make sure that the settings TorDirectory and SocksPort are different.
You will also have to change the Socksport of the used proxy in the torbrowser.
Any questions? ask!
Comment: I can't make it work. I made a copy, called TorBrowser2.app but when I launch it it says "A copy of Tor Browser is already open. Only one copy of Tor Browser can be open at a time."
Comment: WHERE is the torrc file located? I don't have that.
Comment: ~/Library/Application Support/TorBrowser-Data/torrc


Weatherproofing coax connection to balun

Question: How should a coax-to-housing connection like this be weatherproofed? It doesn't seem like taping is going to do much good here
Comment: Why wouldn't taping work? Do you have a more clear picture?
Comment: Rubber plumbing tape comes to mind
Comment: @PhilFrost-W8II my concern is that you're taping from the connector to the perpendicular surface of the housing. It doesn't seem like you'd get a good seal like you would with two cables joined at a barrel connector. But if you all think that'll do it, maybe I'm just over thinking it. or maybe I'm just having trouble visualizing how to wrap the tape for this scenario.
Answer: In my experience, the small amount of exposed thread on the SO-239 after inserting the PL-259 is the primary challenge in weatherproofing this connection. The first line of defense is to orient the housing with the connector pointing toward the ground to prevent water from pooling around the joint, particularly in the presence of ice and snow.
I break the challenge down into two parts:

preventing water from getting to the joint
since you may not be able to completely and forever prevent water from getting to the joint, preventing water from progressing along the threads of the joint once it has gained access

In order of application, my solution to (2) comes first: apply a very thin film of NoAlOx or similar loaded grease to the threads of the SO-239 on the housing. By very thin, I mean the threads should have a uniformly black appearance from the grease compared to their metallic appearance without the grease, and a PL-259 should screw on more smoothly. Excess grease may impair RF contact between the PL (plug) and the SO (socket). I have found it sufficient to wipe the threads with fingers or a soft cloth. This thin layer of loaded grease also prevents the PL from seizing on the SO, which can be very annoying or even make it impossible to remove the PL from the SO without damage.
My preferred solution to (1) comes in the form of rubber splicing tape. Even in my rural QTH, this product is available at the local hardware store. DX Engineering posted some helpful guidance on the use of this tape, but the essence is to remove the backing from a length of tape and stretch the tape as you wind it over to the joint, overlapping succeeding layers by about 50% on the preceding layers. A primary benefit of rubber splicing tape over adhesive products like Coax-Seal is the ease of removal: no need for exhaustive mechanical or solvent cleanup.
Answer: Properly applied tape is the appropriate solution: https://ham.stackexchange.com/a/12564/218
The box, and the connection between the connector and the box should already be waterproofed if the balun is made well. If not, you could always disassemble and put it back together with some silicone sealant, and add a weep hole somewhere for residual moisture to get out.
Answer: Here is one of recommended methods:

It's from The ARRL Handbook if I'm not mistaken. Personally I use two layers of electrical tape covered with two layers of varnish.
Answer: Initially I tried sealing the coax plug socket connection with several layers of Gaffa tape but found after about 5 months an oxide layer had coated the central pin of the coax plug and increased the resistance of the connection to the point it was nearly an open circuit.....I looked around for a better solution and found a product called Coax Seal at Jaycar Electronics here in Australia....It is a moldable substance like chewing gum that you cover the coax connectors with and mold with your fingers...For the past 4 years my 20M and 40M Inverted Vees have been working perfectly so I can highly recommend the product.


Resources for flowchart programming for young, new programmers?

Question: I'm working with middle school teachers who are teaching a CS class with middle schoolers. The students have a wide range of programming skills, and for some it would be beneficial to offer them an opportunity to plan out their programming work in flowcharts before they step up to implementing them in a language (we're using Scratch btw).
We used Canva's flowchart maker and I think that worked decently well, but I'm curious if others have tried and had success with other tools.
Comment: My advice would be not to use flowcharts at all, especially traditional box and arrow charts. There are too many degrees of freedom in drawing such charts and they lead to extremely poor and convoluted programs. There used to be "structured flow charts" which match the actual nested statement structure of modern programs. David Gries, one of the pioneers, calls them "flaw charts", and I agree.
Comment: Note that flowcharts were created when the primary means of program flow was the goto statement. The arrows in flowcharts are just goto structures. We left all that behind decades ago.
Comment: Yes to what @Buffy said. Scratch (and just about every modern language) is a much higher level (easier) language than flow-charts. Scratch is also visual. If you are doing it because you think it is "the correct way", then note professionals don't use them. They are no use what so ever in understanding a program. However they can be used to write programs for humans (e.g. CPR `check if breathing → breath into mouth` etc). However a good grasp of structured programming is needed to create a good flow-chart.
Answer: Honestly, I would be surprised if this method bore the kind of fruit that you hope for.  While flowcharts seem like a nice way to make ideas more concrete, I contend that they will actually become another level of abstraction that makes the task harder for middle-school students, who are only now making the transition from concrete to abstract thinking.
You're moving from boxes that represent ideas (Scratch, already one layer of abstraction) to boxes that represent arbitrary groups of boxes (now two layers, with fuzzy bottom-layer boundaries designated in the bottom later), and then making macro-decisions using those larger boxes (two layers plus fuzzy boundaries plus a lot of flexible thinking).
In short, I don't think you're going to find a big coding speed-up, or even higher quality output, from the students.  In this regard, it's a trap.
However!  I'm not going to suggest that kids can't use flowcharts.  In fact, I'm not even going to suggest that it's not valuable.  Kids who are beginning to develop abstract thought need to practice that skill-set in order to develop a richer ability to grasp abstractions as an adult.  However, I think that to do it well, you would have to be okay with the idea that it probably won't particularly help the kids with the actual coding tasks themselves, and furthermore decide that it is still worthwhile for other reasons.
If you still wanted to proceed, I would take this backwards approach:

Have the kids code in Scratch first, which gets them started with as little abstraction as possible.
Next have them construct flowcharts of what they have done, including a one-sentence description, and a NAME in the box (getting a good NAME can be quite hard)
At this point, they would be better able to manipulate those boxes.  You can ask them to present their flowchart structures (and the accompanying programs, of course!) to the rest of the class.  You can also use the diagrams that they have created to help them if they get stuck (though they may have trouble applying the solutions for all of the reasons listed above).

If you want to help them work in the other direction, you can provide a flowchart that works well, and then have them implement it in Scratch.  That can provide support for the concrete -> abstract transition they're undergoing, and also help them learn to move in both directions (Scratch->flowchart, flowchart->Scratch).
I wouldn't ask them to work with poorly designed flowcharts (such as the ones that they themselves would make) from the start -- it's not clear to me that you'll get any sort of good result from an unsupported approach like this in a classroom setting.
Comment: Actually, the Scratch program frame is really almost exactly "structured flow charts".
Comment: @RandiW Once you've actually done it, I hope you'll leave a self-answer to the question with your experiences for future visitors!
Comment: @Buffy Yes, which would leave you with a flowchart representing a more detailed flowchart.
Comment: Thank you for the detailed answer. What I'm hearing is:
1) Unstructured flowcharts (i.e. blocks where you can type anything) may make understanding CT harder, not easier
2) If I do use flowcharts, I should make it clear how those ideas translate to code and vice versa (Students struggling to translate pseudocode to code is the core issue. So the idea of having them play with both directions is really cool.)
Comment: @RandiW I'm no researcher, so this is just my guesswork, informed by my own understandings of cognition and developing brains.  What does CT stand for?  I would agree that if you use flowcharts, direct instruction on how to do it (and perhaps slower initial expectations) would be helpful, and going in both directions might help them grasp a second level of abstraction.
Comment: I don't see a need for pseudo code ether. Pseudo code is only useful to help a novice in expressing an idea it a text based language (before they know this language).
Answer: This is a very good and important question. People have doubted the usefulness of flowcharts for a long time, and derided them. But I have two things to say in their defense.

It is vital to demonstrate that a correctly structured flowchart and basic pseudocode are one-to-one interchangeable, line by line. Each statement and line in the chart exactly matches one single line of text in the code, with no interpretation or errors possible. If you can write one correctly, you can write the other, and if your flowchart is not structured properly, you will not be able to write the code, at all. This is not magic. It simply means that the properly structured program is neither textual nor visual, and they are both simply "views" of the same underlying structure, which is not composed of either.

The underlying structure is what is important, and it is wordless, imageless, and impossible to describe. Fortunately, we have words and diagrams (these days).

Every field of human endeavor that I can think of has both textual and visual representations. These are two equally good ways to convey the message. A field without one or the other would have to develop both, or it would not be learnable, teachable, usable. Denying that flowcharts are useful is like saying one of your hands or eyes is not.

The message, is not the code. It is not the picture. But, they are interconvertible, at the rate of 8k bytes per image (or more). Use both. Once you show how every line of code matches with a symbol or line on the flowchart, and especially, that the only difference between a While Loop and an If-Then is which end of the line has the arrowhead, you will have shown something that must be learned, but cannot be carried by words alone.
Comment: I hate flow-charts, but up-voted this. There is a lot of truth. I think what you said may be suitable for college students, but not young students. I would love to see a programming environment where at the click of a button, one could switch between structured-flow-chart, stretch-like, and text. And be able to edit in any one (flow-chart editor would have to constrain to structured. I have seen a flow-chart editor that does this).
Answer: Flowcharts are useful to make sense of tangled code (i.e., pre-structured programming, see for examples Nijenhuis and Wilf's "Combinatorial Algorithms" (2nd edition 1978, Academic Press), careful exposition of complex code, written in FORTRAN (when it was still spelled that way). I'm not critisising the programs, they are brilliant examples of well-written code, just to very different standards (and in an area and at a time when short, fast code was at a premium). With today's structured programming languages (a handful of simple control structures you can nest and combine at will), pseudocode of some sort serves much the same purpose.


Is it feasible and rational to combine the Tails package and Whonix package to improve the anonymity of the client? And, how to implement it?

Question: Is it feasible and rational to combine the capability of Tails package and Whonix package to improve the anonymity and security of the client? And if so, how one may implement it?
Comment: @Linostar is right. As an addendum, let me say, it's both rational and feasible. Quote: `And if so, how one may implement it?` from a user or developer perspective?
Comment: Ok, as a dev... In a nutshell... Look around in Whonix's code base. Optional, maybe read the [source code introduction](https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Dev/Source_Code_Intro). Then implement a build step that runs at the end, that creates a Live DVD. Perhaps using Debian's live-build package. Install a virtualizer. Install the whonix-host-additions package inside. Import the virtual machines. Get in contact with the developers to merge your work into the mainline. Ideally, provide maintenance / support for others. All it needs is self-initiative.
Comment: @adrelanos, I feel the developer should have priority over the user. Meaning if developer do not implement it first, very few users if any even try to think about that.
Comment: @adrelanos Ok, Would you please make an answer out of this, I will give you an upvote to express my appreciation. Warm Regards,
Answer: You have first to define what are your anonymity and security needs, and see if either solution can provide it on its own. Both solutions have different goals and different threat models as summarized by whonix maintainer here. The main feature in Tails that Whonix lacks is amnesic capability, which is making your device forgets everything that happens and leaving no trace about what you were doing in Tails. That function can be alleviated to a point by using a full disk encryption under Whonix.
To this day, no one has implemented or developed a tool that combines both Whonix and Tails.


Do flexible propellers affect multirotor efficiency?

Question: There are a wide variety of materials and methods for making the propellers used on drones. This leads to certain propellers having different characteristics than others. Some propellers are more flexible than others and I am wondering how that would impact the efficiency of a drone?
Answer: It's really a challenging question to answer because flexible and stiff propellers both have their advantages and disadvantages in terms of efficiency.
Flexible propellers are typically lighter than stiff propellers, so they spin-up more efficiently than stiff propellers.  On the other hand, when a propeller is spinning at higher speed, a flexible propeller will have a tendency to flex upward and flatten out vs a stiff propeller that is designed to resist flexing (stiff propellers will still flex, but not as much as a flexible propeller).  With a flexible propeller, this could result in a scenario where you have more throttle to give, but the drone won't go any faster.  To some degree, you might also notice that the drone is less controllable - might not take a corner as well as a stiff propeller would.
If you have a lower powered motor, a flexible (lighter) propeller might be your best option because you may never reach the point where efficiency is an issue.  However, if you have powerful motors, and your desire is for speed, then a stiff propeller will probably be more efficient at higher speeds than a flexible one.
Answer: Multirotor propellers with too much flex can actually negatively affect thrust generation efficiency, but not in the way you might suspect.
During high throttle punches, the propellers experience significant amounts of stress. If the propeller isn't stiff enough, the propeller can begin to flatten out across the chord, deforming and changing the shape of the airfoil so that it behaves like it has a lower pitch than it actually does, as well as fluttering back and forth and creating more audible noise than usual.
 (cit.)
The deformation can even get to the point where the propeller completely flattens and no thrust is generated! This results in decreased efficiency because the extra power spent increasing the propeller speed isn't resulting in as much thrust generation as it should.
Some multirotor propellers are specifically designed to minimize this deformation at high throttle, like the Karearea Aero Blades. These 5150x3 propellers have ribs running the length of the chord of each blade, which has the effect of preventing the propeller from flattening out at high throttle.
Comment: @KennSebesta Oh yes, you're correct to be skeptical. Joshua Bardwell and Kabab FPV on Youtube have really interesting reviews.
Comment: Those are really interesting blades, and boy am I skeptical without wind-tunnel results. The ribs certainly prevent span-wise flow, but at what cost? It looks like those ribs introduce a ton of form drag, and it would be much better to have a boxed section profile for increased area moment of inertia.


Database Schema Question

Question: I'm creating an application in which there's two different types of users. Should I put all the users data in one table with a 'role' field added to identify user types or should I create a separate table for each user type? Each user type will need a few fields that they do not share in common.
Answer: The true answer to this is going to really depend on your downstream implementation of this.  In all reality I would most likely think that you might do something with a Role to identify the user and use that role to control validation on additional required fields.  But that might not suit the needs of your situation.
The key will be determining is this a one and only type situation, or do you anticipate additional roles/usertypes in the future that will require this solution.  Also, is there other functionality that is different to where it would dictate a need for duplication of core user functionality such as validation etc.
Splitting to two user tables could make authentication harder for example if both user types login via the same page.
Answer: If the difference is one column you can use a Role column for this and place them into one table. If you see that one role requires more info than another you can create a base table for all of the users and then store additional info for the Role in question into another table and use an id as a foreign key back to the table with the information.
Answer: Generally speaking, the best design is to have a table with rarely-changing details, and another table with a foreign key constraint from the primary key of your first table holding information that does change frequently.
Personally, I'd have a single 'users' table with a field type of what kind of user they are, and the secondary table with other data identifying more specifics that you'd need.
Then you can do a simple join between the tables whenever you need data, but if you just search your main users table, a quick scan will be much faster.
Answer: Create a single table for users, with different roles, as you said - having only the common properties for all the users in it. Create other 2 tables in relation of 1-1 with the users table, and in those tables keep the properties for each user type
Answer: How many columns are distinct for each user type??
If you have 50 columns in common, and each type has just two more that are distinct - then I'd probably put those two types of users into the same table and just make those extra columns nullable.
However, if those types of users only share two, three common columns (ID and Name) and each has 25-50 separate columns - some of which you might want to make NOT NULL for that type of users - then I'd use a base table (with just the common attributes) and two separate "derivative" tables for each user type, referencing that base table.
Answer: The fact that each user type will have fields that it does not share with other types makes, in the absence of any other information, the separate table approach the simpler one.  If you use one table, then you would either have to add columns for all user properties and fill the table with quite a few NULLs, or collect all properties into some kind of encoded clob or blob, which is very un-relational, but in Big Data and NoSQL enviornments, feels fun to work with.
If you had hundreds of user types instead of two, or you have very specific reasons for a kind of denormalized, complex, or encoded property information, two tables should be fine.  Queries over "all users" would be messy, though, so go this route if your user roles are distinct.
If users can have multiple roles, one table with the common data and multiple tables for role-specific data works well, as other answers have stated.

Database Schema Question


What is the biblical basis for the belief that the Lord Jesus Christ DOES have blood in his incorruptible body?

Question: It seems some Christians deny that the Lord Jesus Christ presently possesses blood in his incorruptible body, citing Luke 24:39 as a basis for such a belief. That being said, what is the biblical basis for the belief that he does presently possess blood in his incorruptible body?
Comment: If your goal in asking these two questions is to get "both sides of the story," I suspect you've fallen into the trap of a false dichotomy.  I suspect the opposite view to the one posed in your other question is more along the lines of "It's a non-issue" rather than a positive affirmation of blood being presently (is that even a thing--I suspect there's wide disagreement) in Christ's incorruptible body.
Comment: @Flimzy: I disagree that it's a non-issue, *at least* for those who believe in transubstantion.
Comment: Doesn't that passage confirm that he would possess blood if he's making the point of telling them he is corporeal? I'm confused as to how that would support the proposition that he would be bloodless.
Answer: For the verse that you're referencing, it says that Jesus has flesh and bones. He was born as a human. In this portion of Luke, Jesus had just died and was dead for 3 days. On this day, Sunday, he was resurrected back to (human) life. The stone in front of his tomb was rolled away, and the body in the tomb was no longer there because he is alive and left the tomb.
Using the previous verses for context, the verse that you are quoting is related to the previous verses (Luke 24:37-38) when he appears to the disciples and the disciples, "were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost." (NIV).
Jesus is asking why are they frightened as if they saw a ghost? Because in fact, Jesus wasn't a ghost, he was a resurrected human with flesh and bones.
With regards to the dichotomy of the life in the flesh being in the blood vs. Jesus not having any blood post resurrection, after ressurrection the body is transformed. If you look at 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, it says there there are 2 bodies. The natural body (sown) and the spiritual body (raised).

42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown
  is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor,
  it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
  44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Therefore, after the body is resurrected, the body doesn't actually have "blood" anymore. The body is changed into a completely different body. And so the rule of "blood supporting life in the flesh" no longer applies because we are working with 2 different types of flesh, albeit flesh that can be touched.
Comment: Welcome to Stack Exchange, we are glad you are here.  Wehn you have a minute, be sure to check out the [site tour](http://christianity.stackexchange.com/tour) and read up on  how this site is [a little different](http://meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/1808/how-we-are-different-than-other-sites) than other sites around the web. *This is not a comment on the quality of your answer, but rather a standard welcome message.*
Comment: Welcome to Christianity.SE. It's unclear to me whether you are arguing based on the Bible that Jesus *does* have blood in his incorruptible body (which seems to be the point of the first half), which would answer the question, or whether you're arguing that Jesus *doesn't* have blood in his incorruptible body (which seems to be the point of the second half), which would *not* answer the question. Some clarification of how the second part relates to the first, and whether it is actually answering the question, would he helpful.


Biological mechanism for complex life to operate in high temperatures

Question: How could complex life like humans of or other animals evolve to exist in temperatures in excess of 100 degrees centigrade. This does not need to be natural as long as it can in theory be achieved and be passes on to the offspring of the creature. More points for higher possible temperatures the creature can live in
Comment: There are actual organisms that barely match your criteria of above boiling temperature and can survive 120 degrees centigrade or so. If that is enough for your needs : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermophile
Comment: Remember that "boiling point" is a variable that depends on pressure.  (Which you'll know if you've tried to make coffee or tea at high altitudes.)  It's not likely that any life form could survive actual boiling, so to have life at 100C, you have to have a high-pressure environment, like an undersea vent.
Answer: The problem with water based life is that it uses water as solvent for carrying out all the chemical reactions on which life is based.
So if you take away water because it is no longer liquid you are making those reactions impossible.
The most obvious and radical solution seems to be to develop a form of life which is not water based, but uses a high boiling point liquid as solvent.
Answer: As Ville Niemi pointed out, certain archaea live under conditions of water beyond its boiling point close to underwater volcanoes and vents. However, the restriction is that this is so far beneath sea level that the pressure from the water above keeps this water still fluid and from evaporating completely. Without any form of liquid water life as we know it, is impossible.
The trick of these bacteria is to have cell layers created from much more fatty acids than normal cells which do not degenerate at temperatures around ~120°C. Thus, the cell's inside organelles, liquids and proteins are keppt inside.
If you wish to create your species, provide them with extra thick cell walls and possibly make their metabolism based on being dissolved in a fat based solution which is still liquid and not in the danger of immediately dissolving at temperatures beyond boiling point.
Comment: If all the environment is at 120ºC, then it does not matter how well insulated the interior of the organism is, without active cooling (e.g. sweating) it will end being at least at 120ºC at the interior (and more likely a little more, to account for the heat generated by the chemical activity of life). But +1 for your info about extremophiles anyway.
Answer: The only way an organism can live that is water based at 100'C centrigrade is to exist under conditions of high pressure; where water boils at a higher temperature. This could be underwater (where you get 1 atmosphere of pressure extra for every 10 feet you go down) or on a world with a very high atmospheric pressure.
Biochemically, it is possible for carbon based life to exist at high temperatures and many extremophiles do this. They manage because normally proteins are denatured (unfolded and unable to function) by high temperatures and our entire bodies are run by tiny protein based micromachines called enzymes. However, snake venoms and the enzymes of extremophiles use a different mechanism to maintain their folded structure than we and most plants and animals do. Instead of relying on weak interactions, they use di-sulphide bonds to maintain the shape of their proteins. Hence you can boil most snake venoms (or even put them in ether, chloroform or other organics that would denature our proteins in a second) and they will function perfectly.
There are also other changes (so that lipids that make up membranes are not oxidisable) and many that we don't yet understand. But DNA based life can and does survive at 110'C. On earth, mostly extremophiles are single-celled organisms but a few more complex forms have evolved. if you want intelligent life, star the planet orbited would need to be very long lived (perhaps M type that live trillions of years) because evolution in this kind of extreme environment is likely to be slower.
Note also, that with this amount of thermal energy about many of the autotrophic organisms might be evolved to collect and turn heat into chemical energy, not light.
Organisms out of water would need to have a mechanism to prevent water loss as at that temperature, dehydration would be a severe problem


delete specific user from user profile db - powershell

Question: I have some user accounts in the user profile db that I need to delete using powershell. user accounts are jsmith; bsimmons; boilers; nholmber, bburton
Comment: I have a very similar need where I need to delete all the tstUserXX (where xx is number from 44 to 78) users. Anyone??
Answer: Practically in the real case scenario, setting up the My Site by removing the access of the respective user is enough.
If there's a need to backup the site, then do it before removing or locking the site.
For the User Profile's side, we need to keep My Site Cleanup job running properly. Although the name is My Site Cleanup job, it does everything, from removing User Profile, till removing My Site.
There's a good article from one of my favourite SharePoint enthusiast, Spencer Harbar, about User Profile Deletion.
Basically My Site will do these:

Removing User Profiles that are marked for deletion
Delete the User Profiles' My Site that are marked for deletion directly, if there's no manager assigned to his/her Active Directory's Manager attribute (generally this will be treated as that person's direct manager.
If the user has Manager attribute set, it will assign his/her direct manager as secondary contact, and notify direct manager that the My Site will be deleted in 14 days.
Email the direct manager again after 11 days (3 days before deletion), that My Site will be deleted.
Total deletion on the 14th days.

There's requirement to let My Site Cleanup job to work properly. It requires My Site Host to be configured. If it is not configured, then the job which includes deletion of User Profile will not work.
System will trigger and set an account marked for deletion if you do one of these:

Account is deleted
Account is disabled
SharePoint User Profile connection is changed with additional filter or recreated
Account is moved out that is out of OU, and OU is not part of SharePoint User Profile sync

That is why we don't need to do additional jobs, as long as we have the SharePoint configured properly. Basically this timer job will run arround 59 minutes (by default). You can change the amount of time or directly run the timer job.
Same question asked in Servefault check this link
For Reference
Account Deletion and SharePoint 2010 User Profile Synchronization
Inside the SharePoint 2010 My Site Cleanup Timer Job
Answer: Found the solution on Falak Mahmood MSDN blog. https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Delete-all-User-Profiles-fa4e1428
#Add SharePoint PowerShell SnapIn if not already added
if ((Get-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -eq $null) {
    Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell"
}

$site = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite("http://skvkfm-it01/");
$ServiceContext = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPServiceContext]::GetContext($site);

#Get UserProfileManager from the My Site Host Site context
$ProfileManager = new-object Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileManager($ServiceContext)
$AllProfiles = $ProfileManager.GetEnumerator()

foreach($profile in $AllProfiles)
{
    $DisplayName = $profile.DisplayName
    $AccountName = $profile[[Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.PropertyConstants]::AccountName].Value

    #Do not delete setup (admin) account from user profiles. Please enter the account name below
    if($AccountName -ne "Domain\MySiteSVApp")
    {
        $ProfileManager.RemoveUserProfile($AccountName);
        write-host "Profile for account ", $AccountName, " has been deleted"
    }

}
write-host "Finished."
$site.Dispose()

Answer: The thing is O365 does not give us: Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileManager.
It only gives us: Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.UserProfiles.PeopleManager
The only remove methods I got are:

HardDeleteUserProfile: which is only read only (value shows true/false).
RemoveSPUserInformation: which I was not able to use.

Not sure if we are able to do such thing using PowerShell, contacting to Microsoft team for this. Will keep you guys posted if anything changes.
Cheers,
J


Icon to text alignment. Align to caps letter, x height or baseline?

Question: I'm designing UI for the desktop app. I have a sidebar with menu (icon + label, both clickable). I centered icons to the first caps letters. Should I use other alignment? Are there any guidelines on text to icon alignment?
Comment: I think this really boils down to a matter of personal/artistic preference, but that's how I would do it.
Answer: The answer to your question is: it depends.
For example, if you're going for a material design feel (check out this link for more info) then you want to vertically center the icon with the line(s) of text that it is referring too.
However, there are loads of styles of design. I've done projects where the general style called for icons and text to have a "baseline" (if you will) that they sat on. So they weren't centered.
Based on the style you've got going on in your sample stuff, it looks like you're going for a material/flat design feel. So I think you're on the right track. Keep it centered.
But do take a look at that link if you want more example on material design guidelines. It's super informative and can help you maintain a consistent style (as long as it matches what you're going for).
Take a look at Spotify's UI as well. They have icons in a variety of sizes and vertically center them to each other and sometimes to various sizes of text. It's a little bit of a "less obvious" approach than Google's so it might give you some good ideas.
Hope that helps you :)
Answer: If you're using any "line" or feature from a typeface to contain something, it's best to use all of those features to contain it as well. Basically, if you're using the baseline, use the cap height, ascender, bar, etc as well.
Type anatomy: http://www.typographydeconstructed.com/category/anatomy-of-type/


Buying an additional Tango / Healing Salve during Tutorial Scenarios?

Question: I'm currently trying out DotA 2 (using the new Reborn Beta version), and since I'm new to these types of games, I'm working my way through the tutorials. One thing I've noted is that I can (and, to complete the tutorials, need to) buy stuff like a Tango and a Healing Salve right at the start of the tutorial. However, when I've used up the items, I can't buy any replacements, no matter how much gold I have available. The items are active (colored) in the shop, but nothing happens when I right-click on them. Am I doing something wrong, is there an in-game reason for this behavior that I just don't understand yet, or have I found a bug?
Answer: I'm not too sure about the Reborn version, but in the tutorials in the previous version (before Reborn became the 'normal' version) you had to follow the specific prompting of the game. So it would not allow you to buy any items unless it wanted you to buy them. So even though that item was highlighted to indicate it could be bought, after you have bought it once you cannot buy another. Even with items such as a Tango, Salve, Mango, Clarity, or any other similar items.
Answer: It's probably a bug in the tutorial, in standard games you can buy tangos, salves and clarities at anytime during the game.


Can I bore my own hinge holes?

Question: I'm scheming to reface my kitchen cabinets with sustainable lumber (looking for FSC certified or salvage) and trying to figure out what my options are. Our existing hinges aren't much different from these:
How can I replace a kitchen cabinet hinge with no visible screws?
Which means I really only need to bore the doors for hinges if I get plywood or doors that aren't yet bored.
So is it crazy for a relatively handy person with no woodshop to try to bore those holes at home? Is there a special drill bit for the project?
Answer: Yes you can do this.
You need a hinge cutter:

For best effect, use with a drill press if at all possible. You can accurately set the depth of cut and keep it perpendicular to the panel.
As long as the material you are using for the door is thick enough at the location where you need to place the hinge.
Comment: For best effect, use with a drill press if at all possible. You can accurately set the depth of cut and keep it perpendicular to the panel. That tool is specialized to the operation and would be the best, a Forstner bit of the proper size can also be used.
Comment: Looking up forstner bits ... Seems like the most efficient approach is going to be finding a woodshop.
Answer: You can get specialized cutters for that sort of thing, but you can do it without, all you need is a drill, hammer, and chisel. You drill 4 holes in the corners of the hole you want, at the depth you want, then chisel out the material in between. A workbench would be handy for this but you could do it on floor if you like.
That is a load of work though, so a cutter would be a better choice. Alternatively buy something like a lay on sprung hinge that requires no inset hole:
Comment: Upvoting for DIY ... you're right: sounds like a lot of work.
Answer: You can do this. A drill press is much easier, but not required.  If you copy my experience, you can make a little hardwood jig that is drilled-through with that Forstner bit of ChrisF. Then you can clamp the jig to the proper position in the door edge with proper offset and all.
Lay your work on a SOLID bench, or even the floor, and then bore the hole. The bit pictured by ChrisF is nice, because when the back of the bit-face is flush, you have drilled to the proper depth of the door back, and you won't go through either.

Can I bore my own hinge holes?


Did Abraham, David and Solomon think having many wives was sin?

Question: Did Abraham, David and Solomon think having many wives and concubines was sin?
Comment: There's no rule that says you need to ever pick an answer if you aren't satisfied that one answers your question fully.  I'd say it's better not to choose a half-right answer just for the sake of selecting one.  You can also offer a bounty...
Comment: Related: http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/128/the-bible-seems-to-allow-polygamy-why-doesnt-the-church
Comment: Just an update: I would love more answers on this, but I'll pick an answer by the end of this week if there's no more answers/updates.
Answer: There were specific instructions for the king of Israel to not acquire many wives for himself, since that could have the effect of turning his heart away from the Lord.  This text predates the first king of Israel, so I would say that David and Solomon should have known that this was forbidden.
(Note:  the Bible did not actually forbid them from polygamy, but from having a whole bunch of wives.)

"When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and
  you possess it and dwell in it and then say, 'I will set a king over
  me, like all the nations that are around me,' you may indeed set a
  king over you whom the LORD your God will choose. One from among your
  brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner
  over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not acquire many
  horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to
  acquire many horses, since the LORD has said to you, 'You shall never
  return that way again.' And he shall not acquire many wives for
  himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself
  excessive silver and gold.  Deuteronomy 17:14-17 ESV

As for Abraham specifically, aside from the affair with Hagar, he stayed married to one wife (Sarah) until she passed, after which he married Keturah and had children with her.
The Bible does not explicitly state that polygamy was forbidden, yet it would have been instructive to note that God created Adam and Eve--not Adam and Eve and Shirley and Tina and...
Comment: Thanks for bringing that to my attention.  I guess I knew what I meant, but didn't express it clearly.  Although if I had come back a month from now, I may have said what the one commentator did... "When I wrote that, there were two people who knew what that meant--me and God... now... only  God knows!"
Comment: I think @Narnian is leaning towards it was a sin for David and Solomon since they had a lot of wives in contradiction of Deut 17:14-17... right?
Comment: What I'm saying is the idea of not acquiring "many wives".  Solomon didn't have 2.  Head hundreds... and some porcupines as well (or something like that).  I stated that polygamy was not explicitly forbidden, but having "many wives" like Solomon did was certainly forbidden.  I guess that wasn't clear.
Comment: Aah, ok.  The edit makes a lot more sense.
Comment: Thanks! What about concubines - it seemed to be normal in the culture, but what's God view of them having concubines - was this acceptable in God's sight from what we know? (I'm guessing it might be similar to slavery) (Note: I asked the same for @Richard's answer as well)
Comment: But, still, your answer is essentially, "No, it wasn't a sin"?
Comment: Yes, I would agree with that, but no, in general.
Answer: As usual, my answer is long-winded, but it is, I hope, worth reading nevertheless. In answering many such questions, we need to take the long view, so to speak, and treat an important issue such as this one in the context of the entire canon of Scripture, which we today--unlike the saints of old--have the privilege of possessing in its fullness.

Did Abraham, David and Solomon think having many wives and concubines was sin?

Probably not. The three personages you cite were all very wealthy men, and they could afford multiple wives. Keep in mind, however, all three men were responsible for the well being of each wife and was "legally" married to her for life. We need to divest ourselves today of the notion that the marriage of a wealthy man to a woman of his choosing was a trivial thing back then; it was not.
To a lesser extent, the "husband" of a concubine was also responsible for the well being of his "property," since in Old Testament times, a concubine was often a slave, as well as a "mistress" and/or a provider of children to a man whose wife (or wives!) could not have children. The "Got Questions" website is helpful in this regard.
God's design from the beginning was for a man to leave his parents, cleave to his wife (singular), and become one flesh with her. Becoming one flesh with a wife, then and now, involves more than just sexual consummation; it is an expression of physical, psychological, and spiritual intimacy. Moreover, and most significantly, from the very beginning marriage prefigured the union of Christ with his church. His bride.

"This mystery [of 'one flesh'] is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband" (Ephesians 5:32-33 NASB Updated).

As a Christian author pointed out to me recently (sorry, I can't provide the citation), the "mystery" to which Paul alludes is not that God used marriage as an analogy for Christ and the church, but that God used Christ and the church as an analogy for marriage. There is a significant difference between the two.
God's plan from eternity past was to provide a bride for His Son, so that Jesus would be the "firstborn among many brethren." God, the Father of the only begotten Son of God, could think of nothing more delightful than for His heaven to be filled with a people who would be conformed to the image of His Son (see Romans 8:28-30). One day, that people-group, comprised of every tongue and tribe and nation ("living stones," as it were) will comprise

"a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5).

God, then, set the standard of care of a husband for his wife very high indeed:

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless" (ibid., vv.25-27, my emphasis).

As for the church being Christ's bride, we need only look to the Revelation of Jesus Christ:

"'Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready'" (Revelation 19:7 NAS).

"Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, 'Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb'" (Revelation 21:9 NAS).

"The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.' And let the one who hears say, 'Come.' And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost" (Revelation 22:17 NAS).

How is all this related to Abe, Dave, and Sol? In every way, as it turns out! Let's first switch gears.
When some Pharisees attempted to test Jesus by asking him

"' Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?'" (see Matthew 19:3),

how did Jesus respond to them?

"'Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME  ONE FLESH '? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate'" (ibid., vv.4-6, my emphasis in italics).

When the Pharisees continued their testing of Jesus by asking him

"'Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?'" (ibid., v.7),

what did Jesus say?

"'Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way'" (ibid., v.8).

Putting all these scriptures together, I suggest the following:

God's will for Abraham, David, and Solomon (and all the other polygynists mentioned in the Old Testament) was for them to have one wife, and one wife only.

Just as Moses (note well: not God, but Moses) permitted divorce because of the children of Israel's hardness of heart, so also did God permit the patriarchs and saints of old to marry more than one wife. Polygyny was not God's will, but he permitted it, not necessarily because of the hardness of heart of Abraham et al., but because of their ignorance of the true significance of marriage in God's eyes.

In Old Testament times, many women were--at best--third-class citizens with few if any of the rights which women today take for granted. Becoming a second (or third, or fourth, etc.) wife or concubine was perhaps an unappealing option back then, but it was better than being destitute or being forced to turn to prostitution to avoid becoming destitute. Today, women have the opportunity to further their education, receive specialized training, acquire a trade, and so much more. Moreover, divorce laws make it possible for a divorcee to receive help financially until she gets back on her feet after a divorce. There are also many other laws protecting women today that women in David's and Solomon's day could only dream of!

As God's revelation of his will increased and progressed, becoming fuller through new revelation (which peaked, so to speak, in the writings of Paul on marriage, for example), God commanded that leaders in the church (both elders and deacons) must be the husband of only one wife . In other words, they are to be "one-woman men" (see 1 Timothy 3:1-13

We do well to notice, moreover, that in virtually each and every instance of polygyny in the Old Testament, disputes, conflict, hard feelings, and complications of all sorts resulted. If someone reading this answer can supply an instance when multiple wives was not fraught with any of the negatives I've just cited, I'd be interested in knowing about it!
In conclusion, did Abraham et al. think their taking more than one wife was sin? Probably not. Was it God's will for them? No. Evidently, however, God was gracious in overlooking their behavior, which proceeded from their ignorance of his "good, acceptable, and perfect will" for them (Romans 12:2b). God also allowed polygyny and concubinage to exist back then out of compassion for women who were by and large held in such low esteem in male dominated cultures. I'd like to think, however, that most polygynists who were also believers in the one true God of Israel treated their multiple partners better than the unbelievers and idolaters in the nations surrounding Israel.
Today, Christians cannot plead ignorance as an excuse for taking more than one wife. Their excuse--really, a rationalization--simply will not hold water.
A final thought. If the member of a primitive tribe in the Amazon Rain Forest becomes a Christian, and he has multiple wives, how would you advise him?
Comment: Great answer and I totally agree with you - perhaps you could have got to the point slightly faster by using Romans 14:23b.
Comment: @bruisedreed: Thanks. Good point about Romans 14:23b. In my "defense," I think the later polygynists such as David and Solomon may have thought that since they weren't violating the sixth commandment but simply marrying a second (or third or fourth, etc.) unmarried woman, their consciences were clear. In light of further revelation regarding marriage which came with the New Covenant, however, the spirit of the law became much more important than the letter of the law. The "whatever is not of faith is sin" would be a little anachronistic in David's day--though I could be wrong! Don
Comment: +1 Great answer, I wanted to bring up Matthew 19:3-8, but you covered that and much more. The Bible is full of the negative consequences of polygamy, Ishmael (i.e. Muslims) still seeking his birth right in line with Deuteronomy 21:15-17, Joseph was almost killed by his brothers out of sheer jealousy, and most of David and Solomon's sons did not walk in the way of God, whole nations led astray because of their lust of flesh. None of it the will of God, but permitted because of their hardheartedness.
Answer: No
Having multiple wives was not a sin back then, as it is not a sin now (outside if it being illegal).
History
At the time of Abraham, David, Solomon, and Jesus, polygamy was part of the culture.
Even in Jesus' times, polygamy was allowed and part of the customs of the Israeli people.  The historian Josephus noted that Herod was allowed to have multiple wives, because it was the custom in Israel at that time.
Furthermore, it was allowed per the Bible.  When God gave the commands to Moses, he gave special instructions for the situations of multiple wives:

Deuteronomy 21:15-17
15 If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, 16 when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love. 17 He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father's strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.

Had God detested polygamy, there would have been a command against polygamy.  By comparison, God said that Kings shouldn't take too many wives so that his heart isn't lead astray, which is a further command showing that polygamy was allowed.
Side Note
That laws preventing polygamy began with the pagan traditions of the Roman Empire.  It wasn't until 300 years after Christ that Christianity united itself with the Roman traditions.  It was then that polygamy became outlawed.
Summary
Historical and biblical evidence shows that polygamy was common practice and acceptable in the site of God and the people during the time of Abraham, David, and Solomon.  Their polygamy was not a sin, just as it is not now..
Comment: I think it's also important to note that God wanted husbands and wives to love each other, and its hard enough to love one wife without wronging them in some way, let alone trying to split the love evenly between two or more wives.
Comment: Extremely distilled version of [my answer here](http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/128/the-bible-seems-to-allow-polygamy-why-doesnt-the-church/1206#1206)
Comment: Thanks! What about concubines - it seemed to be normal in the culture, but what's God view of them having concubines - was this acceptable in God's sight from what we know? (I'm guessing it might be similar to slavery)
Comment: @stringo0 That's a tough call.  They would probably be the same as slaves, I'm guessing, too.  I haven't researched concubinage in any detail at all, so I couldn't say.
Comment: Thanks for the honesty - it is definitely a tough topic.
Comment: wow amazing answer. I have discussed this topic with fellow christians in the past but never had I heard it insightfully spoken of as you have here sir and so scriptural and indesputable. I was not even aware of that scripture, very good answer. +1
Comment: @eliyah thanks.  Even though it's solid and biblical, it's not exactly a popular belief.
Comment: @user2956947 So... you believe that it's impossible to love more than one person at a time?  Do you love both your mother and your father?  Is it not possible to love both of them plus grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.  Yes, the love for each is *different*.  But that does not mean it is *diminished*.
Comment: Irrespective of it being a sin, the practice had almost disappeared in Jewish culture by the time of Christ.  That's why the challenge posed to Jesus had to be phrased so obliquely, adopting a brothers widow as your own wife was one of the few cases still socially accepted. So the disappearance of polygamy was already in full progress in 1st century judaism, and had very little to do with Christianity's integration into Romanism three centuries later.
Comment: @RBarryYoung I'd love to see some source backing that claim.  Of course, Josephus said: "...for it is the ancient practice among us to have many wives at the same time."
[source](http://www.ccel.org/ccel/josephus/works/files/ant-17.htm).  That was in reference to King Herod, who lived during Jesus's time.  That seems to go directly against what you are saying.
Comment: Pretty much any modern academic study of the history of Polygyny and SIUM (state imposed universal monogamy) that covers this period backs it up (one example: https://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/060807.pdf).  And using Josepheus trying to justify Herod as a counterargument is problematic in the extreme.  1) Herod wasn't a Jew and followed both Law and custom only when it suited him, to bolster his claim to be their king, 2) he was not technically a polygynist as he effectively divorced his first wife, though it was not legal under Jewish Law ...
Comment: ... which 3) is why Josepheus felt the need to rationalize Herod's behavior. Because, though a criticaly important historical source, Josepheus is know to be a synchophant when it came to Rome, including trying to make Herod (Rome's appointee) look a lot better than analysis and all other historical sources indicate. And even ignoring all of that (and there's more), citing a ruler as the last poligamist in a society in no way contradicts the poiint that polygamy was already a dying practice, as rulers have invariably been the last to give it up. Is there even a single other case known?
Comment: Finally, I know of no case in 1st-3rd century mediterranean Christiantiy where polygyny was an accepted practice.  AFAIK, there are only a few cases wherein a convert who was already a poligamist was allowed to retain their additional wives. In no way was 3rd century Rome imposing SIUM on Christianity, rather the opposite, by the 6th century Christianity persuaded the Roman Empire to ban the practice of married men cohabiting with concubines and slaves (still legal even after polygamy was banned).
Comment: Your source: "Greek and Roman men were not allowed to be married to more than one wife at a time" substantiates the claim that Greco-Roman society influenced Christianity, not the other way around.  Also: "Greco-Roman SIUM was preserved and gradually reinforced by the Christian church..." Also: "The true historical significance of Greco-Roman SIUM may well lie in its impact on the Christian tradition." Also: "[polygamy] betrays modern sensibilities and does not appear to be directly derived from earliest Christian doctrine".  Thanks for the great source supporting my claims!


Why does my gardenia have brown patches on it's leaves?

Question: This plant has been growing normally for a while but I woke up this morning to discover brown patches and some shriveled leaves. I had previously sprayed it down with fungicide and then with insect-repellent, so what now?
Comment: Where do you live? Is it indoors? If so, what's the humidity like, and have you been fertilizing?
Comment: What fungicide and insect repellent did you use and at what strengths? Did you have a fungal infection? What about insects; did you have any and what type were they?
Comment: I have ofcourse been fertilizing it and yes, the  plant is indoor. I am not certain what the humidity in here is but I make sure to spray the plant at least once a day. I don't believe it had a fungal infection but I did treat it with fungicide anyway to prevent any infection. I used Daconil fungicide( a couple of drops into the watering can, about a liter) and sprayed that all over the roots of most all my plants about 3 days ago. I also spray them down with Bonide Rose Rx 3 in 1 about once every 3 days. Reason being I have been loosing so many of my plants and the reason is not clear.
Comment: Are you saying you sprayed the plant but it was growing healthily, and then 3 days later you woke up and it looked like this, just suddenly? Or has there been a gradual decline to this state? What feed are you using, and how long have you had the plant?
Comment: It was growing healthily but I sprayed it down with fungicide anyways as I wanted to be certain that it would not die like those before it. I have only had the plant about 3 weeks, and for feed, I use the miracle gro all purpose plant food and some of Jacks all purpose plant food 20-20-20.
Answer: I'd like to have seen a photo of this plant when you first got it, its hard to believe it was healthy only three weeks ago.
Stop feeding immediately, you've been overfeeding it anyway. I'd also say don't ever spray a plant with fungicide or pesticide unless you know it is infected or infested, when you should identify the problem and use the correct remedy, diluted correctly. This plant may not recover, but keep it somewhere that has a minimum temperature of 60 deg F, with an even temperature, not near a heat source such as a radiator (if its winter where you are). It needs a brightly lit spot, but not direct sunlight, and as it is currently in very poor health, switch to watering with lime free water (not tapwater). You can boil water and let it cool and water with that, or use rainwater, although tepid rather than cold water is best. Mist what's left of the leaves frequently, do not allow the plant to dry out completely, keeping the compost moist, but not wet or waterlogged - good drainage is essential, and don't leave it sitting in water in any outer pot or tray. IF it recovers, then you can start feeding, but this should only be done in spring/early summer, and only at recommended rates and frequency, and preferably using only one type of feed at a time.
UPDATE:
There is no point in feeding a plant at the wrong time of year, not least because you're wasting your money. In terms of plant health, most plants respond to growing day length and temperature, even indoors, by starting to grow in spring and early summer, and this is the time, for most, when feeding is appropriate, particularly in pots. If you use too much fertiliser, then the pot is full of concentrated feed - this may burn the roots, or the plant, when it wants a drink, is obliged to also uptake the feed, whether it wants to or not. In open ground, this is not such a problem, because rain dilutes and the plant is surrounded by soil which its roots aren't occupying anyway. This is definitely a case of 'less is more'. Use only what's necessary, when necessary.
With regard to lack of growth, it might not be lack of nutrients that's the issue - the amount of light a plant receives makes a big difference, along with other environmental conditions such as heat sources, cold draughts, how good the growing medium was in the first place, size of pot, humidity or lack of it, along with the obvious problems with infestation or infection. If you really think your plants hardly grow during spring and summer, take a photo of them in winter, then another at the end of summer, and compare the two. There should be growth, no matter how minor - it just might not be as fast as you'd like, many plants are slow or medium growers, and giving too much food will not ameliorate this. It is also normal for plants to stop growing after end of July (in the northern hemisphere) - some houseplants may produce a small amount of growth over winter, but the majority of growing is done in spring and summer.
Just for information's sake, Gardenia is a difficult houseplant, bit of a diva - its usually purchased in flower and then doesn't flower again, it needs high, even temperatures to produce flowers, and is extremely finicky about its conditions.
Comment: Are you saying that adding feed into the water, every time I water my plants is not good? I have had many of my other plants for months and have seen little to no growth in the majority since last summer. Back then, I only fertilized them at most once a month but that only seemed to keep the plants alive(no growing observed). I decided back in December to start adding plant food every time I water, in hopes that that will boost growth.Is it really possible to overfeed a plant?
Comment: If the nutrients are present in the soil, I was under the impression that the plant only accesses what it needs at any given time. Or is that incorrect assumption?
Comment: @user272671: See updated answer


Who are the Many Mothers in Mad Max: Fury Road?

Question: In the scene with the Many Mothers, Furiosa said she is the daughter of Jabassa, but her initiate mother was someone else. What is the story there? How are the children born (since they seem to hate men)? Are the Many Mothers sex-workers?
Comment: @NapoleonWilson yes. They were pretty wary of Nux and Max when they come out of the War Rig. And they also say something on the lines of "You have brought men?"
Comment: To be clear, you're speaking about the old ladies at the end of the journey, the clan where Furiosa was originally from, right? I'm not sure they really "hate" men, though.
Comment: As far as I know, and as far as a quick Google search tells me, there's not any info out there as of yet giving back-story to these ladies. That being said, I'm sure it exists, it just may not be *public* yet.
Answer: The "Many Mothers" are actually called the "Vuvalini"... which I personally think is a bit on the nose.
These ladies aren't sex workers at all, they're just an all-female (or at least matriarchal) society.
I'd argue that their closest similarity would be to the Greek Amazons.
These ladies lived in all-female groups and were fierce warriors.

The Amazons (Greek: Ἀμαζόνες, Amazónes, singular Ἀμαζών, Amazōn), also known as Oiorpata in Iranian and Scythian, were believed to have been a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity.

The Amazons even had a method of keeping their numbers up... once a year some of the women would go to surrounding areas and sleep with men.

In some versions of the myth, no men were permitted to have sexual encounters or reside in Amazon country; but once a year, in order to prevent their race from dying out, they visited the Gargareans, a neighboring tribe. The male children who were the result of these visits were either killed, sent back to their fathers or exposed in the wilderness to fend for themselves; the girls were kept and brought up by their mothers, and trained in agricultural pursuits, hunting, and the art of war. In other versions when the Amazons went to war they would not kill all the men. Some they would take as slaves, and once or twice a year they would have sex with their slaves.

Either of these methods would be completely within the realm of possibility for the Vuvalini. Clearly Furiosa hasn't been there in decades and much has changed. It's very likely that, before the green place died, it had a significantly larger society that included surrounding groups they could interact with.
Another possibility is that they're not actually anti-men, that they're simply matriarchal and only a very few women were left while none of the men were. It makes total sense that they would be wary of anyone they're not familiar with, as the entire world of Mad Max has gone to pot and everyone is a threat.
As to "initiate mother" I can only guess but it sounds like the sort of thing that implies she was trained and "initiated" into the clan's life and culture by someone other than her mother. It'd be similar to a mentor, someone who's job is to introduce you to everything and help you through all of the trials of learning including fighting techniques, how to use weapons, and other battle skills. I could understand them not wanting to have biological mothers do this as they were probably a source of nurturing in early life whereas this "initiate mother" would be strict and harsh (but supportive), so the child would see them differently.
Comment: @user568458 It's how they're credited in the end scroll.
Comment: Great answer, just wondering, what's your source for this (name and nature of society)? I don't remember anything about this in the film itself, is there another source?
Comment: From the film (and the name "Vuvalini") it seems pretty obvious that they're either an all-woman or matriarchal society... I should probably adjust my statement slightly, though, as I do mention the possibility of a matriarchal society later on... I wrote this in two gos, so it's a bit disjointed. My lines of similarity to the Amazons is an argument, not a sourced fact... if I need to make that more clear, I can... but I think it's a pretty good postulation, considering what we do know about them.
Comment: I agree with the logic, I just don't remember any mention of "vuvalini" etc
Answer: 1) Sex-workers, I don't think so. They do use a woman as a bait. but possibly to rob.
2) During the good times i.e. when the Green Place existed. They were probably non-violent.
If you remember during the night scene, an old woman is talking to one of breeder women of Immortan Joe (not sure if it was Cheedo/The Dag-the one with australian accent).
When the old woman tells her that she kills with one headshot. She asks the old woman, I thought you were above all that.
3) And yet from the movie, its hard to understand how they breed. Furiosa being daughter  of Jabassa, and also having a initiate mother could mean surrogacy but I am just guessing.
Answer: The Vuvalini were a matriarchal tribe who lived in the Green Place where they cultivated agriculture for some time.
According to production designer Colin Gibson, they preserved their matriarchal system by keeping male breeding slaves to produce female children while abandoning the males outside their territory to fend for themselves. Those who survived became the Crow Fishers which we see walking on stilts at night within the toxic marsh.
Eventually, for some unknown reason, the land grew toxic, and the Vuvalini could no longer maintain their way of life, becoming the desert-dwellers we see in the movie. I'm guessing that this happened after Furiosa was taken by Joe's men since Furiosa remembers the Green Place existing.
This is just my guess, but since the Crow Fishers had existed prior, and what we see of the Green Place is a poisonous mire when Max and Furiosa unknowingly drive through it, I'm thinking that whatever had blighted the land outside Vuvalini territory, where the boys who would become Crow Fishers were exiled, eventually crept inward to similarly corrupt the Green Place.


Is it worth it to invest on a VUL?

Question: I've been offered a Variable Universal life insurance and i'm not sure if im making the right choice by investing on this. I was told that by 7 years of investing, i can "withdraw" my money back and an additional cash depending on our stock market. I know the risk here is the stock market, but for me, it feels like a too good to be true scenario where i get my life insured while my money "works for me". Can someone explain some good/bad points on VUL?
Comment: No.  VUL uses mutual funds that are similar to those on the market the only difference being very high fees and surrender values.  If you change your mind in the first 5 years or so, you will lose 100% of your investment.  Just invest in mutual funds on your own.  Lower fees and no surrender value.
Comment: Where did the offer come from (ie an employer)?  Are you of an income level where you have maxed out 401(k) and IRA?  VUL can be great, VUL can be terrible.  Your question is akin to 'is it worth it to invest in a mutual fund?'
Comment: @quid This would be my first investment. I'm a fresh graduate student. I actually want to be insured while investing and i was told that this is the best offer they can give. It was offered by someone i trust.
Comment: There are situations where whole life makes sense.  You probably don't fall in to the category where it would make sense.  You would probably be better served by a Roth IRA (you can take your contributions back out of a Roth in the future if need be) at a big broker like Schwab or Vanguard invested in some reasonably conservative funds and if you feel compelled to carry life insurance just buying some level term.  Unless there is some underwriting related reason to buy insurance this way it's probably not the best way for you to invest and carry insurance right now.
Answer: The basic argument against purchasing life insurance that isn't term insurance is that you are mixing two very different products that don't need to be mixed.
Decide how much life insurance you need. Base this on who needs money if your were to die. Look at their ages, their needs such as college or long term care if any have a disability, and the income you are trying to replace. Purchase term insurance accordingly.
Then decide how much you need to save for retirement. Then put money into a retirement fund such as a 401K or an IRA.
Then decide what other big things you need to save for. The obvious one is a college fund for your children, but there can be other things such as a down payment for a house. Find the appropriate savings vehicle for your goals. It can be a 529 plan for college, and a money market account for a down payment.
VUL tries to combine all of these into one plan. But that doesn't mean that it does any of these things well. Also remember that your needs in each of these categories could change over time, so why would you want to lock these different categories with different timelines into one product.
You will find that the only person who is guaranteed to make money with VUL is the sales person.
Comment: I really like this answer, thank you so much! But i have one question about your last sentence, how is it that the only person making money is the sales person? Am i not gonna earn money even if its a small amount?
Comment: The key word is "guaranteed"
Comment: Oh right, sorry for the misunderstanding
Answer: With whole life insurance, you get either the insurance or the "savings", but NOT BOTH. If you die before you cash out, the savings goes away.
Too many people look at life insurance as either a lottery ticket or an "investment" without considering the costs and knowing that there are other investments that will perform better (unless you die, of course). In reality, you can get BOTH by separating them into distinct products.
Therefore, the way to measure whole life is to compare the additional premium that is charged over an equivalent amount of term insurance. The term to use is dependent on how long someone is dependent on your income to live. Once your kids are grown and you have enough retirement or other savings to live, then your need for life insurance goes away.
So say your whole life costs $200 per month, and they expect the cash value to grow by 3% per year (net of premiums and fees). After 15 years, you'd have a value of about $65K, for a net gain of about $16k.  If equivalent term only costs $50 per month, you could invest the other $150 into relatively safe mutual fund that historically return 10% per year, and after 20 years you'd expect to have _over $100,000, with a net gain of $67k! The response I get is usually "but the insurance goes away!". My answer is with whole life, at some point, you'll either die or cash out. If you cash out, the insurance goes away anyways, and you have less to show for it. If you die, the 40K you spent in premiums disappears. You'd be better off either self-insuring with the $100k in your investment account.
I've done this several times, and every time, the return ("cash value") you get for the money you put is horrible. Plus, if you cash out, you lose the insurance. Salesmen push term insurance hard because the commissions are great (which means the margin for the insurance company are huge) and most people aren't informed of the difference between the whole and the sum pf the parts.
The bottom line is that life insurance is not an investment. It is a necessary expense if anyone depends on your income. Combining it with a bad investment vehicle is not a good idea.

Is it worth it to invest on a VUL?


Is it possible to install a custom ringtone using iTunes 12.7 or later?

Question: Is it possible to install a custom ringtone on an iPhone running iOS  11 using iTunes 12.7 or later?
If so, how?
Answer: Yes. You can manually drag your ringtones into the device connected with iTunes.

Apple has an updated article here.
Comment: For me, this only works when under the device options (*Summary*), the option *Manually manage music and videos* is enabled.
Answer: I confirm the answer by Cykor: once installed the iTunes 12.7 version, and with a device connected, there is no more a "Ringtones" section under the selected device; but dragging a .m4r file over the device sends that file to the device. That file will be usable as a ringtone for any event or contact. If the file is not the correct format or size (too long, for example) an error window will appear.
Comment: I have the same setup here, and it tested it on two different Macs with El Capitan and Sierra, both when the iPhone is connected via USB and WiFi.

Check the image, because you need to have that kind of visualization active (main view), and to drag the file on the device section relative to the iPhone. Dragging it anywhere else doesn't work.
Comment: Doesn't work for me: in itunes 12.7 with iPhone 6S attached by USB, dragging in an .m4r that worked before, onto anywhere in itunes (iphone view, main view, tones view, anywhere) does not work. I tried dragging single and multiple M4Rs, no go. Grr.
Comment: I figured it out: it was because it was a different computer than the "home itunes" of the iphone. On the other computer it worked.


Regulate Internet usage on iPhone 4S?

Question: Is there a way to regulate Internet usage on iPhone 4S? I'm looking for a program that enables me to put a limit on the time spend online (on certain sites).
Answer: Perhaps not exactly what you want, but you could try any of the browsers which offer parental controls, such as mobicip.
Here is a little how-to for setting up mobicip.
Answer: Other then what @Thecafremo mentioned, I'm not aware of any internet browsers that build that in. It is not a native feature, and the problem is that iOS apps are sandboxed almost entirely from each other, ruling out the possibility of one app controlling how long another app (i.e. Safari) runs.

Regulate Internet usage on iPhone 4S?